Instead of the chaotic noisy 4D, he was in 3D, suddenly heavy. And not in the pilot seat, standing. Not for long though, he fell down in the unexpected high gravity, into, what was this? It was a soft orange carpet, a living matter. He was certainly not on the ship, the 3D chamber was not that realistic. It must be a planet, or a gigantic station at least. And it was dark, two larger objects and many stars and a nebula were the only light sources overhead. Not darker than the Cobasian station though, and a lot nicer light than the red gloom there.

But he should not be here. Maybe he had gotten only part of the patch and had now a trip after a wrong dosage? He had heard rumours; he had never believed them. Until now.

The squishy orange stuff was wet and cold. Hence, he got up, still in his shorts and T-shirt. "Simon?" he shouted.

"Simon cannot hear you."

He jumped around. "Jerka!" She stood just five steps away. "Is this Limbo?"

"No, the ship is in jump." She wore like him shorts and then just a top. "It is a nice mild night here."

"But" He tried a careful step on the squishy things. "This is a planet." He looked around. The high vertical things are trees, he knew them from pictures. Even though, they were all different shapes. "Is this the Earth?"

"What?" Jerka giggled. "Sorry, but the plants here are orange and blue. Totally the wrong colours. But there are berries nearby. Come." She held out her hand.

He took it, hesitantly. Immediately, she pulled him forward and he stumbled after her. A few steps later, they came to a sandy path. While the orange plant carpet had been wet, soft and cool, the sand was dry, hard and also a little cool. Tiny stones pushed unpleasantly into his sole, like in a super dirty station corridor. "Slower!"

She stood. "Sorry, you are ok?"

"Yes, I mean, No! Something is very wrong."

"And you can fix it?"

"No, I mean."

"Then do not bother. Come, just a short distance."

He was not sure about anything anymore. Only that something was very very wrong. Jerka said they were jumping. But this was not 4D, never ever. He stumbled. But her hand was pulling him forward like on a leash.

In less than 100 steps they reached a wider area without trees. There was a small stone circle in the centre with sand and around it some large tree logs. Jerka went to a tiny house at the side. But she did not enter it. Instead, she picked up smaller logs stacked along the side. "Hold your arms out for the logs. Like this."

He held out his arms and Jerka loaded the logs on them. Then they returned to the stone circle where he dumped his load just outside. Jerka arranged them in the centre and held a small device to one of them. It started to smoke and burn. He reared back.

"This is a campfire", she said and stepped back next to him, "The stones prevent the spreading of the flames. This is a planet, there is no need to worry about the scrubbing systems. Just relax and enjoy."

He did not know what to say. The fire was scary, hot and smelly. Everything screamed, "Flee for your life!" But if this was a planet then where to flee to?

Jerka was unfazed. "Come, let's pluck some berries." She pulled him away from the fire, he followed happily. They went to the side where the tree started. "Here", she pointed down, "these are berry bushes. There are yellow berries here at the end of the stems, called moonbulbs. You pluck them like this. Only if they go easy, otherwise they are not ripe."

He followed her instruction, hesitantly. He had never harvested something for himself before. It had been a long time since he ate anything which did not come out of a package. But when he saw Jerka eating whatever berry she plucked, he tried one. It was very sweet but had some tiny stones. He ate ten or twelve of them. Some were nice some sour.

He stepped back while Jerka filled a small container.

"Ouch!"

Jerka was immediately next to him. "What has happened?"

He held up his foot. Blood was trickling from a small cut.

"I should have brought shoes", Jerka sighed, "Put your arm around my shoulders."

With her support, he hobbled back on one foot towards the fire. There she sat him on one of the large vertical tree logs a little away from the fire; although he could still feel the heat. She went into the small house and returned soon. "Hold up your foot!" She sprayed something on it, and immediately the pain was gone.

"Let's have another Kwas. Real Kwas tonight." She put a kettle into the fire. That had probably also come from the house.

He looked again at the sky. The two larger bright objects had moved a lot. A third reddish one had appeared at the other end of the sky. If this was a planet, then those would be moons. These moons must be very close to move that fast. He tried to calculate their orbit but of course, without a reference time or planetary weight, these were course estimates to distract him. It was not working, everything was wrong. He was sweating, and shivering. And he felt like vomiting. "Jerka", he whispered, panic welling up.

She looked at him. "You aren't fainting? OK, let's return. Here is your patch."

* * *

An alarm awoke him. They were in 3D, he was strapped to his seat in the cockpit. Not on a planet, not in limbo, not inside a sun. The basics were fine then. Now to the technical failure alert. "Simon, status!"

"Marik, we have entered the system as planned. But coil 3 has taken damage, it is at 12% and the field amplifiers of coil 4 terminally failed. I finished the jump with the remaining three coils."

