The Crystal Variation by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

it couldn’t do much harm.”
    “Turn it?” That got his attention.
    “Right.” She raised her hand, showing palm. “Say the pilot was a fool, which I’m not saying she didn’t have her moments. Can’t say for certain if that was one of them, though, because the truth is she did turn it, playing easy meat, while I sat my board sweating and feeding everything I dared into the shields, which were peeling like old hull paint.”
    “So I’d think.”
    “We kept its attention until we was sure it was on course for Out-and-Away. Shields were just about gone by then, and I was starting to fear for the navigation brain, not to say the biologics, when the pilot decided we’d done what we could, and nipped us into transition.”
    “Transition,” he repeated. “Using what for reference points? If it can be told.”
    “Had the Rim beacons on long-scan, like I mentioned,” she lied glibly. “Did the math on the fly.”
    “I—see.” He had a go at his glass, and she did the same, to finish, and put the empty on the table.
    She’d come too close to a slip, she thought, half-irritated and half-regretful. Time to be moving on, before she got any stupider.
    “I want to thank you,” she said formally, and his Deeps-black gaze flicked to her face. “For your companionship. The time was pleasant and informative. Now, I must take myself off.”
    She stood, leaving the embrace of the chair with a pang. Paused for one last listen of the singing water—and very nearly blinked as the other pilot came to his feet.
    “As it happens, it’s time for me to leave, too,” he said blandly, and moved a hand toward the curtained exit. “Please, Pilot. After you.”
    PILOT CANTRA was an interesting case, Jela thought, following that lady down the tiled hallway toward the foyer and the front door. The tale about turning the world-eater had rung true, though there had been, he had no doubt, a certain few tricky facts greased in the telling.
    She wasn’t being easy to file, either. He’d’ve said prosperous free trader, from the quality of the ‘skins and the fact that she was eating at a subdued place on the high end of mid-range. On the other hand, there was that story and the easy-seeming familiarity with the Rim—and beyond. According to his considerable information, Rimmers had a flexible regard for such concepts as laws, ownership, and what might be called proscribed substances. Not that all Rimmers were necessarily pirates. Just that none of the contributors to the reports he’d been force-fed had ever met one who technically wasn’t.
    Given that she wasn’t at all who he’d been expecting—he’d been expecting Pilot Muran, who was now some local days overdue for their rendezvous—he counted himself not unlucky in the encounter. She was a fine-looking woman—tall, lithesome, and he didn’t doubt, tough. Her weapon was quiet, but there for those who knew how to look—and he appreciated both the precaution and her professionalism.
    He’d entertained the notion that she might be somebody sent on by Muran, when he found himself unable—and dismissed it when the meal took its course and she failed to produce either code words or a message from the tardy pilot.
    That she was only a pilot who had wanted company over her meal—that seemed certain, and he made a mental note to chew himself out proper for supposing that any pilot who would choose such a restaurant would come complete with co-pilot, client, or companion. Getting civilians into soldier trouble, that was bad.
    Though there was no guarantee that there was or would be trouble, he thought, trying that notion on for not the first time. Muran being late—that could be explained by a couple things short of catastrophe.
    Muran not sending a reason or a replacement—that couldn’t. Jela sighed silently and owned to himself that he was worried.
    Pilot Cantra had reached the curtain, swept it away with one long arm and stepped to a side, holding the doorway clear