"I beg your pardon?"
It was the first officer, wearing a Terran Federation Space Navy uniform
of forty years, or about ten regulation-changes, ago. That was the sort
of thing he had taken for granted before he had gone away. Now he was
noticing it everywhere.
"Thirty minutes out of Litchfield, sir," the ship's officer repeated.
"You'll go off by the midship gangway on the starboard side."
"Yes, I know. Thank you."
The first mate held out the clipboard he was carrying. "Would you mind
checking over this, Mr. Maxwell? Your baggage list."
"Certainly." He glanced at the slip of paper. Valises, eighteen and
twenty-five kilos, two; trunks, seventy-five and seventy kilos, two;
microbook case, one-fifty kilos, one. The last item fanned up a little
flicker of anger in him, not at any person, even himself, but at the
situation in which he found himself and the futility of the whole thing.
"Yes, that's everything. I have no hand-luggage, just this stuff."
He noticed that this was the only baggage list under the clip; the other
papers were all freight and express manifests. "Not many passengers left
aboard, are there?"
"You're the only one in first-class, sir," the mate replied.
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