She was heading for the shipyard dock. Even if they did not need xenon (the tanks were more than half-full from Fallerian) she preferred the anonymity of the shipyard's port. Also, getting the boxes out of the narrow cockpit would be easier in near zero-g.

  After toug down aing the mag pads, she unbuckled herself and then Marik. The human was hot to the toud even paler thahey had reentered 3D.

  "Just give me a moment," he croaked.

  "Take your time," she said and then sailed across him, brushing him. "I will unload first." And then opehe hatch to the cold and slightly hissing UDA. Wele to this ed station.

  She had to grab the first piece with her toes and tow it behihrough the short but bending access tunnel. Each time, whe her fato the cockpit to get another piece, the human still y in his chair, just turning his head a little to smile at her.

  The unloading took time. With her broad shoulders, there was only enough space for one piece at a time. It was exhausting, even in the near weightlessness of the hub.

  She carefully diriged the st box through the tunnel, whicooperatively got stu every of the many reinforced folds of the tunnel when Marik suddenly shrieked. She left the box floating iunnel and shot back, legs forward, turning on the rim of the hatch. Marik y in the co-pilot seat with his face torted by pain and his hand on his left thigh. She had uimated her momentum and barely mao stop before hitting him, g arms and legs on the armrests, her whiskers toug his face. He stared wide-eyed at her. Damn, she had scared him again. Well, he had scared her too.

  That arrival gave him a coughing fit, and he moaned again.

  She pushed herself up but soon her back hit the panels and windows. With a toothless smile, she stroked his head-hair until he stopped coughing. "Sorry," and then with a more solid voice, "So what's happened?"

  He smiled a crooked smile. "You are," he moaned again. "My leg," still holding his left thigh, "I do not feel my foot. And it hurts."

  "I will float you out."

  He grinned, "I will g to your back."

  She turned, her fur was standing up all over. She had iwo doses of suppressant after they came out of the jump, and it did nothing in that crammed cockpit. She purred like stupid whe his arms around her.

  In the end, he just held her feet sihe hatd UDA tunnel barely allowed her to pass, and she still o push the st box out in front of her. Finally, she shoved the box through the other hatd tis flight outside. She grabbed the rim of the hatd then rotated her while the humao her feet. Her muscles bulged as she tried to stop the momentum with only her hands ging to the ring. Marik came to a stop just short of the floor. He curled together but only with his left leg. The other was still stretched, gently bobbing the floor in the low gravity.

  Heavily panting, she closed and secured the hatch, then slowly moved o him. "Where does it hurt?" She slid the outside of her cw dowside of his leg.

  "There," he croaked.

  It was just above the knee. She helped him to lower his trousers, shaking from the st alone. But her worries were greater. "I see nothing, maybe just a nerve."

  He closed his train. " we go to the ic?"

  She nodded. "Should I carry you?"

  He nodded.

  She lifted him under his armpits and then hugged him with her left. He felt so light in the near weightlessness of the shipyard's innermost level. He moaned as she actally touched his right leg. She tilted him further, grinning while imagining to carry a vulnerable kitten.

  They were alone in the lift. Slowly her small weightless kitten became a heavier adult human. Still, even without having trained for some time, not a problem. She would carry that human any distance.

  Despite her strrip, the human had rexed. " I have Kira of Ut," he whispered as the gravity increased when they were halfway to the outer levels.

  "Hu? What?"

  "To examine me." His eye turned away. "She may know best."

  His whole body radiated so much guilt, more than she had seen from most kittens. But she just nodded.

  "I had asked her to grow me a tail," he whispered.

  "What?" She retightened her grip. So guilty looking, she had expected a surpise but that! A tail! On a human! But before she even found words, he tinued. "I like tails, and your tail very much," he whispered, even smiling again. "I mean, after the pilot Rerra, and, uh, no." He moaned.

  "What by Hopkins has happened?"

  "Not much. Told them that I find tails cool. Especially yours." He smiled for a sed. "Ara limb in zero g." He gulped, but the talking seemed to distract him from his pain. "My guard introduced me to her sister who is a doctor. Her name was Kira of Ut. She was very excited about my request. I mean stifically." He took a deep breath and paused a little longer.

  Her smile was but a facade. Stupid human. Maybe he should have - but Marik tinued, "Because the modders were not w, she dug out an iion to grow a tail. All while you were with the others at the puter. So that's why Doctor Kira."

