The room looked out over the spaceport. It had a large double bed, and the staff delivered a bowl of fresh fruit each and every morning. They’d been together for six subjective months, and now they were planning to ship out from the Quay together, as crew-members on a Blue Star Trading vessel taking a run up the coreward stars to Nolton Relay, on the very edge of explored space. In the week before the departure, they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, telling each other of the sights they would see and the wonders they would experience. It was their dream. They had both flown before, but this time it would be different, as they were doing it for each other. They would crew together and save up enough to buy their own ship. “Not one of those old clunkers,” Victor said, looking out of the window at the derelicts left rusting in the rain at the edge of the port. They were old ships no-one could be bothered to repair. They had outlived their usefulness and, in some cases, their owners.
