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had established the ground rules for some sort of rapprochement, if not a complete end to hostilities. From that point on, he made an effort to write her every three or four months. Usually she answered.
    In all, it took Thackery three years to pass his technical exams. But part of that extra time was a strategic delay. Unlike GS and the various free industries, which snapped up talent whenever and wherever they found it, the USS did not accept applications until and unless they had openings. Instead, it maintained a short “Qualified—Call As Needed” list to fill short-term needs, and posted a Notice of Opportunity when the QCAN list became too short or a new project or ship was approved.
    So Thackery waited at Tsiolkovsky, sharpening his skills, avoiding the binding commitments which would have come with graduation. He watched the Placement Services list like a broker with an order to buy until, one morning, he dialed in to find a short-term USS Notice of Opportunity posted. He would not know the reason until later that day: overnight, a fierce chemical fire had broken out in the cargo compartments of the packet Moliere . Nineteen of the twenty-five techs being ferried back from Mars’ orbital Materials Reprocessing Center were dead.
    Thackery went directly to the Tsiolkovsky testing center. Nine hours later, he returned home with his Technical Service Auxiliary (sysawk) rating, a post with USS-Transport, and a seat on the Friday morning shuttle for his first trip to the orbiting city called Unity.
    The shuttle Vulpecula ’s liftoff was smooth and on time. Due to its inverted attitude, the Earth would remain visible through cabin ports throughout the four-hour flight. But Thackery soon tired of looking back, and began to watch for the first glimpse of Unity.
    Early in its history, Unity had been home to the offices and ministers of Rashuri’s Pangaean Consortium. That highly symbolic “government-in-the-sky” position seemed progressively less important in the years after Rashuri’s death, and when the World Council supplanted the Consortium, it moved to a 1600-hectare free-floating artificial island built for it in the Mediterranean.
    Rather than being a blow to Unity’s fortunes and status, the departure of the bureaucrats actually opened the door to its explosive growth. Freed of the thousand and one restrictions imposed in the name of security, Unity quickly became the primary hub of orbital activity. Now it was more a city than a space station. It first appeared on the cabin display as a bright star surrounded by five smaller, dimmer satellites. The central star soon resolved itself into the starfish-like radial shape of Unity, the satellites into globular automated production centers.
    As Vulpecula closed on the city Thackery made out the slender communications masts which extended in both directions from its central hub, giving the structure the appearance of a five-spoked child’s jack. New construction was underway, skeletal structures spanning the gaps between the spokes like webbing growing between the fingers of a hand. The dozens of construction waldoids moving among the girders were like so many scurrying orb-weavers, creating their web even as he watched.
    Thackery’s contemplations were interrupted by a tone from the seat speaker.
    “This is Commander Gerhard. The crew and I just picked up something in the intership traffic that we’re sure will be of interest to you. The word is that Orpheus , the USS-Survey ship working the Vela octant, has discovered a fourth human colony!”
    The shuttle’s cabin erupted into applause and chest-beating celebration, with Thackery contributing as much as anyone. Gerhard must have been either monitoring or expecting the outburst, for he waited until it moderated to go on.
    “We don’t have much more information for you at the moment. I can tell you the colony is called Pai-Tem by the inhabitants, which number only about twenty thousand. I can also tell you