He got it. He signed them on. Chief Pilot Thlaskin. Chief Engineer Tommie. Linguist Vesta. Doctor . . . what? He tried to call her attention by thinking at her, but couldn’t. Then, through Vesta: Manarkans didn’t have names, but were known by their personality patterns. Didn’t they sign something to documents? No, they used finger-prints only, without signatures.
“But we’ve got to have something we can put in the book!” Cloud protested. “Tell her to pick one.”
“No preference,” Vesta reported. “I’m to do it. I knew a lovely Tellurian named “Nadinevandereckelberg” once. Let’s call her that.”
“Nadine van der Eckelberg? Better not. Not common enough—there might be repercussions. We can use part of it, though. ‘Nadine,’ bracketed with her prints . . . there. Now how about Maluleme?” He turned to the “Classification” listing and frowned. “What to class her as I’ll never know. She’s got just about as much business aboard this bucket as I would have in a sultan’s harem.”
“You might find quite a lot—and that I’d like to see!” Vesta snickered. “But look under ‘Mizzelaneouz,’ there.”
Her stiff, sharp fingernail ran down the column almost to the end. “ ‘Zupercargo’? We have no cargo. ‘Zupernumerary’? That’s it! See? I read: ‘Zupernumerary—Perzonnel beyond the nezezzary or uzhual; ezpedjially thoze employed not for regular zervize, but only to fill the plazez of otherz in caze of need.’ Perfect!”
“Whose place could she fill?”
“The cook’s—if the automatics break down,” Vesta explained, gleefully. “She says she can really cook—so even if they didn’t break down she can tape lots of nice things to eat that aren’t in your kitchen banks.”
“Could be. I can get away with that. ‘Supernumerary (cook 1/c) Maluleme’ and her prints . . . there. Now we’re organized—let’s flit. Ready, Thlaskin?”
“Ready, sir,” and the good ship Vortex Blaster I took off.