“Uniforms like yours?” asked Hansen.
“Precisely,” the navigator said sadly. “The truth of the matter is, of course, that I only play at being a navigator. I couldn’t get this ship off course, if I tried. The same is true with the four engineering officers who stand around watching the Hegler drive units. They occasionally make a ceremonial adjustment, but beyond that, they simply stand around looking pretty.”
“No moving parts.” Hansen said.
“No moving brains, if you like. Anyway, a Gypsy has—somewhere along the line—learned how to do things. They’ll take an emergency call about once a year—if they happen to feel like it. Then they charge about half a million credits.”
“You mean they have an organization, standard rates and—”
“Heavens no!” the navigator said. “They hate anything that smells like organization. They don’t even specialize in any certain kind of work. One year they’ll be fascinated by sub-nucleonics, the next by horse racing. Very erratic. Can’t keep attention on any one thing. Heard of one once who engaged in fishing and alcohol drinking. Brilliant mathematician, too. But he’d only take a call once every three years or so.”
“For a half million credits a crack, eh? You could live pretty well for three years on that.”
“Strangely enough,” the navigator said thoughtfully, “they don’t really have any interest in money. If you’d ever met one, you’d know that the high fee is sort of a penalty they mete out to everyone else for being so dumb.”
“Well, one thing for sure,” Hansen said, “if Bullard and Quemos are the cream of the crop, I’m on the side of the Gypsies.”