“I don’t like it”.

Loomie sat in the pilot’s chair, frowning at the commlink speaker box on the left side of the pilot’s console. Almost three hours had passed since Gerrin and Reilly had loaded up McMillan and left for the spider hole hideout.

“He said three hours”, her bother Aldous, the ship’s mechanic, reminded her. “Give him a little more time”.

“Hmpf”. Loomie looked at the barely readable lights of the pilot’s chronometer, smacking the console below it. The lights brightened somewhat. “Ten more minutes”, she decided, “Then I’m going after him”.

“You don’t even know if you can land out there”, Aldous objected. “You think of that?”

“Guess we’ll find out”. Loomie straightened in the pilot’s chair. “Get us ready to go”.

Aldous looked at her for a second. “Whatever you say, cap’n”. Reaching up to grab the comm handset he called out “Park. You near the engine room?”

After a second Park’s voice came back “Outside the galley. What’s up?”

“Remember that startup routine I taught you?”

For a moment there was silence. “Yeah”.

“Go down and get it started, I’ll be there in a minute”. Aldous placed the handset in its cradle. “You know,” he opined, “Nick ain’t gonna be too happy if he shows up here and finds us gone”.

“He won’t,” Loomie mused. “Something here ain’t shiny”.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

“Well, this is charming”, Reilly mused.

Gerrin and Reilly paused their horses on the road just outside of town and surveyed the view of the main street: a typical settlement of wooden buildings with horses and a few wheeled vehicles in the street. Here and there a tree grew at random. Looking over the town, Reilly opined flatly “We shoulda waited by the loader”.

Gerrin responded “And who’d