- Prologue

Asu's full attention was on her face.

'Look,' Theo insisted, 'all I did was land the Slipper. That's all. They told me they wanted the sky empty. That's what I did. This other stuff—' Theo found herself looking at the ceiling and its suspended model aircraft, moons, and spacecraft. 'This other stuff isn't really about me.'

Asu sighed slightly.

'I know—and I'm glad you know. It isn't your fault that Chelly's old bestguy and mentor was idiot enough to get shot down.'

Theo looked up, eyes wide, and shook her head.

But Asu was nodding, with a certain amount of grimness.

'Chelly told me this morning. They were bestboys till Hap left and then didn't ever even answer a bit of comm . . . left him flat.'

Theo grimaced. Just what they needed in close quarters, a senior with a problem love life come back to haunt him.

Asu sighed. She looked tired for a moment, then shook herself into businesslike.

'So,' she said briskly. 'I caught news reports for you; they're filed in your shared inbox, if you want them.'

'Thanks,' Theo said, not certain if she did want them. Still, it had been nice of Asu.

'You're welcome,' Asu said, rising, with a shapeless flap of her hand. 'I'll see you later, Theo. I've got to get to class.'

Theo had class, too, and ran most of the way.

Commerce and Transport 111 was usually a dry, quiz-heavy class. Long-retired full-Terran cargo master Therny Chibs was the professor. Theo saw his lanky form just ahead and sped up to get to the door of the classroom before he did, squeezing by as he turned to address a question from a student who stood outside waiting.

Theo found classmates making room for her as she hurried to the back of the lecture room, still a bit unsettled by how many of the people acted like they knew who she was. Not likely, given the size of the class.

She'd already memorized and been tested on thirteen common forms for the class, and expected a quiz today on two more. Professor Chibs had never met a form he didn't like, nor a reporting protocol he didn't admire. If she was lucky it would be two more and not three, because she hadn't quite caught up with—

'We'll start,' said Chibs in his twangy accent, 'by requesting those of you who live by the syllabus or who are taking the class feed for catch-up to disconnect recording devices and save those pre-made form files for next class, when we'll return to boring you all with material that you'll only need to know if you graduate.'

He chuckled at the startled looks, the same way he chuckled when gleefully pointing out some overlooked tick- box on a paper-filed support form.

'We have an object lesson to hand, and we shall use it. It comes to us in the shape of perhaps the most widely known pilot on the planet for the next two days, our own Theo Waitley.'

It felt like the whole room turned to stare at her, tucked away as she was in the back corner. She sat up, and watched the professor warily.

'Oh no, you've all seen the news, I'm sure. Good landing, good landing, yes. Everyone knows what she did right, I'm sure. Now, with the pilot's leave, if you will listen to me closely rather than staring at Pilot Waitley, I'm going to tell you what was done wrong.'

Pilot Waitley. There it was again.

The professor's hands flashed permission request pilot acknowledge so fast she almost had to assume it rather than read it.

Well, there. If she'd done something wrong she'd better know about it so she didn't have to depend on luck next time. She answered here for learning.

'Good, good,' Professor Chibs said out loud, turning his back momentarily on the class before unleashing a large image of a Slipper to every desk top.

'Consider this,' he said at volume as he turned back to peer at them, 'your ship. You are a pilot, the ship is in your care. At what point does local traffic control, or local military for that matter, get to dictate what you do with it?'

Theo felt wrung out, if only from waiting for her errors to be told. Mostly, though, if she'd understood Professor Chibs correctly, the mistakes that had been made weren't exactly her mistakes. It was true that she'd failed to ask landing permission from the Mountain Commissioners, but that was arguably covered under the so-called Port In A Storm protocols.

Still, it was unnerving hearing her name used in terms of 'Waitley's liability to pay for the ship if it were damaged' and, 'In space, on a job run, Waitley must, and all of you must, take tactical news reports for your flight zones. That she wasn't informed of this is unfortunate, and that mistake is partially the school's curriculum and partially the fault of the equipment or lack of it on the Slipper. Your ship is your life.'

He paused then, and an image of her Slipper, sitting on the mountain ridge, appeared. She wanted a copy of that—the Slipper looked beautiful!

'That's it then. No one signed for the ship, no one accepted legal or fiscal responsibility. No one offered, promised, or required a written return-to-ship. No one offered or promised hazard pay or indemnity. No one apologized—well, her instructor did, but none of the authorities on the scene. The debriefing was not done in a neutral location. On-site, the pilot demanded and received, through the intercession of another, more senior, pilot, a very basic securing of the ship, which was well done.' Here he fell into hand talk for emphasis: listen listen listen.

'Do not undervalue detail, people. Do not undervalue info trails. Do not let the bureaucrats overwhelm you to the point that you, as a pilot, cannot fend for your ship. Do not forget that, on the whole, in a trouble spot, you first depend on your ship and yourself. You may listen to traffic control, but you must depend on pilot sense to survive.'

Chib paused again, looked in her direction, and did a sort of half bow.