She rushed to the cockpit, where Chatee arrived moments ter too.

  "Cye, py the reply."

  "It's just a short text. Hello, cat freighter Cye with mother Fiyul. Please tinue your flight path to orbit, we will synise with you in 6800.' No further identification."

  "Cye, you locate them?"

  "Not with any accuracy, as the antenna was in broad reception mode. But it came from the general dire of the tral ron star."

  "And the ron star is tiny, we wouldn't even see a refle if they were less than 100 klicks away." Chatee shook her head and dropped her tail. "Cye, set our transpoo maximum signal strength. Perhaps they will be kind enough to raise theirs as well."

  "Well, that gives us time for lund dinner."

  "Rerra, please go down and talk to the mother. I need a break."

  She nodded. "You have the cockpit." Theook a deep breath a down and down to the passenger deck.

  The mother was eating her breakfast, ign her as usual. She bowed to her anyway. "mother Fiyul, we have received a message. They will meet with us at 7200."

  The mother stopped chewing and finally looked at her, smiling. Or so she hoped, with her showing so mah, the smile was close to aggressive.

  "Thank you, sed pilot. Please refrain from any further unauthorised unication."

  She swallowed any ent, just bowed briskly a up to the crew deck again. She wondered how Chatee was able to talk to the mother for ah of time.

  * * *

  They did not have dihe mother had a very long brunch. It was after 5000 when it was finally the staff's turn. While the staff enjoyed a very good, long lunch, she ate faster to relieve Chatee. Although nothing happehey both had decided that the cockpit should be mahis close to the rendezvous with their mysterious terpart.

  So she hurried back to the cockpit and y down in the pilot's hammock. Another 1200 to go.

  Suddenly there was a jolt. Small, but there are no potholes in space! "Cye, status!"

  "Rerra, a big ship has just jumped alongside us."

  "Cye, you estimate the mass of their ship from the gravity jitter?"

  "Rerra, not so fast. And we are being hailed with visuals, standard protocol."

  "Cye, on s."

  She sat up in the hammock. A face appeared on the tre s, not unlike a cat's, but with silvery scales. "Hello, cat freighter Cye. I am an avatar of the Koni."

  "Hello, Avatar, this is the sed pilot Rerra from Petra."

  "We thought this mission would be exclusively Ketcher ." The voice did not match the movement of the lips. But maybe these people did not speak with their lips. Or maybe it was transted and the avatar was mouthing very different sounds. Or maybe the image was just artificial. Anyway, it did not matter.

  "Well, there are not macher pilots. But I am not versed in the political details."

  "We would like to extend the invitation to you too."

  "Thank you. How will we meet?"

  "repared a standard dog port. We transmit a suggested approach path." The face was repced by a schematic of a slowly rotating station with a trajectory winding into it. It took her a few moments to locate the scale bar. Their ship was the size of a small moon!

  "Uh, hello, Avatar, I need a few moments to secure the ship for such a vector ge."

  "We will be ready as soon as you dock. See you ter."

  "See you."

  "Cye, annouo all."

  "Attention, a rge ship has jumped alongside us and is requesting us to dock them for a rendevous. Please secure everything immediately as if we were going to jump. We will reduce the gravity to 0.15 g for 0025 and then begin our approach. There will be periods of weightlessness. Again, please secure everything and buckle up. This is for your safety." She nodded. "Cye, py the jump warning for 0025."

  The annou with the driving music began.

  She checked the course she had received from the Koni again. "Cye, do you have aimate of the mass of their ship now?"

  "Rerra, o estimate, they sent us their mass and size with the approach path." S 1 showed the line in 3D, their ship just a 3D crosshair in front of the alien spherical moon-sized ship, with the mass and dimensions printed in tiers. It was indeed like a small moon.

  "Cye, go down to 0.15 g now." Quite a close approach, sidering they were still going on the wroor at 0.15 g acceleratiht now.

  She secured the hammock to the floor with the three ropes and then strapped herself in. Finally, Chatee came up panting. "Worst moment, I was just on the loo."

  "Cye, repy the unication."

  Chatee listeo the brief exge. "Call me paranoid. But I would not leave the Cye for anything in the world. "

  She shrugged. "Well, I'm curious to know who these people are we've e all this way for," she turned her head to the ss. "Cye, zero g tdown from 10, please."

