Jude blinked and turned away from the window. “That’s really how we’re getting landing instructions?” Mankind could n–m tow navigate light years across the stars, but when it came to navigating the last few miles down from orbit to an Outworld’s surface, Alaskan bush piloting was more sophisticated. Tressel had no aircraft, and so no runways, so we were to land in an unimproved field somewhere outside the city. That was no problem. Transports are built tough. But the only radios on Tressel were the two that Earth’s consulates used to talk to one another, and to send signals out toward loitering drone receivers, for relay home. Diplomats make lousy air traffic controllers. Therefore, our pilots were being guided down by morse-style messages flashed by a Tressen heliograph, a hinged mirror on a tripod, operated by a Tressen Signals officer. Howard leaned across the aisle and touched Jude’s arm. “Lack of necessity is the mother of non-invention.”
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