The next time he awoke, Jerka was no longer beside him. Instead, a delicious smell announced her cooking. He quickly put on his last clean pair of shorts and T-shirt and went to the mess. Jerka had heard him, of course, had turned around and was standing smiling in front of a nicely set table. Or more accurately, every free surface of the table was covered with plates and 0 g containers with colourful contents. She had also changed her clothes, this time into some black trousers made of a very fine material that let him guess the shape of her legs and a shirt with fine vertical green stripes. Somehow it felt very formal, even though it was the morning of the second interjump day.

She smiled even wider. "Good morning, Marik. Let's have a proper breakfast, human style." She opened the oven. "This is a croissant." She put it on his plate. "Enjoy your breakfast."

He had no idea how to eat it properly, so she explained. That he could try the yellow thing, or something from the containers. Or combine them. He had no idea what he was eating, but most of it was very sweet. He had three more croissants and then he was stuffed.

"You treat me too well." He smiled, almost grinned. "And where have you kept all this? Is there another freezer down there?"

Her smile faded quickly. What had he done wrong? "Well, I should tell you. But I have to prepare. I promise to tell you tonight, after dinner. But for now, let's get your coils working again. Give me a moment to change." And she went to her cabin.

He stored all the small containers in the small fridge, which had almost no room left. Then he vacuumed off the crumbs of the croissant to avoid crumbs drifting off in 0 g and put everything away. The mess table was clean when Jerka came back, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Well, a red T-shirt and blue shorts.

"Your leg, I mean you look nice." He blushed.

"Come on, maybe we can have some fun after we finish the coils. Tomorrow you will have to jump with them."

* * *

Jerka had prepared a special repair for coil number 3 while he slept. With the coil amplifier and power switch now being used on 4, and 3 theoretically down to 12 % anyway, it could hardly be damaged any further. Now she showed him how to cobble together a manual switch. Without the amplifier, the AI would have to keep the power constant by feeding the coil directly. Some AIs could do that, but others were too slow or lacked proper power sensors. When the coils were powered, a second switch was needed to turn on the filaments for electron and positron generation, and the beams were aligned more by chance. However, on a well-used coil the alignment should be fine. And this second filament switch was low power, a simple double mechanical switch would do. She had him solder all the components in place and even had him build a temporary clamp holder. Theoretically, even the broken coil 3 could pull a ship into 4D. With manual intervention, and as a last resort, since such a coil would not last long, there was a good chance to end up somewhere closer to the destination; but it could be also far out in limbo, or even worse, inside a star.

Well, so much for the coil repair magic. To reinstall the coils, he asked Simon for weightlessness again. Now in 0 g they could float them back to the airlock of the engine section, carefully moving then with their heavy rest mass.

The airlock entrance chamber still reeked of burnt plastic, and the inside of his previously used spacesuit now smelled of his and the previous users' stale sweat. He put it on anyway and headed for the coil chamber with a large pack of vacuum-grade low-vapour pressure organic wipes. And 2500 later, when his oxygen alarm started, he had cleaned the chamber wall from pitch black to various smears of grey and had run out of wipes. Again, he emerged from the airlock with the oxygen alarm on its final countdown. But Jerka was waiting with fresh wet wipes. Before he was allowed to remove his helmet, she cleaned the outside of his spacesuit.

But when he took the helmet off, the burnt smell was still strong. And he really had to go to the bathroom, not trusting his suit's plumbing. Jerka had already started to clean the inside of his suit. "Jerka, please, leave this to me," he shouted back. And when he returned, the suit was hanging in the regeneration unit, dirty, and Jerka was no longer there. He cleaned it and then floated tired to the mess.

Jerka had prepared again some fine food in the short time he had spent cleaning his suit, even at 0 g. He felt sorry for her and ordered 0.2 g from Simon for lunch. The food was delicious, some completely different human food he had never heard of before. Maybe he should really try to visit some human systems next time.

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* * *

After lunch, there was plenty of time to kill before his suit would finish its regeneration. Jerka told him about human music and dance. Well, not just human music, she called up a lot of different music from her pad. Which was in the ring on her finger. And she showed him a few dance moves.

"Come on, I know you can do it. Fallerians have rhythm," she teased.

But he declined, embarrassed. She deomstrated two or three dances and then gave up.

She sat down on the bench beside him. Her scent and heat were overwhelming. "You need to relax after all that work, seriously."

He blushed.

