It was just after midnight whe back to the shipyard office. Only 0530 had passed sihe coup had been announced. Fanny stood up as she arrived, her steel tube at the ready.

  "How is Trina?"

  "Sleeping normally, she'll be fine in the m." Fanny looked tired too.

  "Any news?"

  Fanny shook her head. "No, actually, I shut down my pad. They localise it."

  Rerra, you stupid cat, of course. She shut down Trina's pad too. She etra, so she hoped that hers was uhe radar and called up a news site. But apart from the annou, there was no further information. Not even the closure of the dog ports was mentioned, just standard messages about some urgent repairs being carried out in various parts of the station and some automatious about temporary deys in shipping operations and power shutdowns. She put her pad bato her pocket. " we move her?"

  "Yes, no problem. She might even wake up from it. What is your pn?"

  "To get you two off the station, we have no idea against who we are up to. My ship is here, in the airlock of the shipyard. But warm, not ready before 3000, earliest. If we lose authorisation before, I manually vent the airlock to spad opeer hatch with a k. We could then start the core on backup power while drifting. This way."

  She climbed ahead with one hand on the dder and Trina iher. It was easy, thanks to the low g's.

  "Thanks. I am still not sure if I should really leave the station."

  "If it helps you, Trina had the same worries. But you other sisters are on a ship too?"

  "Yes, it seems so. I was the only one further up and did not make it."

  "So now you will be safe ihe White Ocetlot."

  Fanny almost missed a step. "White Ocelot?"

  "My ship, yes. Oh."

  "I am probably the only one who really get this joke," Fanny snickered. "White Ocelot, ha! When we ever get out of this, you will be made a honorary member of Ketcher! Make you a true white ocelot!"

  Now she froze. "No, please not. I am happy to be Petra."

  "But how."

  "Careful Fanny, don't move too fast." She wanted Fanny to stop. They could talk about this ter. "I am already on the ground. Which doesn’t mean much because we're almost weightless here. So don't uimate your moment, n in your steps. And watch out for the occasional loose nuts and bolts floatihe ground."

  She walked slowly with wide, low-g strides towards the trol room, making full use of the opposable cw toes whehere was a handle or wedged tube to grab and was at the entrance of the trol room in no time. Only there she stopped and saw Fanny doing untrolled erratic jumps too far left and right until she hit the wall quite a distao the left of the doorframe. She put Trina to the ground and caught Fanny, showing her some paw-holds for better trol and guided her to the trol room, o Trina. "Wait here," and she returned a short time ter with Trina's thinsuit.

  With Fanny's help, they stripped Trina naked and put her into the suit. The near weightlessness made it retively easy. Trina did not wake at all, her limbs fully rexed the whole time. Now suited up, they floated Trina through the UDA and the flexible access tunnel into the Sagan, where she ced in the cargo hold, strapped into the floor ing. That should hold her even in 4D.

  Fanny looked around. "Well, this is your ship. The White Ocelot."

  She saw how the raw wiring and else must look after what Fanny had seen o flight. "Sorry, I have not fihe repairs yet. But I have been with her to Fallerian and bace, she is spaceworthy."

  "Well, she hides her nice ocelot coat. Hello, White Ocelot."

  "Er, sorry, no AI. That ship is old, only manual trol. It had been a luxury ship, built for speed."

  Fanny looked at her. "You jump manually. Isn't this dangerous?"

  "There is the 4D collision system. It will drop out of jump on any abnormality, no worries. It is just more work. Well, and you fly in the copilot seat. Sit down, I have to get some more equipment."

  She went back for her thinsuit and two bs, which she found in a locker in the suit ste room.

  Ba the Sagan, she put the bs urina. Hopefully, this would be enough to dampen the worst of the vibrations if they really had to jump.

  Then they sat inside. Fanny yawned, it was tagious. She was tired too, not in the best dition to fly.

  "Rerra, I am not sure I may ask, but how e you care so much for Trina from Samul."

  She stopped going through the checklist and sighed.

  "Please, this is a secret. I was raised as Rerra of Curragh from Samul."

  Fanny stared at her, wide-eyed. "You are of Curragh from Samul?"