  She was no longer smiling, shag her head until feeling dizzy. Her tail hit the wall. Stupid human and even more stupid Ketcher doctor.

  "I see," she said, trying not to add to his suffering by scolding him now. She took out her pad and messaged ahead. Despite being te in the loight phase, the answer of the ic came prompt, with still three levels to go on the lift. And a doctor Kira was on night duty, she would meet them at the reception.

  The lift stopped for the first time on the fourth level to board two drunken Samuls on their way down to get even more drunk. Too drunk to properly process the unlikely view of a cat hugging a human with a danglihen they were on level 3, the ic's level.

  She took a deep breath, a bad idea, flooding her again with his st. She shook her head, took a deep breath to the other side and walked the short distao the ic doors. The left door wing had been repced by an opaque pstic sheet, still mismatched but at least both sides closed and opened normally. Three Ketcher look-alike receptionists were smiling at them professionally.

  "This is the human Marik Lnaplo?. I have called ahead."

  She could smell the suppressed panic. They were probably out of their wits by this off-script visit. She did not care.

  One of them nodded a behind the ter to unfold a wheelchair with leg support. She nudged Marik into the wheelchair, his leg on the support. By now, he just whimpered whenever she had to touch his leg.

  She only looked up to receive the pad with the forms. She registered him as her depe, that poor human, hunched over in the wheelchair, sweating, shivering, and silently moaning. While she went through the forms, a doctor, probably the doctor, came running down the main corridor and was heading straight for the human in the wheelchair.

  "Ok, I am taking over. Hello Marik Lnaplo?, you remember me?"

  The human looked up. "Yes," he whispered.

  The doctor still introduced herself, "Doctor Kira, let me first check the forms." Theook a ic pad from one of the hostesses.

  The doctor did not look like much. Probably a good sign that the doctors were not selected for their looks. And the night shift was certainly not when the important ts would visit. Or if, they were likely too drunk tiven her looks, this doctor was not high up icher hierarchy. Marik had said she was from the Ulta tribe, which she had never heard. Certainly, no Ulta member had been at Crice. So that doust have been appointed by her skills.

  Marik whimpered again, ripping her from her thoughts.

  The doctor put the pad down. "When did it start?"

  "Three days ago," croaked Marik. "After the jump to Fallerian. First a funny itg, then hurting, now not moving."

  "Ok." Despite being the smallest of them, and not of a high tribe, she was the other Ketchers around. Still polite. "Please, get 2-2 ready, 290 K, and prepare 2-3. You take the wheelchair." Then the doctor paused. "AI, is an MRT avaible?"

  "Yes doRT A7 is cold and the powerbank is charged."

  "Thank you, AI. Everyone, we go first to 2-7. And for" The d the ic pad before looking at her for the first time. Looked again at her pad and again at her. "Eh", she gulped.

  She smiled. "Rerra of Codeson from Petra, o meet you."

  "You, er, want to e with him?" the doctor asked her cautiously.

  "Yes please, we have a business tract.”

  The doctor looked even more fused, searg again the pad, then shrugged. "Please follow."

  * * *

  It was only a short walk. And then, no o Marik was to ehe sing room. The doctor went to a sole in another room and two of the hostesses went back to the reception, leaving with a nod to the st oayed.

  After the st hostess just stood there, she went to the small window to the sing room, where a now sedated human was obscured by the full-body ser mae.

  The hostess walked to her. "You work out a lot, Miss Rerra."

  She turned around. And Miss? She had not heard that honorific fes, she was close to ughing.

  The st hostess stood there, smiling at her. Judging from her pose and tail, at least half genuine smile. That hostess was clearly a Ketcher, ocelot fur pattern, a head taller than her, a bushy tail, big breasts, and proud fangs. But after spending a long time amocher on that expedition, this hostess was somewhat off, her fangs a little bit too long, standing a little tilted, and one breast a tiny bit higher thaher; just enough to be noticeable.

  "Like what you see?"

  "Sorry, I should not." She forced a smile. "I appreciate a rebellious Ketcher."

  The hostess smiled fade. "Oh, so you" the hostess sighed. "All natural, no modding for two geions. No rebel, sorry. I had been angry with my parents." She took a deep breath. "Sorry, Miss Rerra, I should not bother you with me."

  "Skip the Miss, please."

  "But Miss Rerra, you are marked for VIP treatment. And you are certainly special."

