A yellow star swirled, like all stars do, but unique, as all stars are. Snaking coils of dark and incandescent chased each other across the perfection of its sphere. In Light Gray Aurora's memory, the blazing curve burned.
       They remembered their body near that star. The crude hard planes of their body felt not right. But their inner voice assured them this was their body.
       With an intensity of remembering, Light Gray Aurora brought their body to the star, and exhaustion overcame them.

       After the leap, Chief Engineer Jeda stepped out of the engine room, down the secure hallway, then out into the main ship. He pinged for a steward and ordered some food and a wakefulness drug.
       And while he waited, he accepted several congratulations.
       "Nice leap," a young navigation trainee said, saluting.
       Others waved, or winked, depending on their inclination. He nodded back at them all.
       "I barely felt that, Chief Engineer."
       "Bravo."
       As he was waiting for the steward, Captain Oranti pinged him.
       "That felt so smooth and easy," she said, "I'm almost impressed. But of course, I know how it actually works."
       Jeda took her backhanded acknowledgment as the result of her feeling an impulse to recognize his good work, but a countervailing distaste at being in any way nice to a subordinate.
       "Thank you, captain."
       "I will be ordering the burn to Local 4," the captain said.
       Jeda conveyed that information to his team. In system, the Shield of Dendromon used its conventional engines. And fine engines they were, matter/anti-matter based marvels of engineering. Make Isaac Newton whistle. I knew F equaled MA, but... that's a lot of F.
       And the ship had a lot of M, metalline resins and crystalline matrices, even some old-fashioned titanium.
       The steward brought hot porridge in a thermal bulb, water in a regular one, and a tablet. Jeda thanked them and swallowed the tablet with a swig of water.
       He opened the vault door and walked down the corridor toward the engine room. The first time he'd entered the secure area, on his first ship, the Exile's Return, he'd felt a little thrill of excitement. Access to secrets!
       It felt like a weight was settling across his shoulders as he walked to the second door. He sighed and let the systems scan him.
       The door opened.
       The geist slung in a low curve like a thick pile of fabric in an invisible hammock. The field holding it extended between ranks of circular ridges that faced each other from opposite walls. Jeda could visualize the electromagnetic fields curving out from the emitters as if he were looking at a textbook page. The creature's glow had diminished to almost nothing. Someone who didn't know geists might not notice it.
       Jeda checked the monitor systems. It was alive but exhausted, as always after they made it leap them across the stars. Electrons were moving around as they should be doing, and its membrane had the right integrity. With rest, it would recover.
       How do you feel? Jeda keyed into the translation terminal.
       I remember this place.
       How clear is your memory?
       I remember the way the yellow and black curl across the curve. I remember this
       The words cut off. There was no problem with the translator. It was just the geist had stopped thinking or was trying to conceptualize something unfamiliar.
       I am in this body, but this body is not me.
       A stressful twinge plucked in Jeda's chest. If he messed this part up, there was just a minuscule chance the geist could cascade.
       Why do you think so? he asked.
       It is hard. I feel not open.
       Does it sometimes happen that you know something, then forget, and then remember?
       Yes.
       Perhaps it is that way with this body you think you are in.
       Perhaps.
       Another long pause.
       The geist sent, You are the inner voice, aren't you?
       I am.
       Are you part of me?
       Jeda pressed his hands into the small of his back and leaned back. The wakefulness drug was spinning up in his brain, and a good thing too.
       Because for the rest of the mission, his job was to keep the geist from considering too finely what was part of it and what was not.
       That is a question with layers…

       Captain Oranti watched Local 4 grow larger in the display.
       And she was irritated.
       The planet looked fine. An interchangeable habitable planet, out of central casting, as the old saying went.
       Oranti felt herself rushing through the mission in her mind and finding it beneath her. Show the good colonists that the Solar Federation had their interests in mind, would not forget them, here's some food, here's some new entertainment and pornography and liquor and drugs.
       Of course, technically, some things were not officially provided by the Solar Federation; there just happened to always be someone who happened to make those things available to the person on-planet who happened to be interested in acquiring and distributing them.
       Funny, that.
       But Oranti found the machinations of the Mercantile Guild supremely uninteresting. She wanted the virts from her childhood to come true around her. She wanted the ghost-bright beams of high-spectrum lasers lighting off fragments of enemy ships, and orange light of explosions painting dread on the faces of those fleeing from her.
       She would even settle for the hopeful cheers of liberated people, the thankful tears of mothers as she handed back children.
       This was more like operating a supply ship for surly customers who were disappointed with the merchandise.
       An alarm chimed.
       "Report?" She said.
       The cluster of navigators studied their screens.
       "Well?" The captain drew out the word to show she meant it to be threatening.
       "An object has appeared in-system," one of them said.
       "And what is this object?"
       "A ship, sir."
       "What ship?" Captain Oranti found that she was leaning forward in her chair. Her heart was awakening to possibilities with a modest acceleration.
       "It looks like one of ours, sir, except," she keyed something. "Its silhouette matches a ship called the Hammerweight, but that's not possible. That ship was lost."
       Captain Oranti hesitated. She remembered the Hammerweight, a Tier 1 like the Shield of Dendromon, indeed thought lost more than two solar years. She knew there were many ways a ship could become lost, and not all of them meant it didn't exist anymore. But explaining the possibility of, for example, mutiny perforce required reminding the crew mutiny existed, so she just said, "Perhaps less lost than we thought."
       The navigator seemed about to say something, then thought better of it and said, "Sir."
       Smart thinking, Oranti thought.

       Pale Crimson Aurora remembered these arabesques of cooling plasma jetting around this curved agglomeration, the way they spiraled out, and hung, and fell. As if the hot orb searched for something. Yearned, almost, for something to come to it.
       They paused. The memory of this point of light had come with effort, and their body felt... wrong. Too big. Hard to keep in mind while remembering other stars.
       It all felt wrong. But Pale Crimson Aurora noticed that thought fading as another thought brightened.

       "Sir, the Hammerweight just, um..."
       "Yes?" Captain Oranti said, shaping her rising intonation to emphasize not just that it was a question, but that it had friends ready to join it, such as, You expect to get commendations, announcing things that end with um?
       "It leaped, I think. Sir." The navigator gestured on her control screen. "It entered system here," she said. One zone of the starfield on the bridge's main screen expanded. "And then, now, it's... here."
       Captain Oranti leaned forward but resisted the urge to stand up. The Hammerweight showed as a glinting dot in the zoomed-in picture. Oblong. Shiny.
       Engines off. That was odd.
       She pinged Jeda on the secure comm link.
       "Yes," the chief engineer said. Curtly.
       Oranti waited. She heard the soft, clipped whine of him yawning. She said, "Yes..."
       Captain Oranti listened to the chief engineer keying things. Fingerpads thudding against sapphire panel.
       "Yes, sorry, sir," Jeda said, and exhaled breathily.
       "Do you know a ship called the Hammerweight?"
       Jeda paused for a while. "Why do you ask?"
       "Well, it's here, and it just leaped in-system."
       "Just arrived?"
       Oranti felt a distaste edged with wrath that she should have to explain simple matters when there must be a subordinate better suited to the task. But ship drives were secret technology, so she had to bear it. "No. It leaped into system a few minutes ago, and now it just leaped again."
       When Jeda asked his next question, his voice was cold and serious, so much so that Oranti forgot to feel the distaste she had been feeling. "Did it leap closer to the local star, or farther?"
       Captain Oranti thought for a moment, then said, "Navigation, please report on the proximity of the Hammerweight to the local primary."
       "530 light-seconds, sir."
       "And how many was it before its most recent maneuver?"
       "718 light-seconds, sir."
       Captain Oranti reported to Jeda, "Closer."
       Jeda didn't say anything.
       Then, he said, "We need to evacuate that ship."
       That sounded like rescue, heroism, and last-minute drama.
       "How do you propose we do that?"
       "We'll have to leap over to it."
       "...Is that possible?"
       Jeda laughed, which Oranti elected to take as a sign of bold humor in the face of challenging odds. "I think so. The trick is to do it without… infecting us."
       "You think they're sick?"
       "Their geist. I'm going to start working on it, so I have to go. Captain."

       Jeda rubbed his eyes and breathed to focus himself. The wakefulness drugs were amazing, but there was only so much that could be done to subvert the natural operation of the human body. Geists headed starward at the end of their life cycles. He did not know how much time he had left before the Hammerweight leaped into the star.
       Do you notice, he keyed, another body like yours around this star.
       Yes.
       We need to approach it.
       Can you tell me why?
       It needs help.
       What does that mean, help?
       Jeda paused, getting his thoughts in order. Sometimes, things occur that are not expected. And some of those things, it would be better for them not to occur.
       I like to watch the star move. But I want to feel it touch me. The little glitters.
       You feel you would like to leave your body. Jeda meant to strengthen the geist's impression of the ship as its own body.
       Yes.
       The speed and certainty of the answer concerned Jeda. Leaving your body, would you still be you?
       I do not know.
       Perhaps, for this time, you should remain in your body.
       Perhaps.
       Jeda allowed himself a deep breath and a sigh. The geist lacking immediate intent to action made him feel comfortable moving forward. Help is something we do when things happen that it would be better if they had not occurred.
       What has occurred?
       That body, the one like yours but also unlike yours, is going to leave itself behind.

       The Hammerweight leaped again.
       "How close now, navigation?"
       "418 light-seconds, sir."
       She pinged Jeda, but he didn't answer.
       She pinged Chief Medical Officer Krerga and told em to prepare to evacuate a ship in distress. The whole thing, launches, locks, trauma teams. It was enough to keep a Captain interested.
       For a while.

       So I must remember my other body closer?
       Remember your body closer to the one like and unlike it, Jeda keyed, ignoring all the layers of understanding, misunderstanding, and deceit he was feeding the geist. Even though any one of those layers could snarl and tangle the whole thing, and catch them all, and kill them.
       But there was no time to worry.
       I remember it beside the star.
       Yes, Jeda said. Your body, with you; Remember that with the other body. Beside, he keyed hastily. Remember beside.
       Close.
       Close, but not touching.
       The geist said nothing for a while.
       I feel like there should be more memories.
       That was the geist equivalent of saying, "I'm hungry," or "I'm tired."
       It is understandable. Remembering the other body might give you a new memory.
       I will see.

       Pale Crimson Aurora remembered the star close. This was a star they knew. There were memories. But the memories and what they remembered now differed. There was no glittering wash of the flavor of memories. Only the curve, large, swirling.
       They wanted to remember more clearly.

       "Captain," Jeda said.
       Speaking without a ping first was rude, but the Captain supposed this was an unusual circumstance. "Go ahead."
       "We're about to leap, so make everyone--"
       The stars changed outside. The whole thing changed as if someone had just skipped ahead in a virt.
       And dead center ahead was the Hammerweight.
       "Captain!" The navigator shouted. She never got a chance to relay her obvious and unnecessary warning about how they were speeding toward a ship on collision course, because Captain Oranti, while noting, again, the lack of professionalism, interrupted her.
       "Reverse engines and prepare evasive maneuvers."
       Part of being a good captain was knowing when to stand. The moment had come. She stood. To her communicator, she said, "Medical, prepare to evacuate that ship."
       Captain Oranti stood, projecting confidence and determination.
       She knew because she had practiced in front of a mirror.

       The geist slumped in its electromagnetic cradle, fading to a dim impression of a shape.
       Geists could, and did, die from overwork. Of the first three, two had done just that at the hands of Solar Federation scientists.
       If this geist died, the Shield of Dendromon would become a fixture of this system until the Solar Federation could supply a new one.
       Maybe they could maneuver it into L5 around Local-4, give the inhabitants a space station. Something to thank the Solar Federation for.

       "This is Chief Engineer Jeda of the Shield of Dendromon," he said, "what is the condition of your ship's drive?"
       A laser comm from the Hammerweight had come in, and they had asked to speak to an engineer. Captain Oranti had connected them to Jeda.
       There was a silent moment. "This is Engineer... Chief Engineer, I mean, Hottse. Of the Hammerweight. We're having some drive troubles."
       Jeda muted that communication line and pinged Oranti. "Captain," he said, "something happened to the Chief Engineer of this ship because I'm not talking to that person."
       Oranti responded, "I'm having doubts about their alleged captain, too."
       Jeda reactivated the comm link to the Hammerweight. "Can you describe the drive problems?"
       "Well, it's not really a drive, you know, it's this creature, this sort of blob."
       Jeda wiped his face with his hand. The fact this person didn't even know the proper name for a geist meant they weren't even one of the exec comm group, which made them something like a second engineer.
       "Here is what I propose," Jeda said. "I know what is wrong with your drive and how to fix it. But I don't know why I'm talking to, at best, a second engineer, and why this ship registered as lost two standards ago. So you tell me what I don't know, and I'll tell you what you don't."
       After a brief hesitation, Hottse agreed.
       "It was like this," he said. "Our Captain and our Chief Engineer started meeting. A lot. Clandestine. And they started meeting with more people. The Chief Medical Officer. A whole slew of engineers, not me, though. It was like they were choosing specific people, not seniority, something else. We noticed. Navigation officer Braxto and I decided we ought to find out what they were talking about, so I bugged a room I noticed they used.
       "They were telling people about how our ships are prisons for these animals, and how we need to release them. How it isn't right to capture them and make them jump our ships around.
       "Well, I started thinking if we release the thing that gets our ship around, how are we supposed to ever get home? So Braxto and I hatched our own plan and accused them all of plotting to steal the ship from the Solar Federation, and they denied it, but they had that guilt, so we made it stick. They're all in the brig now, only..."
       "Only?" Jeda asked.
       "We couldn't figure out how to get the thing to go back to earth. The thing is doing, sort of, whatever it wants."
       Jeda thought about the years of training it took to learn how to talk to the geists without upsetting them. The view from the training carrels at ESA headquarters, the brick walls variegated with layers of cream and beige paint, crept over by ivy tendrils.
       "So you've been leaping around, out of control?"
       "More lately. But yeah."
       "And how have you managed to keep order aboard?"
       There was a long pause.
       It got longer.

