“Well it’s not like I was trying to carry on a conversation with them. I got a random message out of nowhere, asked who they were, and they answered back with a sob story and an offer. Then I refused. I didn’t do anything to start trouble. That’s really the long and short of it.” Senjen answered to Light. He honestly felt he had handled it about as well as he could have, even once the Human approached. It made sense that they had been monitoring the Utaysi’s communications; he thought he had noticed some attention from her during their short exchange, and he supposed it made sense she would follow through.

Light was acting frightened, but Senjen didn’t yet think there was any reason to panic. He had given the right answer, so he doubted he needed to worry. He turned back towards the Human and lightly shrugged his shoulders. “Probably just looking for sympathy, I imagine. The reason you haven’t met many Utaysi is because there’s not too many of us out here. I guess he expected...solidarity, or something, but his attitude was suspicious. Didn’t trust it. And I really wasn’t looking to interfere with your business.”

Light didn’t reply straight away. This naive Utaysi didn’t realise just how much you didn’t want to talk to these Humans about anything at all. Especially when you were carrying secret cargo for an employer who had no qualms about killing people just for discussing business to strangers. To make matters worse, Light knew they were probably capable of listening to private conversations and so couldn’t warn his assistant any further. So he remained silent, bathed in green, and looked for an opportunity to get them away.

Séverine nodded and smiled again at Senjen’s answer, as if he’d done the right thing. “You have good instincts. You should come join us in Naval Intelligence! We could use the help, in this day and age.”

Light tried to discreetly examine the metadata for this Human’s armour; there was nothing to suggest they had anything to do with a planetary government. The woman looked right at him.

“Hi there, we don’t mark our armour anymore for security reasons. Is that your ship? I admire your bravery, piloting something outside of the QV’s ken. Where did you buy it?”

Light tried to remain calm, feigning a cough so that he could obfuscate his body with the gelsuit a bit more.

“I-I bought it here. Lots of Tindrel trade ships were going cheap after they got infected with that rock fungus a few decades ago.”

Séverine nodded, pursing her lips.

“I heard about that. Awful business…Listen, you guys seem trustworthy so I'm going to tell you a little secret. We believe that Utaysi is carrying half a master key for one of our ship Minds. With that level of access, you could convince the ship to turncoat. Or destroy a planet. The trouble is, our technology isn’t optimised for your species. If we try to find and extract this ‘file’ from our friend over there and they resist, we could destroy it by mistake. That's no good, as Minds do not like to distribute more. Worse than that, we could hurt him, and we don’t want that. So…I was wondering if I could do a test scan on you? Properly calibrate my device on someone who won’t resist, so we have the best chance of success on our friend.”

“That is very thoughtful of you, b-but we really must be going.” Light ventured.

“I promise it won’t hurt, and will take just a moment. I’ll pay you handsomely for your time, of course.”

Senjen felt like it was quite a secret for the Human to share, provided it was even true, of course. He knew Light wanted to leave; he had said as much before, and honestly, Senjen agreed. He was getting that same, uncomfortable feeling from the Human as he had from the Utaysi. There was no way he could agree to this scan, not when he was carrying this data. Or at least...he could not agree to this specific scan. He understood software well enough to understand what she was asking for. Whether not what she was asking for was actually what she wanted was still up in the air, but he knew how to satisfy the letter of her request without risking anything himself. At the very least, she would not have any excuses to refuse without giving away any other motives.

“Look, I know you said you’re not too familiar with Utaysi. and I know we look like machines...I mean, we are, but out minds aren’t like the AI you’re accustomed to. We’re basically like a lightly-modified version of an organic mind, so like pretty much any organic, I still care about my privacy.” Senjen began. It was perfectly reasonable for a person not to want a stranger going through their personal files, even without anything to hide, and he made it clear that he was just like any other person. Now, he just had to offer that perfectly-reasonable alternative he had thought of.