  "Eh?" Probably the VIP from the reboot of Bernie. "My father was human. So I got these feet and hands. And too short fur. So I started w out to defend myself against bullying."

  "You have very impressive muscles. You have beaten the bullies?"

  "No." She still grinned. "I ighe bullies early on, even before I could have beaten them up. And then I kept on w out, I like closing down my mind wheing in the zone. Now I ck the time, though. Not because." She hesitated. "Not i ten days, and before not that often. Not since I fly regurly."

  "So you are a pilot?" Her i seemed genuine.

  "Marik too, the human in there. This is how we met. He chartered me for an intrasystem transfer between Fallerian 6 and 3 stations."

  "How is Fallerian? I mean, if you do not mind."

  She smiled, this versation was so refreshingly different from most she had with random cats who did not care about anything outside their system. "Too hot, way too hot. See my short fur? And still way too hot. But very colourful and so many different, how to say, Fallerian natives. They have several intelligent races, differently shaped beetles, and some tipedes-likes. And crowded, y like here. Very lively, and all serious business. You know, all with tracts. And real tracts, if a Fallerian says 1000 and finished in three days and 3000, then it will be finished slightly before and not ore. Everything is cheaper, and the food is very iing. You think you know Fallerian food? Actually, we know very little from their sele and only the cheapest. They have lots of meaty is, chy cooked or deep fried, and many spicy sauces. You know, Marik's foster parent is a beetle who runs a restaurant. There I have eaten the best Krantagratin ever. Although Petra catering makes some very good food too. I mean, I am from Petra, but holy, if you ever have a ce, try it and you will see what you have missed."

  The other cat licked her snout. "You make me hungry."

  "Holy, I am starved. We just jumped in, I have en at all."

  "The's get you something to eat. The sing will take quite some time. And while we go there, please, Miss, er, Rerra, I mean." She took a deep breath. "Sorry, for being this unprofessional. But please tell me more about Fallerian."

  She followed the other cat, then walked o her. "I have only seen Fallerian III, one of their two homeworlds, and just from space. It is shrouded in clouds, so very different from ours. And much rger. Very white, pared to the brown world below."

  The other cat sighed. "I would like to see Fallerian ahere too. But with my sary ..."

  "It should be easier as non-Samul. Indepes have to jump via Fallerian. So you could hitch a jump on a freighter who goes there anyway."

  There it was again, that kitten-eyed smile. "Thanks for the tip. How ofte such freighters?"

  "If everything would be normal, daily. We import so much food from there. Perversely, it is cheaper to haul them from lightyears away than heave the food out of the gravity well from our p. Especially with the broken hydrogen pnt at the space port."

  The hostess sighed. "I know this, all our sers are from off-system too and we ot repair them. Not even trying."

  She nodded. "We ake anything, not even enough food. You know, a friend told me that 95% of the meat is reformed meat from off-system."

  The hostess shuddered. "Reformed meat, I have seen too much. Your hostess here was deemed ooo ugly for reception, so I had to start with kit duty."

  "I did not know you could work up the ranks icher without modding."

  "No, you couldn’t." The Ketcher hostess hissed. "But now the modders are out, and they ck assistants. 200 years of tampering with DNA, and too maies turned out brainless. I wonder why?" She sighed. "But holy, I do no longer not care if I look like them or the doctor. Being an individual is oo. Not being fotten immediately as ocher. By the way, I am Jordan of Klugat from Ketcher." She held up her shoulder pad with the tag.

  "Rerra of Codeson from Petra." She bowed, a full introdu, even if her name had been in her record.

  "After you." The hostess held open an unmarked door. "The night shift teen."

  She ehrough it. It was the side door into a dark ay dining hall, just one er was illuminated, o some vending stations. They went to them.

  She studied the menu on the maes.

  "I reend the Krerranz sandwich bake. No reformed meat."

  "I follow your reendation" and started to type.

  But the hostess gently shoved her hand away, went in front of her, held her shoulder pad in front of the ser and gave her the ed hot sandwich. "My treat. Used to make them myself not so long ago."

  "Thank you, but let me"

  "No, I will get problems if a VIP is eating here. Please."

  She nodded. “Sirry.”

  "Fet it. Rather tell me, how did you bee a pilot?"

  "Well, I studied. On the p, with simutors, up to C lise. And then, oation, just dumb luck. I got a job at the shipyard, hard work, long hours, but all together. Then, I met my first human at the end of a long shift, dead tired and still rejeg the idea of ag as sex doll just because being a cat. So I rejected him, and"

  Her eyes went wide. "You what?"

