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One sat beside him and one in front. The young guys seemed unhappy, but the tattooed man was unruffled.
    They acquired an obvious beam dog, who looked horribly hung over, a very well dressed Japanese couple and a fellow festooned with photo gear wearing a vest with more pockets than it seemed likely he could own enough junk to fill. All the other seats were occupied now, so the photographer took the last empty seat next to the security guy in the middle row.
    In the hushed cabin, you could hear the body guard speak to him. "Our client would appreciate if you refrain from photographing him."
    "That might be a problem, if I knew who the bloody hell he is, Jack." The fellow scoffed.
    "He's Amos, lead singer for The Ancient Astronauts." The security man obviously didn't believe he was unaware of that.
    "Oh, then if he's a public figure, you're damned silly to think you can say he's off limits, but I'm not a paparazzi , I won't waste my battery charge on him. I think my kid listens to them, useless noise as far as I'm concerned." That pretty much ended any friendly chit chat.
    The flight crew came in, an Oriental lady and a surprisingly small blonde Caucasian man. He had a FedEx hard shell pack under one elbow like a lunch box, plastered with all sorts of blue and green safety color biohazard stickers and not even the normal orange expedited stickers, but the special square stickers instead, that said HOT in big letters on a hot pink background. Somebody paid a fortune to lift that if it was hand delivered to ride in the flight cabin. Just in case you didn't get the message it was special, it was sealed by a crimped steel band around the whole box, instead of the usual plastic cable tie in the lock loops.
    They got things sorted out up front, stowed the hot freight away somewhere and the number two pilot, the Scandinavian, came back to the hatch and hung on the collar looking them over.
    "Jefferson Singh?" he inquired.
    "That's me," Jeff said waving. The fellow looked at Jeff hard, like he might be joking.
    "You are listed on the manifest as a licensed lander pilot. Is that correct?"
    "Yes and my friend April here is an apprentice going for the same ticket."
    "On what type are you qualified?"
    "Only for our own first of class shuttle, Dionysus' Chariot. "
    "Your own? You mean it is a Home built and ported vessel?"
    "That too, but we and Ms. Anderson here with us, are the owners also."
    "I always like to know if we have any qualified people flying with us. You aren't rated for a Mitsubishi D body then?"
    "Not at all. I don't even know what your board looks like. Our ship can do aerobraking like a D body, but we're able to do powered vertical landings. April and I are both rated for orbit to orbit too."
    "Indeed," That got a high lifted eyebrow. "Welcome aboard," he said, which was safe enough and polite. He retreated to the flight cabin and dogged the hatch closed.
    "We look too young to him," Jeff said, not upset, but certain.
    "They're Earth based even if they are spacers," April pointed out. "There's still some Earth Think clinging there." Jeff just nodded agreement.
    The lift was normal to the point of boring, the old shuttle worn, but just fine in every mechanical particular that mattered.

Chapter 4
    They docked at ISSII and never went in spin, staying in the zero G mast, just moving down to another dock that had a screen showing a shuttle to Home in twenty minutes. The well inked man and his two bodyguards joined them, with one of the guards standing right at the hatch the entire wait, obviously intent on having first choice of seats when they boarded.
    The guards were obviously not spacers, but they handled themselves with enough finesse that you could guess they had been in zero G before. The musician was a little more awkward, but was sensible, not trying anything fancy. He showed no discomfort, so either he had a natural ability to tolerate the weightlessness or he had the good sense to take the offered pill.
    They were