"I can get this lot distributed, if you want to go talk to your newspaper man."

"Wixa, we just got back five minutes ago," Maiga said, while she completed the post flight check to shut down the Friss's systems. "And there are still more repairs to do. What's the rush?"

"Because he reports news, not olds. Oh, go on, the repairs can wait."

Maiga looked up and then shrugged. Why not? I might be good to take a long walk right through to the human sector. After being cramped in this ship for a couple of days she'd like to stretch her legs. So she gave in to Wixa's persuasion and left her to grab some casual labourers to start distributing the cargo.

The cargo and the customers were a real mixed bag this time. Coffee of course, medical supplies for the doctor, some prime beef in self-chilling cases, and a few cases of whisky. Maiga grinned, imagining if the ship were to crash land some place with that lot on board. At least for a while, they'd be the best fed and drunkest castaways in the galaxy.

She strolled from the docks, through the busy corridor to the market place. Then on to the long corridor that led from the central hub of the station to the human sector.

Once, long ago, the station had been a military base and the huge oval shape of what was now the human sector had been attached to the hub to serve as accommodation. No wonder the humans had ended up settling together in that area, drawn naturally to accommodation created for soldiers. Of course the barracks rooms were mostly long gone now, split into smaller quarters, for families, couples, and singles.

Families had been a shock for Maiga when she arrived. She hadn't expected to see so many children around. Back home on Earth all children belonged to the military, who raised them in school barracks. The longest a mother could stay with her child was five years. And every year she stayed off active duty, the military took ten percent off the "baby bonus" she received for providing Earth with another soldier.

As for fathers, most never even met their children.

But here on Hollow Jimmy, people raised families. Not all of the humans were retired veterans. Some were invalided out of the service because of disabling injuries, while still young enough to have children. High Command used to offer them a cash bonus to surrender any such children to them, but they couldn't force them. Many preferred to keep their children with them and live the old fashioned way.

A child ran past her now, a small boy, and a woman called after him from behind Maiga. Maiga saw what he had run to, a cat trotting along, beside the wall. The boy bent down to pet the cat, which stood patiently for a moment, then dodged around his feet and moved on. Maiga frowned at it. A black cat, with a blue collar, which she recalled seeing Wixa's cat - Wixa's toy - wearing. But how could Glyph be wandering around here when Wixa hadn't been back to her quarters to let him out?

She considered going after the cat and picking it up, but it had already moved on quite a distance, moving at a fair clip. Well, she wasn't chasing a robot cat, she had some dignity. The cat looked purposeful, as if knew where it was going. Leave it alone.

She walked on into the human sector, onto deck three, the middle one of five. That deck held some homes, but also many shops, and services, all centred on an open central plaza.

Chullan's coffee shop, where Wixa spent far too much time, stood on the plaza. Only its counter and kitchen were undercover. All the tables spread around in an area in front of it, with a small fence marking the boundary. A person could sit at one of those so-called outdoor tables and watch people going back and forth on the plaza all day. Chullan's did close eventually, usually around one in the morning, but Maiga had seen people sitting at the tables even long after that, still talking.

She saw them when she ran the 'circuit', the wide walkway circling deck three, that gave a view down over the tops of the accommodation blocks and into the plaza. But usually when she ran the circuit, she looked out of the tall windows, out into space. Running on metal deck plating was murder on the joints, but she could at least pretend to be on a planet under the stars, not out amongst them.

Most of the time, she did her daily run early in the morning, but sometimes, if she couldn't sleep, she would run in the middle of the night. Or what the humans called night. A few maintenance workers were usually the only other people around then, aside from the occasional straggling late-night reveller.

The corridor leading from the station hub opened onto the circuit and she took the stairs down onto the floor of deck three. Chervaz had said his office was above the tailor's shop and she used her Snapper to check the address. An out of the way corridor, a couple of blocks back from the plaza. She found the tailor's shop was closed when she arrived; but a door beside it carried a sign. "Olojimi Chronicle. Please walk up." The door opened at a push and she climbed a narrow staircase that led straight into an office at the top of it.

Chervaz sat there at a desk, typing on a panel. Another man, wearing maintenance crew overalls, sat by the desk, holding a mug.

"Oh!" Chervaz said, seeing Maiga. "Oh, come in, won't you?"

Chervaz stood up, but the other man didn't. He just gave Maiga a narrow look.

"Jaff, I don't know for certain," Chervaz said, "but my guess is that she outranks you."

Jaff raised his eyebrows, then put down his mug and stood up.

"There's no need," Maiga said. "If you're already busy, I can come back."

"Oh no," Chervaz said. "Jaff's just loafing here, drinking my tea."

"Loafing?" Jaff had been about to sit down again, but then muttered something about "loafing" and went over to a printing machine. He started tinkering with the machine, using tools from holders on his belt.

"He helps me out with some free maintenance," Chervaz said, waving Maiga to a chair. "We used to serve together on a starship. He's the best engineer I know."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Jaff said, not looking around.

Kind of a come down for a starship engineer, Maiga thought, working maintenance on this place. But a man had to put food on the table. For a second Maiga wondered about Chervaz's income. The tiny amount he sold the paper for probably barely covered his production costs. Maybe his friend helped him out with more than just free maintenance.

"Did you just get back to the station?" Chervaz asked. "Oh, will you have some tea?" He jumped up again to pour her a cup. "You're overdue, aren't you? I'm sure Wixa mentioned you'd be back yesterday."