Honestly, Senjen was getting more and more nervous for every moment that passed talking to this Human. Whether or not she was really Naval Intelligence for...some navy, she still had armed guards nearby with an expensive ship and pricey gear. That was enough to know that he should be taking this seriously. He was more and more thankful every moment that he had the overrides to force his body to stay calm. He continued, deliberately keeping up this friendly attitude the woman was projecting. “But...I can still help you, actually. All I’d have to do is make an image of my OS and load it up on a virtual machine on a removable drive. You could run that and scan it. A perfect copy of my software architecture on Utaysi hardware that you can use to calibrate, so you can get everything you’re wanting. It would just take a few minutes for me to make the copy.” Senjen offered. It was a plan that would satisfy all of the Human’s stated goals, and he could not think of a way she could refuse without admitting they were just excuses.

Séverine listened attentively to Senjen’s counteroffer then smiled and shook her head.

“That is very kind of you, but I’m afraid I need to activate your personality matrix at the same time as your memory. As your mind has more in common with us organics, we’re using the same device we use on Humans. It is very fun in that it uses your unconscious mind to locate and unlock information.”

This all struck Light as highly irregular. The Utaysi were quite new to the area, and their makeup was still relatively unknown. This Human spoke like she knew it well, and for some reason it made him angry.

“Ok, I think t-this has gone far enough. We’re really very late for an appointment and I need to re-oxidise my gel urgently after that, so we should just-”

“Fifty billion credits for five minutes of your time. Though unfortunately I must trouble you for a quick answer. I am needed back on the line.” Séverine said simply, looking between the two of them.

Light blanched, turning a milky white. Fifty billion credits might be enough for him to escape the Vermillion Consortium’s clutches! He could get medical attention for his condition, retire somewhere the QV didn’t know about his past. Maybe even raise some offspring…

He couldn’t breathe. Light turned politely and collapsed into a coughing fit. As he doubled over, he happened to see what looked like some parade shuffling past the exit on the main concourse. All different species, holding up different paper lanterns with a light inside. It must be a religious festival or something, Light thought distractedly.

“That’s…wait how much is...” Senjen briefly froze up. That was a lot of money, more than enough to tempt nearly anyone. It wasn’t as impressive as it sounded once he checked it against the exchange rate to his homeworld’s currency, but it was still quite a lot. He had an idea of how he could hide the data he was transporting, and he nearly jumped on the offer right then and there, but going through her offer a few times in his head, he realized something unsettling. The reason she said an OS image would not work was because the scan needed his personality matrix...because it used the personality matrix to function. The inner functioning of the personality matrix was not completely understood, even by the Utaysi themselves. It was very difficult to modify non-destructively, much like an organic brain. Even if the scan was just reading data and not modifying it, the idea of a program breaching through and interacting with it directly was frankly terrifying.

“Sorry, this is a lot...that is a lot...it’s just...scanning my frame’s OS is one thing. That’s like doing a scan of one of your neural implants. Invasive, but safe. But you said the scan touches the personality matrix? Uses it, even? That’s more like brain surgery. Well, not quite, but...you get the idea. You’re offering a lot, but I don’t know if you understand how terrifying that is. Or...maybe you do, and that’s why the number is so high.” This time, Senjen forgot to inhibit his body’s reactions. Even as a mechanical being, Utaysi frames had plenty of parts on their outer shell that could actuate purely for non-verbal expression, similarly to their organic progenitors. He was nervous, indecisive, and it showed.

Senjen lowered his head somewhat. “I...I can’t do it. If it were just my frame, I’d agree in a metaphorical heartbeat, but having a scan poking around in my ‘brain’ is just too much. I’m sorry, I wish you luck, but I have to decline.”

Séverine’s face fell. For a split second, she looked…sad? Angry? Light couldn’t tell. His assistant was shaking though, and he knew that meant Senjen was uneasy. The QV had recovered from his coughing fit now, so reached a manipulator out to gingerly pat the Utaysi’s frame. It was a gesture he had seen other land-based creatures complete, and he couldn’t think what else to do at this moment.

The Human looked around quickly, then when she looked back at them she was smiling again.

“Okie dokie! Please, don’t let me make you late.”

Seeing the soldiers checking the line were occupied, two Tekeri turned and ran from their place in it towards the exit. Spotting them immediately, Séverine slipped a stun gun with a yellow barrel from her hip and held it at arm's length. After a pregnant pause, she fired twice. Both aliens collapsed and slid limp across the hangar bay floor. She looked at Light and grinned.

