Transfer 21

There are thousands, millions, maybe billions of stars out there, and most have planets circling them, and a good number of those are inhabited, or have been at some time in the past. There's no way everyone can know every one of those places, and if you ask someone at random, say while walking through Elmara City, as I have, "What do you know about Transfer Twenty-One?" you're most likely to get a blank stare or a shrug. They won't know if you're talking about the latest vid singers or the nearest airbus stop.

So why do I get a shiver down my spine every time no one knows anything about Transfer 21? The most I have on it is that someone I met had met someone who once had a cargomaster friend aboard a freighter who claimed to have heard that it's a derelict station orbiting a red dwarf star about 200 light-years from Elmarune. So that means almost nothing. It's just that every other star or planet I've heard about at least has an entry in a catalog or an advertisement or a destination entry in the starport's travel bureau - you can try buying a berth to almost anywhere else. The clerk at the Bureau gave me a suspicious stare when I asked him about all this, and shooed me away, saying he was busy. Right! I was the only customer in the office.


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