When Gavin at length awakened, he rolled out of his bunk groggily, showered and shaved and then made his way to the officer's mess. Nadia Petrovna, dressed in practical coveralls of gray siliconex, was seated at a table eating bacon and eggs. Bacon and eggs! Gavin stared. Whoever heard of such grub aboard a spacer bound on a year's voyage. And there had been showers, and the cabins were not especially cramped. Nadia waved a piece of toast at him. "Hello! The crew've been laying bets on when you'd come out of your coma." He sat down and rang for the messman. "How long does this last?" he inquired pointing at the fresh food. "When do we start on concentrates?" "We don't." "Don't use concentrates! But the bulk! And the water. Isn't it rationed?" Nadia laughed infectiously. Just then the messman, a huge negro, appeared and took Gavin's order. The girl said, "We carry only a little over two weeks' supplies." Gavin recalled the chief engineer's prediction that the Nova would be at Jupiter in two weeks. He glanced at the chart on the forward bulkhead. The Nova's position was marked with a pin. The slaver, he saw, had been traveling at a good clip, but nothing phenomenal. "We'll have to go faster than that," he said dryly. Nadia's long black eyes sparkled. "You don't know about the little death yet?" "The little death? Yes, the chief mentioned it. Just what is this little death?" Nadia opened her mouth to speak, but closed it. She was peering beyond him, Gavin realized, a frightened expression on her pretty slavic features. Gavin swung around. Captain Josiah Cabot stood in the door way, swaying slightly. His eyes were glazed. Fine cruel wrinkles crossed his lean face. He moved stiffly into the messroom, his eyes straight ahead, and sat down at a table like a mechanical doll. He didn't even see them, Gavin realized with a start. The black man came out of the pantry with a bottle of Terran whiskey and a glass, and set them before the Captain. The negro's eyes rolled, showing the whites. He got back into his pantry as quick as possible. Nadia leaned across the table to Gavin. "He's drunk. He'll stay drunk until after the little death. It's horrible!" Suddenly the Captain burst into a roar of laughter. He poured himself a drink and gulped it greedily. He said in an unexpectedly ringing voice: "I see you, Paula. Why don't you go back to hell where you belong? You can't touch me now," and burst into laughter again, staring at the empty doorway. A cold chill shivered up Gavin's spine. Nadia said, "Paula was his mistress. She tried to poison him. He strangled her and threw her body out the disposal chute!" "Hey," hissed Gavin, "keep your voice down! He can hear you." "He doesn't even know we're here." Gavin looked at Nadia thoughtfully. The girl's white features had gone translucent like milk glass. Her long black eyes wore an expression of horror.