Crucifer Perihelion

I was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst that could be said of me was that I did not represent my class. I was an Engineer, but I was a wanderer, too, while most Engineer lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship; and so is their country—the Universe. One ship is very much like another, and the universe is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign planets, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to an Engineer unless it be the Universe itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on an observation deck suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole galaxy, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing.