Marik did not look tough. But he was used to the hot and humid air that was favoured by the Fallerians, and his smaller size worked to his advantage when walking the narrower corridors. She was panting and sweating like crazy when they finally got on the lift to the shipyard. She had to leap aside or hold her paws up at the last moment to avoid trampling a smaller resident beetle way too often, all while being downwind of Marik. Fanny had done a little better.

"Fanny, I need one," she sighed, no way she could pilot without.

The suppressant felt like a cold shower. Unfortunately, only a figurative one, she was still sweating. And it should not have acted so quickly, but the mental relief was there, full placebo up front. Relieved, she entered the code at the shipyard docking port of the White Ocelot and entered the cockpit first. It reeked of the still not emptied toilet belts and the stale sweat after the jump. But the human seemed unfazed.

Fanny looked equally embarrassed.

"Sorry Fanny, you will have the harness in the cargo hold should we need to jump."

"Ok, but until then I'll be standing by Marik."

She shrugged, fine with her. She went back to the controls and checked the storage bank. Almost full, they should be able to do without the core if there was no jump.

"Ok, I'm bringing the propulsion online. Please give me a course." She quickly ran through the checklist. His strong masculine scent was still distracting, but hey, she was a professional and the suppressant should soon make things easier.

"Ok, the systems are online and responding. Your com should work too. We could leave after 0014."

He negotiated something in Fallerian, only half of which she could follow, and then he entered a course into the navigation console.

"Ok," he said and they were clear.

She looked at the indicated flight path on the console. Great, no jumps, no need to power up the core. But the corridor was narrow, even close to some structures and between some docked ships. Their destination was close, just a little more towards the equator, still close to the station's nadir.

She was moving very slowly to conserve power and stay as close as possible to the challenging trajectory. It meant also drifting most of the time.

During the weightless drifting, the human - no she should think of him by his name - Marik enquired a lot about the ship. This time, with an unclouded mind, she happily explained. He really listened, was even interested in boring things like the sequence to bring up the fusion core. His questions were detailed, showing that he took her answers seriously. She became a little uncomfortable in the role of teacher. He had an E-class licence at an age when anyone would be happy to just have a C-class. And he had been around a lot, much more than she had. Well, meeting the Kolani was certainly something special; unfortunately, she could not talk about it.

She offered him the sticks, but he declined. This was a challenging flight path, true. But even if he was only used to flying with AI, he should be able to control the White Ocelot.

Fanny looked more and more desperate as the talk drifted to repairs of various systems, like the galley. That had been her first job at the shipyard, all the non-life-critical systems, so she had ample experience of those. She had moved on, but there was also the galley on her first flight. She grinned, not using ferrules, so stupid. Marik joined her in shaking his head, while Fanny was annoyed at being left out; but then, a leading clan member usually did not repair their kitchen.

It was a short distance and not much later their destination was in sight. It turned out to be a real hangar, well, open to space but closed on all other sides and thus easily accessible and easy to work. It would have been even more impressive if there hadn't been piles of assorted parts from dismantled ships and a smelter next to it. Overall, it gave the impression of a place where ships went to die. But to be fair, the shipyard at the station had not been much better, apart from a small area that had been always cleaned up for important tasks and visitors.

The single clamp held them with some groaning. "Thank you," she said, "I would never have found this place." And even if she had, she would have turned tail. But he was the native.

"Well, we still need to find the right spares. And a space suit for you."

"I have a thinsuit." She unbuckled and took out the sweaty thing. She almost gagged at the stench coming from the leg. It needed cleaning badly.

"I've got nothing," Fanny complained. "How do I get off?"

"We are docked via a UDA. The suit would be for working on the ship."

Marik nodded.

"You can go ahead with Marik, I'll just shut everything down. Should not take long as the core is off."

* * *

She rolled up her thinsuit, her only belongings due to the hasty departure, and finally turned off the master switch.

The seal on the ship's side of the UDA hissed, leaking audibly. Frost was on a quarter circle. The access tunnel was also half dark, cables hanging out, panels missing, well, a seamless continuation from her Sagan. She sighed. On the bright side, it was cold by Fallerian standards but just right for her. As expected from the leaking air, the outer lock was immediately sucked shut. She was not very impressed, even with the standard set so low by the sorry state of the shipyard at the station. But at 47 a day she could not complain, back at the station they would charge at least five times as much.

Fanny and Marik were in a conversation. But they stopped as soon as she emerged from the outer lock. "I found a small pension close by. They do not speak Standard, but it is only 7 per person. And you will likely be the only non-Fallerians there."

Staying among Fallerians, away from any human males, was a good idea. "Yes, sounds good."

Fanny smiled. "It's even half-board. Shall we have a look now?"

But first, they went to see the owners of the hangar, a pair of bleached and stained from whatever chemicals, round beetles, probably Palest. (She really needed to update her knowledge of the Fallerian races.) She let Marik do the talking, only occasionally interjecting in Fallerian to prevent them from developing the idea that they might overcharge her because she was a cat. But then, this was deep in the Fallerian III station. Nobody seemed to care much about cats, or humans, only about their contracts.

This was repeated in their accommodation, which was a tiny room for two with private facilities. The probably old landlordbug, at least the colours were not so brilliant anymore, was ok as long as she spoke Fallerian to him. (It turned out he was a she, as she had last been active in the female phase). She was pleased that they did not ask for any special food and left it at that. Marik stuck a small net over the drain of the shower he had brought from the shipyard. "Fallerian showers clog up even with my hair," he winked. He also showed them the toilet, which was a trench in the shower, all tarnished steel, but free of mould. It could have been worse, being made for Fallerians.

Fanny wanted to go shopping with Marik. But she needed a shower, badly. And to clean the thinsuit. As she started to undress, Fanny dragged Marik outside. She hadn't even thought about it. The suppressant worked so well that she had just thought of Marik as another cat. Well, she hadn't used one for a long time.

Back to the task at hand. She sighed. First, she emptied the smelly tank from the thinsuit into the toilet trench and then washed her top and trousers under the shower, not sure how long the water would last. She soon felt much better. There was still warm water, so she rinsed out the suit too.

Unfortunately, there was no dryer and the towel was tiny. But her fur would dry quickly in the heat of this station, and hopefully so would her gym uniform. Only the thin suit had to be carefully wiped dry.

Her thoughts went back to the clan. How did they fare on the station now? And somehow her thoughts went further to Trina. She should send her a message, the Samul on Fallerian V had been so unfriendly.

"Hey, Rerra!"

She blinked. Fanny was standing at the entrance to the bathroom, strategically blocking Marik's view. She had fallen asleep, the thinsuit still over her legs, the damp towel lying next to her left hand. She rose, embarrassed. "Sorry, I was a bit tired." Fanny closed the door and she hastily put on the now thankfully almost dry gym uniform.

When she came out of the bathroom, Fanny was sitting on the mattress next to a large pile of clothes. Marik was standing in the doorway, carrying a human-sized thinsuit. "Sorry, we can also start the work tomorrow. Just that Jedro was ok to work with us today for another 2000 before he closes his shop."

She stifled a yawn. "Yes, let's go." She picked up her still slightly damp thinsuit. "Males first."

"Have fun," Fanny said and nodded.

She quickly followed him. As soon as they were walking the corridor and out of earshot, he asked. "Tell me, is Fanny a real pilot? She doesn't know much about ships."

"Fanny just passed her B licence today. Before yesterday she was very high up in our society. Her clanmother was the second most powerful cat on Hopkins until she was murdered." She swallowed. "I told you we fled. Many have been killed on Hopkins station. Including my aunt, ex-aunt. Er, it's complicated. Never mind." She stopped, sniffing, tears filling her eyes.

He pulled her aside, out of the stream of scurrying beetles, into a small cul-de-sac. "I'm so sorry."

"Hug me."

He stood still as she pulled him close. He was small, his chin barely over her shoulder, her nostrils in his hair. Despite the suppressant, his scent rose her fur all over. He hugged her back, not sure where to put his arms. Despite his scent, he otherwise gave her the vibes of a confused kitten. Hesitantly, he stroked her back fur. "I'm sorry. For you and for Fanny."

Even if she thought of him as a kitten, he had power over her. With each stroke, her worries seemed less important. Her tears slowly faded as beetles of all sizes passed by, oblivious to them. It was her mess, not his. She relaxed. "I'm sorry for"

"Shh. Just a little longer," he said. "You're so soft. It's been a long time since I've cuddled."

Now she worried that it would get out of hand. "We can cuddle later if you like." Fortunately, he could not see her very toothy smile.

Her invitation had the opposite effect, he quickly broke the embrace. "Yes, we should repair your ship."

* * *

Jedro asked a few questions and then they decided to look directly at the engine. Which meant vacuum. Jedro put on what could best be described as a half helmet with two large hoses, while Marik and herself put on their thinsuits.

Sure enough, the beetle went into the airlock with only his breathing helmet. The pumps were in good shape and soon they were all standing in the vacuum in the open space at the back of the White Ocelot, in front of the three perfectly round exhaust tube of the main engines. She explained the problem, well, that she wanted to repair main engine number 1, now on the left. That one. Jedro had a look inside the engine and then at the working engine No 2. But from the outside, they were all identical. She had done the same.

So they went into the vented cockpit. She booted up the propulsion system, clumsy in the thinsuit, and showed them the error log. Out of focus, too high resistance, circuit xxx out of spec warning, magnetic field interlock, warm superconductor, main power failure, well, nothing jumped out at them. Some of the messages were anyway due to the warm superconductors.

It turned out that Jedro could barely read basic Standard. And that beetle should fix her drive? But then, being able to read and understand the messages had not helped her to find the cause. And then, for 47 a day, why not give it a try?

Marik translated for Jedro, again in both directions and without hesitation, again a pro and not a kitten. Marik was obviously much better with ships than with people, and in this not so different from other pilots.

Next came the visual inspection from the inside. But there was not much to see, just the thick shielding where the wiring, optical fibres, fuel and cooling lines disappeared. Since the drive had been out of service forever, they removed the shielding, soft brick by soft brick. And then disconnected the drive, electrically, optically, and even cutting the supply lines, all recorded of course; she was again impressed by the large nuts holding the main bolts in place. But then, this drive was rated for 2 g acceleration of the whole ship.

Jedro showed no emotion, but then she had an exoskeleton and might not be able to. And her small size and the six limbs gave the beetle quite an advantage, better than even her hands. The drive was disconnected in less than 1000. Throughout the work, Jedro talked a lot with Marik and from what she understood, it was not hopeless. Tomorrow morning, they would take the engine into the workshop. Jedro sounded optimistic. She was too tired to show much emotion at all.

They returned to her lodging just in time, dinner was ready. Marik said good night outside and made some strange hand gestures while she entered, probably the equivalent of a Fallerian antennae wiggling greeting. Fanny smirked out of his view.

Dinner was a thick soup with crunchy insects and as much water as she wanted. Well, it was interesting, another Fallerian food she had never heard of. But then their planet was three times the diameter of Hopkins, and with about 100 billion Fallerians in this system among the 17 intelligent races, there should be lots of food culture to be yet discovered.

The landladybug tried some small talk. But she was tired, even more now she had eaten, and had no idea what to talk about. Not to mention the unknown accent, she understood at best half of it. She made a few noises of agreement as she ate, then yawned and excused herself.

Back in the room, she let her fall backwards into the mattress. In the low gravity at this deck, it was a rather gentle affair. They both lay on the strange, spongy bed without blankets and it was still too warm. The warmth and Fanny's scent close by brought back memories of the night on the beach, inside the Kolani ship. With these memories, sleep came quickly.