Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Four

"You can wait," Chief Tactical Officer Fisk Hurun said to the two marines in front of him. "Range is occupied."

"We booked - ouch!" Private Helmi Alpassi turned and glared at her squad-mate. "What was that for?"

Private Visa Honka turned a bland, innocent gaze to her, exactly as if he hadn't just elbowed her in the ribs. "Nothing," he said. "We'll wait, sir."

Alpassi sighed, and followed Honka as he walked a little way away to lean against the wall. "We booked." she hissed.

"CTO's outside, Pilot's in there," Honka said "Pilot's in there, we wait. Booking or not."

"Fine. For how long?"

Honka shrugged. "Until she's done. Or we're due back."

Alpassi sighed again. She leaned back against the wall and balanced on her heels, listening to the dull report of gunshots from inside the range. The shots came in long bursts, as if who-ever was firing was emptying the clip in one go and then reloading. "Sounds like she's just blazing away," she said. "Hurun should tell her to pick her targets."

"Mind your own business and let the CTO mind his," Honka advised.

"Fine." Alpassi stared at her toes and listened to the gunfire. "But she'll -"

"Mind your own -"

"Business, I know."

Alpassi had counted the rivets in the opposite bulkhead five times, multiplied them by the number of joins in the deckplating between where she stood and the range door and found the square root of the result to eighteen decimal places before the gunfire stopped. She straightened up and stood at attention as the door opened, seeing Honka do the same from the corner of her eye.

"Pilot," Hurun said, saluting.

"Fisk, thank you," the pilot said. "At e - stand easy. Please. All of you."

"Yes'm. Was everything to your requirements, m'm?" Hurun asked.

"Yes, thank you." Pilot Roth handed a small blaster pistol gingerly to the CTO. "Oh, have you been waiting? I'm sorry - "

"They don't mind, m'm," Hurun said.

The pilot still looked worried as she turned to the two marines. "I am sorry. I hope you haven't been here too long."

"No, m'm," Honka said promptly.

"All right then," the pilot said.

As she passed the two marines Alpassi was almost certain the pilot's eyes were red-rimmed, her eyelashes wet.

And wondered what Pilot Roth saw in the target silhouette, that took a full clip to kill. 

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Three

"You going to get that scan done?" Gerij asked. "Significance?"

Ricardo shrugged. "Have to, don't I? If I want to stay with the ship." He stacked the last of the dishes in the washer and kicked it closed.  

Gerij hauled a pot out of its cabinet and paused. "Do you think it hurts?"  

"Medics say not," Ricardo said, pressing the button to get the washer going.  

"Medics always say not," Gerij pointed out.  

Ricardo started taking the packs that held the ingredients of the day's main meal for alter-day crew out of the freezer. "All I know is, it means we don't die when the ship goes into little pieces out somewhere the back of beyond. I'm in favour of that."

"But we  do die," Gerij said. He set the pot on the stove and turned. "That's the point of it. We die, and then they wake up the back-up."

"It'll be all the same to us. Lose a few weeks, maybe, depending on the timing." Ricardo cut open a packet and poured the contents into the pot, wrinkling his nose at the sight of the grey-brown slurry that the label claimed to be beef protein.  

"I don't know if I want to," Gerij said. "I mean, the Amarr say, it means you lose your soul."

"Amarr say a lot of stuff," Ricardo said, adding so-called 'potatoes' to the so-called 'beef'.  

"Maybe they're right. I don't think it's fair of Pilot to make everybody do it, whether they like it or not."

"Nobody's making you do anything. Hand me the spicer, will you?"

Gerij fetched the giant can marked  Flavour and handed it over. "It's a condition of employment."

"So find another job. Or work dockside for her. You know she's said she'll put anyone on cargo crew who'd rather." Ricardo up-ended the spicer and banged the bottom several times.  

"Still..."

"Look," Ricardo said, setting the spicer down with a thump. "Say you had a choice. You're going to get hit on the head. Would you like it to give you two week's amnesia, or kill you?"

"It's not the same," Gerij protested.  

