Transport craft weren't plentiful in the Qudira system, and it would be a few impatient hours before one arrived. During that time Sura realised that the Council would want to know why the Gerijkls had visited; she left the same story she had told Janice with them, mildly surprised that they hadn't already contacted her about it. If they were busy, and typically disorganised, they might not have found the time yet. She hoped to be away before anyone started becoming too curious.
The town's landing pad was simply a bare concrete area with a few decrepit warehouses on its perimeter. Sura had been automatically notified of the shuttle's approach, and was waiting at the pad when it landed. Squinting into the sky, she eventually noticed the sun reflecting off a small object, gradually growing clearer as it descended.
The Worm class landing craft touched down in a puff of dust, and sat there, skulking in the heat. With a shrug Sura walked towards it, trying to disguise her mild nervousness at leaving the ground for the first time in her life.
When she was within fifteen feet of the small vessel a door near the front of the small craft slid open, although it still left her with quite a step up into it. Placing her left foot onto the edge of the step, she drew a breath and pushed herself into the craft.
Inside it was cool, cold to her way of feeling. Ahead of her a window with a slot beneath it looked into the cockpit. Inside was a mess. One of the two seats was unoccupied by anything other than discarded food and drink containers, in the other slouched a fat, scaly creature, watching her with apparent dull disinterest.
"You Sura Elleran?" it slurred at her.
"Yes," she replied, tentatively.
"Got any ID?"
"None of your business," Sura announced firmly.
"Can't take you without ID."
"No offence meant, but as first impressions go yours isn't one to inspire trust. Look outside. There's no- one else waiting. You'll get paid."
The creature grunted. "Pay up front, then."
"No."
"Then get out."
"No. And if I do you're guaranteed to get nothing."
The pilot mumbled to itself for several minutes. Sura could not catch the words, or was even certain that there was any coherent meaning in the noises it was making. She was instinctively distrustful of anything she didn't know well. That was what life on Qudira taught you to be, and the anxiety brought on by what she was about to do added to it. If the pilot was pragmatic enough to see that she posed no danger, and satisfied that it would get its money, then she would soon be on her way into orbit. She expected it would be.
At last the pilot seemed to reach a decision. "OK," it grumbled. "But I'm not letting you off my ship until I've got my money. And don't expect me to help you if there's any trouble. If someone's after you they can have you."
Suspicious bastard. Then again, she hadn't helped to make the pilot have any other view about her. Another door, to her right, opened, providing access to a small cabin.
The cabin was claustrophobic, with no external windows and a slightly unpleasant smell. The only furniture were two rows of three bare seats, belts dangling from them, and the ever-present mess. Faded posters decorated the walls, advertising this or that or announcing unread lists of regulations. A blank screen was set flush with the front wall, a row of buttons beneath it. Hints of lettering were present on the buttons, but they had long ago been rubbed away past legibility.
The pilot's voice came tinny through a speaker somewhere near the ceiling. "Strap yourself in," it ordered her. Without waiting for any sign of compliance the ship began to vibrate. Sura quickly brushed the rubbish off the cleanest-looking seat and pulled the belts over her. They locked at her front, just in time as the Worm left the ground with a sickening lurch.
The first few minutes of the flight were disquieting, the ship vibrating and rocking about unpredictably. Desire of the ground assailed her, or at least desire of not being locked in a shaking box with no view of anything outside. The acceleration pulled the belts against her, digging into her side and shoulder.
"Pilot!" she yelled. There was no reply.
Gradually the bucking passage of the ship ceased. Sura fumbled with the catch on the seat belts. It remained locked down.
"No..." she breathed, the fright of the initial flight being replaced by a new panic. A deliberate retaliation for her unpleasant manner with the pilot? The belt catch appeared to contain purely mechanical components; the pilot could hardly have deliberately locked it from the cockpit. Other facts and rumours crept insidiously into her mind. People went missing in systems such as Qudira. The security of her home had sheltered her from the worst of the place, and the worst was often found in space. Step into a ship, find yourself captured in it, without any effort from your captor. Then what? Whatever fate anyone foolish enough to step into such a trap deserved, she thought. Slavery, or worse.
Once again she yanked at the catch, and this time it gave. She nearly sobbed in relief as she shook the belts free from her body. Just a stiff mechanism, hardly surprising considering the general state of the vessel. For some moments Sura did nothing, only breathed deeply, calming herself down, trying to refrain from listening to the quiet voice telling her that she was still trapped, on the spacecraft.
With the movement eased she stood, massaging the shoulder where the belt had bit her with her opposite hand. There was little to explore in the unkempt cabin. The faded and tattered posters were uninteresting, and if the monitor worked then there were no instructions on how to coax it into life. Sura tried a few of the buttons, at random.
To her surprise the screen came lit up. The camera appeared to be mounted on the hull - part of it occupied the bottom of the picture, although where on the ship this was was unclear. Apart from a piece of duralium the view was empty, dark space. They had left the atmosphere, at least.
More random button pressing revealed a rear-facing vista. Sura watched it in awe. The ship had angled away from the vertical relative to its take-off point, and the vast curve of the planet, edged by an atmospheric blur, stook out starkly from the inkiness behind. The sweep of continents was, in places, partially obscured by dust storms and weak cloud formations. A darker smudge may have been the sign of the rare areas of forest.
Sura had, of course, seen pictures and videos of her home world, but knowing the view was taken from the point where you were standing was a different matter altogether. Her concerns faded away slightly, replaced by a different one. That of a window from which to view the planet with her own eyes, without electronics intervening.
Gradually the view changed. The edge of the disc started to curve more sharply, and to sink off the bottom of the camera's view. Whatever buttons she pressed she was unable to find anything other than the fore and aft scenes, and now these provided nothing of interest.
The ship flew on, and Sura waited impatiently. She had brought nothing with her with which to pass the time; that had not been foremost on her mind when she had gathered together a few things for the excursion off world.
The artificial gravity systems of the Worm were, at best, rudimentary - that had already been proven by the rough ascent, unless the pilot had been deliberately discomforting her, and could not completely disguise course and speed changes. When the ship suddenly swung through ninety degrees she felt it, and the floor of the cabin seemed to have changed angle from flat to slightly inclined. The monitor was sitting on rear view, and the stars were gently spinning. She changed it to the forward view.