Instead of the chaotioisy 4D, he was in 3D, suddenly heavy. And not in the pilot seat, standing. Not for long though, he fell down in the ued high gravity, into, what was this? It was a soft e carpet, a living matter. He was certainly not on the ship, the 3D chamber was not that realistic. It must be a p, igantic station at least. And it was dark, twer objects and many stars and a nebu were the only light sources overhead. Not darker than the Cobasian station though, and a lot nicer light than the red gloom there.

  But he should not be here. Maybe he had gotten only part of the patd had now a trip after a wrong dosage? He had heard rumours; he had never believed them. Until now.

  The squishy e stuff was wet and cold. Hence, he got up, still in his shorts and T-shirt. "Simon?" he shouted.

  "Simon ot hear you."

  He jumped around. "Jerka!" She stood just five steps away. "Is this Limbo?"

  "No, the ship is in jump." She wore like him shorts and then just a top. "It is a nice mild night here."

  "But" He tried a careful step on the squishy things. "This is a p." He looked around. The high vertical things are trees, he khem from pictures. Even though, they were all different shapes. "Is this the Earth?"

  "What?" Jerka giggled. "Sorry, but the pnts here are e and blue. Totally the wrong colours. But there are berries nearby. e." She held out her hand.

  He took it, hesitantly. Immediately, she pulled him forward aumbled after her. A few steps ter, they came to a sandy path. While the e pnt carpet had bee, soft and cool, the sand was dry, hard and also a little cool. Tiny stones pushed unpleasantly into his sole, like in a super dirty station corridor. "Slower!"

  She stood. "Sorry, you are ok?"

  "Yes, I mean, No! Something is very wrong."

  "And you fix it?"

  "No, I mean."

  "Then do not bother. e, just a short distance."

  He was not sure about anything anymore. Only that something was very very wrong. Jerka said they were jumping. But this was not 4D, never ever. He stumbled. But her hand ulling him forward like on a leash.

  Ihan 100 steps they reached a wider area without trees. There was a small stone circle in the tre with sand and around it se tree logs. Jerka went to a tiny house at the side. But she did er it. Instead, she picked up smaller logs stacked along the side. "Hold your arms out for the logs. Like this."

  He held out his arms and Jerka loaded the logs ohen they returo the stone circle where he dumped his load just outside. Jerka arrahem in the tre and held a small device to one of them. It started to smoke and burn. He reared back.

  "This is a campfire", she said and stepped baext to him, "The stones prevent the spreading of the fmes. This is a phere is o worry about the scrubbing systems. Just rex and enjoy."

  He did not know what to say. The fire was scary, hot and smelly. Everything screamed, "Flee for your life!" But if this heo flee to?

  Jerka was unfazed. "e, let's plue berries." She pulled him away from the fire, he followed happily. They went to the side where the tree started. "Here", she pointed down, "these are berry bushes. There are yellow berries here at the end of the stems, called moonbulbs. You pluck them like this. Only if they go easy, otherwise they are not ripe."

  He followed her instru, hesitantly. He had never harvested something for himself before. It had been a long time since he ate anything which did not e out of a package. But when he saw Jerka eating whatever berry she plucked, he tried o was very sweet but had some tiny stones. He ate ten or twelve of them. Some were nie sour.

  He stepped back while Jerka filled a small tainer.

  "Ouch!"

  Jerka was immediately o him. "What has happened?"

  He held up his foot. Blood was trig from a small cut.

  "I should have brought shoes", Jerka sighed, "Put your arm around my shoulders."

  With her support, he hobbled ba one foot towards the fire. There she sat him on one of the rge vertical tree logs a little away from the fire; although he could still feel the heat. She went into the small house aurned soon. "Hold up your foot!" She sprayed something on it, and immediately the pain was gone.

  "Let's have another Kwas. Real Kwas tonight." She put a kettle into the fire. That had probably also e from the house.

  He looked again at the sky. The twer bright objects had moved a lot. A third reddish one had appeared at the other end of the sky. If this hen those would be moons. These moons must be very close to move that fast. He tried to calcute their orbit but of course, without a refereime or pary weight, these were course estimates to distract him. It was not w, everything was wrong. He was sweating, and shivering. And he felt like vomiting. "Jerka", he whispered, panic welling up.

  She looked at him. "You aren't fainting? OK, let's return. Here is your patch."

  * * *

  An arm awoke him. They were in 3D, he was strapped to his seat in the cockpit. Not on a p, not in limbo, not inside a sun. The basics were fihen. Now to the teical failure alert. "Simon, status!"

  "Marik, we have ehe system as pnned. But coil 3 has taken damage, it is at 12% and the field amplifiers of coil 4 terminally failed. I fihe jump with the remaining three coils."