  "Turned out, that he was here for busio sell used spaceship parts. I met him again the m in the shipyard office. He wao sell also a Sagan Melorian II, well, a very broken one.” Her excitement was still there, remembering that day. “The fastest ship ever built by humans. And the shipyard was not allowed to buy sips, only parts. I wa so badly. Havied him, he took me serious. I was allowed to buy the ship and repaired her after my shifts. So lucky."

  She nodded. "Let me buy you another sandwich. Same?"

  Only now, she realised that she had eaten the whole sandwich while talking.

  The hostess was back with another.

  "So how did you hire at the shipyard?”

  “They are always short of stuff. And with my theoretical training, it was enough."

  "Did you work a lot on the eleics?"

  "Yes, but." She sighed. "I am not good at it. Lenny, the, er, deleted AI had to help me a lot. I mostly did the wiring." She held up her hand with the slender fingers. “Fit more pces than other cats.”

  The hostess joined her ughter. Then she held up her left paw, grinning. "Burn marks from s in my spare time." She took out a small device, set it oable and switched it on. After a few moments, the lights dimmed, lighting up just the entrance. "Primitive sensor scammer. We are no longer here." She tur off and the lights above them brightened again.

  "Wow. Then why you are w here?"

  "You are not blind? Ocelot fur, Ketcher. Not supposed to do anything teical. I repair broken pads for my friends in my spare time."

  "Why don't you apply for the shipyard? Ocelot fur does not matter there. They need workers with teical skills."

  "Seriously?" She sounded like cute Patty. But then looked grim again. "We have health and Samul has space. All still rec from the er Ketcher high-T's takeover attempt, they won't-" The hostess trailed off, fused, when she saw her shaking her head.

  "That was everyone's fault. Most high-tier Samul had chosen the easy life as useless high administration down beloointed by entitlement. Too few stayed, giving those Ketchers an easy target." She shook her head again. "But not all from Samul are bad. I wish there were more like Trina from Samul. She is the head of the shipyard, as untypical as a high-T could be. Gets her paws dirty every day, stays lohan most of her employees. Actually, most workers at the shipyard were not from Samul, just two, thewins from Setersk, less Penny, and me from Petra. You'd not stand out. You'll be able to pilot a ship on a test flight if you study a little for a lice."

  "Flying a ship!" The hostess' eyes were huge, her tail at attention. "But how"

  "You have soldered eleics, Trina will hire you immediately, no question asked. Should I send her a message?"

  "The Trina from Samul from the news?" The assistant looked at her. "You message Trina from Samul like that?"

  "I worked together with her at the ships. She gets her paws dirty and cares for her workers. Told you."

  "You really think she'll hire me?"

  "Here, write your name, ID, and something about your skills with eleics." She gave her her pad.

  The hostess took it very carefully. She added some text, typed her ID and gave it back. "If this works out, I am forever in your debt."

  She chuckled. "Trina will work you as hard as she works herself. A much harder work than being eye dy. Actually, why are there so many hostesses at the reception? And why the heart-shaped entrance?"

  "Because that ic was a bordello at Hopkin's times. Acher, as the most exotic cats were the main stuffing."

  "I see. But why now?"

  "e on, you are a cat too. Too young as a race, so we g to traditions. Otherwise, why should our leader be Samul or Ketcher? So yes, tradition. And the equivalent to useless administrative jobs for the Samul is reception duty." She thought for a moment. "Me, w for the shipyard. A the cil. So shaking up traditions, eh?"

  "Actually, your AI has proposed the cil."

  "You were there?"

  She hesitated, wao deny it. But she was not a good liar. "Well, you know that I am friends with Trina. Actually, when the chaos broke out, I flew both Trina from Samul and Fanny of Fiyul from Ketcher to Fallerian."

  The cat just looked at her with her mouth open aails curled forward.

  "I gave Fanny her B css pilot lise. So I think Fanny would not stop you from leaving the Ketcher id w for the shipyard. If she could, she would have dohe same."

  "Please, leave high-T Ketcher out of this."

  She ughed. "No worries. Talk to Trina and see for yourself."

  The ic pad chimed. "They have moved your human directly to the operating theatre. So we are in for another 1000. I invite you to some herbal tea? Or another sandwich?"