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— and there was something disturbingly familiar about Bonelli that kept slipping just out of his mind’s reach.
    Suddenly, a comm speaker directly behind Drew blurted metallically, “We have a shuttle coming in, Steve. You’d better clear the deck.”
    Bonelli jerked his head in the direction of an access door and began leading the way. “That’ll be the short-hopper from Daisy Hub,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I alerted Mom as soon as we began tracking your approach.”
    “Mom?” Drew echoed, certain he must have misheard.
    “Ruby McNeil, the assistant station manager.”
    “And she’s your mother?”
    Bonelli laughed. “She’s everyone’s mother. You’ll understand when you meet her. Come on, desk boy. If you’re still on the deck when those bay doors open, you’ll be a flesh-flavored ice cube.”
    “Yes, sucked out into space,” Drew supplied, already weary of the Ranger’s patronizing attitude. “They do educate us before they send us out here, you know.”
    “Not about everything, son. Our landing deck and the one on Daisy Hub are equipped with Meniscus Field generators, courtesy of the Nandrians. A little bit of technology they slipped us under the table when the Great Galactic Council wasn’t looking. Air can’t get out, but ships can get in. Unfortunately, the field can only form in a supercooled area, which means the air is too cold and dry to be breathed by Humans. And you’re better off not knowing how we learned that.”
    The Nandrians didn’t work with anyone, period, the Chief had said. Interesting.
    The two men had reached a heavy metal door that was taking its own sweet time about sliding open. Even though he knew the temperature hadn’t changed, Drew shivered.
    “Don’t worry. The bay doors can’t operate until all other accessways are sealed shut,” Bonelli assured him. “Once the short-hopper is inside, it will take about ten standard minutes — fifteen Earth minutes, if you prefer — for the landing deck environment to normalize. Then we’ll go back in and meet the pilot.”
    On the other side of the hatchway, Drew peeled off the silver suit, then found his eyes drawn to an overhead monitor beside the door. Bonelli hadn’t exaggerated about the temperature drop. Drew watched in fascination as the room they’d just left frosted over, and a strangely configured vessel floated across the screen and settled onto the deck on three pairs of spidery legs.
    “You can exhale now,” the Ranger murmured into his left ear. Drew started, only that second aware that he had, indeed, been holding his breath. He started again at the sound of a buzzer going off directly over his head. “That tells us the doors to space are shut,” Bonelli translated. “When the heat’s been replaced, this hatch will return to manual control.”
    “So there’s actually air in there now?”
    Bonelli nodded. “You’ll flash-freeze in there, but you won’t suffocate.”
    “Incredible! Who else knows about this—” He paused, and a second later the word came to him. “—this technology?”
    “Everybody but you, desk boy,” chuckled the Ranger. “Earth Council put it here just over a year ago, and I’ll bet you even credit that there’s a team of physicists busily ‘discovering’ it as we speak. For obvious reasons, part of the deal is that we have to protect the identity of our supplier.”
    Drew watched the monitor screen for a long moment. The layer of white was slowly shrinking, like a dusting of light snow blown by a steady wind. Meanwhile, a tiny, twisting suspicion was setting off alarms at the back of his mind. “So this is highest level of secret?” Drew inquired softly.
    “More or less.”
    “Are you not risking much, then, by telling me about it, since I’ve only just arrived?”
    Bonelli’s mouth puckered thoughtfully. “No, actually, I’m not,” he replied at last. “Everyone who’s posted here knows about it, since the short-hopper decks on Zulu and Daisy