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rueful smile. “No.”
    I shrugged. “That works for me too.”
    She led me into her small stateroom and closed the door behind us.

 

    C HAPTER F IVE
D IURNIA O RBITAL
2358- J ULY-2
    When we docked at Diurnia Orbital, I got the full treatment of a Confederation customs inspection. It wasn’t the first time, but they were much more thorough than on Newmar. Perhaps it was because in the past I’d always traveled on freighters, and this was my first passenger trip. The rest of the passengers didn’t seem all that surprised, and Kurt even escorted his very reclusive employer voluntarily into a private inspection room. Or perhaps that was just how the rich people did it. Kurt smiled and nodded once in my direction as he disappeared behind a blank door.
    The rest of us presented ourselves and our goods at the lines waiting at the banquettes behind which stern-faced inspectors in rubber gloves waited. It seemed a waste of time to me. They’d had the ship’s manifest for days as we maneuvered into the orbital. Our luggage had been sniffed and scanned when it was taken aboard, but the Diurnian custom officials, men and women alike, had the same no-nonsense expressions. They looked as if they expected to find something, and woe unto the unlucky passenger who neglected an item on the declaration form. All told, though, it didn’t really take all that long to clear customs. A few questions, such as: “Where are you coming from? Why are you here? Where are you going?” a review of my credentials, a perfunctory examination inside my grav trunk, and a fast body scan were all behind me fairly quickly. I stepped through to the arrivals lounge and caught up with the luggage that had taken an additional pass through some kind of magnetic resonance scanner.
    Leslie March was standing there with a pair of grav trunks and thumbing for them as I stepped up. She gave me a warm smile and winked without saying anything, turning to trundle her trunks off toward the exit. We’d exchanged contact information before leaving the ship. I didn’t expect she’d call, but one never knows, and she was a very considerate woman.
    I thumbed the receipt for my own single trunk and tagged it to trundle along behind me. I had a couple of days before my appointment with Diurnia Salvage and Transport, so I needed to find a room. After cooling my heels aboard the Ellis for forty days, the last thing I wanted to do was wait around the orbital, but my appointment was for July 5, 2358, and then I’d find out what ship and when I’d be able to board.
    Stepping out of the arrival’s lounge into the gently curving promenade of the orbital’s One Deck, felt like I was coming home somehow. While I’d spent a lot of time studying cargo and cargo handling on Newmar Orbital, and summer cruises had taken me to several of the orbitals around the Venitz quadrant, those all felt temporary. Diurnia was about to become my new home port. The realization sent a shiver of disbelief through me. I wasn’t sure which ship I’d be going on, but Diurnia Salvage and Transport operated among only four other systems in the quadrant. I could expect to see a lot of Diurnia Orbital. Well, As much as a spacer saw any station.
    I paused at the observation window and looked out at the Ellis , nuzzled up against the small craft lock on the deck below. I marveled again. My next trip would be aboard a freighter and would probably take nearly as long to reach the Burleson limit on its way out as the entire trip from Newmar had taken. I snorted in amusement and pulled my trunk along the corridor in the direction of the lifts. I could find a reasonably priced hotel up on the Seven Deck, and I needed to get settled in for the next few days.
    Having all the orbital stations standardized under the rules of the Confederated Planets Joint Commission on Trade made them very easy to navigate for people who saw them a lot. There were always spacers needing rooms as the ships came and went. The