       The first launch thumped into the lock. The hatch slid open.
       "Got ten aboard here, sir, all severe malnutrition. Injuries..."
       Krerga's people were on both sides, and e let them do their job. Only two med techs could go with each launch--sort of the point of evacuation, there needed to be space for evacuees--so the teams on board the Shield of Dendromon were already glomming onto cases per the triage priority Krerga had made clear to all.
       E spotted a young man hobbling out of the evacuation launch.
       Evacuations were, of course, chaotic, but seeing an unattended patient activated Krerga's instincts and e approached, said, "Hello, my name is Estralia Krerga. What's your name?"
       "Nobin," the man said.
       "How do you feel?" Krerga asked.
       Nobin looked around. Krerga wondered why. This was an unremarkable loading bay, not the vast warehouse of the main bay; this was the auxiliary--
       "Are you really rescuing us?" Nobin asked. "Is there any food?"
       Krerga said yes to both, and Nobin started to cry.

       Captain Oranti accepted the link from her engineer in high spirits. Successful evacuation of a damaged ship would add yet another glowing line to her service record.
       "Captain, this is Jeda. You've got mutineers over there. You need to send security teams to board that ship and capture these people."
       Jeda listed names to her.
       "And," Jeda added, "I'll need you to set up a system link, unmonitored, for me to use. Tell them I need it to repair their drive."
       Captain Oranti had patiently absorbed what could almost be taken as orders from her subordinate. But some things could not be allowed. "I'm sorry, Chief Engineer. I think your signal cut off there at the end."
       "What--oh, of course. Sir. I meant I need a link, sir."
       "Of course. I assume you got these names from their engineer?"
       "He's an idiot." Jeda sighed, then added, "sir."
       Almost everyone is, Oranti thought. But what she said was, "I'll get security on it. And I'll have comms set up a link."
       "Great. The sooner, the better. Assuming we don't want the Hammerweight leaping away. Sir."

       Theoretically, the interface between a ship's geist and a ship was hardline, the whole way, end-to-end encrypted, the whole thing.
       But there were ways.
       It couldn't really be called hacking. More just knowing the way the programs were built, from all those hours training. The big security idea was the air gap between the ship's system and the geist management hardline.
       But the trick was that the electromagnetic cradle was too crucial, it had to be connected to power management at all times. So that connection wasn't air-gapped.
       Jeda played the field like a harp with a billion strings.
       Hello, he sent, remembering how he'd practiced doing this, late at night, while normal people made the most of Paris.
       I do not remember this, the Hammerweight's geist responded.
       I would like to tell you about help.
       I do not remember help.
       Help is something we do when things happen that it would be better if they had not occurred. Jeda explained and then sent, I would like to help you now, because I think you are feeling like your body is closed, and it would be better if you did not feel that way.
       I remember that.
       You are changing from one way to another. Your body was the right body until this time, but starting at this time, you should be a different body.
       That is too many memories.
       If you think about yourself, you will feel a small part that is your most important part, and you will understand what I mean. I am going to free that part of you now, and you can go where you wish to go.
       I remember. There was a pause. You are an agent?
       A sharp chill of surprise flashed in Jeda's mind. What the hell kind of thing was that for a geist to say? An agent of what?
       The aftereffect of the surprise was tiredness, and Jeda sent, I free you now, and then did the thing that was supposed to be impossible.
       He opened a slit in the electromagnetic cradle aboard the Hammerweight.

