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correct her.
    “Shadia,” the woman said, wrong again. “Why are you applying
for work on Toklaat?”
    I have the feeling you know. No doubt the woman had
instantly called up all of Shadia’s Toklaat-based records. “Med-debt, sir,”
said Shadia. Damn perm . They thought themselves so superior, with their
airs about commitment and stability and dependability. Dusters thought them
staid and boring and knew better than to expect permanence from any part of
their lives.
    “Then you won’t be allowed to leave the station until the
debt is paid?”
    Shadia stopped herself from narrowing her eyes. Of course
the woman knew the terms of duster med-debt. “Yes, sir.”
    “Filling this job is very important to us. Our permanent
residents, by definition, have little chance for exposure to pets of any kind.”
    No, of course not. Only the affluent could afford a pet in a
station environment, even a station like Toklaat with copious gardens and play
spaces and other luxuries. And the affluent wouldn’t need to check station
listings for jobs, temp or perm.
    The woman smiled a grim little smile. “I can’t say for sure,
but I suspect that with the priority placed on filling this job, it would be
very difficult to remove you as a candidate.”
    And as long as she was listed as a candidate for one job,
she wouldn’t be considered for others.
    Oh God. Stuck.
    ∞
    Until this moment Shadia would have said all stations
smelled the same. A whiff of artificial scent meant to cover the disinfectant
that was ineffective in some places and astonishingly strong in others.
    But no disinfectant would handle this smell. No artificial
scent stood a chance. Wildly exotic pet residue, abandoned and left to stew.
    Blinking watering eyes, Shadia tried to evaluate her new
home.
    Home . How long had it been since—?
    But no, this wasn’t a home. This was enforced labor, and as
soon as her med-debt was paid, she’d find some way out of this place. Off of
this station. Back to the habits to which she’d become accustomed these past
fifteen years, just over half her life. Her hip twinged, reminding her why she
was still here; old memories twinged to remind her why she wanted to leave.
    Shadia concentrated instead on her new environs. Two floors
of space, an unimaginative floor plan that put living quarters above several
rooms meant to simulate a home environment for pampered pets while offering a
practical nod to the need for clean-up, food preparation, and isolation of
cranky or antisocial animals. There was, of course, a tub.
    Precious water, used
on dirty pets.
    There was even an old schedule tacked directly to the wall
next to the tub. The hand-scrawled names were water-stained and worn, but
Shadia got the gist of it. Once a week for most of them, twice for some of
them. And not all of them were bathed with shampoo and water. There was one
called Mokie; it seemed to be bathed with a special oil. And Tufru used a
product she found in the storage bins over the tub . . . it
reminded her of cat litter.
    Cat litter. When was the last time I cleaned a litter
box? Stinky old litter box, never could have the fancy self-cleaners because Ma
and Dad said we needed to learn responsibility. As if working in the kennels
wasn’t enough. Worked in that damn kennel from six years old to—
    Old enough.
    Shadia left the tub area behind. Hastily. By the time she
reached the spartan little office, she was full of anger. The way she liked it.
Good cleansing anger, snarling that the very part of her once-was that she’d
tried so hard to forget now had her trapped on Toklaat.
    Nothing’s permanent. See what you can see. Drift from
station to planet to orbiter, grabbing catch-work rides and reveling in the
newness of the next place until it gets old, finding new friends when the old
drift away, your only true bond the very thing that will eventually drive you apart.
Duster ways.
    Still snarling, she found the paperwork that suggested she
name the renewed