Chapter 12 Illogical Creatures

Titsum Approach was prompt, with a tone that suggested this speech had been given thousands of times.

"Roger, Reggie Two-Niner. We have you in the system, and you are locked to Orbital Eight. Good lock on Mama's Gadget. Course request green. Please be aware of the no-fly zone within 500 kilometers of the geo-sync system defense orbitals."

Ramona just looked at Leo. Mama's Gadget?

Leo shook his head. Must be local slang for the flight controller.

He responded with the exact phrase recommended in the training manual. "Roger, Titsum Approach. Locking in the course. I have a green light. Reggie Two-Niner out."

And that was that.

While Leo continued to monitor the automated systems, he was really just watching for something unlikely that the system couldn't handle. The odds of that happening and allowing him enough time to recover were slim, to say the least, but he still did his job.

Orbital Eight was actually on the other side of the planet from them at the moment. It would come around eventually, but the computer plotted an intercept vector that used the planet's mass to sling them around behind the station on a closing course.

"Better to chase it than race it," went the pilot's aphorism.

It was much more energy-efficient to approach an orbital from "behind" because the planet's mass would help match their course. Allowing the station to overtake them meant that they would have to reduce speed first, which decayed their orbit. Then they'd have to add delta-v to compensate.

Leo wasn't paying for reaction mass, but he approved of the more elegant approach vector the computer had picked. This also gave them a great view of the planet. He rotated the ship so that the planet was "up," offering them a clear sight of the blue-green marble as they performed a gravity slingshot around the backside of the heavily populated world.

"It looks like home."

Leo looked at Ramona in surprise. From the look on her face, she hadn't realized she had spoken aloud until he turned his head.

"I've never been to Raeburn's."

Leo winced as he said that. Of course, as a trader, he would never go to a banned system. Well, in for a credit, in for a guilder.

"Do you miss it?"

Ramona paused, as if considering her answer.

"Not really. There are some people I miss—my parents, some friends. But I always wanted to go to space. I've visited home since I joined the militia, but I haven't lived dirtside since I gained my majority."

This was the most Leo had ever heard her say about herself. Perhaps the beauty of the green continents, blue seas, and white swirling clouds had loosened her usual reluctance.

"I miss the Connie."

Now it was Ramona's turn to stare. "The Connie?"

Leo looked abashed. "I was born on the Connor Loic. My parents are both master traders. It's considered bad form for you to apprentice under your own parents, so I moved to the Reggie when I became an apprentice. If I make master, I could move back, but I've been on Reggie so long, I can't imagine leaving her either."

He checked the controls again, training and habit forcing him to verify and re-verify even while carrying on a conversation.

"Of course, I may have to quit the Reggie if the masters won't pass me for master."

Ramona looked interested. "Is making master that important?"

Leo nodded. "Yes. Until you make master, you're just working to make the masters rich. You don't control your own destiny until after you make master." He sighed. "I've worked my whole life for this one thing. I really worry that the masters are against me and I'll have to leave."

Ramona made a sympathetic noise. "Well, if you have to, you have to. It was hard leaving home, but I'm starting to think it was the right move."

The ship quickly passed the terminator line, and the continents below twinkled with artificial illumination. Leo kept an eye on the screens—Orbital Eight now showed on instruments.

"Five minutes to decel burn. I have the orbital on instruments. Should be coming up six o'clock low in a few minutes."

As their orbital speed pushed them higher, they slowly gained altitude relative to the planet. Since they were inverted, that meant they were moving "down" towards the station and "away" from the planet. Of course, such terms as up and down meant little in space, but the human monkey brain insisted that up and down mattered. Such terms persisted even for those born in space, like Leo.

The decel burn started right on time, and the now-visible orbital gained visual mass as they approached. The original dot had grown to a toy and now filled the windows as the five-kilometer-long station loomed closer.

Leo wasn't impressed. "This thing is ancient."

Pointing to the twin rings of the main habs with a wince, he added, "Look, they're using rotating hab modules. Don't they have a-grav?"

Ramona was getting used to Trader arrogance, but she still didn't like it much.

"Leo, not everyone has the credits to buy whatever IP they want. This design works, and I'm sure they got it super cheap. Don't judge."

Her tone was flat, but Leo heard the rebuke in it.

He had to think for a minute to figure out why she was mad at him.

"Sorry. Sometimes I forget that some people have to pick and choose their IP buys. This is a wealthy system—that shouldn't have been a make-or-break buy for them."

Mollified, Ramona smoothed her tone. "Perhaps not, but you don't know what they're investing their Guilders in. Look how perfect their world is. Perhaps the terraform was more expensive than you think."

Leo nodded. Terraforming could be amazingly expensive. While there were many inhabited systems, the total number of terraforming projects was relatively small. This meant the IP got re-used infrequently, and not many specialists had the ability to do primary research on the subject.

Low-volume, specialty work that was literally life or death for a new colony meant the IP didn't come cheap.

He knew intellectually that setting up a new world was expensive, but he didn't tend to think in terms of generational projects like terraform specialists did. You didn't terraform a world for yourself. Only your children or grandchildren would truly enjoy the fruits of your labors.

This explained the premium placed on T-norm worlds. While rare, they did exist—and there were millions of star systems in just this sector of space. Even something as unlikely as a T-norm world happened quite often when you were talking about millions of lottery draws.

From a purely economic perspective, planets didn't make sense.

Even for a post-scarcity society, the investment required to build a functional society on a new world was absurd. It was much simpler to build habitats—controlled environments that could be constructed in completely automated fabs.

Planets, on the other hand, were uncontrolled environments that required human ingenuity to overcome. Each one was unique, which meant automation was difficult, if not impossible.

While most human societies had human resources to spare, it was tough to get a couple of thousand people to agree to leave their homes for years at a time to work on a project that would provide zero value to them in their lifetime.

However, humans were illogical creatures.

Having a home on a real world was the dream of a significant percentage of the human population. For this reason, habitable planets very rarely suffered from lack of population. In fact, most had strict population control measures in place to prevent the types of tragedies that had occurred on old Earth before the FTL drive was discovered.