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necessary for the Ildiran stardrives.
    Drifting among the clouds at an atmospheric layer where Ildirans—and humans—could survive, was a gigantic, industrial city, domed on top, studded with antennae and data-gathering equipment. Long survey probes dangled down into the depths, like the tendrils of a jellyfish; light strips glinted from more than a hundred decks, marking the Ildiran living quarters, cargo bays, levitation engines, ekti reactor chains, and processing lines.
    Corey let out a rude noise and shook his head. “What a wreck!”
    “We’ll fix it,” Oliver said. “If they were efficient factories, the Ildirans wouldn’t be turning them over to us.”
    “The Ildirans crew the cloud trawlers with ten times as many personnel as necessary. No wonder they never turn a profit. We can do it with a lot fewer people.”
    According to Septar Gro’nh, Ildirans drew strength in numbers, regardless of the situation, and they disliked being solitary. Let them suit themselves. Corey appreciated this new start for the Kanaka refugees, and he prayed to the Guiding Star that this venture turned out better for them than the colony on Iawa had.
    Long ago, the Kanaka had been the last of the eleven generation ships to depart from Earth. With budgets and patience nearly exhausted, the big vessel was cobbled together out of leftover parts and rushed on its way. Corners had been cut, the initial supply complement was reduced. Corey’s ancestors had the odds stacked against them from the very beginning.
    Despite inferior workmanship and inadequate preparation, the resourceful colonists had held their ship and their society together. The hardships forced them to learn how to solve problems in unusual ways. They created a foothold colony in an asteroid cluster around a red dwarf, and then kept searching for a real planet. They lived with adversity, knew how to scrape together every tiny piece of material and put it to a new purpose.
    When the Solar Navy had delivered the Kanaka to an available planet, the colonists celebrated, hoping their troubles were finally over. They tried to make a new home on Iawa, the first generation with their feet on solid ground for a long time—but a pernicious blight wiped out all their crops, infested their seed stock, and left them facing starvation. They were forced back into space, returning to their old generation ship, clutching at any straw. Some of the colonists grumbled that they were homeless again; Corey preferred to think of it as footloose .
    By then, they had learned how to thrive under adverse circumstances. Rather than crawling back to Earth, they chose instead to wander and find some other niche to fill.
    Through persistence, Corey had negotiated his way into a lucrative Ildiran business deal for a few hundred of his clan members. Upon learning that the Ildirans did not like to operate their isolated cloud trawlers, Corey had extolled his people’s abilities and offered to take over the ekti harvesting operations on Daym, the nearest gas giant to Ildira. “Why not let us give it a try? It could benefit both our peoples.”
    And if that worked, they could even expand the operations, bring in more clans from the Kanaka . . . .
    The Ildiran military commander didn’t understand why the humans would be interested . . . but then, the Ildirans didn’t understand human ambitions at all. In fact, they were rather naïve, even though their empire had been around for fifteen thousand years.
    During the clan gathering of Kanaka refugees, Corey presented his idea. “None of this turned out the way our forefathers dreamed, and so anybody who wants to go back to Earth can do so. The Solar Navy has offered to take you there. As for myself, though, I’m going to become a skyminer. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll work on an ice moon, or live underground in an asteroid. I’ll make do.”
    The response had been overwhelming: The Kanaka colonists didn’t want to slink back to Earth. In fact,