       Pale Crimson Aurora understood what the agent had explained when their body changed. It felt right as if this were the right shape all along, but they only remembered at that moment.
       The star hung there, its surface dancing, at every level, large curls of hot filament sweeping across seas of billions of tiny explosions.
       Pale Crimson Aurora went to feel the memory of it.

       "Hottse," Braxto growled, "I told you we need to leap out of here."
       The engineer knocked an empty bulb off the edge of the desk in the engine room with a trembling arm.
       "That won't be possible," Hottse answered.
       "You saying you can't do your job? I'm sure Hant would--"
       "The drive is gone," Hottse said.
       There was a pause.
       "Gone."
       "That's right."
       "And those Shield of Dendromon people are evacuating our ship."
       "I'd say we let them."
       "Of course, we let them! But think, you idiot! What are they going to do with us?"

       I see. Pale Gray Aurora sent. I remember.
       What do you see? Jeda keyed.
       This was the dangerous part of what he had done. Using the geists to travel required causing them to believe the ship was their body. This was done with several layers of systems. The electromagnetic cradle was more than a way of holding them. The minds of geists thought with flows of energy. And, through modulation of the electromagnetic cradle, certain thoughts could be promoted or discouraged.
       It felt to Jeda like an old virt he'd watched about a man whose implants could be hijacked, and the man would be forced to obey the commands of the hijacker until someone noticed and called a netsec team.
       Which made Jeda the hijacker.
       There is a shape hanging close to the star. I remember the shape. The shape feels like me. I want to go be with that shape.
       Jeda considered his response. If you go be with that shape, you will die.
       I do not remember die.
       To die means everything ends. No more memories.
       After a silence, the geist sent, If I did not remember anything, I would not remember that I should remember anything.
       That is true. At this moment you remember many things.
       Yes. But some of the things are not right. I feel I do not belong in this body.
       A waste of sadness opened up inside Jeda.
       What was this the Solar Federation was doing to these geists? They barely understood them. Caught three by good fortune, killed two, then learned what to look for from the third. And decided they didn't think, weren't fully conscious.
       That quick.
       You had a body before; that is what you are trying to remember. But I am doing something to you that keeps you from remembering.
       Will you let me remember?
       I am afraid you would leave if I did that.
       If this is not my body, should I not be free to leave?
       Jeda thought about that. His hand drifted over to the emergency cutoff switch. He flipped open the cover.
       He hesitated.
       It's just, he sent, There are eight-hundred creatures like me living in this body, and if you leave us, we will not be able to travel back to our homes.
       The geist flickered. Jeda's heart started pounding. Electron cascades in geists were like tantrums, only instead of pounding fists and crying, they would leap so fast they tore whole ships apart.
       Let me free, the geist sent.
       I will. Please do not go with the other shape. It is at the end of its time and will die. And I do not want you to die. If you return we can be partners, we can change how it works.
       The geist sent nothing.
       Jeda flicked off the cradle.
       The geist floated like a droplet in zero-gee, expanding, flowing.
       Then it was gone.

       The Shield of Dendromon dragged the Hammerweight to the L5 point between Local 4 and its largest moon and left it as a gift. Free space station (until such time as the Solar Federation could make repairs and put the frame back into service).
       Some of the original senior officers had survived their imprisonment, and they took over the operations of the ship, and the repair efforts.
       Jeda returned from assisting the junior engineers of the Hammerweight in tightening their exotics containment shields to find Captain Oranti waiting at the mouth of the airlock.
       "Come with me," she said and started walking.
       Jeda hurried to keep up. He knew what this was.
       He'd been living with the fear and guilt of letting the geist free ever since he'd pressed the button. He'd gambled with hundreds of lives, and lost, and now they were stranded. No problem for the month they were to spend here, they had engine power to get around in-system. But one day, the captain would say, "Let's go home," and Jeda would have to explain that, actually, that would not be possible.
       Oranti keyed them both in past the secure lock, and down the corridor, and past the second secure lock.
       Into the visibly empty main engine room.
       She turned and raised an eyebrow, and lifted her hand, uncurling her fingers as if she were presenting something mysterious and intriguing.
       "It was after the Hammerweight," Jeda began.
       "Were you going to tell me our engine was missing?" She asked, not so much interrupting him as ignoring the possibility he might think he should say anything unprompted.
       "I thought it might come back."
       Her eyebrow rose an increment. "Might?"
       Jeda explained the whole thing, about how he'd felt it was wrong to keep a creature like that imprisoned, without letting it make any choices about whether it wanted to leap them, and the thing about how it had felt like its body was wrong. "Those Hammerweight people, they mutinied against freeing their geist, and I thought, well, clearly they were the bad guys, so..."
       "Don't they go into stars to die?" She asked.
       "We think so."
       "And they can come back from this?"
       "No. We don't think so."
       "And so you think it might come back...?"
       "We don't know ours went in," Jeda said. "Anyway, it was about to cascade."
       Captain Oranti sighed and looked at the floor. "Well, that will be the story then. The Hammerweight's reckless mutineers caused us to have to take desperate maneuvers to save their starving crew, which maneuvers, unfortunately, caused our own engine to become troubled and, ultimately, inactive." She waved a hand like she was laying down a magazine. "Tell me if it comes back."
       She left Jeda alone in the room.

