“Huh, what kind?”
“Well,” began Harcraft breezily, “sort of sacrificial you might say. They believe in killing strangers who annoy their women.”
“A dull place,” agreed Arnold, wiping his nose with his sleeve.
“Speaking of religion,” said Banner, “I just talked to their monitor on the radio. They’ve picked up twelve big ships on their scanner during the past two days.”
“Ankorbades?” asked Arnold quickly.
“Uh-huh. But not what you think. It’s Easter time or some such thing at home. They all return to the home planet and stay there for about thirty days in the spring. Religious festival.”
“Oh, yeah. They paint themselves blue and howl at both of their moons for a month. I read about it once.”
“We’ll be home, too, pretty soon,” ventured Harcraft, for whom the return journey was subjectively always short.
“Let’s hitch up to those sleds,” Banner said. “It’s time to get going.”
Four weeks later two of the fertilizer sleds went out of phase and automatically cut the ship out of hyperdrive.