  "Do you want to take over?" she asked Chatee.

  "No, I'll stay and watch." She buckled herself into an emergency wall harness. "Anyway, it's just like a station approad even without the traffic."

  The alien face appeared on S 2 again. "Hello, sed pilot Rerra. we talk to mother Fiyul?"

  "Cye, direct them to her . No copy."

  "You don't want to listen?"

  "No, I still have to return with the mother."

  At that moment the tdown was over and they became weightless, for the first time on this voyage. She slowly turhe ship to the curved approach vector. The other ship was rotating very slowly and she did not o go too fast. So they followed the updated dotted line, never exceeding 0.1 g for now.

  A little ter, the two guards came up, moving awkwardly in the low and stantly ging gravity from the weak decelleration. "Sed pilot Rerra, please follow us to report to the mother."

  For a moment, she thought about pushing 0.5 g tilt, so they would fall dowairs and then hit the ground hard enough to knock them out. But then?

  "You're vioting the ship's order of and," Chatee said from her wall spot, "and anyway, she has the trols now. Does the mother want to postpohe rendezvous with the other ship?"

  "We have no orders on that."

  Chatee poio some hooks oher wall. "Then this wait. There are two more belts oher side, please secure yourselves."

  She was not sure if it was a good idea to ighe mother. "Cye, please open a lio the mother's . This is the sed pilot, Rerra. Since we are approag the other ship, it is very dangerous and therefore strictly forbidden to move around. Everyone must fasten their seat belts. This rule also applies to the pilots. Do you want to abort the dog?"

  "No, I want you down," came the immediate reply.

  "Do you want to abort the dog with the other ship?"

  "No, but..."

  She cut the e with a tap on the s.

  Chatee shook her head.

  * * *

  The rest of the approach was uful, and about 0500 ter the dog cmps locked with their terpart. The slow spin was just under 0.05 g. But a few moments ter there was a strong teral acceleration, the ship's structure groaning on this strange vector: The other ship was rapidly increasing its rotation. Soon they had 0.3 g, exact to six decimal pces despite being a human unit, and she doubted the alieed in that system. She put Cye on hot standby, they were still on their own power, the dog was only meical, no fuel was exged, her electrior data unication was established.

  She unbuckled and walked over to the guards. "Ok, we have docked. We go to the mother. Chatee, please take over."

  Chatee nodded slowly but remained silent.

  The guards were polite, they took her in the middle and walked rather leisurely in the lravity straight to the mother's . Chatee had even finished announg their dog when the door closed behind her and the guards.

  The mother stood there. "What kind of stunt was that? I nearly fell to the floor."

  She bowed. "mother Fiyul, that was not my doing, but an a of our hosts. The other ship is the size of a moon, and I don't uand how they could have increased their rotation so quickly. I had n either."

  "You know you are only here at the request of Samul, who wanted a sed pilot."

  "mother, it is a rule for all ships to have a sed pilot when there are more than five passengers."

  "But you are the only ot from Ketcher."

  She waited.

  "So why did you ahe call?"

  "mother, a giant ship jumps ihan 500,000 klicks away and hails us. Of course, I answer. Chatee was ooilet and we were too fast to wait for her. Any pilot would have dohe same."

  "And now they want to meet you too."

  She was silent.

  The mother walked towards her. But being small all her life, the mother's size did not intimidate her. She feared her political power.

  "mother, what are you implying?"

  "You are a spy and I do not want you in my business."

  She was surprised again. First Chatee, and now the mother herself! "A spy? For whom? I am only adopted, Petra, true. You know I renounced Samul, I still hate them." Out of the er of her eye, she saw Fanny's surprise. There was no dossier ootally unlikely. The mother showed ion.

  "But spying for Petra? We run a catering business oation, and not even the biggest. Me, I am trying to restore an old, tiny jumpship as an indepe pilot." That seemed to be o Fanny as well. "So why should I spy? And for whom? I would never work for Samul. Those arrogant pricks, no thank you. So no reason to spy, sorry."

  "But you are an outsider."

  "mother," Fanny interjected, "she's right. A spy would be icher. What would Samul do with that knowledge anyway?"

  "Fanny," the mother scolded, but Fanny had at least partly vinced her.