He called up the schematic. Coil 1 was still at 77% and coil 2 at 62%, so far so good. But coil 3 would not survive another jump and coil 4 was out. Still, Simon had held them in 4D with mostly coils 1 and 2, and even finished almost on the mark. "Simon, well done. Especially with so little margin." Well, 80 years of experience; the AIs were the best things on these old ships.

"Marik, thank you. It is still two jumps. But there we need a long vector change to the next jump point. The estimate is about two and a half days depending on thrust."

"Simon, can I do something about the coils?"

"Marik, maybe you can use the field amplifier from coil 3 for coil 4. It was over 40 % when the amplifier failed."

He had no idea. But if the AI could guide him … "Simon, let's see. Do I need a space suit for coil access?"

"Marik, yes, these are in the hard vacuum section. I have suits in five sizes on board. We will drift at 0 g for the repair work since the access tunnels are narrow and bent."

"Simon, thank you."

He unbuckled, went for the bathroom and then to Jerka's cabin. No one was there. "Jerka?", he shouted.

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She emerged from the 3D chamber. He peeked inside, their route was plotted, with lots of fainter yellow branch lines.

"The coils have taken damage."

She nodded. "Yes, I felt it. But it seems we are still on course."

"Yes, Simon did a great job. Have you ever worked on coils?"

She hesitated only a second. "Yes, but probably not on those."

"Well, I will take them out, so until then we will be in 0 g. See you later."

* * *

He followed the indicators that Simon projected on the hatches and was soon in an unexplored area close to the engine hatch. Four dirty space suits hung on the wall. Two could fit him, but none of them was comfortable.

The best-fitting one had a tail extension. Pressurised and in vacuum, it would stick out. He used binders to roll it up. The insides reeked of sweat from an unknown species and there were some hairs or furs, but it he did not feel like a full cleaning and waiting again for drying out. The indicator could be switched to Standard and promised oxygen for 4000. And it had AR, so Simon could directly overlay schematics for the repairs. Well, he was as ready as he could be.

The airlock cycled very slowly and the seal of the hatch to the engine section had stuck to the frame. At least it would open outwards. He lay on his back and kicked the hatch several times with his feet until it swung outwards. His oxygen estimate was already down to 3500.

He crawled through the propulsion section, detouring around hot areas, both temperature and radioactivity. Luckily the star system out there was not a problem, they were far outside and the star was not an active one. And without thrust, the second fusion core was cold. Relatively.

Finally, he was at the coil hatch, located in a cosy place between the two fusion reactor cores and the main engines, just barely in the allowed radiation regime for humans, according to his helmet display. At least inside there should be no radiation: Even when ignited, the coils only produced soft X-rays.

But when he opened the hatch black smoke sprayed straight into the vacuum and bounced off the opposite wall and then dispersed, bouncing off and sticking to whatever was in its way, and finally lingering like a fine black mist. He used a torch to see inside the coil chamber but every surface inside was coated with black soot. Which meant conducting soot. It had been a miracle that Simon could finish the jump at all in this state.

"Simon, the whole coil chamber is filled with soot. I need to clean at least all contacts and all coils."

"Marik, I see it by your camera feed. The coils are easy to take out. There is a manual quick-release mechanism at the top and bottom, operated by a lever. You just need to switch the lever."

"Simon, thank you."

His helmet display was overlaid with a schematic of the levers. That was badly needed, the room was pitch black, and the only things to orient himself with were the four massive coils.

He found the levers, but of course, they all were stuck. He wedged his driver tool below and finally, removed the first coil and caught it in the net he had trailing behind him in the weightlessness. A short glance at his oxygen showed that he was already at 1200. The second coil was as stubborn as the first. Number three went easily. And number four even too easy: The whole assembly of the top contact came off the wall and revealed burnt-out circuitry behind. So that had caused the soot.

"Marik, you are at 0750 oxygen. It is time to return."

He sighed. He would have to return at least two more times, once for cleaning and then mounting the coils again. He was in for a busy interjump period.

* * *

The shrill oxygen alarm was almost at zero when the slow airlock finally finished cycling. He opened his helmet and almost choked from the stench of the burnt coils. He pushed the net with the coils back into the airlock, then flew out of the suit and left the room as fast as he could, heaving.

The stench of the coil was notable everywhere, the life support filter failed to remove it completely. When he arrived a little later in front of her cabin, Jerka just looked at him critically.

"The contact of coil 4 had burnt away. That's the awful smell. I wish we had some active carbon masks."

"I think I saw some masks when storing the spare parts in the workshop. Let's go down together."

"Simon, can we get 0.1g?"

"Marik, yes, building up acceleration. Somewhere within the next 4000 we would need to go up to at least 0.2 g to get to the new vector."

"Simon, then do 0.2 g now."

"Marik, this will be 0.2 g with a slight side component. Take care."

"Simon, thank you."