  He called up the schematic. Coil 1 was still at 77% and coil 2 at 62%, so far so good. But coil 3 would not survive another jump and coil 4 was out. Still, Simon had held them in 4D with mostly coils 1 and 2, and even finished almost on the mark. "Simon, well done. Especially with so little margin." Well, 80 years of experiehe AIs were the best things on these old ships.

  "Marik, thank you. It is still two jumps. But there we need a loor ge to the jump point. The estimate is about two and a half days depending on thrust."

  "Simon, I do something about the coils?"

  "Marik, maybe you use the field amplifier from coil 3 for coil 4. It was over 40 % when the amplifier failed."

  He had no idea. But if the AI could guide him … "Simo's see. Do I need a space suit for coil access?"

  "Marik, yes, these are in the hard vacuum se. I have suits in five sizes on board. We will drift at 0 g for the repair work sihe access tunnels are narrow a."

  "Simon, thank you."

  He unbuckled, went for the bathroom and then to Jerka's . No one was there. "Jerka?", he shouted.

  She emerged from the 3D chamber. He peeked iheir route lotted, with lots of fainter yellow branch lines.

  "The coils have taken damage."

  She nodded. "Yes, I felt it. But it seems we are still on course."

  "Yes, Simon did a great job. Have you ever worked on coils?"

  She hesitated only a sed. "Yes, but probably not on those."

  "Well, I will take them out, so until then we will be in 0 g. See you ter."

  * * *

  He followed the indicators that Simon projected oches and was soon in an unexplored area close to the ech. Four dirty space suits hung on the wall. Two could fit him, but none of them was fortable.

  The best-fitting one had a tail extension. Pressurised and in vacuum, it would stick out. He used bio roll it up. The insides reeked of sweat from an unknown species and there were some hairs or furs, but it he did not feel like a full ing and waiting again f out. The indicator could be switched to Standard and promised oxygen for 4000. And it had AR, so Simon could directly overy schematics for the repairs. Well, he was as ready as he could be.

  The airlock cycled very slowly and the seal of the hatch to the engiion had stuck to the frame. At least it would open outwards. He y on his bad kicked the hatch several times with his feet until it swung outwards. His oxygeimate was already down to 3500.

  He crawled through the propulsioio around hot areas, both temperature and radioactivity. Luckily the star system out there was not a problem, they were far outside and the star was not an active one. And without thrust, the sed fusion core was cold. Retively.

  Finally, he was at the coil hatch, located in a cosy pce betweewo fusioor cores and the main engines, just barely in the allowed radiatiime for humans, acc to his helmet dispy. At least ihere should be no radiation: Even when ighe coils only produced soft X-rays.

  But when he opehe hatch bck smoke sprayed straight into the vacuum and bounced off the opposite wall and then dispersed, boung off and stig to whatever was in its way, and finally lingering like a fine bck mist. He used a torch to see ihe coil chamber but every surfaside was coated with bck soot. Which meant dug soot. It had been a miracle that Simon could finish the jump at all in this state.

  "Simon, the whole coil chamber is filled with soot. I o at least all tacts and all coils."

  "Marik, I see it by your camera feed. The coils are easy to take out. There is a manual quick-release meism at the top and bottom, operated by a lever. You just o switch the lever."

  "Simon, thank you."

  His helmet dispy was overid with a schematic of the levers. That was badly he room itch bck, and the only things to orient himself with were the four massive coils.

  He found the levers, but of course, they all were stuck. He wedged his driver tool below and finally, removed the first coil and caught it i he had trailing behind him in the weightlessness. A sh his oxygen showed that he was already at 1200. The sed coil was as stubborn as the first. hree went easily. And number four even too easy: The whole assembly of the top tact came off the wall and revealed burnt-out circuitry behind. So that had caused the soot.

  "Marik, you are at 0750 oxygen. It is time to return."

  He sighed. He would have to return at least two more times, once for ing and then mounting the coils again. He was in for a busy interjump period.

  * * *

  The shrill oxygen arm was almost at zero when the slow airlock finally finished cyg. He opened his helmet and almost choked from the stench of the burnt coils. He pushed the with the coils bato the airlock, then flew out of the suit ahe room as fast as he could, heaving.

  The stench of the coil was notable everywhere, the life support filter failed to remove it pletely. When he arrived a little ter in front of her , Jerka just looked at him critically.

  "The tact of coil 4 had burnt away. That's the awful smell. I wish we had some active asks."

  "I think I saw some masks when st the spare parts in the workshop. Let's go down together."

  "Simon, we get 0.1g?"

  "Marik, yes, building up acceleration. Somewhere within the 4000 we would o go up to at least 0.2 g to get to the new vector."

  "Simon, then do 0.2 g now."

  "Marik, this will be 0.2 g with a slight side po. Take care."

  "Simon, thank you."