“I’ll catch you later.” The Human winked, spun the weapon around her finger then holstered it again. She walked off, towards her quarry, and Light breathed a shuddering sigh of relief.

“I need food, and a nice lay down. Let's get out of here!” He exclaimed.

They exited the cargo bay into the vast corridor which spanned the entire ring. It gently curved upwards at either end, with other cargo bay doors set into the walls at regular intervals. As Light had seen earlier, a parade was passing by at this moment. Lots of brightly festooned people with lit paper lanterns were walking by and others watched. Stalls sold paraphernalia, food and drink.

“We need to get to a spoke corridor then enter the Grand Concourse.” Light explained as they joined the parade. He checked behind them, looking for any signs of being followed. There didn’t appear to be any. He leaned in close to his assistant.

“I’m glad you didn’t go along with that. I didn’t like the look of that Human at all! Sorry I lost my composure. What do you think they were going to do to you?”

“Honestly...I don’t think she was that bad.” Senjen answered calmly, seemingly having moved quickly past the anxiety he had been showing moments ago. Granted, he also seemed to be ignoring the woman shooting down the pair of Tekeri without a second thought, but she had merely stunned them, he supposed. “I mean, she didn’t have to tell me about the scan. If she just wanted me to agree, she didn’t have to tell me the truth. A scan of my frame OS would have been no big deal. The fact that she was honest with me...well, like I said, maybe she wasn’t that bad? That alone almost made me agree. It was a lot of money, but, uh...how much money would it take for you to agree to brain surgery from a random stranger?”

Senjen was exaggerating somewhat on the severity of the scan, but it was close enough that he had been unwilling to go through with it, even at that price. At the moment, he was glad to put it behind him so he could try to forget about how much money he was walking away from. What they were walking into might have been even stranger. There was evidently a parade of some sort, and Senjen hadn’t the faintest idea of what it was about. Part of him worried about accidentally doing something offensive at some alien cultural event, but the people around them looked to be having a good time, and there were stalls selling things. Given where they were holding it, they were probably expecting tourists. He doubted he had to worry.

On the subject of worrying, though, Senjen’s focus did move more towards his client. The way Light had been acting, his appearance, the coughing, it did not point to him being in perfect health. He had not said anything during the flight to Korit, but Senjen was wondering if it was something to be worried about. “Say, Light, are you...alright? My people don’t get sick, obviously, but I had a pet once. This weird, cute little alien thing, and I had to learn what to look for to take care of it.” There was a short pause from Senjen. “Not, uh, saying you’re a weird alien thing. Or little. Just, um, you know, wondering if everything is alright?”

Light undulated sagely at Senjen’s first question.

“A lot. I must admit, I was briefly tempted to agree on your behalf. That money could do a lot for both of us. But you’re right, it was much too risky. Even surgery aside, we are on a special mission to transport…you know what.” The QV looked around but couldn’t see anyone eavesdropping in the crowd as they flowed down the corridor together.

Then Senjen asked about his health. Light flashed signs of fear, anger, anxiety and embarrassment. “I, uh, have to eat.” The QV left the parade for a stall on the sidelines, and bought a tube of crustacean paste. It was still expensive, but not as bad as the cargo bay, which made him feel slightly better. Light eagerly engulfed the tube in his gel suit. The suit helpfully squeezed the contents out then directed it all into his maw. For a moment, he felt euphoria at having sated some of his hunger. Then he realised Senjen was still waiting expectantly. He sighed and studied the floor.

“I have this…condition. Some of the cells in my body grow and spread uncontrollably. It started off here.” He raised one of his tentacles up - it had an unsightly growth about ten centimetres across on one side.

“Now it has spread to my respiratory system. It makes it hard to breathe sometimes, even with the suit. I’ve been trying to save enough for treatment, but doctors aren’t cheap. That's why I've started taking on more risk; it pays better. But I'm not in good enough shape for all this activity, normally I just pilot my ship from place to place. Thats why I’ve hired you.” Light flashed embarrassment again.

Senjen was not familiar with this disease, nor many others specifically, but if it was affecting Light’s breathing, then it sounded serious. At the very least, it sounded like something that was not going to go away on its own. “Oh, I had no idea. I mean, I could see that you were sick, but I didn’t know it was that bad. The Utaysi don’t really have much in the way of medicine, for obvious reasons. There’s some alien-run hospitals in the cities now that we have tourists and other visitors, but I don’t guess they would be any cheaper than here.”