Slowly they were drifting to the ground while the engines ramped up their power. Jerka was already at the ladder to the workshop, which was directly two floors below the galley. Why everything important was connected to the kitchen on this ship?

Jerka used her four hands efficiently, so he barely could keep up.

"Here!" She triumphantly held up two black masks, then threw him one. The package was not labelled in Cobasian, and not in Standard either, although he found the word "mask ef55-3277" in tiny Standard in a corner.

The package did not rip easily, but the workshop had scissors and cutting tools. The masks smelled stale, but after fitting them, the burnt smell was gone. They also got some gloves and goggles and now they were ready to fetch the coils. For this, they went further "down" to the airlock to the engine hatch.

When he opened the hatch, the smell was very noticeable even through the filter mask. He quickly vacuumed the worst dust off and Jerka gave them a quick wipe. But the diagnostic tools were in the workshop, so he again ordered 0 g. Then they gently directed the transport net through the hatches and corridors. While weightless, they were still massive, about 400 kg.

The repairs would be easier with more weight. And too long weightlessness was not healthy anyway, so he asked Simon for 0.25 g, which was close to what some stations had on their inner rings and even smaller planets too.

The first thing was to wipe the coils as clean as possible and seal the wipes in a bag and that bag into another bag. After that, the smell was no longer noticeable under the mask. He then connected the coils to the diagnostic unit.

Now, it was time for food. He had worked all morning (as on convention the ship’s clock resets on re-entry). And the burnt smell had dimmed down to bearable. Since neither of them felt like cooking, it was just hot water on instant noodles, or what they used for noodles on Cobasian.

Still exhausted, but with a full stomach, he followed Jerka back to the workshop. The extended diagnosis just confirmed what Simon had said earlier. The percentages were slightly lower for coils 1 and 2, coil 3 was diagnosed as 13% and coil 4 as non-interfaceable. No surprises.

But Jerka was not finished with number four. She showed him how to unscrew the cover and the contact assembly. Since coils 3 and 4 were from the same old series, she would try using the contact and avalanche amplifier of 3 for number 4. This was way out of his league. Actually, he had never seen somebody fiddling with coils even on Fallerian in Karienoß's workshop where he had learned about basic ship maintenance. And who would work with the only thing that had to absolutely work or one could be lost in limbo or squeezed to dust on transition!

However, Jerka was happily disassembling complex circuitry, soldering new connections. He assisted and learned more about jump coils than any pilot he had ever met. (Jerka actually stressed that these were rather tubes with the accelerator coils only a small part of the upper assembly). Jerka also explained to him in detail how the cascade was ignited. First, the power was built up in the superconducting coil storage, before feeding the superconducting accelerator coils. These would accelerate separate electron and positron beams to build a local negative pressure field, and, with continued matter influx, a tiny naked singularity, aka a black hole. Which was not black but naked, one could ‘see’ the point where the space broke down. Using the right spin and with the negative pressure field, it could convince normal space to look around the ship. Or something close to this, the exact science was beyond his 8 years of Fallerian education. Most pilots he met never bothered with the science as long as the coils worked.

More useful to him was the practical part of the repairs. Jump coils died mostly for two reasons, she told him. First was a bad vacuum, which sounded stupid since they were in the empty vacuum of space. But space, especially closer to a star, was still too dirty to create naked singularities. And the coil's pumps had a very finite XHV capacity. XHV sounded way cooler than extremely high vacuum ... And the second reason for coil failure was the thermal wear on the superconducting storage coils and ageing power switches. Thus, while he had just a faint idea of how all that worked, he got an understanding of which component was in charge of what. So now Jerka put all the power units from number 3 on number 4, since more broken than number 3 was hardly possible. It took some time but, in the end, it was just a wiring job since the connectors were identical. Well, apart from the fact that soldering high-temperature superconducting cables was tricky even in real shipyards with way better tools.

Undeterred, she showed him how to do this with the tiny arc welder and some extra superconducting cable. And how to test the contact’s resistance hot and cooled. And then number 4 was ready. They connected it to the diagnostic unit, and now they got a solid 64%. Then Jerka let the test unit ramp up the top coil current to 80% cascade level, here inside the workshop and without a shield. It was scary. The coil was humming from the power entering it, but they were not roasted or X-rayed. Nothing happened but for the numbers on the display.

After so much excitement, it was time for a lunch break. They had spent nearly 4000 on the coils. However, Jerka had done more than he thought possible. Now both of them were tired, meaning another round of instant Kranta noodles.

Jerka still offered to continue the work on the coils, but he was too tired. After the jump, he had worked for a full day. And his mind had reached capacity too and could no longer process any new knowledge. He was asleep as soon as he lay on his bed.

He noted that Jerka had cuddled from behind when he awoke because he felt an urgent need. He lay for a short time, but he really had to go. Jerka was still asleep on his return. He cuddled with his back to her front, feeling like a hatchling again.