you be doing until the Starwolves move off again?”
“I do not really know,” he admitted. “Just waiting.”
“Then you can wait with me,” Lenna said decisively. “My
buyer has been in port, and he payed me a small fortune, so I was going to
celebrate. Come along and I’ll buy you a beer.”
They were outside and marching down the street at a furious pace before
Velmeran knew what was going on. Lenna’s energy and enthusiasm was a bit
overpowering for a sedate Kelvessan; she made even the extroverted Consherra
seem quiet and shy. Still, Velmeran thought that he might go along with it.
There was something of a challenge to it; he wondered how long he could keep up
this game without giving himself away. He also wondered what Lenna’s
reaction would be to discovering that she was flirting so energetically with a
Starwolf.
“You would be hard-pressed to entertain yourself two days in this
place, much less two weeks,” Lenna continued briskly. “You need
someone to show you around. What do you say?”
“I might agree,” Velmeran replied. “If you tell me what
happened to your accent.”
“Ah, but my local tongue’s just to show my clients,” she
said, the accent back and thicker than ever. “Said I was of Trader stock.
Born and bred on a freighter, so I was. But I’ve lived here half of my
twenty-five years.”
He resorted to a fairly standard question. “Do you enjoy your
work?”
“The truth is, I fly a freight shuttle for the Trade Association, and
I love flying too well to give it up. I’d leave here in an instant to go
back to the Traders, but that isn’t likely.”
“Why not?”
“No formal training,” she said bitterly. “My father saw to
that.”
Before Velmeran could question that, Lenna directed him into a small
restaurant, hardly more than an indoor cafe, and sat him at a table by the front
window while she went to get drinks for the two of them.
“My father was local,” she began as she sat down. “But he
had no land and no herd, and there’s not much else you can do in this
place. But our treaty allows us to hire on in their military as civilian
technicians. Got his training that way, in drive mechanics. He stayed with
them four years, then came back here, married, and had a son. But the money
he’d saved soon ran out and his first wife left him. Then it happened
that an independent freighter came in and got stranded at port for want of
repairs her crew could not do, so he fixed her up. Being Kanian, he could take
G’s better than most, so they gave him a contract. Soon it looked like he
was settled in to stay.
“Then, one day, their ship was rammed by a tender as they were coming
in to station. Damage was slight, but my mother was gone. And my father was
very bitter about it. He flew back here and did his best to forget about
space... which was hard enough with me around, looking like a Trader. I was too
young to understand, and it seemed to me like he brought me here just to make
me miserable. Especially once my older brother came to live with us.”
“You could get the training you needed, just like your father
did,” he suggested hopefully.
Lenna shook her head sadly. “You have to be twenty-one to get Union
training, but you can’t travel off-world without parental permission
until you are twenty-one. Naturally, my father wouldn’t sign. I did get
flight training locally, enough to convince the Trade Association to hire
me on as an apprentice for a year until the old pilot retired.”
“Surely your father’s old texts... ?”
“Do you really think my father kept his books?” she asked.
“I was able to get the texts for helm and navigation, and I taught myself.
I know enough to get a ship from here to there. I’m certainly ready for
an apprenticeship on a Trader.”
Velmeran pointedly refused to answer that, for he knew only too well what
she was asking him. She thought him to be a Trader; in his rich dress and manner,
perhaps a senior officer or
“I do not really know,” he admitted. “Just waiting.”
“Then you can wait with me,” Lenna said decisively. “My
buyer has been in port, and he payed me a small fortune, so I was going to
celebrate. Come along and I’ll buy you a beer.”
They were outside and marching down the street at a furious pace before
Velmeran knew what was going on. Lenna’s energy and enthusiasm was a bit
overpowering for a sedate Kelvessan; she made even the extroverted Consherra
seem quiet and shy. Still, Velmeran thought that he might go along with it.
There was something of a challenge to it; he wondered how long he could keep up
this game without giving himself away. He also wondered what Lenna’s
reaction would be to discovering that she was flirting so energetically with a
Starwolf.
“You would be hard-pressed to entertain yourself two days in this
place, much less two weeks,” Lenna continued briskly. “You need
someone to show you around. What do you say?”
“I might agree,” Velmeran replied. “If you tell me what
happened to your accent.”
“Ah, but my local tongue’s just to show my clients,” she
said, the accent back and thicker than ever. “Said I was of Trader stock.
Born and bred on a freighter, so I was. But I’ve lived here half of my
twenty-five years.”
He resorted to a fairly standard question. “Do you enjoy your
work?”
“The truth is, I fly a freight shuttle for the Trade Association, and
I love flying too well to give it up. I’d leave here in an instant to go
back to the Traders, but that isn’t likely.”
“Why not?”
“No formal training,” she said bitterly. “My father saw to
that.”
Before Velmeran could question that, Lenna directed him into a small
restaurant, hardly more than an indoor cafe, and sat him at a table by the front
window while she went to get drinks for the two of them.
“My father was local,” she began as she sat down. “But he
had no land and no herd, and there’s not much else you can do in this
place. But our treaty allows us to hire on in their military as civilian
technicians. Got his training that way, in drive mechanics. He stayed with
them four years, then came back here, married, and had a son. But the money
he’d saved soon ran out and his first wife left him. Then it happened
that an independent freighter came in and got stranded at port for want of
repairs her crew could not do, so he fixed her up. Being Kanian, he could take
G’s better than most, so they gave him a contract. Soon it looked like he
was settled in to stay.
“Then, one day, their ship was rammed by a tender as they were coming
in to station. Damage was slight, but my mother was gone. And my father was
very bitter about it. He flew back here and did his best to forget about
space... which was hard enough with me around, looking like a Trader. I was too
young to understand, and it seemed to me like he brought me here just to make
me miserable. Especially once my older brother came to live with us.”
“You could get the training you needed, just like your father
did,” he suggested hopefully.
Lenna shook her head sadly. “You have to be twenty-one to get Union
training, but you can’t travel off-world without parental permission
until you are twenty-one. Naturally, my father wouldn’t sign. I did get
flight training locally, enough to convince the Trade Association to hire
me on as an apprentice for a year until the old pilot retired.”
“Surely your father’s old texts... ?”
“Do you really think my father kept his books?” she asked.
“I was able to get the texts for helm and navigation, and I taught myself.
I know enough to get a ship from here to there. I’m certainly ready for
an apprenticeship on a Trader.”
Velmeran pointedly refused to answer that, for he knew only too well what
she was asking him. She thought him to be a Trader; in his rich dress and manner,
perhaps a senior officer or
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