Marveling at his own daring, Thorby tried them on. He got the shorts on backwards, figured out his mistake, and put them on properly. He got the pullover shirt on backwards, too, but the error was not as glaring; he left it that way, thinking that he had It right Then he wished mightily that he could see himself.
Both garments were of simple cut, undecorated light green, and fashioned of strong, cheap material; they were working clothes from the ship’s slop chest, a type of garment much used by both sexes on many planets through many centuries. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as Thorby! He smoothed the cloth against his skin and wanted someone to see him in his finery. He set about finding the door with renewed eagerness.
It found him. While running his hands over the panels on one bulkhead he became aware of a breeze, turned and found that one panel had disappeared. The door let out into a passageway.
A young man dressed much as Thorby was (Thorby was overjoyed to find that he had dressed properly for the occasion) was walking down the curved corridor toward Thorby. Thorby stepped out and spoke a greeting in Sargonese trade talk.
The man’s eyes flicked toward Thorby, then he marched on past as if no one was there. Thorby blinked, puzzled and a little hurt. Then he called out to the receding back in Interlingua.
No answer and the man disappeared before he could try other languages.
Thorby shrugged and let it roll off; a beggar does not gain by being touchy. He set out to explore.
In twenty minutes he discovered many things. First, the Sisu was much larger than he had imagined. He had never before seen a starship close up, other than from the doubtful vantage of a slaver’s hold. Ships in the distance, sitting on the field of Jubbul’s port, had seemed large but not this enormous. Second, he was surprised to find so many people. He understood that the Sargon’s freighters operating among the Nine Worlds were usually worked by crews of six or seven. But in his first few minutes he encountered several times that number of both sexes and all ages.
Third, he became dismally aware that he was being snubbed. People did not look at him, nor did they answer when he spoke; they walked right through him if he did not jump. The nearest he accomplished to social relations was with a female child, a toddler who regarded him with steady, grave eyes in answer to his overtures — until snatched up by a woman who did not even glance at Thorby.
Thorby recognized the treatment; it was the way a noble treated one of Thorby’s caste. A noble could not see him, he did not exist — even a noble giving alms usually did so by handing it through a slave. Thorby had not been hurt by such treatment on Jubbul; that was natural, that was the way things had always been. It had made him neither lonely nor depressed; he had had plenty of warm company in his misery and had not known that it was misery.
But had he known ahead of time that the entire ship’s company of the Sisu would behave like nobles he would never have shipped in her, snoopies or not. But he had not expected such treatment. Captain Krausa, once Baslim’s message had been delivered, had been friendly and gruffly paternal; Thorby had expected the crew of the Sisu to reflect the attitude of her master.
He wandered the steel corridors, feeling like a ghost among living, and at last decided sadly to go back to the cubicle in which he had awakened. Then he discovered that he was lost. He retraced what he thought was the route — and in fact was; Baslim’s renshawing had not been wasted — but all he found was a featureless tunnel. So he set out again, uncomfortably aware that whether he found his own room or not, he must soon find where they hid the washroom, even if he had to grab someone and shake him.
He blundered into a place where he was greeted by squeals of female indignation; he retreated hastily and heard a door slam behind him.