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use of wire and patch putty, innovative application of spare parts, desperate coaxing, and plenty of prayer. They knew how to make things work, even though their colony on the planet Iawa had been a flop, through no fault of their own, forcing them to pull up stakes and roam the stars again.
    Even now, some clans stayed aboard the old Kanaka , still wandering, while Corey and his people accepted a new purpose, thanks to the Ildirans. Skymining for stardrive fuel.
    Corey had no doubt they could make the clunky cloud trawlers run efficiently and at a profit. The Ildirans certainly didn’t know how to do so; the aliens had no business sense whatsoever, merely continuing their operations as they always had, without any thought for innovation, improvements, or efficiency. Clan Kellum could do much better.
    The Ildiran commander of the warliner group, Septar Gro’nh, was a blocky alien with olive-gold skin and a gruff voice. He had not complained about his assignment to ferry a ship full of wayward human colonists to a new home in the clouds; he would also take the retired Ildiran crews back home.
    “Corey Kellum, we are approaching Daym. Please prepare your people to assume the skymining operations.” The septar was an unhurried man, but he made no secret that he was ready to return to Ildira. “You will all disembark on Cloud Trawler Number One for your briefing on our industrial operations. Once you have learned our systems, we will complete the transition and remove the Ildiran crew.”
    “We’re fast learners, Septar.” Corey grinned, but the military commander seemed immune to charm. “My best engineers have been studying your equipment for the past week.” He did not comment on how inefficient the whole skymining operation seemed, from an objective analysis.
    “Excellent,” Gro’nh said. “Our people will be happy to go home.”
    “And my clan will be happy to have a home.”
    The Ildirans had informed the refugees of their activities back on Earth. After the Solar Navy rounded up the generation ships and let them establish colonies, setting up the colonies on new planets, the Ildirans had finally approached Earth. First they made contact to deliver the news about finding the wayward vessels; finally, the Mage-Imperator had just sent a formal delegation to establish diplomatic ties. Some members of the rescued generation ships would be given the opportunity to return to their home planet—either for a brief visit, or to go back for good.
    But the Kanaka refugees had no interest in going back, especially when an opportunity like this awaited them. Earth was far away and long in their past.
    While the septar returned to the warliner’s command nucleus, Corey stared through the observation window, his gloved hands clasped behind his back. Like most of his people, he wore work clothes all the time, often adorned with flashes of color. It wasn’t that they didn’t know how to relax; they just never had the opportunity. Work was their life, so they may as well be comfortable.
    Oliver Sung, a dark-skinned man with a leather cap and a pair of goggles dangling at his neck, came up to stand beside Corey. Oliver was a crack engineer, an optimist and his friend. “What do you see down there?” he asked.
    Filling the view before them, the hypnotic and dizzying clouds of Daym seemed to go on forever and ever. “I see a giant-sized planet filled with clouds just waiting to be converted into stardrive fuel.”
    “ Ekti, ” Oliver said. “The Ildirans call it ekti. You have to get the terminology right.”
    “We have to keep the equipment functioning right in order to produce the stuff. I don’t care what label they put on it. Before you know it, we’ll be marketing our own brands.”
    Entering the atmosphere of Daym, the warliner drifted down through layers of clouds as it closed in on the first of three cloud trawlers that harvested massive amounts of raw hydrogen and processed it into the exotic allotrope