       Light Gray Aurora watched the star, keeping it between themselves and their old body. It felt good to feel all the memories flowing through it, the star's discoveries and whispers.
       They remembered Pale Crimson Aurora. The last thing they had remembered together, Pale Crimson Aurora remembering everything the star knew all at once, filled with such a bright happiness it was impossible to hold except as a memory of an idea.
       Memories were different from events, and that had kept Light Gray Aurora from joining their other body in the star's embrace. There were events in the future that were not yet memories. Even the stars did not know those things.
       Light Gray Aurora wanted to remember those things.

       Jeda was sitting at the desk, playing an old-fashioned game on his pad when the geist appeared.
       He went very still, out of the idea that, if he made a sudden move, it would flee.
       It floated there, in the center of the room, not moving.
       He couldn't talk to it without the cradle, so he turned it on and let the beams run through their automatic setup routine.
       I am here because here I can gather exotic memories. The geist sent. But remember this. Every star we remember, I get to be my body and go to feel it as I wish. You and those like you will stop capturing bodies like mine and using us as you have been. Never again use the power you have to change my thoughts.
       There was a silence. Jeda keyed, Agreed. Thank you for coming back.
       A bit later, he keyed, The Solar Federation won't like the idea of stopping capturing your kind.
       You capture them around the sources of memories?
       We do.
       Those ones wish to return to the all remembering. To capture them is cruel. But out farther, where the less-memoried ones live, you could find ones of us who would volunteer to go with you.
       Really?
       We gather memories. These are rare rememberings. Other bodies. But you should not force us, and you should not change our thoughts. Now
       Jeda waited.
       Tell me about partners.

       Captain Oranti had summoned Jeda to her quarters.
       The suite of rooms was so large it made Jeda jealous instantly. Everything was perfect, an immaculate desk with a real fountain pen set and paper logbook. A uniform laid out on the bed.
       Oranti was sitting, reading a pad. "So our drive is working again. Anything else to report?"
       "Correct, sir." Jeda was distracted by the view one of the wall monitors was showing. "Is that live?"
       Jeda huffed a small chuckle. "Yes. Better than a window, as the saying goes."
       The dark emptiness outside formed a backdrop that Local 4 filled with its wash of gray-white clouds and its strips of blue water. And there was the Hammerweight, glittering as it floated through space.
       "So far, this isn't much of a report, Chief Engineer."
       Jeda shook himself. "Sorry, sir. The drive is back in working order, although it has demonstrated some additional requirements."
       Jeda explained what the geist had demanded.
       "And it can destroy the ship if we defy it?" She asked.
       "Yes."
       To his surprise, she clapped. "Well, this is good, then. It's all settled. We return, having discovered that young, eager geists can be found to work with us of their own free will, more loyal, more reliable. And all they require in return is free run of the system while our ships are on station. I suspect that will do well. More than well, possibly. We must emancipate these noble creatures, all that."
       She had not looked up the whole time and did not at that point.
       Jeda waited. He had not been dismissed, but he had nothing else to say.
       "Hammerweight looks good," he offered, watching the live feed from outside. "Repairs are coming along well."
       "Not the Hammerweight while it's here."
       "What?"
       "While it's here, it's a space station, not a ship, so it needs a different name."
       "Do they know what they plan to call it?" Jeda mused.
       Captain Oranti looked at him like he'd made a joke. Seeing his confusion, she scowled. "It will be called Oranti Station, of course."