The so-called front hall of Codrescu Center was about the size of the few back halls Theo'd seen on the Vashtara and the back halls were wonders to behold, with crew signs in three or four languages as well as hand-holds and rungs on all the walls.  There was gravity, but it was very light and somewhat spotty, with some quirkiness, perhaps because the halls actually had humps and ridges as well as numerous access ports.  In fact, as she thought about it, she realized that the hall, or the deck, or the whole of the establishment, was subject to exactly the kind of tiny twitches the docking ring exhibited.

    What she'd not expected was the sounds; Codrescu was smaller than the major ports she'd been in, but the sounds were more more frequent, and less differentiated.  From class and from her travels she could tell the warning sounds of ship-counts, and it sounded like there were three different counts within hearing, and then the beep-beep-beep of a door-lock warning echoed from somewhere as she passed several busy people speaking to unseen listeners.
   
    She, at least, carried no live ship-to speaker, and the background speaker news for ship folks that  "Thurstan, green, thirty seven, five green go. Blueboy, fifteen five five five, hold.  Drosselmare, line seven forty four, clear thirty two, straight count", meant little to her other than connectors were connected, and arrival and departures were happening and would happen ... but then this wasn't her community.

    There were access ports and doors on the walls, too, some raised, and several airlocks in what seemed to be the oddest places. There were lots of doors, some numbered, some lettered, some anonymous, some color-coded, and even guards – live people – on duty outside some of the doors, which surprised Theo given the experience she'd had on Vashtara and the ports she'd been through.

      One bright blue door – no numbers, and the only one of that color she'd seen -- had two guards flanking it, one with hand on a holstered weapon, and that was the door Theo needed to go through to pick up the Pilots Guild application in person.

    Yos' Senchul had been clear on it: she needed to go herself, with all her ID, just to pick up the application. 

    "Given the times here at Eylot, applications are traveling by trusted hand and are kept in trusted hands, Pilot; you may carry with you my letter of reference, which is already on file, since I have this day proposed you for membership, also in person."

    Trusted hands. That's what Kamele and the whole trip to Melchiza had been about, in a way, the trusted-hands making sure the information was correct and bringing back what needed correcting, because there'd been a breach of trust, and – so!

    "Does this mean that untrustworthy people have been applying?"

    He'd paused then, as if examining his hand. She realized he may well have been examining his hand – it was something he hadn't been used to for awhile, after all.

    "It means, Pilot, that the usual rules apply.  We spoke of it earlier: don't trust anyone just because they appear to belong to a particular group. Have a contingency plan.  Know as many back ways as you can to your ship and to another ship you can call on if you need to.  Don't tell anyone about all of your weapons, nor all of your plans.  I might go on at length, but they expect you at he office shortly."

    "You will want this token; have it in hand at the door, this glowing side up or forward."

    This token was a short stubby rod with a hand grip, barely longer than her palm, looking for all the world like the top of a hand-stick for an aircraft; yos' Senchul tapped it several times on the instrument panel and handed it to her hilt first.
    She took it, held it experimentally, finding it heavier than she'd expected, like she might be able to use it to clunk someone on the head with it if she needed to.  It immediately felt molded to her hand, with the supposed top glowing a dim green.

    "Here's a map, and as I say they're expecting you, and the token."

    He bowed, and stopped in the middle as Theo danced a kink out of her shoulder and abruptly asked:

    "How do I know the people there are who you say they are?  Can I carry a key to the Cherna with me? Will the Cherna be here when I leave the office? Will they check me for weapons?"

    Then he'd smiled, and bowed again, then held out a key set for her.

    "Please, check that the door answers this key on the way out. I expect you will not be overlong, and as acting co-pilot I will do everything in my power to have the Cherna here and operable when you return. If it is not, I suggest you yell for Bringo, who is boss of yard dogs this quarter-moon. As to your other questions, the place I send you off to is the most secure on Codrescu as far as I know, and if they'll do a weapons check depends on how they view the threat level, both of you and of the universe."

    The air pressure on Codrescu was space normal, which meant low but with a little more oxygen than she was used to on Eylot. The extra oxygen was a good thing, Theo thought, since her walk, even with the map, was more stress than she was used to, especially when she'd turned the last corner and found the guards, one with hand resting on her sparker.

    She ought to have been embarrassed, perhaps, but she'd been using the token in front of her as if it was a piloting stick, ever since she'd realized that she'd long since committed to ending up here, at a Guild office, and begun banking into the turns ...

    The guard with the gun glanced at Theo's hands even before Theo could recover a properly serious aspect; and with that glance removed the hand from the weapon and nodded, perhaps toward the token, which now was clearly emitting a green glow.

    "Pilot, first time in?"

    "Yes, pilot," Theo replied serenely as she glided to a stop in front of the door,  "my first time to the Guild. I'm told I am expected; I am Theo Waitely."