"it's  exactly the same as far as you'll know," Ricardo said. 

"Maybe..."

"Just don't think about it too much. And pass me the 'onions', would you?"

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Two

"Level 19, E Ring, Section 3 secure," Private First Class Johan Legeen reported. 

Private Helmi Alpassi jogged back up the corridor. "Level 19, E Ring, Section 4 secure,"  

"Level 19, E Ring, Section 2 secure," Private Visa Honka said.  

Corporal Satu Weilin raised her comlink to her mouth. "Squad Three reporting, 19-E two-to-three secure."

She waited for the acknowledgement and then jerked her head toward the next sector.

"Checking door-latches isn't what I thought I'd be doing when I enlisted," Alpassi grumbled as the squad followed.  

"CTO says ship's security includes safety procedures, you check door latches," Honka said.  

"CTO? Fancy name for a Gunny," Alpassi said.  

Honka slowed his pace a little, turning to look at her. "It's not a big ship and it's not a military one. But it's a good berth."

"If you don't mind the ghost," Legeen said.  

"Ghost?" Alpassi asked.

"There's no ghost," Weilin said. "Little hustle there, people. You wanna stand around talking all night and do your job in your off time?"

The three marines picked up their pace.  

"What's this ghost?" Alpassi hissed to Legeen.  

"Stories the crew tell," Legeen said, and shrugged. "All ships have them."

"So not a real ghost?"

"You believe in all that?" Legeen sneered.  

"No, of course not!" Alpassi said.  

They came to the next junction and split up again, each taking a separate corridor and jogging down it, checking the latches on every door and stowage, scanning the floor for any dropped tools, loose bolts or anything else that might have escaped a crew-member's pocket and attention and that a fluctuation in the intertials could turn into a deadly high-V missile.  

Alpassi's right, Legeen thought as he finished and turned back toward the junction. This is work for maintenance patrol, not marines. But Honka's right too. It's a good berth, and there's not enough call for military work to keep us busy. And orders are orders.

"So have you  seen the ghost?" Alpassi asked as they met at the junction. 

"They're just stories," Legeen said. "Every ship has them."

"What do the stories say?"

Legeen shrugged. "Erin Tan down in Engineering saw a gunnery crewmember during mainday shift walk right through the reactor wall and disappear." He laughed at the look on Alpassi's face. " Erin also saw the ghost of her father playing poker in the crew mess. Erin sees something, doesn't make it true."

"So the ship isn't haunted?" Alpassi asked.

Legeen shook his head. "No way. There's no ghost."

"I've seen her." Honka's voice made them both jump and turn.  

"Seeing things, Visa?" Legeen said, grinning. "You should see the doc about that."

"I've seen her." There was a quiet certainty to Honka's words that sobered Legeen. "Down on Third. Forward of D Ring."

"You've - forward of D Ring?" Legeen said. "Just past main cargo?"

"That's right."

"That's what everyone says. Forward of D Ring, just past main cargo. Where the holo-emitters are, that Pilot uses to talk to the crew sometimes?" Legeen said. "You didn't see a ghost. You saw Pilot testing the system."

"No," Honka said.  

"We were on an op, right?"

"Yeah."

Legeen nodded. "Same as everyone else. No one sees it when Pilot's not in pod. You just saw her initialising the holo-address system or something."

"Wasn't Pilot," Honka said firmly. "Wasn't anybody alive."

"How do you figure that?" Alpassi asked.

Honka paused, and then whispered: "She was on  fire."

"Glitch in the system. Some kind of shimmy in the buffer." Legeen's voice was less certain.

"I know what I saw."

"I know what you will be seeing if you don't quit gabbing and start walking," Weilin said. "Stars. Report."

"Level 19, E Ring, Section 5 secure."

"Level 19, E Ring, Section 7 secure."

"Level 19, E Ring, Section 6 secure."

Weilin nodded, and said into her comlink: "Squad Three - 19-E five-to-seven secure." She turned back to her squad. "You guys wanna tell ghost stories, there's a time and a -  attention."

