The young team was abruptly embarrassed. "Oh, well, Witch," Hale said deprecatingly, "what does cargo know, anyway?" Hammen laughed and scratched Lad's ears. "They know I'm a Witch. But it has its advantages. I don't have to worry about Lad losing his taste for Wagner. A dog does not have that much to lose. If it comes to that, he's just gone." Lora shuddered delicately, the way of a watered flower. "How could you stand to lose a Companion with so little feeling?" "I've lost three Companions, and got myself and my cargo into port. They were only dogs." Hale looked at him sharply. "But you were Companioning with them. It must have been," he selected a word, "difficult for you." "Don't absorb the cargo's superstitions about Witches and their Familiars. They have fogged, even dirty, ideas. They were just dogs to me. Like Lad." * * * * * "A dog, that's all he is," Gordus said in a manner designed to explain the thing patiently to Hammen. "Lad is a dog." "Why do you emphasize the point now?" Hammen demanded. The Companion sat on a seat formed from a single S-shaped plastic surface. Hammen studied the bulk of Gordus, Coordinator of Transmatters, who sat hulked in his utility chair in the bubble office overhanging the City of the Sea, on the world of Lanole. Hammen was comfortable, cooled, relaxed, amused by a light play of sensory electron music, and aggressively unhappy. Gordus sat in his great chair patting the hair on the back of his left hand with his right palm, as if the fist were a sleeping kitten. At Hammen's feet, Lad's neck muscles quivered uneasily. "Your record, Hammen," Gordus said at last, "is a good one." "How could it be better? I've never lost one member of a cargo." "But you have lost three Companions." "Familiars. Dogs." "But it shows weakness." Hammen's face heated. "I never show weakness." "Not _your_ weakness, my dear, dear boy," Gordus said in exaggeration. "The weakness of the Witch-Familiar relationship, the weakness of Witches as Companions at all. Don't take it personally." Hammen leaped to his feet. Lad's muzzle gleamed white. "Not take it personally?" Hammen cried. "How else can I take it? You are questioning the worthiness of my profession, of my way of life. You question the honor of many of my friends--my associates. Witchery is an ancient profession. My grandmother and uncle were Witches before me. Witches have an unparalleled record of service to Transmatters and to the human race. How dare you, sir!"