Thinking about it, Senjen supposed it made sense why Light was not taking charge as much as he had expected, despite it being Light’s ship and his job. Senjen did not have the appearance of being nearly as vulnerable. He took a moment to double check their surroundings and make sure they were still heading in the right direction towards the Concourse, despite the relative chaos of the parade. “How much money do you still need for your treatment?” He asked.

Light sighed. It seemed to him like the gravity of his situation hadn’t properly landed with his assistant. After being bugged to elaborate on his ailment, It was vaguely irritating to be fobbed off with directions to hospitals light years away. The QV supposed it must be difficult for a synthetic to truly understand, even if they did look like an organic lifeform in armour.

“It is hard to say for sure - different doctors say different things. But on average I’d say about 1.5 billion more GCs to give me a good shot. I could probably sell my ship for that, but then I’d have bigger problems. Shuttling is my livelihood - without it I’ve got nothing left.” Light grunted eventually.

The gangways either side of the main road where the parade marched were getting packed out with people. The last few cargo bays they had passed seemed to have waiting passenger liners, and people were pressing together trying to secure passage. The parade ground to a halt.

“We don’t have time for this…” Light remarked, but did nothing about it. The thrumming mass of bodies made him anxious. He asked Senjen the first thing that came to his head, mainly to soothe his jangling nerves.

“Was that your homeworld you just mentioned? What made you leave?”

“Oh, yeah. Orostro is our homeworld. I was born there.” Senjen answered. He used the word “born” seemingly without thought of any confusion it might cause. “It’s a nice world, now. A very safe world, compared to a lot of life-bearing planets. On a geological time scale, it is just coming out of a major mass extinction event, so there’s not a lot of large predators. Or large animals at all, really. It’s mostly the small ones that managed to survive. My people came out of the bunker and started re-settling the planet while it was still pretty hostile to life. It’s gotten...a lot nicer since then. We have also been helping it along, as much as we can. Seed vaults from our progenitors helped us re-plant a lot of lost plant species, and more recently, now that we have the technology to clone animals in artificial wombs, we’ve been reintroducing some extinct animal species from preserved genetic material.”

Senjen raised up his posture just enough to get a look over the crowd and at least try to get a sense of how long it was going to take. He did hope this parade was still going on after they made their delivery, but he was eager to get this data out of his head. Regardless, with a glance down at Light, he realized he had not fully answered the question. “I haven’t really been around for a lot of that, though. I’m pretty young, honestly. But it hasn’t taken long for me to figure out I’m not going to be content just existing on the homeworld. Exotic alien pets didn’t really cut it. I want to see the planets and species out here that didn’t end up destroying themselves. Korit...I guess it’s kind of the opposite of Orostro. They took a world that started out dead and brought it to life.”

“I would take the safety and quiet of Orostro over Korit any day. Isn’t it funny how we all seem to be looking for cleaner water in the next cave?” Light replied, using an old QV saying. He detected movement above; looked up he saw a train with four carriages dangling from a rail come to a stop.

“Ah, of course! Let's take the monorail, we can get past this lot. The station door is there.”

Taking the lead as he was more familiar with the Fourteen Factories fast transit system, Light pushed to a door that opened into a large cargo lift. It elevated them onto a shelf platform about two thirds of the way up the corridor wall. The monorail had just left, but it would only be a few minutes before another arrived.

“So what is your impression of our melange of species in this galactic zone? We have been integrated for so long, everyone seems so jaded. But you, you have a fresh perspective.”

“Uh, well…” Senjen struggled to come up with an answer immediately, as he found the question to be deceptively complicated. He had read up on at least some of the galactic history his people had not been around to witness. It was not all bad, to be sure. Even all the known civilizations combined had only scratched the surface of what there was to explore in just their corner of the galaxy, and sometimes, they could cooperate on it. Most people still lived among their own species, but then were some places like Korit where aliens of all types could be found. They were much rarer, admittedly, but these were the places that had captured Senjen’s imagination. With the sheer amount of space and abundance of most resources out in the galaxy, though, he had not expected as much conflict or outright warfare as there had apparently been, perhaps because he had not realized the value of habitable worlds to every single other species. They were decidedly not abundant, and usually worth fighting over in some way or another.