The three marines came to attention, spines straightening automatically at the order, eyes fixed straight ahead, as Weilin snapped a salute to someone in the corridor behind them.

"Oh, please," a woman's voice said, the slightly blurred consonants of her Gallente accent familiar to all of them from countless on-board announcements. "You don't need to - um, 'at ease'?"

Thump - four left feet hit the deckplating in unison. Slap - four pairs of hands locked together behind four backs. 

The pilot stepped gingerly past Honka to stand in front of the marines. "Um, I'm not sure that's what I meant?" she said with an apologetic smile.  

"Ma'am!" Weilin said, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. "Did you mean 'stand easy', ma'am?"

"Okay, stand easy, please?" the pilot said.  

Weilin and her squad obediently loosened their posture a little and the pilot smiled in relief.  

"Is everything all right down here, Satu?" she asked.

"Ma'am, yes ma'am! All secure!"

The pilot winced a little. "Well, good. Thank you. Um ... carry on?"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" Weilin said, saluting again.  

"You really don't need to do that," the pilot mumbled, looking up at the corporal towering over her.  

"Ma'am, sorry, ma'am! Force of habit, ma'am!"

The pilot patted Weilin gently on the arm. "I understand. It's okay." She ducked her head shyly, and turned back up the corridor.  

The four marines watched her go until she turned a corner.

"Stand easy,  please?" Alpassi said incredulously.

Weilin looked at her levelly. "You haven't had 'the talk' yet, have you?"

"'The talk'?"

"From the XO."

"No," Alpassi said. "Ordered to report to her tomorrow, matter of fact."

Weilin nodded. "Well, she'll tell you a few things. About how it works on the  Fortune's Smile."

"Like?" Alpassi asked curiously.

"Like Pilot Roth doesn't like giving orders, but that doesn't mean we don't take 'em," Honka supplied.  

"Doesn't like giving orders? How does the ship run, then?" Alpassi asked.  

"Ship runs because she says 'please' and we hear 'on the double'," Weilin said. "She says 'if it's not too much trouble' and we hear 'RFN'." She looked at Alpassi's raised eyebrows. "Look. We all came on board the same way. I  know you did because I was on the boarding party that hauled you off that transport about thirty seconds before the hull went. I'm prepared to accommodate quite a few quirks in my CO for that. Suggest you be, too."

"It's not like Pilot wants us all to sign up to the Federation militia or nothing," Legeen said. "She wants to pretend that we're all friends and all she does is offer suggestions?" He shrugged. "I'll play along."

"Funny way to run a battlecruiser," Alpassi said.  

Weilin gave a thin smile. "Not the weirdest kink I've ever heard of in a podder, by a light year," she said. "Give her a year, she'll be just like the rest of 'em. Meanwhile, just don't go thinking that Pilot's 'good manners' extend past the control room doors. XO Kamajeck says jump, you don't even ask how high until you're in the air. Just a piece of advice."

Alpassi nodded. "Okay," she said.

Weilin looked her in the eye. "One more thing. Don't talk about that spirits-lost  ghost, you hear? Nobody needs spooked crew when the shields are down and the armour's going."

"Sure," Alpassi said. "Sure, ma'am, I won't."

"All right, then. We've still got eighteen sections to check." Weilin started to turn, then looked back at her squad and grinned. "And dont think you'll be getting an 'if you don't mind' from  me."

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: One

Nerila Janianial leaned against the bulkhead in main engineering and watched Michael Mitcheson tightening the fasteners on the cover of the afterburner control unit. From the steady stream of obscenities he muttered under his breath as he worked it was a tricky job. Nerila folded her arms and waited for an opportunity to interrupt. 

Mitch dropped his wrench, stooped to pick it up and glanced over his shoulder. "You just here to watch me bend over?" he asked. "Or can I help you with something?"  

Nerila grinned. "Not that I mind the view," she said. "But I came down to ask you to run the diagnostics on the capsule biotelemetry again."

"That'll be the fourth time since Sunday," Mitch said, turning back to his work. "You think I've been doing it wrong?"

Nerila shook her head. "No. But those readings ... either they're a ghost, or there's a problem. I'm really hoping they're a ghost."