She stood up. "Sorry, I really should stop teasing you. So, what would you like to do until your suit is ready?"

"Simon, interface to my pad, call up the music library of KrztKrrztKrr on the PA. And 0 g for the next 2000."

"Marik, thank you, that fits the course too."

Good to know. He drifted up, now weightless again, as Fallerian Metal blared through the ship. "Catch me!"

He thought he had gotten better, and with his better knowledge of the ship, the tag game should become a little less one-sided. To a certain extent, it worked. Now Jerka had to make a real effort, the easy teasing of the first time no longer worked on him. Still, he was 'it' for three quarters of the time.

It was the rare occasion when Jerka was chasing him as Simon muted the music. "Marik, 2000 has passed. Shall we accelerate again?"

He hung to a hatch, breathing heavily, his clothes sweaty. Out of breath, he took a moment to answer. "Simon, yes, a little longer."

"Marik, are you ok?"

"Simon, just physical exercise." He wondered why Simon didn't register Jerka. Because the cameras recorded her image, she was not a ghost. But somehow Simon ignored her.

Jerka had caught up, she was out of breath too. "A break?" she panted.

"No, I'm on a run," he grinned. "Simon, another 0500 of 0 g and music, please." He jumped up before Jerka could reach out or say anything.

"Hey, we still need to do the coils."

He stopped. Yes, he had almost forgotten about them. Well, the spacesuit was climatised. Beaten, he sailed back. "Yes, you're right."

* * *

This time, Jerka also donned a space suit. None of them fit her, it was even worse than his, she cursed a lot about her cramped foot hands. Shared misery was half as bad.

And, how lucky he was to have travelled with her. He couldn't have done the repairs without her help and the same was true for the reinstallations of the coils. Even though she let him do all the tricky work, he would have no idea what to do in which order and when to be extra careful without her advice.

His spacesuit's oxygen alarm was the first to go off. But the coils were ready, Simon had even run a low power test. Number 3 hung where number 4 had been, and with Jerka's instructions, he had connected the top of the coil directly to the scarred remains of the wall circuit. From there, a cable led outside the chamber with two switches attached to the wall by vacuum-graded tape.

As his oxygen alarm was already very urgent, he went through the airlock first. He had already finished a quick internal cleaning of the suit by the time the airlock had finally cycled Jerka through. He helped her out of her suit and then went ahead to take a shower while she was busy cleaning her suit. Just a short shower, so that there was enough water left for her too. Now he was clean, but he had no fresh clothes anymore. "Simon, is there a washing machine?"

"Marik, yes. But the water is shared with the shower. Should I start a cycle?"

"In 1000, and then whenever there is enough water, please."

No answer. Oh, he had been talking to Jerka so much, he forgot the keyword. "Simon, start it in 1000, whenever there is enough water."

"Marik, yes. The detergent is automatic."

"Simon, thank you." It really was a nice ship. A washing machine was rather unusual. Half the ships he had flown were from species that had either fur or exoskeletons like the Fallerians and did not use much clothing or even showers.

"No, that won't do."

Jerka had climbed up and found him in his underwear, his sweaty T-shirt in his hands.

"Wait a moment." She went into her cabin.

He threw the T-shirt and shorts into the washing machine with his other clothes and waited.

"Here!" Jerka held two bundles in her hands. "How about formal?"

He had no idea. But formal was a white shirt, totally impractical. So he let her show him the other bundle. It was just a simple short-sleeved shirt with yellow stripes and some very comfortable shorts with diagonal yellow stripes. Not far from his usual clothes, although the fabric felt softer and lighter. He thanked her and went to his cabin so she could take a shower.

When she had finished and gone back to her cabin, he began to prepare the best meal he could do with the Cobasian supplies. With as many cups and plates as there were in the galley, he opened various packages and ended up with his four favourite Fallerian dishes (or rather the Cobasian take on them). He even put the red tablecloth on the table, with 0.2 g there was no need for magnetic clamps.

"Dinner is ready!"

Jerka came out of her cabin. She was wearing a shirt and shorts that matched his set, only the stripes on hers were the same green as her hair. "Oh, beautiful, that looks very nice."

At 0.2 g she could gracefully walked over and sat down on the bench.

"I don't have anything special to drink, just Kwas tea", he held up the pot.

"Don't worry. Aren't you going to sit down?"

"Yes, enjoy." He sat down as abruptly as 0.2 g would allow.