  Slowly they were drifting to the ground while the engines ramped up their power. Jerka was already at the dder to the workshop, which was directly two floors below the galley. Why everything important was ected to the kit on this ship?

  Jerka used her four hands effitly, so he barely could keep up.

  "Here!" She triumphantly held up two bck masks, then threw him ohe package was not belled in Cobasian, and not in Standard either, although he found the word "mask ef55-3277" in tiny Standard in a er.

  The package did not rip easily, but the workshop had scissors and cutting tools. The masks smelled stale, but after fitting them, the burnt smell was gohey also got some gloves and goggles and now they were ready to fetch the coils. For this, they went further "down" to the airlock to the ech.

  When he opehe hatch, the smell was very noticeable even through the filter mask. He quickly vacuumed the worst dust off and Jerka gave them a quick wipe. But the diagnostic tools were in the workshop, so he again ordered 0 g. Then they gently directed the transport hrough the hatches and corridors. While weightless, they were still massive, about 400 kg.

  The repairs would be easier with more weight. And too lolessness was not healthy anyway, so he asked Simon for 0.25 g, which was close to what some stations had on their inner rings and even smaller poo.

  The first thing was to wipe the coils as as possible ahe wipes in a bag and that bag into an. After that, the smell was no longer noticeable uhe mask. He then ected the coils to the diagnostiit.

  Now, it was time for food. He had worked all m (as on vention the ship’s clock resets ory). And the burnt smell had dimmed down to bearable. Sineither of them felt like cooking, it was just hot water on instant noodles, or what they used for noodles on Cobasian.

  Still exhausted, but with a full stomach, he followed Jerka back to the workshop. The extended diagnosis just firmed what Simon had said earlier. The pertages were slightly lower for coils 1 and 2, coil 3 was diagnosed as 13% and coil 4 as non-interfaceable. No surprises.

  But Jerka was not finished with number four. She showed him how to uhe cover and the tact assembly. Since coils 3 and 4 were from the same old series, she would try using the tad avanche amplifier of 3 for number 4. This was way out of his league. Actually, he had never seen somebody fiddling with coils even on Fallerian in Karieno?'s workshop where he had learned about basic ship maintenance. And who would work with the only thing that had to absolutely work or one could be lost in limbo or squeezed to dust on transition!

  However, Jerka was happily disassembling plex circuitry, s new es. He assisted and learned more about jump coils than any pilot he had ever met. (Jerka actually stressed that these were rather tubes with the accelerator coils only a small part of the upper assembly). Jerka also expio him iail how the cascade was ignited. First, the power was built up in the superdug coil ste, before feeding the superdug accelerator coils. These would accelerate separate ele and positron beams to build a loegative pressure field, and, with tinued matter influx, a tiny naked singurity, aka a bck hole. Which was not bck but naked, one could ‘see’ the point where the space broke down. Using the right spin and with the ive pressure field, it could vinal space to look around the ship. Or something close to this, the exact sce was beyond his 8 years of Fallerian eduost pilots he met never bothered with the sce as long as the coils worked.

  More useful to him was the practical part of the repairs. Jump coils died mostly for two reasons, she told him. First was a bad vacuum, which souupid sihey were in the empty vacuum of space. But space, especially closer to a star, was still too dirty to create naked singurities. And the coil's pumps had a very finite XHV capacity. XHV sounded way cooler tharemely high vacuum ... And the sed reason for coil failure was the thermal wear on the superdug ste coils and ageing power switches. Thus, while he had just a faint idea of how all that worked, he got an uanding of whipo was in charge of what. So now Jerka put all the power units from number 3 on number 4, since more broken than number 3 was hardly possible. It took some time but, in the end, it was just a wiring job sihe ectors were identical. Well, apart from the fact that s high-temperature superdug cables was tricky even in real shipyards with way better tools.

  Uerred, she showed him how to do this with the tiny arc welder and some extra superdug cable. And how to test the tact’s resista and cooled. And then number 4 was ready. They ected it to the diagnostiit, and now they got a solid 64%. Then Jerka let the test unit ramp up the top coil current to 80% cascade level, here ihe workshop and without a shield. It was scary. The coil was humming from the power entering it, but they were not roasted or X-rayed. Nothing happened but for the numbers on the dispy.

  After so much excitement, it was time for a lunch break. They had spent nearly 4000 on the coils. However, Jerka had done more thahought possible. Now both of them were tired, meaning another round of instant Kranta noodles.

  Jerka still offered to tihe work on the coils, but he was too tired. After the jump, he had worked for a full day. And his mind had reached capacity too and could no longer process any new knowledge. He was asleep as soon as he y on his bed.

  He hat Jerka had cuddled from behind when he awoke because he felt an urgent need. He y for a short time, but he really had to go. Jerka was still asleep on his return. He cuddled with his back to her front, feeling like a hatg again.