"Ghost?" Mitch asked. He dropped his wrench back in his toolbox and turned to look at her, wiping oil off his hands with a rag. "You believe in all that? Spirits of the dead, wandering around spaceships?"

Nerila laughed. "No. I mean - you see something on your sensors sometimes that isn't there?"

"Sure. Sensor shadow." Mitch shrugged. "Interference, maybe."  

"Ghost in the machine," Nerila said.  

"Nah," Mitch said. "Not in the diagnostics. I'da seen it by now. No shadows, no 'ghosts'. The circuits are clean."

"Okay then," Nerila said.  

Mitch stuffed the rag back into his pocket and started packing up the rest of his tools. "What kind of problem you think we have?"  

"Not 'we'," Nerila corrected.  

"Pilot's problems are everybody's problems when the ship's out of dock," Mitch said. He studied her a second. "Maybe you're reading the telemetry wrong, think of that? Maybe check with a real doctor?"

"I  am a real doctor," Nerila said.

"Crew manifest says otherwise," Mitch said, but without spite. "Says 'Acting'. Says 'unlicensed'."

"I  had a licence," Nerila said. "Piece of paper to prove I could do the job. Losing the licence doesn't mean I can't still do what I could do before."

Mitch shrugged. "Depends on why you lost the licence, dunnit?" he said.  

"You already know the headline version," Nerila said. She unfolded her arms and ticked off on her fingers: "Got my licence, got a habit, went to work for the Syndicate. Got caught, lost my licence, lost my habit. Here I am."

"I heard Pilot was going to pull some strings, sort that out," Mitch said.

Nerila shrugged. "Pilot's going to sort everything out in the Cluster,  she thinks. Can't get anything done that way. First thing I learnt when I started out: you got a medbay full of people screaming and bleeding, you can't try to fix them all at the same time. You have to decide what you're after, and look straight at it, and not look anywhere else 'till it's done."

"What are you looking straight at now, then?" Mitch asked.  

Nerila grinned. "Looking straight at you, Michael Mitcheson."  

He met her gaze, one corner of his mouth twitching in response. "Any particular reason?"

"It's a year today since I became a free woman," Nerila said. "Wanna come help me celebrate? Find somewhere on this station where we can get a drink and dinner and maybe dance a little. Even Lai Dai Caldari must pull that pole out of their posterior occasionally."

"Dinner and dancing, maybe," Mitch said. "I gotta stay off the booze, though. Luisa will tear me a new one if I get into another fight."

"You fight because you been drinking, or you drink as an excuse to get in a fight?" Nerila asked.

"You nosey because you're a medico, or you become a medico to give you an excuse to be nosey?"

Nerila shrugged. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other."

"Well, snap." Mitch tossed his toolbox in a locker and shut it firmly. "Make you a deal. I won't throw any punches if you'll keep the inquisition to a minimum."

"Sounds fair," Nerila said. "So, you coming? No time like the present."  

"The XO will have our hides if she hears about this," Mitch said. "You're the CMO, I'm the Chief Engineer - you know what she thinks of ship-board romances."

"Who said anything about romance?" Nerila said. "It's my  medical opinion that you're due for a complete physical. And Idefinitely need an oil change."

Mitch grinned. "Good thing I kept my certifications up to date, then," he said.  

Nerila smiled back. "Lucky for  both of us, I'd say." 

Nerila turned toward the door. She didn't need to look back to know Mitch followed.

A Boy And His (Stuffed) Slaver

"Are you scared, sweetie?" Jamie's mom asked. "There's nothing to be scared about."

Jamie looked up at her. "I know," he said stoutly. "I'm not scared. But Savie is a bit nervous."

His mom reached down to pat the stuffed toy Jamie clutched. Savie had once born some resemblance to a slaver hound, but years of Jamie's love and devotion had worn off most of the fur and battered the stuffing until Savie was unidentifiable to anyone but him.  

"Don't worry, Savie," Jamie's mom said. "Someone will be here soon to take us home."

