St Brendan is a young colony world.  Like many of the second and third generation colonies, its remoteness is a feature, not a bug.  These worlds do not have strategic locations along the Main Line, nor do they have any great resource of note.**  What it is a good environment for a specific social system to operate- the Roman Catholic Church.

It's slightly lighter than Earth, and drier and cooler, with all of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, much of which is the great Perdos Desert, a broad, dry stretch bigger than all of Earth's desert's put together.  It has native life, but this is at a very simple level.  It's visible from space as splatterings of blue-green in the wetter environments, but those aren't forests, just a microbial sludge.  Not a single plant or animal rises above the lumps and rolls of slime.

The native life of St Brendan is doomed, of course.  The arrival of Earth life, and Earth crops, means all the rest that goes with it:  Earth microbes and even some Earth insects.  There will be trillions of microscopic battles but inch by inch St. Brendan is being conquered by Earth life.  Right now, it's just a few spots around key colony areas, in an equatorial belt, where crops are being raised.

Like virtually every world St. Brendan has an orbital station.  St Brendan Highport is oversized for the planet's small population- perhaps they are optimistic.  But despite the room it has, at the moment it is pretty busy.  Ships on their way to LDMLT-01 have stopped here, including a few of the small traders.



**Not many worlds do, really.  Space is so big and so full of everything that mankind barely scratches the surface of the resources available in the Hundred Worlds.  New worlds are settled more for ideological reasons than a need for anything that planet has.

As in most settled worlds, there is a space station which handles passenger and freight transfers for those not actually landing on the planet- which includes most of the ships larger than the Albatross.  Like most stations, it has a name- this is the Our Lady of Loreto Orbital Terminal.*  Like most stations, its name is often ignored and it is simply called by the name of the planet it serves:  St. Brendan Highport.

Or sometimes, "Port Loretta".

It's in shadow now.  Our Lady of Loreto is in geostationary orbit above the principal settlement area, an equatorial peninsula where St Brendan's unruly climate is somewhat tempered by ocean.  This half of the planet is in night, and on St. Brendan that lasts a long time.  From space you can see the lights from the Port Grace urban area.  The destination of the Albatross, San Lorenzo, is in daylight on the far side.

They pass a large close to the station, being visited by a cargo shuttle.  The Sorraia is a ship of a type that was once more common- a sleeper ship, carrying two thousand colonists at a time in hibernation.  Such travel isn't dangerous as long as it's done under competent medical control, but the preparation and recovery time is such that people don't use it except when they really need low cost very long distance travel.  St. Brendan is still a young colony and it still gets fresh settlers recruited from Earth.

Such large ships don't often, because it's risky maneuvering such a big ship so close, and the hibernating passengers don't mind being handled as cargo. Maybe they would, if they knew.  The Albatross passes by and connects to one of the long docking connectors stretching out from the Highport.

It's hard to judge Marlo's reactions to departing- the alien's face is, by Human standards, unreadable.  Perhaps he wishes he could go on to his rendezvous on his own private ship like this.  The fact that the Alabtross took on no other passengers has baffled him all the way.

With his luggage packed, he does have a final bit of helpful observation to pass on the crew:

"Your species and mine do some things in the same way, that is why Crossers like me are unafraid to travel alone on your ships.  Your culture is not always like ours, but some things are familiar.  If you want to have a trade ship, you must seek out contact and friendship.  I have seen that this is what both our traders and your traders do.  It is the same.  Some of these friendships are not deep.  They are created only for the purpose of gaining trade opportunities.  But they are made all the same.  So I advise you to seek this out when you can, and remember, that for a trader, no good comes from angering a journalist.  That too is the same, in your species and mine."



*The Patron Saint of Aviation since, unofficially and altogether unexpectedly, the 13th century.  It was finally made official in the 20th, when aviation actually existed.

The news Marlo had shared with her regarding Carinans' activities had worried Florence a bit. The fleet knew of it - according to him anyway - but still. She wasn't so sure about the "winning" part though: propaganda and simple ignorance certainly played a big part in making that claim. Sure, Carinans had been pushed back, but defeated? She seriously doubted it'd be possible unless they were exterminated…and the galaxy was vast. More likely, they had temporarily shifted their focus to other areas easier to control while they rebuilt their forces.

Worse… How long would it take for some humans to try to take advantage of that situation and negotiate something with the machines, thinking themselves too smart to get in troubles? That didn't make for a cheery thought at all. Not that she could do much of anything about it of course. And it was far from being her primary problem at the moment.

Florence seemed a bit melancholic towards the end, particularly as they docked at Port Loretta. It was probably because Marlo was leaving: despite the two of them not being of the same species, he was the only person she gone out of her way to talk to when off-duty. Oh, she had still done everything she had been supposed to but she hadn't gone much beyond that. It seemed she had lost hope or the desire to show anything to the crew. Despite that, she had taken care to prepare all the papers for custom's inspections and to make sure the delivery of the cargo would take care as smoothly as possible. As far as bureaucracy was concerned anyway.

"Thank you for taking care of the legal forms Florence, you sure I can't talk you into staying? I'd love to keep you around."