“Let’s do the preflight even if Fussy Fusi has made such a big deal of turnover,” Sallah said, sliding into the lock of the Eujisan an inch ahead of the next big crate being loaded. They had finished their check by the time loading was complete. Barr did passenger inspection, making very certain that General Cherry Duff, the oldest charterer and the pro tem colony magistrate, was comfortable, and then they were cleared for the drop.

“We were barely there,” Barr complained as Sallah taxied the Eujisan into takeoff position at the end of the runway eight hours later. “And now we’re away again.”

“Efficiency is our guide. Waste not, want not,” Sallah told her, eyes on the instrumentation as she opened the throttle on the Eujisan for lift-off thrust. She grimaced, eyes flicking between fuel gauge and rev counter, not wanting to use a cc more of fuel than necessary. “Kenjo and the next eager set of colonists will be chewing hunks out of the cargo hatch. We must up, up, and away!”

“Kenjo never made an error in his life?” Barr asked of Sallah sometime later after the famous pilot had made a disparaging remark about the shuttle’s consumption of fuel during the trips made by the two women.

“That’s why he’s alive today,” Sallah replied. But his comment rankled. Though she knew that she had expended no more fuel than was absolutely necessary, she began keeping a private record of consumption on each of her trips. She noticed that Kenjo generally oversaw the Eujisan’s refueling and supervised its fifty-hour checks. She knew that she was a better than average pilot, in space or atmospheric craft, but she did not want to make waves with a hero pilot who had far more experience than she did—not unless she absolutely had to, and not without the ammunition of accurate records.

Patterns were quickly established. Those on the ground began each morning by erecting the housing and work areas for those due to arrive during the day. The agronomy teams handily cleared the designated fields. The infirmary had already dealt with its first clients; fortunately, all the accidents so far had been minor. And despite all the hard work, senses of humor prevailed. Some wit had put up street signs with estimated distances in light-years for Earth, First Centauri, and the homeworlds of the other members of the Federated Sentient Planets.