'Let me know if you do.' Astlyn nodded and withdrew, leaving me with Erelya.
'Now what?' I asked.
'You check the schedule on the pilot's screen - you can reach it from any console in Rykasha - and keep checking once you're back in Lyncol or wherever. You'll have at least
two weeks' notice, unless it's an emergency. You seem to fit with the Mambrino, and Berya likes you. So she'll probably stay as your second.' Erelya glanced at me. 'Unless you'd rather try someone else?'
'No. Berya and I seem to work well together. That's fine.'
Your third this trip - Durmak ... I have to debrief him to see how that will go.'
'He seemed edgy. I couldn't say why.'
'He just might be the edgy type. Or he might not be suited to continuing on as a needle officer.'
'Or I might make him edgy,' I pointed out.
'That's possible, too.' Erelya smiled. 'Now ... there's one other thing I want to make perfectly clear. If you sense anything unusual in overspace, you need to report it to me or Astlyn as soon as you return to Orbit Two.'
'Yes, ser.'
She smiled. 'Go catch the next shuttle planetside and get some rest - and keep in shape with Tomas or someone else.'
'Yes, ser.' I grinned at the senior pilot, wondering if Cerrelle were back from Dezret.
72
Life offers no theology. There is but music and dance.
Three insertions later, I found myself on Actean - the place where Fersonne had wanted to use her life-credits to settle. That thought struck me as I was leaving the orbit station with Berya.
We had a new third officer - Alek. He was more settled than Durmak had been, but he stayed on the station, for a time, to supervise unloading and loading, and would come down on one of the cargo runs to join us on the three-day layover.
Actean had enough of a planetary magnetic field that the orbit station used magshuttles, and I pulled myself into the shuttle behind Berya, but we both managed to straighten up and halt in time to avoid gliding into the dark-haired man who waited for us.
'Captain Tyndel,' offered the bearded shuttle pilot. 'Miletos Arachos. Miles for short. You been on Actean before?'
'No. I've spent most of my deep-space time out toward Omega Eridani.' That was true, if misleading; so I had to go on. 'I was a station tech before I was a pilot.'
'Good to see you here. You and Berya are the only passengers this run. Make yourselves comfortable. Be just a bit.' With a nod, he turned and closed the hatch.
'I didn't know about OE,' Berya murmured as we settled into the couches.
I had to grin. 'That was in the lowly position of mainte-lance tech.'
'Dzin masters are stubborn, I've heard.'
'Former Dzin masters.'
'Once a Dzin master, Astlyn said, always a Dzin master. [ think I believe him. When you take the Mambrino, Tyndel, fou are the ship. That only happens with Dzin or Toze masters.' A quick smile flashed across her face. 'They're [he only ones I'm comfortable with.'
'Who did you officer for before me?'
'Used to be Mru-Chin, but he retired after four centuries.'
'You've been at this a while? Miles already knew you.'
'Say ... half a century personal objective. I've been here a few times. He's one of their three shuttle pilots. Nice man. Has an interesting family.'
I'd sensed she favored me, but I was definitely flattered. You don't have to do this now, then - being a needle officer.'
'What else would I do? Besides, I enjoy it - under a solid captain, and new as you are, you're solid.'
'Please make sure your harnesses are secure.' After the announcement, and with a slight hum and a click, the shuttle eased away from the orbit station and down toward Actean. Through the ship's scanners, all I had been able to sense had been a Tee-type water world, nothing more, and I wondered what the planet itself might offer.
The upper atmosphere was rough, and several times we were thrown up against the harnesses before we reached the lower and smoother section of the descent. Usually, it was the other way around. Before long, the shuttle glided to a stop. The gravity felt good.
'We're here, folks. Actean tropical.' Miles stood in the hatchway between cockpit and cabin, a crooked smile across his dark-tanned face.
'Thank you, Miles.' I nodded.
'A little rougher than usual,' Berya noted.
'Surprised me, but there have been some flares.' The shuttle pilot shrugged. 'It does happen, but it's still smoother than with those fireboosters they use some places.'
Outside, forty meters from the magshuttle, in the bright and yet somehow hazy sunlight, stood a single building, a long and one-storied rectangular structure constructed of oversized reddish brown bricks and topped with a slatelike roof - except the slates were rusty-red. There was a slight heaviness, just a trace, that reminded me that the gravity on Actean was a shade higher than on earth, perhaps five percent, nothing that my system and beefed-up nanites couldn't handle, I hoped.
To the west of the strip was a long and low line of hills covered with trees that seemed to shade toward blue rather than green. I glanced northward, toward a taller range of mountains, glistening with white. The landing strip was practically equatorial. Actean, on average, was colder than earth, and although the tropical belt was quite temperate, the northern continents were anything but.
The sun held a shade of orange, and I called up what I knew. Actean ... fourth planet around Dyana ... G-3 with a mass of approximately 1.2 Sol... first planet terraformed through Brynk-Hezoff transformations .. .borderline for habitable zone ... required greenhouse screening ... four major continents ... one equatorial, one temperate, two polar ...
'Captain... new on this run?' The speaker who interrupted my reverie was a stocky and black-haired woman wearing a kind of uniform consisting of tan shorts and shirt, and hiking boots.
'Yes.' I grinned. 'I go where they send me.'
'I'm Malya. The needle officers' places are to the west, maybe four kilos, on the hill. I'll be the one to take you two there.' Malya glanced at Berya. 'You know the layout' My second officer nodded.
The cart was a fuel-cell-powered four-seater with a canopy-type roof and no sidewalls. Berya and I sat in the second seat, duffels in the open cargo bin behind us.
'Captain,' Malya said, not looking from the narrow, composite-paved path along which she guided the cart, 'you're welcome to walk wherever you want. The only things really dangerous are the local replizards, but they'll shy away from most people. They don't like the way we smell or taste. If you startle one, just back away slowly, but they're hard to miss. Bright red, and there's not much undergrowth. Both the local sheep and the lizards like to eat it. I'd wear long sleeves in the forest, though. Some folks have a reaction to some of the saps. They're Tee-derived, mostly, but they can give you a fierce itch and an infection that's hard even for nanites to deal with.' She shrugged. 'Other than that, Actean's a pleasant place.'
'Don't you get a lot of immigrants?'
'Not many. Life-credit cost to get here means you're either born here or you've been deep-space officers or crew. Good folks. The locals that aren't we send to the north continent.'
'It's not too pleasant there?'
'It keeps them out of trouble,' Malya answered.
The cart whined as it began to climb the inclined section of the path that angled upward along the tree-covered slope of a ridge. The trees closest to the path were no more than three or four meters tall and had low-spreading branches from which fanned wide spade-shaped leaves that were nearly as blue as green. The grass beneath was wiry, and I could see no undergrowth or bushes, even after we reached the ridge top.