    The guy at the front desk, like the guards outside, was a pilot. She hadn't noticed the guy at first, since she was overwhelmed by the sheer and unexpected luxuriousness of the room. It wasn't a really big room, but the walls were paneled in what appeared to be wild-grown wood, and part of the floor was covered with carpets that made her own fine rug at home look shabby. There was artwork on the wall – again, like the wood, things that looked like real, intentional art and not simply office-art meant to soothe or set a mood.

    One wall display might be showing text of the messages she'd been hearing by speaker, but the place was quiet, and that was somehow a nice change from the stark halls.

    The part of the floor that wasn't covered with carpet was covered in green plants. There were plants with flowers, and some without.  The room was filled with scents she associated with being outside, and something smelled like grass or bushes she might find at Leafydale Place. A small carefully encased rock-lined water-fall with a tiny open pool with it's own arm thick mini-tree occupied that end of the room, and oh! A norbear!

    The norbear was sitting quietly beside the pool, on a mat of vegetation, gently chewing a long green plant with a bulb at the end.  It looked shyly up at Theo and made a sort of chuckling noise, its thick brown-and-orange fur making it a match for the rocks of the waterfall.

    "Hello," she told the norbear, and the guy at the desk said, "Hello Pilot, how may we assist you?"

    Theo laughed, hand flashing see you pilot via hand-talk, and then said "Excuse me, I – oh there's someone else! But I'm Theo Waitely. Here to apply...."

    Tucked behind the tree in a very hard-to-see nest was a nearly colorless norbear, with wizened visage and slitted sleepy eyes.  The color of its eyebrows – there was touch of rust there, and the eyebrows echoed its skull in the way she'd not see in the cruise-ship norbears, as if the creature was so old it was – like Veradantha!

    That creature was stretching now, slowly and thoroughly, as if it needed to recall exactly how it were done.  Theo heard a low sound, more of a rasp than a burble, and then the slender creature, skinny almost to the point of emaciation, stood, and Theo saw that this was no "hot-house norbear" as Win Ton had called those silky creatures on the liner, but someone who was looking at her as much as she was looking at him.

    "Hevelin!  Almost no one sees him in there, and he hardly ever says anything.  The  hungry one is Podesta, Hevelin's great-granddaughter," said the pilot behind the desk, "Please, sit where you will and be comfortable."

    "Here?" she asked, impulsively pointing to the matted plant beside the burbling water.

    He shrugged, finger spoke Seat is seat  and then he laughed.

    "But here, first I need your token and your cards, if you're here to apply. In fact, we ought to have enough to finish the application right now, if you like. Give me those please, else if the old guy gets to talking to you, you may fall asleep waiting for his next sentence!"  

  
   
    Theo rapidly discovered that "the old guy" did have a lot to say, or maybe a lot of questions to ask.  Unlike the Vashtara norbears, who were smaller and much less seemly, Hevelin was dignified in his movements, and grasped rather than grabbed as he adjusted himself on Theo's lap.  The resonance in her head was calm and thoughtful, more like Mandrin, somehow, than Coyster, and sincerely inquisitive, as if everything was not only interesting, but meant something.

    Genuine puzzlement reached her; and she found herself considering the norbears she'd met and seen; especially Threesome, the white and spotted one from Vashtara who apparently never went alone to a visitor, but always shared.  There was something more going on that she couldn't identify, as if she was seeing older, larger norbears than she'd seen before, like Hevelin was asking her a catalog of friends they might both of met – except coming up disappointed that she'd never met anyone he'd known...

    But there was another catalog going on; even as her records were going to and fro in electronic pathways and being compared and cross-indexed by the Guild, Hevelin was seeking some other acquaintances, and she thought of yos' Senchul lecturing her, and felt as if there were an assent, and of Kara, who was not known as a game player but appreciated, and Win Ton, quite warmly, who was not known but gave off echoes of joy and something else, and then since she was thinking Liadens at him, she thought of Father, carrying his cane and --

    The norbear grabbed her hand and held it, and when she looked into those eyes she saw not Father, but, but, a man who might have been Father, as if seen in a haze, Father with no sign of graying, Father with some glow around him, and perhaps another face, female, sharing his space, peering down with amused eye, and more faces in the background.  There was question in that, and she agreed that yes, Father may have been that person, there, moving lightly like a young scout and a young pilot, but she wasn't sure, not knowing all of Father's friends, after all, but it was curiously disconcerting when her face joined the image beside Father's.

    There was more then: lots more faces of norbears, and something that might have been a cat as seen through norbear understanding or norbear echoes and then a rush of raspy burbles and ...

    "Pilot Waitley?

    The desk-pilot had called her that already a couple times, the first to ask for date check, the next to verify next of kin, Terran-style, not Delgado style, and then in the midst of her dreaminess listening to the norbear, to ask if she had plans for dinner.  She'd managed not to follow that too far, pointing out that she was on assignment, and got a slow finger flash of work,work, work and a see you next trip and a "I know the best bars and restaurants on Codrescu, Pilot. Just ask  for Arndy Slayn."

