FREE STORIES 2012(51)

The Guild Master laughed.

"More like sixteen uses for you!" he said. "I figure to whittle it down to three, after I talk with people."

"The Academy's shuttle. . ." Kara protested, thinking of Cherpa in Berth Fourteen.

"I will send the key down on the station shuttle. Whomever the Academy chooses to take it down may ride the jump seat on the supply wagon."

"Details," pronounced the Guild Master, waving a bluff hand. "What the two of you need to do is get registered with the Station Master office. Soon's that's done, we can start getting some work out of you!"

"Indeed," said Pilot yos'Senchul, with a slight, comradely bow. "After you, Kara."

"Yes," she said, and turned to put Hevelin back among the greenery.





#





The Pilot handling her forms for the Station Master was called Fortch; his work blouse was that of a commercial transfer company. He looked her up and down before she announced herself, and then with a spark of interest when she did.

"ven'Arith, eh? I gather you've been expected for a day or so. Forms have been waiting – fill and sign and. . ."

Seeing her glance at his name and the Certified Pilot logo on his breast pocket, he nodded and tapped it with one finger.

"Company gave me my uniform the day the newest rules came down,” he told her as he checked her work. "All I needed was the paper. But you know what's happening, and I do: they say I'm no pilot until I get their paper. Can't get their paper 'cause my father's brother was suspected of being on the wrong side twenty years ago. I get to do some tugwork here, they put me in the pool. I help out here on the slow days." He sighed, glancing at the form screen. "At least you'll get a chance to pick yours up."

Kara nodded. Tugwork meant he was likely a third class, maybe an air pilot too – and that was hard. If his family went back for generations and was thought unreliable, he might never get work on-world.

There was a small chirp and he started nervously; and out of the air the order "Send in the new one, Fortch! Master Thelly's in a snit to get her on the job!"

The aide jerked his head at the inner door, and handed the forms back to her.

"Luck. Hope to catch you around."





#





She'd worked overshift – not unusual, and becoming more usual as she double-timed herself – working two full shifts, then cramming a class into her so-called rec shift. The class she was currently embroiled in, remote repair, required not only coursework, but board time, not with a sim, but with an actual remote, out on Codrescu's skin. Time and necessity being what they were, she had to grab her practice sessions betwixt and between. The work shifts today had gone long, whereby she had been late to log into class, and so last to take the remote.

The work had not been mere practice, but real work, resetting a trio of lock-anchors on Ten Rod Two, the arm that the Guild supply ship Zircon Sea was due to use. With the strangenesses attendant to Eylot's politics the Sea's technical and parts refills were much needed to make up for several quarters worth of back-orders, missing items, and out-and-out damaged-on-receipt goods. Given the state of supplies, she'd triple checked her work, and delayed herself more. . .

And now, she was starving.

At least there was an easy answer to that; very possibly the first easy answer she had been confronted with today.

She turned down the hall to the Hub Caf, ran her station card under the reader and picked up a tray.

Quickly, she onloaded soy soup, fresh salad, and a more-or-less fresh-baked roll, and a cup of lemon-water. She turned from the serving bar, expecting at this shift and hour to have her choice of tables – which wasn't. . .quite true.

There was only one other diner in the Caf – a man in coveralls much like those she wore. Uncharacteristically, his shoulders were hunched, his arms crossed on the table before him, his attention wholly on the screen before him.

Kara hesitated, took a breath and went forward. Comrades held duty to the well-being of each other; and even if they had not been comrades, she owed him the same sort of care he had shown for her.

"Orn Ald? May I join you?"

He looked up, and even in the dim lighting, she could see that his cheeks were wet.

For a Liaden to so far forget melant'i as to weep in public – that was appalling. That Orn Ald yos'Senchul should do so could signal nothing less than a cataclysm.

Kara clattered her tray to the table, staring at him.

"What has happened?"

For answer, he spun the screen.

She recognized the Eylot Gazette, the Liaden community's social newspaper, open to the death notices.

There was only one.

Lef Nal vin'Eved Clan Selbry, of injuries sustained during Anlingdin Academy Graduate Re-orientation camp. Selbry Herself stands as the instrument of his will. Clan and kin grieve.