"You hear that?" Jamie whispered. "Someone will be here soon. There's nothing to worry about, Savie. Everything's going to be fine."

He could tell from the sick cold feeling in his stomach that Savie wasn't reassured.  Can't blame him, Jamie thought. If I didn't know better, I'd be scared. Looking around the cabin made him guess that maybe some of the grown-ups didn't know better either. A lot of them were really pale, and some were praying, and some were crying, too. 

His watch told him it was already an hour past the time the passenger ship was supposed to arrive at the station in Torrinos where Gramma was going to meet them. Jamie hoped that Gramma would know there was nothing to worry about.  She probably does. Gramma had been working on space ships since before Jamie was born. She'd know that, like Jamie's mom had told him, sometimes there's a little hiccup in the engines and the ship has to wait for someone to come and give it a jump start.

Then he remembered that his mom had said they were going to surprise Gramma for her birthday.  So she won't know we're late, even. Jamie figured that was good Gramma wouldn't worry, even if Savie didn't like the idea that Gramma didn't know where they were, or that they might need help with the engine. 

"Do we have to wait much longer?" Jamie asked. "I'm getting really hungry. And it's  cold."

"Not much longer," his mom said with a funny kind of smile that Jamie hadn't seen before. "It'll be all over soon."

Soon for his mom didn't mean the same as it did to him and Savie, Jamie decided after he watched another half-an-hour tick past on his watch. He looked up to ask her again but as he did there was a loud noise from outside the cabin. 

"What - ?" Jamie started to ask.

His mom grabbed him and held him tight, tight enough to hurt. "Quiet, Jamie, keep quiet now."

"But is that someone coming to help us?" he whispered. "Savie wants to know!"

Another loud noise, and this time the cabin shook a little bit at the same time. A man nearby screamed. Jamie's mom hung on to him, and he didn't mind, even if she was squishing Savie. Savie didn't mind either, as more noise and more banging and shaking and people screaming and crying made Savie and Jamie both think that maybe there might be something to worry about after all.

Maybe everything isn't going to be fine .

"Is someone shooting us, mom?" he asked.  

"I love you very much, Jamie, more than anything, you know that don't you?" Gwen said.  

Savie wanted Jamie to ask her  Are we going to die? but Jamie didn't. He knew, even if Savie didn't, that some questions aren't the kind you want to have answered. 

Suddenly the banging and shaking stopped. It took a minute for everyone to realise and for the noise of all the grown-ups crying and screaming and praying loud to die down. Then it was quiet for a little bit. Jamie was just opening his mouth to ask his mom what was going to happen next when there was a metallic crunching sound from just outside the cabin door.  

"It's the Blooders! They're boarding!" a woman screamed.

"Blow the locks, blow the locks!" someone else yelled.

Jamie's mom hugged him and pressed his face against her shoulder but he wiggled around enough so he could look in the direction of the cabin door. Savie was too scared to look, because Jamie had told him all about the Blooders after some older kids at school had been talking about them, but Jamie figured that he might as well see what they looked like. He hadn't heard anywhere that the Blooders wouldn't take you unless you looked at them, after all. 

The handle of the door started glowing, and then got really bright and just dropped off on to the floor, and the door flew open so fast it bounced against the wall. Jamie expected to see scary people in robes with knives through the door, like in the stories, but instead a tall man in power-armour stepped into the cabin.

"Everybody calm down," the man said. "We're marines off the  Fortune's Smile and we're here to take you into the station. Come this way, nice and orderly."

Jamie's mom picked him up and hurried towards the door as everyone else started rushing forward as well. Savie got scared as the people pushed and shoved Jamie's mom, all of the trying to be first out the door.  

A couple more marines came through the door and started trying to make people slow down. The man who'd spoken first reached into the crowd and grabbed hold of Jamie's mom and Jamie and Savie all together and hauled them out of the crush. Jamie wanted to thank him but before he could the marines hurried them through the door and along the same kind of flexible corridor they'd walked through to get on the ship in the first place, except this one was stuck on the wall where Jamie was sure there hadn't been a door before.  