  The mother still shook her head. "Rerra from Petra, I think my daughter has made a point. Did you meet acher before you left?"

  "Only the staff at the beauty ic."

  "Oh!" and the mave a sign to the guards. O aurned moments ter with a doctor, or at least a cat wearing a b coat. The doctor just nodded and she followed the mother, the doctor and one guard in front of her. The other trailed behihey went into the doctor's door.

  The doctor reparing something that looked like a robot arm with a ft mp. Then she smiled a professional doctor's smile and looked straight at her. "Please stand on the circle for a s."

  She did as she was told, although she had no idea why.

  The robot arm moved the sing device around her several times. It took much lohan at the beauty ic. The ser made three more circles just around her abdomen. A 3D cross-se of her body appeared on the s, refined with each pass. A purple mark fshed off the s, just to the right of her navel and close to her outer skin.

  "Sorry, this will hurt," the doctor said, still smiling, and pressed a tube to the spot.

  "Arg!" It hurt a lot but soon eased.

  The other doctor put a pster on the circur wound, then took her hand and pressed it on the wound. "Please apply pressure for a moment."

  The first doctor had removed a bloody thing and dropped it into a beaker. She added some chemicals and soon only a tiny bck ball was floating in the clear liquid.

  "Do we have a det microscope?" she asked, "That looks inanic."

  "There's one in the workshop, it even has an atmospheric eleicroscope stage," she replied, "So someo that inside me? By Hopkins, I want to know what that is too."

  "No need," the mother interjected. "The ic would have reported it if you had it before. So you were a spy for Ketcher, but I believe you didn't know it. And that thing ot unicate back from so far away, it is probably just a recorder. Let's meet the Koni."

  * * *

  That meant the aliens. They walked to the passenger dog circle ohird deo one seemed ed that there was a hard vacuum o the seal and an unknown atmosphere oher side.

  "Sed pilot, open the door."

  She ged at the mother's misnomer. She took a deep breath, then keyed in the sequeo cycle the atmosphere between their hatd the alien ship. Now they had to wait for the bars to shrink to zero and rise again.

  "mother, perhaps you should sider wearing a space suit?"

  The mother stood silent, only Fanny shook her head. Stubborn old dy. Well, she had been warned.

  "mother, I will ge into a thinsuit."

  She did not wait for an answer, just walked back. A guard went with her. She went down to the workshop and got her radiation thinsuit. By now it was familiar enough that it took her less than 0020 to get into it. She tucked the helmet under her arm. "Let's go back."

  The mother did not even blink as she arrived in the yellow hazmat thinsuit. As before, she ignored her.

  A quice firmed that the airlock had not fully cycled. The pump was weak; a passenger dog port didn't see much use. Most of the time, passengers were extra and freight would be the main source of revenue. And then they would have docked at their freight port. And if there was no time, you could vent into space to repce the atmosphere in the dog chamber from the pressed gas cartridges for emergencies.

  The s fshed blueish white. She touched it and the hatlocked and swung in slowly, releasing only the ozone and bural smells of the parts exposed to spaothing to worry about.

  She put on her helmet, did the 1 to 10 leak ched was ready to go. But the mother had already entered into the short access tunnel and was now knog oher ship's hatch. That stupid old hag. "Cye, close the bulkhead to the passenger dock."

  The yellow fshing of the rapidly closing bulkhead startled the others. As it should. They really did risk venting the whole ship, those idiots.

  Fanny looked at her miserably, caught between loyalty and her uanding of basic spaceship protocols. She shrugged, theered the dog port and closed the hatch from the ihat caused a rea.

  "What are you doing?" the mother shouted.

  "Safety first. We have no idea of the pressure oher side. Even if there is a slight differe may be impossible for them to open their hatch if it is structed like ours. And with our hatch open, they ot really vent it, as the air will always flow in from our ship. Simple physics."

  "And that stupid suit es off."

  "No, it stays. You don't have to tell me about safety in space. Kill yourself, but I io be alive afterwards."

  "Wimpy kitten!" she scolded.

  She did not care. Transferring to an alien spaceship in a better loincloth was stupid. No matter what.

  Finally, the pressure dropped a tiny bit. She would not have noticed it without the indicator on the overhead dispy in her helmet. The other hatch opened like an iris, even though it was square.