Major Sparrowhawk gave a deep sigh of relief and turned to her investment portfolio.
2
Journal #764-
Anyone who wishes to reach advanced years will of necessity abandon his fondest dreams and most valued possessions at several points along the way. After a few experiences along these lines, one can even do so without a great deal of regret. But even the most stoical traveler is likely to be shaken out of his complacency when a piece of valuable baggage, long ago given up for lost, shows up unannounced on his doorstep.
Standing back a respectful distance, as specified by safety regulations, the Legion party watched the landing shuttle’s approach. The little ship dropped from the sky deceptively slowly, like a flattened rock through some ultradense liquid. Only when it reached the lower atmosphere did its true speed-still a significant fraction of the orbital velocity of its mother ship-become apparent. But even as it fell, it continued to shed velocity, and as it came within a few meters of the ground, it reached a virtual standstill, hovering gently on its jets as it dropped the tiny remaining distance to touch down in a cloud of dust and flying debris-dead center in the ten-meter landing zone defined by four radar beacons.
Even as the noise of the engines fell to silence, the Legion party was closing in. For while safety regulations ordered ground crews to keep their distance, the implacable laws of shuttle economics made it important to unload and return to orbit as quickly as possible. Interstellar freight companies’ stock-in-trade was speed; and since any given starship was about as fast as any other at superluminal velocities, time at sublight velocities-especially from orbit to surface and back-was critical. A wasted hour on the ground could make the difference between a timely delivery and a blown schedule.