“Yes, I imagine so.” He hesitated and added, “Well, we’ll have to get together often while I’m here in the system.”
“Yes,” she replied, but it sounded a little uncertain. Then she repeated again, with insistence, “Four years I’ve been here. I like it very much.” “Naturally.” Deitrich picked up his identification coupon from the floor where she had dropped it. “Right now I believe I must see the commissioner.”
The man he met had never left his native system. He saw TJ pilots come in every few months, and had been doing this work for sixty years. He glanced at Deitrich’s coupon with a blasé casualness.
“Captain Deitrich,” he murmured. “You’re the Home fleet that has just taken up its orbit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Make yourself comfortable there,” the man indicated a seat. “Can I get you some refreshment?”
“Thank you,” Deitrich replied politely, “but I’m a little concerned about the strangers I brought in with me. Immigrants.”
“Oh? Visitors? Immigrants?” The commissioner frowned, and his eyes almost disappeared in the flesh that surrounded them. He moved thick, soft fingers over a patch of control buttons. “See that Captain Deitrich’s passengers are cleared immediately,” he ordered. Then he looked back at Deitrich. “Is that fast enough for you, captain?”
Deitrich nodded and grinned. “Fine.”
“I’m taking your word that they fulfill the requirements for entrance into this system.”