“I...hope we can avoid the wars I keep reading about. That’s probably the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe we can, though, since we don’t have to compete over habitable worlds. Orostro is the only planet we have that can support life, and we don’t really need any others. When there isn’t fighting, I feel like the galaxy could be a wonderful place. Or at least a very interesting one to explore.” Senjen began. As they spoke, the next monorail arrived and they were able to move from the crowded corridor onto the still-crowded transport. It was fairly quick-moving, about as much as they could get away with without sending its passengers tumbling into one another whenever it accelerated. Different areas of the passenger train seemed to cater to different species and their preferred methods of securing themselves. They were not evenly divided either, Senjen noticed. He guessed that the distribution of seats was probably the same as the demographic distribution of the planet’s visitors, in the name of efficiency. Not one of them looked to be made for the average Utaysi frame, but he had an iron grip and could keep himself steady wherever he needed to stand. The monorail moved through the middle of one of the spokes, “up” towards the Grand Concourse at the center of the station. The trains moving through the center lines would not stop along the spoke, but there were smaller elevators closer to the outside that led to private residences along the outer wall of the spoke. The sheer size of the station did impress him for the fact that even the spokes had livable space, as well as their commitment to not wasting even a small amount of it.

Senjen continued once they were settled. “The Quelun-Vosh, your people, are maybe one of the most immediately interesting to me. Not only are you an aquatic species, unlike all the others out here, but the place your species came from is just so fundamentally different from all the rest. Deep underwater, in a lightless place except what your own bodies make. I can’t help but to wonder about all the little things that must be different, that I might not even think about.”

“Your optimism is admirable. A touch naive, perhaps, but admirable all the same. People will always find something to compete for. Some people more than others.” Senjen may not have noticed it yet, but Light didn’t speak like most QV. A long time on the road, mingling with all different species had made his ‘vocabulary’ decidedly more cosmopolitan than most.

“My view? This war isn’t about habitable space to live. Not really. It's about power over the people who live there. The power to control them, the power to choose who lives where. People’s lives are the ultimate untamed resource; some crave the chance to try and tame it. My advice to your people is to stay well clear.” If Senjen was perceptive, he may detect a note of bitterness in his employer’s voice.

When the Utaysi brought up the QV as a species, Light felt a pang of sadness, maybe even regret. He hadn’t been in a habitat his species would consider ‘natural’ for a very long time. He’d almost forgotten what being out of his gel suit felt like.

“It's not just our bodies that make the light down there. We’ve cultivated bioluminescent plants to do everything from living in, warning of danger and luring prey. Large Quelun-Vosh settlements are alive with a rich story of colours that you can see from miles away. There are no large predators to hide from anymore on the homeworld, so we lost any reason to hide long ago. On frontier colonies that is not true.” Light’s tone had turned nostalgic. Even though he couldn’t be a part of his civilisation right now, he felt pride at what they’d accomplished.

After a little while, the spoke’s residential tiers abruptly ended and the train entered an airlock. The train pressurised and filled with breathable air, though gravity remained low. In fact, they were close to weightless now. The Grand Concourse was at the middle of the station’s vast centrifuge, which meant it benefitted from its pull the least. Light fiddled with the small thrusters built into his gelsuit to make sure they were ready for when they disembarked.

“The drop is at the Guangzhou Cantonese restaurant, in sector 7.4. That means it's three whole segments away and on the opposite side of the tube from us. Stay vigilant for anything suspicious.” He whispered to Senjen.

A black-clad bipedal droid who’d got on at the same stop as the pair stood at the opposite side of the crowded monorail carriage. They gripped an overhead handhold and faced nonchalantly away from them while listening to every word they exchanged. Then they relayed it to their handler.

Well done - I knew something didn’t feel right. Follow them, try to find out if it is the access key. I’m sending back-up to that restaurant.

Copy that.

