As they “swam” toward the crewmen’s mess, Babe said, “This is your crucial meal, Jim. If you get by this one without anyone getting curious about you, I don’t believe you’ll have to worry about them anymore.”
“I have my fingers crossed.”
He was going to need all the luck he could get, he realized, as they navigated into the mess compartment. Across the room from them was the officer with the square red mustache who had spoken to him as he carried Mr. Bowers’ bags into Suite 8!
Jim whispered to Babe about the officer. Babe told him that there was a good chance of avoiding him, since the officers sat at one table and the stewards at another.
Jim was fascinated by his first meal in space. Everyone strapped himself to his seat so that he would stay put. Then the cooks brought in individual plates which adhered to the metallic table top by magnetism. Each bite of food was impaled on a toothpick stuck into a sponge-rubber mat which was fastened to the plate.
As Jim ate with tongs and sucked his drink from a closed container, he was careful to avoid the roving eyes of the officer with the red mustache. Jim was glad that the other stewards weren’t inquisitive about him. They appeared hungry and weren’t talkative.
Having survived the crucial first day without discovery, Jim found the others that followed were much easier. When three weeks had passed and he still had not been discovered, he started believing that the tourist company owner he had “bumped” was not going to complain.
But one day late in the voyage Jim and Babe happened to run into a very important person in the corridor on the way to mess. Jim recognized the insigne of four platinum rockets that showed he was Captain Coppard. It was Jim’s first face-to-face meeting with the officer.
After the stewards’ salute Captain Coppard suddenly pulled up short, and Jim felt the trim, hawk-nosed man’s steely gaze on him. It was a stare that appeared to look clear through him. Why was the officer suddenly so interested in him? It brought an anxious lump up into Jim’s throat.
“Steward,” the chief officer said, “just a minute.”