“It is, sir. I'm not superstitious, but—”

“Nor am I,” said the skipper, “but I'm curious. I wonder if . . . Sparks, you've studied electrical transmission. Tell me something, will you? Just what is electricity?”

I shook my head. “I'm sorry, sir. Nobody can tell you that. No one knows.”

“Electronics,” mused the Old Man. “In the theory of electronics, isn't there something about electrons being in two different places simultaneously?”

I said slowly, “I remember something, sir, vaguely. Nils Bohr, I think. An electron moving from one cycle to another without ever having been in the space between. But I never could understand it, and I never tried. I'm no scientist. I just work with the equipment the smart guys invent.” I stared at him. “But why do you ask, sir? Is it—”

“Just—curious,” repeated the skipper. “Perhaps the answer lies there, somehow. But it doesn't matter. We can't do anything about it. Just wait and see what we find when we reach the mainland.”

“But I don't understand, sir,” I said. “What are you expecting to find?”

But he didn't answer me. He just stood there in the doorway sucking at his cold pipe, staring through me off into space.

On the morning of the fifth day after our flight from Alex, we sighted the mainland. It was a dull, gray, nasty morning, lowering with thick blankets of black cumulus that threatened to split at the seams any moment. The dim roll of thunder growled threat of a storm to come as once again the skipper, Johnny and I stood on the weather-deck. There were two seamen, too, waiting till the Old Man should give expected orders.

“Well,” said the skipper, “this is it. In a few minutes we'll be as close in as we dare go. Then we'll put him ashore, Sparks.”

I said, “But didn't the third set course for Beyrouth, sir?”

“Yes.”

“There are docks there. We won't have to lay off shore, sir.”

“Really?” The Old Man smiled a faint half smile. “I wonder, Sparks. I hope you're right, but"—he gestured, as briefly the dark overcast lifted, giving us a glimpse of the shoreline we approached—"but, you see, you're wrong.”

It was Larnaca all over again. There was no naval base at Beyrouth, but I knew it to be a modern Near Eastern metropolis, doubly astir nowadays with war activity. And the drowsy little village I beheld was far from modern. No building on its shoreline was more than one story in height, the few ships in its inlet were shallow-draft wooden vessels of single-span canvas or none.

I said, “Skipper, I think I know what's wrong now. There's only one possible explanation. Your sextant's gone haywire, that's the trouble—”

“No,” said the Old Man, “there's another explanation. Don't you see, Sparks? Don't you see?” Then, shrugging as I just stared at him blankly: “Ah, well! Let's not delay. Tell Johnny goodbye for me, will you?”

I turned to the old geezer, who had been watching the coast draw nearer