At the other end of it was a huge room, almost empty except for some boxes and cargo cans at one end, and some more people waiting for them, but wearing uniforms instead of power-armour. Jamie's mom carried him all the way across the room before she put him down and then she knelt down beside him, still hugging him tight. Jamie watched as all the rest of the people from the passenger ship came through the corridor, followed by the marines. The marines sealed up the door behind them and Jamie could see one of them talking even though there wasn't anybody near for him to talk to.  

The room made the funny little jump and shimmy that meant it was on a ship and the ship was going into warp. Someone started cheering, and then everybody was, so Jamie joined in. It made so much noise that at first he didn't hear the woman speaking.  

".... Roth's  Fortune's Smile," she was saying in a voice that didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular, a calm, reassuring voice like the nurse at school when a kid got hurt playing, except with a funny kind of accent Jamie hadn't heard before. "I apologise for the quality of the accommodations, but it wont be for long. We're inbound to Torrinos IV Lai Dai Station, docking expected in less than five minutes. If you have injuries, please make yourself known to CMO Janianial, she's the one raising her hand right now."

Jamie looked and saw one of the people in uniform, a woman with dark, dark skin and long black hair, holding her hand up in the air. He stared at her, trying to decide if she was pretty or not. Then she smiled, a big smile that made her eyes squinch almost closed, and he decided that she wasn't pretty after all but that if he was sick, she was the doctor he'd like to have.  

He was so busy staring at her that it wasn't until his mom let go of him and jumped to her feet to run across the room that Jamie realised that one of the other people in uniform was his Gramma.

Gramma grabbed hold of Jamie's mom almost as hard as Jamie's mom had held on to him when the loud noises had started on the passenger ship. Jamie ran over to them and Gramma reached out a hand and pulled him into the hug. 

"What are you even doing in this system, Gwen?" Gramma asked.

Jamie's mom was smiling and crying at the same time. "I wanted to surprise you," she said. "Happy birthday! Surprise!"

Gramma gave the laugh she had that didn't make her face change expression at all, the one Jamie had tried to practice in the mirror but couldn't get right. "Surprise is right. Surprise for the Blooders, too. I've got to see to ship's business, hon, so you sit yourself down over there and wait, okay?"

Jamie's mom nodded and took him back over to the wall. They sat down on the cold metal floor together and waited. After a little while there was another set of metal clanging noises and people started cheering again even before the woman with the accent told them all that the ship was docked and secure.  

Instead of going to get off the ship straight-away like Jamie had expected, everyone still stood around waiting. They were all looking at the big doors at the back of the room, so Jamie looked there too.  

The doors whooshed open and another one of the people in uniform came through, a woman with her hair all wet like she'd just been swimming. The size of the doors made her look really small, and then Jamie realised as she walked up to Gramma that she  was pretty small. He didn't think she looked all that old enough to be on a space-ship either, more like the girls in the most senior grade at school except without the make-up they wore. Her skin was darker than theirs was too, although not as dark as the not-pretty doctor. 

Then Gramma and the woman turned to walk towards some of the people from the passenger ship and Jamie saw the glint of metal on the back of her neck, up high where it was mostly hidden by her hair. Then he remembered what Gramma had said in one of her mails about her new pilot.  I've got shoes older than this one, she'd said. 

"See that, Savie?" Jamie said. "She's a  pilot."

The pilot and Gramma took a long time talking to all the other people before they finally turned and walked towards Jamie and his mom, while behind them the other passengers and the people in uniforms started filing out of the big doors.

"Pilot," Gramma said, "This is my daughter, Gwen, and my grand-son Jamie."  

"I'm pleased to meet you both," the pilot said, and Jamie realised that the voice in the air with the accent had been  her voice, except it had sounded more grown-up before, like a teacher almost.

"Thank you so much for what you did," Jamie's mom said, her voice sounding a bit funny. "Pilot Roth, we'll always - "

The pilot got a bit red in the face. "Please, you don't need to - " she interrupted. Jamie supposed that you were allowed to do rude things like interupt people if you were a pilot. "And please, call me Cia, even if I can't get Luisa to."