Once the airlock had pressurised, the blast doors opened and the monorail rushed out into the Grand Concourse. This was the fifty mile long cylinder that ran through all fourteen of the station’s rings and connected them to Korit’s space elevator. The Fourteen Factories’ designer had gone with an open plan space with maximum customisability and interoperability built in. Over the centuries it had evolved naturally like a living organism. Covering most of the internal surface area of the cylinder was a tight mish mash of different buildings suited to each of the species that used the station. There were rocky mounds favoured by the Tindrel, wobbly gel orbs for the QV, tall open aviaries for the Tekeri and monolithic skyscrapers for the Humans, with everything in between. Monorail lines snaked between them, and small flyers traversed the open space in the middle. At about a mile in diameter, the space was so large and so overwhelming that Light’s suit struggled to parse all the available data from its scan.

“We’re on the wrong line. We have to get off here.” Light announced after consulting the route map.

"We can either find another monorail, but who knows what the wait time will be like. Or we can hire a flyer, or walk, I suppose?"

Light sounded confident in his opinion, but Senjen still seemed skeptical. “I don’t know, I just have a hard time thinking that someone would rather fight a war, that they might lose, if they had the option to just easily go somewhere else. There is so much space out there, so many unclaimed stars. If you didn’t have to worry about planets being habitable, we could all expand out in different directions and it would be, I don’t know...millions of years before we even had to interact with each other. The Utaysi do have that choice, at least, but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Regardless, Senjen much preferred to talk about his own hopes than hypothetical wars, and the talk of what QV cities were like did easily capture his attention. He wondered if Light had come from a QV world, or if he was from somewhere like Korit? Either way, he would have come from somewhere much different from Orostro. “I’ve seen pictures of QV settlements and everything, but I don’t think that really captures what it’s like to be there. There’s simulations that can do more, but...honestly I started avoiding those. I want my first time experiencing these places to be when I’m there, seeing it with my own sensors, feeling it with my own hands. Of course, if I wanted to visit a QV settlement, I would need to get a more specialized frame. I may not need air or anything, but this body does sink like a brick. I know there’s submersibles and suits that visitors can use, but that’s not how I’d want to experience it, you know?”

The transition to the Concourse brought them once again into microgravity. He had gotten somewhat used to the sensation during the journey to Korit, but he had not spent too much time in space before this job. That “drop” during the shift, that feeling of falling, was still, metaphorically speaking, breathtaking to him. And that wasn’t even considering the sight of the Grand Concourse itself. Orostro had space stations, but nothing like this. Korit’s space infrastructure had been built up over a time spanning almost two thousand years, fueled by trade with worlds across their corner of the galaxy. They simply existed on a scale that the Utaysi had not yet reached. This station was like a city all its own, and it was almost hard to believe that they had the technology to put so much life in the dead of space. Yet, his sensors did not lie to him. Senjen was silent for a short while after they left the train and floated out into the open, and when he did speak, Light might have noticed a certain lightness to his attitude. “No, no, we don’t need a monorail. It will probably be faster just to...well is ‘walk’ really the word, when we’re all floating around?”

Senjen could only imagine how much of a challenge it must have been to design a space in microgravity that so many people were meant to traverse. Despite the crowding, it was organized in a way. Pedestrian traffic was situated in lanes, guided by these “ropes”, of a sort, that ran up and down the cylinder. Senjen was not completely sure of what they were made of, but it looked to be something like carbon fiber. They could be used for moving around in zero-G, if one did not have thrusters, and were numerous enough that one was never too far away if someone ended up with some unwanted momentum. They were mostly taut, but had enough give to avoid harm if someone ended up flying into one at a decent speed. Part of the additions Senjen had made to his frame for traveling had been a simple RCS, but it was still better only to use it when needed to conserve its fuel.

“Okay, so I’ve read up on this. There’s all sorts of rules and unspoken conventions for moving around in a station like this, right?” Senjen said, sounding almost excited. “We need to go to the other side of the Concourse, so...faster traffic sticks to the inner lines. But there’s still speed limits for pedestrians, so not too fast. Even with all the rules, collisions are still more, uh, expected out here, compared to in a gravity well. A lot harder to avoid bumping into strangers, but we still try to minimize it. I know one of those unspoken rules is that whoever has more mass has the right-of-way, because ultimately, regardless of politeness or any other societal custom, inertia still has the final say.”