  "You remember what the avatar had said on the beao, my father was human, and my mother was definitely not Curragh from Samul. But she is on my birth certificate. I was number 14 in succession, in theory. All they did was hide me and then seo Crice school in the hope the mobbing there would break me. I disappoihem, fiop of css and as soon as I was 17, I tried to renounce my Samul lihey finally agreed, uhe dition of never speaking to anyone. So Trina was my cousin, and the only cat who held to me, who did not care about huma or hands, the small breasts or the thin fur. The only Samul I looked forward to meeting on Ekrerr or other family reunions. The adoption by Perta was rather a lucky ce ter."

  "By Hopkins! I am so sorry."

  "Don't worry, it worked out in the end. I am happy with beira. Holy, I still admire Trina, how she works with us despite being hree, or now even wo oation."

  Fanny looked down. "I would like to say that I rete. But I think my life has beey normal up to now. Well, until Fiyul was made the mother of all Ketcher."

  "Yes, power ges a lot."

  "Yes, and you never know who is friend anymore. It is …"

  She smiled. "So let's be official friends. I had sidered you a friend sihe evening on the beach."

  "Yes, friend forever." Fanny closed her eyes. "Yes, that evening at the beach was so nice, even if surreal. I should have tried harder to stay in tact."

  "And I was afraid of getting too close to power. Stupid, letting that reign over friendship."

  They gave each other a high-five.

  "Maybe get some sleep, while I gh the checklist?"

  Fanny yawned again. "Sounds good. Good night."

  She went back to her checklist. At least she had e towards Fanny. She liked her, but why had it to be cats from the ruling s? Ok, point on the checklist. The superductors were already down to only 20 K over critical, but she k would take time for the remaining temperature to drop.

  Eventually, Fanny fell asleep in the co-pilot's chair. She went out again to the bathroom. Just as she finished, Bernie called her on her pad. "Rerra, they activated Kerta's hardware key to invalidate all other keys. You have 0010 as the grace period."

  "Bernie, I still order normal shipyard operations after that?"

  "Yes, still"

  No time for one of Bernie's long expnations. "Bernie, cut the power to the outer dog ring cmps, all of them. Emergency broadcast to all ships o: Calling all ships. If you want to leave, push in now at +0.1 g ter the emergency release of the dog cmp. Last ce."

  "Ok, done. 3, 2, 1, Sorry, Rerra, your privileges have been revoked, the broadcast was celled after just oition. But they have not yet restored power. Shipyard's local trols are still with you."

  "Bernie, what is the airlock pressure now?"

  "1020 Pascal."

  "Ok, Bernie, vent the remaining atmosphere from the small ship's airlock to spad opeer hatch. But leave the UDA attached."

  "That will trigger an arm."

  "Bernie, purge and open it anyway." She made wide low-g leaps back to the UDA. The arm didn't go off until she was in the flexible tuhat ected the Sagan's airlock to the pressurised se of the shipyard. On the cockpit, she closed the hatch to the UDA. Fanny was still asleep, as was Trina.

  She typed a final message to Eli. 'I have to leave the station with my ship. Lay low for a few days, cel everything. I'll try to get back as soon as I . Love from your sister.' Theurned off her pad, not wanting to tie Petra too much to the shipyard or, even worse, to Trina from Samul and Fanny from Ketcher.

  Fanny did not wake. She took off Fanny's shorts and briefs and strapped her into the toilet belt before fastening the 4D harness again. Finally, she buckled her 4D harness. All she could do noait for the superductors of the fusion core to drop below their critical temperature and they would be ready to start.

  The station's work was still transmitting through the dog adaptor. She sucked the data into her data dump, the ste each ship was carrying with the test news between the systems. This might be the st data update from here to reach Fallerian for some time. She could search through it ter for further clues. And also for an answer from Eli, should it e in time.

  She had routed the shipyard's life camera feeds to her unications sole. At 2729 an arm chimed. The door to the shipyard office was yanked out and a huge pitch-bck cat appeared in the doorframe. Even in the office light, it was mostly a bck outline, except for the bloody white cws and the rown upper white fangs, almost as long as her arms. Barely fitting through the doorway, the monster cat sniffed and roared. Well, the cameras did not record sound, but it was obvious. The monster cat did not look very intelligent.

  The superductors were not ready yet, but they better go now. "Bernie, release the UDA. And please make a backup of yourself, just in case. I will try to return as soon as possible. Take care."

  "Take care, Rerra, and thank you to Trina too. I will miss you two. It was too short a time."

  Then the UDA was released and with it the access. She fired the thruster just enough to slowly drift out of the airlock, they he power to start the fusion core as it was almost ready.