"Are you and Wixa friends?" Maiga asked, taking the cup from him.

"Oh, Wixa is friends with everybody." Chervaz sat down again. "Certainly everyone that ever goes into Chullan's. Anyway, she's very good at finding out information, and I'm in the information business." He gestured as he spoke, to some stacks of the printed newspaper and knocked over a pot of pens on the desk. Wincing, he righted the pot, and then put his hands under the desk.

He tries to make himself smaller, Wixa thought. He's a big man and clumsy with it. If he'd been a Marine, or infantryman, he'd have learnt to use his size to his advantage, but on a starship he must have felt like a lumbering ox. Always taking up too much space. Knocking things over just by turning around.

He wore an expression of anticipation now, waiting for what she'd come here to tell him about. Perhaps that's why he ran a newspaper, so he got to hear everything first.

"We were late back," Maiga confirmed, answering his earlier question. "We ran into a little trouble, with the Muaan Qacia." She stood up then and took off her jacket; the room quite warm enough for shirt sleeves. Sitting down again, she smiled at him. "Oh, and then, we met Bara."

His face lit up like a child's and Maiga wanted to laugh at his delight. Now he had a story for page one.

~o~

Chervaz stood when Maiga did, her story told, and all the details he could think to ask about shaken out of it. Almost an hour and a half had passed. They'd all drunk several more cups of tea, and Jaff seemed to be finding things to repair that were fine before he looked at them. Chervaz smiled. I'll make him wish he'd gone sooner instead of waiting around to eavesdrop.

"Maiga, thank you so much for bringing me this information."

"You're welcome," she said, putting on her jacket.

"You said you still need some repairs to your ship, perhaps Jaff can help you with that."

Jaff gave him the "you're stitching me up!" look, he usually got when Chervaz offered someone his services.

"Well, of course, I'd be happy for him to look at the repairs," Maiga said. "I can pay you for your time of course, Mr Jaff."

"Just Jaff." He didn't like the 'Mr' thing much, Chervaz knew, unlike Chervaz himself. Their ranks, both lieutenants, had been left behind now, along with so much of their previous lives. But they found their way here and were inventing new lives now.

"I've got to go to work in a couple of hours," Jaff went on, "but I can take a look tomorrow."

"That would be fine, thank you." Maiga moved towards the stairs.

"Let me walk you out," Chervaz said.

Since the staircase was so narrow that meant just following her down them. But outside the door, she turned and offered her hand to say goodbye. He couldn't let the moment pass, he decided. Because sitting there upstairs with her, listening to her talk, he had started to feel something beyond the curiosity.

When she stood up to remove her jacket, her tanned shoulders and arms, lithe and graceful, had caught his attention and held it for while. The grace came from total bodily discipline he knew, from total control. She didn't knock things over, or bump into anything. No, she owned the space she moved in, controlled it. Shaking her hand like this, connecting with that zone of control, felt cool and yet made his cheeks flush with heat.

"I wondered if we might have dinner sometime."

He had to ask it down here, not back up in the office. Childish as it seemed, he couldn't ask her in front of Jaff, because he'd get an eye roll for his troubles. The "here we go again" look. Well Jaff could shut up. Admittedly in the past, Chervaz made some poor choices, where women were concerned. But Maiga wasn't like those other women.

"Dinner? Oh... Yes, that would be nice." She sounded a little taken aback, but the important word had been there. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Chervaz smiled, and should have gone on and 'closed the deal' as he knew Jaff would say. But he hesitated for a moment, and was lost.

"Well, I'll call you sometime," Maiga said. "We'll arrange something."

Damn. Sometime. And now if he pressed she might back off. She was cautious, for some reason. He'd seen that on the day he met her. Oh well, patience. Neither of them was going anywhere.

"I look forward to hearing from you."

She left, and he watched her walk down the street and turn the corner, before he went back inside. Movement at the top of the stairs caught his eye as he entered, making him smile. When he got into the office, Jaff was sitting with a copy of the Chronicle in his hands, apparently reading intently. What he found so fascinating about the advertisements on the back page, Chervaz couldn't imagine.

"Hmm, buy three coffees get a fourth one free at Chullan's, that's an excellent offer," Jaff said. "Say, that reminds me of that girl on Luugul, who took you for about three-quarters of your savings."

Chervaz glared at him. Much as he appreciated Jaff looking out for him, he could do without the digs.

"She needed help," Chervaz insisted.

"She was a con artist."

"She was in trouble."

"Of course she was in trouble, she was a con artist! She conned money out of you to get away from some other people she had conned money out of!"

"I got most of it back, didn't I?"

"Yes, after the police arrested her."

"Look, Maiga is not remotely interested in my money." What he had left of it. He'd sunk most of his savings into setting up the Chronicle.

Jaff sighed and dropped the newspaper back onto the stack. "I'm just saying be careful, Vaz. You know your own record. Go slow."

That wasn't going to be a problem, because she'd set the pace here, for sure. She still hadn't told him what her rank had been, but he guessed it was higher than his own. He was an ageing lieutenant, never interested in climbing towards command. And Jaff there, a good engineer, but also one who wouldn't play the politics needed to rise to chief engineer. He just liked to fix things, with minimal paperwork.

Maiga wasn't like that; she'd been at least heading towards a command position. He guessed that she wouldn't get over the habit of being in charge any time soon.

End Book 2