Senjen grabbed one of the ropes and pulled himself in front of Light, then looked back with a chuckle. Once again, he banged a hand against his chestplate hard enough to get a few metallic clanks. “And well, who has more mass than me, right? Grab my tail and let me pull us along. We’ll get there in no time.”

Light undulated in agreement. “That is pretty much the size of it. Organised chaos.”

He looked distastefully at Senjen’s tail then back into the lizard-robot’s face. It was obvious that they wanted to explore the city outside of the confines of the monorail, but that just filled Light with dread. Unfortunately though, the monorail wasn’t much faster to their destination. It also raised the odds of being spotted and cornered by any bad actors. They could blend into the bustling crowds of the street and escape easier if detected. At least that's what Light assumed; he’d never actually really had to evade detection like this. He didn’t even know if anyone was looking for them. The data package could be something completely mundane.

“Fine. I think I know a route that takes us past a gel repository where I can replenish. I’ll mark the location on your map.” The QV wobbled over to Senjen and his gelsuit adhered to Senjen’s tail and back. It was as if the Utaysi was wearing a very large and impractical backpack.

The monorail station opened out onto a small square with a statue of a Tekeri in the middle. It was completely packed with people. On the left was a narrow street that cut between two dense blocks of buildings. Mostly Tindrel mounds on one side and a mix of the other species on the opposite. Upon looking at the street entrance for a couple of seconds, adverts from shops down that route began popping up on both their HUDs.

In front of them across the square was a wider avenue with small trees planted on either side. An impressive Human structure took up a sizable portion of the street frontage, the adverts suggested it was some financial services company. Other side streets veered off from it at regular intervals.

“Left looks quickest but more winding. Difficult to maneuver. Straight on looks more open, isolated.” Light peered round Senjen’s bulky frame.

Senjen was briefly caught off-guard. His suggestion had to been to grab onto his tail so he could lead the way through the fast lane to their destination, not to climb on his back like Light was going to ride him into battle. Still...he supposed this would be easier in the end. “Ah...you know, I thought that stuff would feel colder.”

Before, Light had sounded like he was in a rush to get his gel suit replenished. He was not entirely sure if that had just been an excuse to try to pull them out of trouble, but Senjen supposed he would want to get to that sooner rather than later. Senjen might have wanted to take the scenic route and explore, but for now he could settle for some casual sightseeing on the way to their destination. Maybe once they made the drop-off, there would be some free time to explore the station, or maybe even the planet below? There was a space elevator connecting them, so it was not like it was difficult to get down to the surface.

Senjen took hold of one of the ropes and gave it a pull to float the two of them “upwards”, towards the inner pedestrian lines closer to the center of the station. It was not strictly necessary in zero-G, but the station was still organized with a clear sense of up and down, purely for psychological reasons. Most species found it easier to navigate with those sorts of directions in mind. The buildings and basic layout of the city still resembled those built in a gravity well, at least superficially. The lines higher up from the street were meant for faster pedestrian traffic, so that was what they would take. He decided to take the straight path, rather than the left one. Even if the latter was shorter, being able to keep up a good, constant pace would probably end up being faster in the end.

Senjen pulled on the pedestrian line until they were going as fast as they could safely go. With his mass, he needed to be particularly careful about giving himself too much momentum, but that also meant others were less likely to get in their way. He connected to the local net and brought up the station map. Light had marked where he wanted to go, so he needed to make sure not to overshoot.

As they were floating along just by inertia, Senjen could still at least watch the places they were passing by. “I wonder who that Tekeri is? I know it isn’t ruled by them alone anymore, but Korit was first settled by Tekeri, right? This station isn’t built in their style, but I really hope to see a station, or city, or something that is. I know it’s not as practical as other designs, but the fact that they try to include natural features in their construction is just amazing to me. I mean, imagine a ship that feels like a forest? Greenery, vines, trees everywhere...I read that they’ve genetically engineered plant species not just from their own world, but alien worlds too, so they can grow in microgravity. I wonder if that’s how they got the trees to grow out in front of that building over there? Or maybe they were transplanted?”

Light examined the statue and his suit provided a helpful summary from the station’s internet.

