The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4)(7)

There were some individuals for whom landing a spaceship manually was a point of pride, but Roveg took no chances when it came to physics. He did not see the need to flex one’s frills over being able to do something that every species in the GC had taught their machines to do centuries prior.

He walked himself into the safety harness hanging in the centre of the room, holding still as the robotic straps wove themselves between his abdominal legs and around his thorax. ‘Friend,’ he said, reaching for a nearby compartment as he spoke. He opened the small cubby and retrieved a packet of grav tabs. ‘Check with the surface for landing confirmation.’

‘One moment,’ Friend said. The flight status monitors shifted accordingly as the AI worked.

Roveg tore open the packet and ate the disks of chalky medicine within, his spiracles flaring in fleeting disgust as he did so. This was a necessary precaution, as he knew from queasy landings of yore, but he could think of few worse ways to chase a lovely breakfast than with grav tabs. Whoever manufactured them really could stand to flavour them more palatably.

Friend reported back. ‘The ground host has confirmed they are ready for our landing.’

‘Excellent,’ Roveg said. He folded the empty packet in half twice, then set it back in the cubby, ready to be retrieved for the incinerator at a later time. ‘You may begin landing.’

There was the floating lurch of the artigrav turning off, the loud whirring of the engines changing position, the roar as Roveg’s ship threaded itself in a precise parabolic curve. All at once, the Korrigoch Hrut threw itself at Gora, and natural gravity grabbed it with inescapable authority. Roveg forced himself to relax into the harnesses, as he’d long ago taught himself to do. Bracing only made atmospheric entry worse, even though every instinct in him demanded otherwise. Intellectually, he was aware that he had done this countless times and had nothing to worry about. Still, the visual of an entire planet rushing toward you was a hard thing to tell your body to ignore. But Roveg did, in fact, manage to relax, letting engineering lead the way. Both of his stomachs held as the ship split Gora’s paltry air. Breakfast, thankfully, stayed down. He no longer regretted taking his medicine.

Dome after dome flashed past as he made his decent, and he craned his torso toward the viewscreen as much as the harnesses would allow. Everything was going too fast for a proper look, but he made out multiple bursts of green and blue: the signatures of plant life and water fixtures, hauled between stars and corralled for the purpose of travellers’ comfort. He warmed at the sight of the colours alone, even though their details were lost. He loved his simulated environments dearly – as only made sense for one of his profession – but it had been over two tendays since his last docking, and he was more than ready for the real thing, curated as it might be. In all honesty, Roveg much preferred gardens to untended biomes, and had spent as little time in the latter as possible. Wild places had every right to exist, and the galaxy needed them, to be sure, but he was content to leave them to their own devices behind fences and walls and the thickest of windows.

The ship began to slow, and the world along with it. The Korrigoch Hrut coasted to its destination, landing as comfortably as one could. The view outside was pretty much what one would expect in such a place: a circular shuttle tarmac outside of a modest-sized habitat dome. An airlock tunnel connected dome to landing pad, its six universal latching ports branched outward like airways. As Friend nudged the ship into docking position, Roveg glanced idly at the other shuttles he now neighboured. One looked both military and Aeluon – white as a child’s shell, smooth as wet ceramic, its brawny hull ready to take a beating. It was in excellent condition and a feast for the eyes; he’d never encountered an Aeluon vessel that appeared otherwise. The other two ships looked like the sort of prefab kits that anybody with a modest budget could pick up at a multispecies dealer, but that was where their similarity ended. One obviously belonged to the ground host, as the exterior was painted unmissably with the phrase ‘VISIT THE FIVE-HOP ONE-STOP!’ on every side. The other … well, it was a cheap ship, to be sure, and the longer he looked at it, the more it became clear there had been repairs involving components from other kits. It was mismatched and homely, but it wasn’t falling apart, and the build didn’t look dangerous. It simply looked like the efforts of someone who was doing what they could with what they had. For all his love of aesthetics, Roveg could respect that. Sometimes all you could do was make it work.

There was a clank, a whir, a quieting-down. ‘Docking is complete,’ Friend said. ‘You may safely exit the shuttle, when ready.’

‘Thank you, Friend,’ Roveg said, as the harness let him go. Stars, but he was ready to get out. He wasted no time in heading to the hatch, stepping into the airlock, standing patiently as he was scanned for contaminants, and going on through.

Awaiting him at the airlock entrance was a Laru – a large child, too young to have chosen a gender yet, comprised of angles that didn’t look comfortable and feet that didn’t match xyr body. Xyr fur looked halfway groomed, and was too long for xyr face. It hung listlessly over xyr large black eyes in a helpless manner that suggested it didn’t know why it was still growing but didn’t know what else to do.

‘Welcome to the Five-Hop One-Stop,’ the Laru child recited in the flat tone of the unenthused. Xe stood on three legs, holding a scrib in the paw of xyr fourth. Xe looked at the screen, craning xyr limb-like neck. Xe looked then at Roveg, then back to the screen, then turned the scrib around so that Roveg might read his own shuttle licence.