    She hadn't promised, but there, yos' Senchul had made it plain that it was good to know people.

    "Pilot Waitley, we're set."

    Theo looked up, finding the desk-pilot motioning her to come to the desk.

    "The token gave us the palm print and fingerprints and some back-up on the other ID readings, and of course we have yos 'Senchul's vouchers and letters and several other letters of support that have drifted in over the last few months waiting your application. Since you brought the token direct, and since Hevelin find's you a great place to relax, I can give you your base Guild card, assuming you'll OK your dues payments."

    Dues payments meant signatures and more ID verification, and after she managed to free her lap from Hevelin she had to extricate herself from the sudden attention of Podesta, who wanted to cling to her leg as she looked over the forms and explanations and signed away three percent of her base pay for the rest of her life.

    With the signature then a card, and a chip identifying herself as a Guild member in good standing, certifying her record to date, a key that would let her check available berths in almost any port in the known universe. Just showing her card ought to get her into the Guild Hall proper, which on Codrescu was down the other arm, since the Guild had some bunkrooms and a rec-space there. There was also a slip guaranteeing her bail if she --

    "Guaranteeing my bail? Am I dangerous?"

    He smiled. "Compared to most dirt-siders, if you're a pilot, you're dangerous.  Not only that, but you'll be a target sometimes, because some places think prices are high because pilots make so much money."

    He laughed heartily then, and admitted – "I've been a Guild member for seven years and they've never had to throw my bail.  But knowing the Guild will, that's good. Knowing they'll garnish my wages and come after me if I skip bail, that'll help me stay honest if they ever need to throw my bail."

    "Here you go!  Good lift!"

    "Safe Landing!"

    She said that, and had to unwrap Podesta again, and she solemnly bowed to Hevelin, who sat now in his nest, watching her alertly.

   
   
    Among the info she had now was a complete map of Codrescu, which was both bigger and more complex than she'd realized. Arndy Slayn had pointed out several place as having decent launch-food – that meant they specialized in not serving stimulants and sedatives along with their meals – and allowed that if she had a few minutes to kill ....

    But that kind of stuff was for later. For now, the map showed her another way back to the berth, and by then she'd seen a couple small shops with prices almost as bad as they were on the Vashtara and a noisy bar that she passed by, a small shop with maize buttons that she had to grab a dozen of, and another noisy place, this one with music and dancing and other frivolities.

    Behind the social noises was the constant station-talk, now letting her know that "Thurstan, eight clear clear green,  Drosselmare four, clear clear yellow ..."

    Cherna's berth was down this way, with the map illustrating a series of t-intersections as well as the semi-circular way she'd gone to the office. There were north-south Ts and east-west T's, each T offering berths at the ends of the T arm.  Cherna was on the second east-west, and as she walked she went over the norbear stuff in her head until from behind came the clattering of several people in a hurry.

    Glancing behind, she saw two uniformed men, carrying gear and food, heard somewhere a two minute gong, heard:

    "No girls for a billion miles where we're going and you gotta freak off the only thing that looked at us. We gonna be ... oh look!"

    "Drosselmare, two, clear clear yellow, Thurstan, six, clear clear clear,
    The maize-buttons felt heavy in her hands, and her back itched.  Theo began moving a little faster, but they were hurrying for a ship and she really ought to give them right of way ...
    "Gazo, you think? We're away in a minute!"

    "Hey, lady, you, girl, you need a new ride? Best thing that ever happened to you, a ship of eight we'll make you a queen, we will ..."

    They were a few steps away now, and moving not as steady as they might. The   second warning tick went off up one of the T arms and Gazo said "Now!" and dropped his gear.

    His buddy, however, wasn't coming toward her – he was making a beeline for the camera, and --

    "You have right away," she said, moving toward the side, hoping, but the man's arms were in motion already, reaching for her, and it was already really too late, since she'd thrown the maize buttons in his face.

    "Beecha da plaza!" he yelled, and grabbed for her but even here in the low-grav she felt the move come-on, saw his fist as some poorly thrown bowli ball, grabbed and threw him against the wall, danced the second motion, spinning, got a foot up in time to catch his arm there and --

    Crack!

    Meanwhile a going chimed and someone was yelling, "Gazo you're dead if you don't make the tick!"

    The second man was there then, but Gazo was wailing and running and there was a bosun at the end of the T, waving at them as the next tick went off and ...

    She saw the gun, slammed it out of his hand, and threw him with all her might down the T arm; her momentum taking her to the weapon, her hand scooping it up and finding --
    "Ferkistsake, don't shoot! We're gone!" 

    And they were gone, their backs disappearing into a hastily sealed airlock, the warning gong signaling closed and locked and a bit of vibration running down the hall and an odd clung as the ship let go grapples, and then more noise ...

    She spun, the noise behind her stopped, one hand up, smiling.

    It was Arndy Slayn, carrying what looked like yos' Senchul's datacase.

    "You're dangerous," he said approvingly, nodding to accent his words.  "And you really needed a gun to call your own, anyway."