“They…saved a bunch of people in this segment during an explosive decompression a century back. Apparently some fault with a power grid opened a hole in the hull and that Tekeri flew their ship into the gap. Its shield stopped the decompression long enough for them to patch the hole up…sounds foolish to me. They could’ve done a lot more harm than good. Take this left!”

They turned off the wide avenue into a smaller but well appointed thoroughfare with little foot traffic at this time. On it was a Myrmidon showroom, several corporate recruitment offices (mining, biosciences etc) and a couple of fancy restaurants. The sight and smell of them made Light’s stomach cramp. That tube of crustacean paste had barely hit the sides.

“I must eat again, properly, after the drop. Perhaps this…Cantonese restaurant we are going to cooks edible food.” He remarked casually, before wondering why they were dropping this data in such a random location.

“We mustn’t dally too long afterwards; is there anything you need to buy before we set out on the next job?”

Behind them, the black clad droid followed along the high speed line, listening in.

They are not discussing anything of note, unless there is a cipher here I have not detected. It reported back.

You cannot let them pass on whatever the Utaysi is holding without knowing what it is. Get alone with the QV if necessary; they seem to be leading this merry goose chase, perhaps you can throttle the information out of them.

Senjen gave another glance to the statue. “Maybe, but it also sounds awesome. I wonder if there are any recordings of that…”

Following Light’s direction, the pair floated down just above another street. Senjen’s attention was quickly divided by some of the displays he could see. In particular, the droid showroom, drew his sensors. It was like the offers that Tekeri had been making after they landed, except this was actually a legitimate business. Mechanical frames built fully with alien tech, right there for sale. As long as they could be prepped to accept a Utaysi personality matrix, the possibility of becoming one of them was right there for a...discouragingly high price, if he was being honest. He had already spent so much of his savings just making the upgrades to his own frame for galactic travel. Buying a whole new one was still out of reach. Maybe he could take out a loan, but he probably did not want to be doing that before he had even gotten his bearings on a new planet.

Senjen snapped back into the moment once he was questioned. He gave another quick check to the map he was following, and it seemed they were nearing the first stop Light wanted to make. “Oh, um...I don’t think I really have anything specific in mind. I think I want to get a better sense of what it’s like out here before I start thinking about big purchases, you know?” There was some hesitation from him, as the question had brought up another in Senjen’s mind. “Look...forgive me for prying, but you didn’t really answer before. How long are you going to need to work for your treatments? Because it sounded important, and I’m just wondering if you’re making enough off these jobs to get them.”

Light cringed as Senjen asked yet another probing question. They had only been acquainted for five minutes! He outwardly sighed, dispelling bubbles around his suit, and didn’t reply for a moment.

“Two years, maybe? I am by no means the VC’s most prolific operator. I am merely an old smuggler with breathing problems. So I have to spread the treatments out more. We could get there sooner if we get into very high risk jobs, but I would actually like to stay living long enough to be cured.” Light offered eventually.

Behind them, the following droid began cross referencing the acronym ‘VC’ with all known entities in the Fourteen Factories. Venture Capital? Valuable Creations?

Boss, you ever know of a ‘VC’? That’s who these bozos work for. Doesn’t sound above board.

Maybe. Do you think you could take the clanger alive on your own?

Maybe. Could use that back up though.

They are fifteen minutes out. Proceed as planned until then.

Roger.

They were moving at a fast pace through the segments, but Light was still surprised when they got to Tanguska Boulevard. It seemed having a bulky, noticeable assistant had its advantages.

This area was old, and had begun as low-rise buildings before having further and unrelated additions made above them. The result was a confusing jumble of different cultural and architectural references piled on top of one another up to a height of eight storeys. The plots were uneven, so many of the buildings had side and rear access where vehicles or goods could be moved. The occupants had taken advantage of this, turning many plots into warehouses, workshops or event spaces. It was a lower class area, and many people did not hang around outside for long. About halfway down the mile long boulevard was an ancient QV gel repository opposite a cavernous provisions market with hundreds of different stalls. Light directed Senjen to stop between them.

“This might take a little bit of time. Why don’t you go over there and look for cheap supplies for our next trip? I’ll send you a full inventory of what i usually stock and previous prices i’ve achieved for them. If you hear of any honest and freight work while you’re at it, find out a bit more. I’ll message you when i’m finishing up."