"Hah, and you believe also in Lady Quaramundi."

  "Sorry, I have no idea about your dy."

  "Never mind", she waved it away. "Now what about me and the others there?"

  "You mean there", he poio the hatch. "Yes, 32 sves like you. I wish I could do something. But we have no fuel. We have to nd on this po get refuelled. I think I hide you. But you see the space, you", he trailed off.

  "Now that this hideous huge beast fills your ", she took a deep breath. "But, yes, I see. I do not want to end up on this p."

  "Don't feel bad, it is me who is responsible. I am happy if I save at least you from svery. And the's go the Fallerian and to freedom."

  "I 't go home and face my parents like this."

  "You sue whoever did this to you. I mean this was illegal, no matter what was written in the tract. Serious modding of humans is forbidden on most human worlds, I heard. Maybe they be ordered to reverse it. And then search for your home world and go back. "

  "Thank you. But hooor peasant girl like me could get justice?"

  "Well, jump is Fallerian. I’m from there, I help you there for sure." His shoulders sagged. "But first I have to deliver the others to the ps safely. Are you hungry?"

  She nodded.

  He sighed, took the o st 'plete meal' out of the draoured the water on it. "Here, that is all we have."

  He ate a cup-soup to calm his empty stomach while she wolfed down the instant meal.

  "I will be in the cockpit." He poio the dder.

  With their neroach vector, their reentry would be easier, the simutions had much rger margins for success. Now, he could address such things as avoiding the maser beams from the energy harvesting satellites. After another half a day it looked quite good, now 8 of 10 touchdowns were successful and none had ended in a crater. Two had ended prematurely, fried by the maser beam duri, and the rest in hard touchdowns, damaging the ship too much to take off again. But alive. He became fident that he would be alive tomorrow evening.

  "Pilot", came it from downstair, harried.

  He was immediately down.

  "Sorry, I fot your name. I really o go."

  "It's Marik Lnadro?", he replied on automatic. "Err, I mean where is your", he stammered.

  She blushed as well. "Back there."

  He was looking at the door to the toilet/shower unit. No way to fit her backside into it. "Well, the 0 g toilet has aendable vacuum hose. But it is quite short. So I would o, err, hold it to your, err." He blushed hard.

  She cursed. He shrunk together. "Not your doing", she sighed. "What should I do?"

  Turning around in the small was difficult. In the end, he ordered 0 g and she could float her backside right up to the shower/toilet unit's door. He held the hose to her privates and switched the su on. It worked retively well. But taking a dump, he shivered. Given her size, it would likely clog the hose. Well, not a this time.

  He put the hose back, vacuumed his hands dry as well, and when the deceleration came up again, washed them properly. Still, a slight stench of urine lingered, as it always did from using the 0 g toilet.

  They both avoided eye tact for a few moments. But it was futile, given the close quarters.

  "Thank you", she finally uttered, looking at him. "This is so embarrassing. Sorry, for b you."

  "Don't worry, I am happy to have rescued at least you from svery." He yawned. "How about a soup?"

  Soon he was sitting at the table and she beorso to face him. The cup seemed tiny in her hands. And it was not even enough for him, so he prepared awo. And a third for her. At this rate, even the soups would not st until Fallerian.

  He yawned again. Today's excitement had taken a toll on him, not tet the 4D mips and the fiement. He dimmed the light a into his capsule, deliberately keeping the door hatch open.

  * * *

  It was already 4200, when he awoke, more than a third of the day had passed. "Bckbeard, status!"

  "No issues, deceleration 0.13 g, reentry in about 2500 with a delta v of less than 0.87 of the escape velocity."

  Great, so absolutely no risk of skipping the atmosphere and then boung off into infinity again.

  He climbed out of his capsule.

  "Good M!" The former sve Lalleli looked at him expetly.

  "Good M, I guess you are hungry?"

  She nodded.

  He switched oer boiler a for the toilet. When he was finished, her look told him, she o go as well. 0 g, and the same procedure as yesterday. And then ing his hands and his face. At 0 g she could turn floating, and she washed her face as well, while the soup cooled down enough to be eaten.

  Another four soups for her and two for him. They would definitely need provisions from the p.

  She started to open up about her previous life. Her parent were farm helpers on a retively new y p, ok, settled 200 years ago or so. Still old enough to divide their society between ndowners and the rest. Her parents were ier group. By their p's ws, it meant they could not marry officially. Thus, she was born out of wedlock, which meant she was farm property, like her parents. That farm had a popution like a vilge or so, with hundreds of helpers in the same situation. Even given his meagre knowledge of the state of affairs on the ps below the stations that he had visited, such a kind of ied svery was not so unon for the gaxy.

  By now the soups were empty. "I am sorry, I would like to hear more. But I really o prepare for the nding. I have overslept."

  "Sorry, yes, please."

  "I am happy to hear the rest ter." And with this, he climbed to the cockpit.

  "Bckbeard, were there any messages while I had been asleep?"

  "Yes, to firm the approximate arrival time, which I did. And you will get some local food."

  "Bckbeard, thank you."

  "You probably talk to them soon. They will swit the guidand the full station equipment in 1581."

  "Bckbeard, thanks too."

  He was still thinking about their freight ma which missed now one sve. He was quite sure that the encryption on that was unbreakable for him. And then there was the ra the hold which had 33 partments and was outfitted for that number. So the best course robably to feign ignorahe lo the cargo hatch would certainly help his case.

  "Bckbeard, you did not report the guest in the ?"

  "No, no a was taken so far."

  "Is the a for the outgoing leg already closed?"