"Never called my captain by their first name, never will," Gramma said firmly. The pilot looked sideways at her with a twist of her mouth that made her look a lot like Jamie's mom did sometimes.

"Are you  Gramma's pilot?" Jamie asked the pilot.

Jamie's mom made a shushing noise at him but the pilot crouched down in front of Jamie, so he could look right at her. Up close he thought she looked a lot like her voice sounded - pretty in a foreign kind of way, soft and quiet. "I am," she said. "I'm Cia. And you're Jamie, right? And who's this?"  

"This is Savie," Jamie said. "He was scared before. But he isn't now."

"Well, that's good," the pilot said gravely. "I'm glad he's not scared now."

"He gets scared of things a  lot," Jamie confided. "He's silly that way."

The pilot smiled, and leaned closer. "Will you tell him a secret for me?" When Jamie nodded, the pilot whispered in his ear, "I get scared of things a lot, too."  

Jamie stared at her, and she nodded solemnly. "It's true. Swear by Fortune - er, by my ancestors."

"Oh," Jamie said. He thought the pilot looked sadder than anyone ever right then, even though she was smiling at him. "Don't feel bad about that, Cia," he said impulsively. "I get scared of things too, even things that don't scare Savie. Like - sometimes I'm scared of the dark, and Savie has to tell me to be brave."

"Really?" the pilot said. "That's funny, Jamie, because when it's dark is when I get scared too."  

Jamie looked down at Savie. He really didn't want to, but he knew it was the right thing to do. After all, the pilot had saved them, not just from having a broken engine but from the Blood Raiders too.  

He took a deep breath and reluctantly held Savie out to the pilot. "Would you like Savie to stay with you? So you can be brave in the dark?"

The pilot took Savie gently in both hands. Jame watched, already sorry he'd said it. As the pilot looked at Savie Jamie realised just how old and worn and ugly Savie had got over the years. He felt his throat get hot and tight as he imagined how silly Savie must look to a pod-ship pilot.  

The the pilot looked up at Jamie again and smiled, and Jamie realised that even if she was foreign-looking she was beautiful, more than even Ms Haistij who taught Art, almost as beautiful as Jamie's mom.  

"Thank you, Jamie," the pilot said very seriously. "I bet he'd help me a lot. But I'm worried that I wouldn't have time to look after  him when he got scared. And that wouldn't be any good, would it? Maybe you could take care of him for me until I really, really need him one day, okay?"

"Okay," Jamie said. "You can tell Gramma when that is, okay?"

The pilot nodded, and gave Savie back to Jamie carefully, as if Savie was the most valuable thing she'd ever touched, instead of just an old stuffed toy that had lost one ear and both eyes a long time ago. Then she held out her hand for Jamie to shake, just like he was a grown-up. "Deal," she said.

Jamie put his hand in hers. Her fingers were cool and soft, like a little baby's hand, and Jamie remembered what he'd heard, about pilots being born again in new, grown-up bodies every now and then. He wondered how often that had happened to  thispilot, and if that was why her blue eyes were sad even when she was smiling. 

He put that thought away to ask Gramma later as the grown-ups said goodbye to each other and Gramma herded Jamie and his mom toward the big doors out.  

At the door, Jamie looked back to wave goodbye. The pilot looked very small in the big empty room. Jamie thought about her all the time Gramma was showing them the way through the corridors to leave the ship.

"Gramma," he asked as they walked down the big flexible corridor to the station itself, "How can one little girl like that run this whole ship?"

Gramma ran her fingers gently through Jamie's hair. "Pilots are bigger when they're in the pod, Jamie," she said. "When you're older, you'll understand more." She smiled down at him. "Now, do you and Savie want some ice-cream? And I think it's time for my birthday cake, don't you?"

Jamie nodded, the pilot's sad eyes and the scary noises on the passenger ship all fading in importance at the very real and present prospect of ice-cream and cake. "Can I have chocolate  and strawberry? And Savie wants that, too."

"Today, sweetie," Jamie's mom said, "You and Savie can have whatever you want."