The engineer flared up. “Another regulation? Reymont dragging her off the doctor? No!”

“You should not hate Reymont,” Pereira reproached. “You two are alike. Neither is a quitter.”

“Someday I’ll kill him.”

“Now you display your romantic streak,” Pereira said, attempting to ease the atmosphere. “He is pragmatism personified.”

“What would he do about Margarita, then?” Fedoroff gibed.

“Oh… I don’t know. Something unsentimental. For instance, he might co-opt a research and development team to improve the biosystems and organocycles— make the ship indefinitely habitable— so she could be allowed two children, at least—”

His words trailed off. The men stared gape-mouthed at each other. It blazed between them:

Why not?

* * *

Maria Toomajian ran into the gym and found Johann Freiwald working out on the trapezes. “Deputy!” she cried. Dismay shivered in her. “At the game room, a fight!”

He bounced to the deck and pelted down the corridor. The noise reached him first, an excited babble. A dozen off-duty persons crowded in a circle. Freiwald shoved through. At the middle, second pilot Pedro Barrios and bull cook Michael O’donnell panted and threw bare-knuckled blows. Slight harm had been done, but the sight was ugly.

“Stop that!” Freiwald bellowed.

They did, glaring. Folk had seen ere now the tricks that Reymont had drilled into his recruits. “What is this farce?” Freiwald demanded. He turned his contempt on the watchers. “Why didn’t any of you take action? Are you too stupid to understand what this kind of behavior can lead to?”

“Nobody accuses me of cheating at cards,” O’donnell said.

“You did,” Barrios retorted.

They lunged afresh. Freiwald’s hands shot out. He got a grip on the collar of either tunic and twisted, pressing into the Adam’s apples behind. The men flailed and kicked. He delivered a couple of fumikomi. They wheezed their pain and yielded.

“You could have used boxing gloves or kendo sticks in the ring,” Freiwald said. “Now you’re going before the first officer.”

“Er, pardon me.” A slim, dapper newcomer eased past the embarrassed witnesses and tapped Freiwald’s shoulder: cartographer Phra Takh. “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

“Mind your own business,” Freiwald growled.

“It is my business,” Takh said. “Our unity is essential to our very lives. It won’t be helped by official penalties. I am a friend of both these men. I believe I can mediate their disagreement.”

“We must have respect for the law, or we’re done,” Freiwald replied. “I’m taking them in.”

Takh reached a decision. “May I talk privately with you first? For a minute?” His tone held urgency.

“Well… all right,” Freiwald agreed. “You two stay here.”

He entered the game room with Takh and shut the door. “I can’t let them get away with resisting me,” he said. “Ever since Captain Telander gave us deputies official status, we’ve acted for the ship.” Being clad in shorts, he lowered a sock to show the contusions on an ankle.

“You could ignore that,” Takh suggested. “Pretend you didn’t notice. They aren’t bad fellows. They’re simply driven wild by monotony, purposelessness, the tension of wondering if we will get through what’s ahead of us or crash into a star.”