  "No, the ma is still open until takeoff since we will get cargo from the poo."

  "Bckbeard, add a passeo our route to Fallerian. Name is Lalleli."

  "Added."

  He did another five simutions, and all of them ended with a soft enough nding. By now, he was fident enough that he could spot a dangerous course deviation and could correct it. He believed Bckbeard that the AI had nded on it own before. However, after the near misses during the mips, he was not sure if this wasn't before whatever mods the AI had installed for its pleasure.

  When he went down the dder, Lalleli immediately woke from dozing, lifting her head from the table. "Sorry, I"

  "Don't worry. We will be nding soon, and there will be quite some forces. So."

  "I had thought about this already. Here, I push my lower body uhe table." She did so, and it barely fit. The table groaned and was visually bent upwards. Hopefully, oic deformation.

  "Indeed, most of the forces would be now on your, er, behind. But there could be also some shaking in this dire."

  "I put my shoulders uhe bench." The bench also squeaked a little when she pushed it up with force but kept its shape.

  "Ok", he said. But his voice betrayed his doubts. "I will just go for the bathroom and then I will be up until we have nded."

  * * *

  The p was overdue. Finally, they answered, only 0040 before the reentry bckout. A p would have some guided ser unication satellite but this backwater world had nothing. Not even a rey satellite, something he could cobble together in this workshop. And thus, there would be two bckouts, first the station disappearing behind on the p's other side and a real bckout, like during a jump but this time engulfed in a superheated atmosphere being a dug psma that would shorten out aromagic waves. And even after that, they would be out e of the single reception station. It felt medieval.

  There were three people visible on the s, the speaker and two in the background. At least the two in the background had simir bodies to Lalleli.

  "Hello, I am receiving your data and visuals. I am Marik, Pilot. The reentry is a little tricky with the maser beams and the thin atmosphere. So we will have a long bckout. For more bandwidth, I will switch off the image feed." Also, their image vanished immediately. "And then, your atmosphere is not viable for me."

  "Yes, we know. Will still take some turies for full humans."

  "So I will wear some kind of breathing apparatus. But I am currently not sure how to exit as there is no proper."

  "We have the codes for the lock."

  "I am not sure if I move the cargo hold hat the phat really depends on the tre of gravity after nding. What I say it that we may not be able to meet face to face."

  "I see. Well, we will unlod you find your food with the agreed cargo in. I am uploading the freight ma."

  It was crates of spices. That sounded quite legit, a light cargo with still a high value. Seems like at least the leg to Fallerian would be a nice legal one. But first, they o survive this. "We are getting behind the horizon. So expect the signal at 0620."

  "Yes, we will be rea-"

  And their station had sunk below the horizon.

  The ship slowly rotated to face the atmosphere with its belly, the cockpit windows pointing to the p for now. The tter was mainly for his sake. After entering, they would rotate again to face the thiing atmosphere with their blunt belly. For now, he saw a mostly rocky world even with some craters and no open water etation. Uhe vegetation here had the same brown colour as the rocks. There were also no clouds apart from two stripes almost going around half the p. "Bckbeard, are those clouds affiliated with winds?"

  "Unknown."

  "Please avoid them."

  "They are at even higher titudes, we will never reach them."

  Sihey still were quite north and stationary satellites had to orbit over the equator, the maser of the first satellite was far south. At the southern horizohought he saw a ring cloud. Maybe this was where the maser hit the p's atmosphere about the rge receiver antennas.

  It was just the fifth reentry in his life, and the first not as a passenger. He had never before cared for clouds or winds. He had experienced winds ond, of course, the drafts from circution. But he had never worried about winds or clouds. But oher hand, he had hat great of a view. Of course, the ercial vessels which he had boarded before, had lots of ccamera views that one could call up on one's s. Not the same, this was the real thing, breathtaking. They just crossed the terminator, the night and day line, and the p became pitch-bo artificial lights, no lighting, no moon.

  Their course took them for o osciltion south, crossing the equator and passing the maser beam of the sed harvesting satellite by only less than 500 kilometres. The p now filled the entire vieitch-bck hole where not even stars shone. More nothingness even than space.

  Finally, returning back from the most southern osciltion or their orbit, it began to dawn. A fake dawn, a faint green and yellow gloeared, first at the rims of the windows. They were entering the first outer traces of the atmosphere. The glow slowly built up in brightness and became more e as the psma built up. Now, the cockpit was illuminated like the Cobasian station and a slight deceleration could be felt. The shine became stronger, a Cobasian would need heavy sungsses by now. He followed the AI's advid closed the window shutters. The psma emitted some soft X-rays and the heat might damage the windows. And there was only the e glow, the ductive psma shut them off from all optical and radio unication. As soon as the shutters were closed, the AI rotated the belly fag forward fher drag.

  From now on, they relied fully on the aeique of iial navigation, just summing up the forces and distances, using their st known speed a as the reference point. Like natives did in the sail ships already on the os, worlds and aeons ago. Now they had to wait until they had bee slow enough and the atmosphere had bee dense enough that the psma could no longer be sustaihemosphere would bee insuting again, no longer sh out the antennas. The radar would wain and by correting the surface tours, they would have precise information of height and position even without satellite aid. Although with that many craters, the corretion may take a few moments to find the right patterns.

  He really hoped that the AI would not glitow. At least the diagrams on the s looked reasonable and correted with the small forces he felt. His pilot seat swivelled more into a sideosition so that the ss were still in front of him and the forces would be downwards. They had only reached 0.15 g so far.

  "All good down there?"

  "Yes, no problem." She really sounded fine, he was relieved. There was still some time until the maximum deceleration.