Mindeham and Lae blipped out of warp, very unhappy about their current destination.

"I am pretty sure that even being an official of Preasi won't save me here," Lae said, rummaging through their large stack of technically legal and correct but very misleading passports. "Ships are expensive, you know. I bet I have a warrant out for me."

"You only lost your rental ship because it was defective," Mindeham reminded her.

"Sure. And I can argue that. In court. In however many months the line is."

"Well, the last time I came here, your parents had me arrested," Mindeham said, "So I'm not particularly pleased to be back, either."

Lae sighed. "I musteth suppose that we willeth be okay."

Mindeham wrinkled his nose. "What was that?"

"Your accent. I'm in disguise."

"That is not how I sound at all."

"Do thou not?"

"No, I doest--do not." Mindeham sighed. "Just drive, okay?"

Lae took a deep breath of air as they walked out of the ship.

"Nothing like the air of home, hey?" Mindeham said, watching her.

"What does yours smell like?"

"Clay dirt. Pine trees. A bitter breeze from the highway."

Mindeham was silent for a bit.

"They've still got clay and pines down on World," Lae said.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Anyway, I have to disguise myself," Lae said. "I think I know a place."

"Lead on," Mindeham said.

A frown grew on Lae's face as she walked quickly through the streets of her home station.

"Something's different," she said. "But I can't figure out what it is. What did you do, the last time you were here?"

"Why are you always blaming me for changes to stuff?"

"Because things change around you," Lae said.

"That is confirmation bias and your religious upbringing talking," Mindeham said firmly.

"Oh, really? How do you explain on Sat 57, then, when they--"

At that point, Mindeham spotted a twice-lifesize poster with a cartoon representation of a man in an heroic pose taped to the wall of a store they were passing. It looked almost like a man he had rescued from jail last time he was here. He swallowed. Lae would be annoyed if he had done anything to her home station.

"Are you listening?" Lae asked.

"Yes, yes," Mindeham said. He realised he had stopped walking, and hurried to catch up.

"You're wanting to disguise yourself... as a vampire?" Mindeham asked, looking at the shopfront Lae had stopped at. Below the sign saying "Jole's Costume Store" was a display of mannequins in various fantastical costumes. They still had costumes for vampires and were...dogs? And some costume he didn't recognise.

"Space Thing," Lae said, when Mindeham asked. "And no, he does makeup as well."

"You'd make a good Space Thing, though," Mindeham said. Lae rolled her eyes.

"Come on," she said, opening the door.

The light was dimmer inside than usual in the shop, because the fake fur and the ruffles on the costumes blocked half the default lighting strips.

"Lae!" came a voice from nowhere. Mindeham spun around. For a moment, he didn't see anything, but then a figure resolved himself out of the clothes.

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"Hi, Jole," Lae said. Jole was a man of medium height, medium build, and looked unsettlingly like one of the mannequins that sported the more fancy or delicate costumes.

"How have you been? I haven't seen you since, oh..."

"My graduation dinner," Lae supplied.

"How have you been since then?" Jole asked. "Did you join the post office with your Dad, like you were planning?"

"I joined with Intersol Post," Lae said.

"An intersolar gal, now!" Jole said, sounding impressed. "And who is your friend?"

"What? Oh, This is Manuel. He's my business partner."

"Pleased to meet you," Jole said, nodding. "Well, how can I help you two today?"

"I want it so that my own mother wouldn't be able to recognise me," Lae said.

"That sounds serious. And that might be a bit hard to do at short notice," Jole said.

"I only need it to work for a few hours. A day, at most."

Jole considered this for a moment, then nodded.

"Better come out the back," he said.

With Lae suitably disguised in cleverly applied makeup and a striking blonde wig, she and Mindeham set out to their prebooked hotel, in order to get ready for their business meeting. This time they had three different businesses wanting to see the device at once, and so they had booked a meeting room at the hotel to do their spiel, instead of going to the offices of the businesses themselves.

"Your wig is skewed," Mindeham said, as Lae emerged after putting her business suit on.

"Cheers," Lae said. Mindeham looked uncomfortable as ever in his business attire. Lae suspected that he was just built for tracksuits, or perhaps that's all that people wore in his original time.

They trooped down the stairs to their meeting room, meeting the business representatives outside.

"Mindeham's glory be upon you," one said in greeting. "I'm Susan, from Suecorp, and this is my head engineer, Bartholemew."

"Pleased to meet you," Mindeham said, after a pause, shaking their hands. Lae bowed.

"I'm from Industries Start Inc," the next person said, holding his hand out gingerly to be shaken.

"I'm Yta, from Apple Pie Industries," the last person said.

"Very pleased to meet you all," Lae said, and ushered them in for the meeting.

"I think that went well," Mindeham said afterwards.

"I still don't understand how they think it will help," Lae said. "But I'm not an engineer."

"Did you want to see your family or friends while you're here, or should we go before you get caught?" Mindeham asked.

"You just want to leave for some reason," Lae said. "What are you hiding?"

"Nothing," Mindeham said. "I was just weirded out by that whole 'Mindeham's glory' thing. You live on a weird station."

"That was not normal behaviour," Lae said.

"...Oh."

"You were on this station last," Lae said suspiciously. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," Mindeham said quickly. "I did nothing!"

"Well, keep it that way," Lae said. "I might go see my cousin. Can I...? No, I'll take you with me."

"You can trust me to stay here," Mindeham protested, but agreed to go with Lae. He was worried. The station seemed a bit different to what he remembered it like, too. If they were going to have to scram, it would be best for them not to be separated.

Lae and Mindeham wandered through the station hallways, trying to find the address of the cousin Lae wanted to see. A weird quirk in the station's privacy laws meant that they were unable to look it up, and so they ventured ever further into the station.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Mindeham asked meekly.

"Yes," was the short reply.

Eventually, Lae admitted, at least to herself, that she was lost, and went out to the main station hallway to reorient herself. It was packed with people, waving green and purple banners around and singing religious songs.

"I didn't know your station had religious parties," Mindeham said.

"They do," Lae said, frowning, "But I don't remember this festival."

"Can you guess what it is for?"

"Well, the purple is the station's colour, but I don't know what the green is for," Lae said.

"Well, I like it," Mindeham declared, as a small child skipped past, singing and throwing green confetti about.

"You would," Lae said, slowly. "Green is your favourite colour, isn't it..."

It was at this point that Mindeham saw that one of the banners had on it the face of the man he had helped get out of jail, in the same cartoon style as the poster from before.

"Er, well, we're not here to look at festivals, anyway," Mindeham said hurriedly. "Do you know the way to your cousin's from here?"

"I think... Oh, there he is!" Lae suddenly started moving through the crowd. Mindeham lost her for a few panicked moments, then spotted her again and started heading towards her. The crowd was thickening, and Mindeham was getting increasingly uncomfortable being constantly bumped into other people. At last, he caught up with Lae, who was talking with a tall man about her age.

"Oh, yeah," the cousin was saying. "You've been away for a bit, haven't you?"

"A bit, yeah," Lae said. "So don't equivocate, tell me what's happening!"

"Calm down, Lae, it's not a big deal," the cousin said, patting her on the shoulder. "Today's just six months from the release and subsequent rise to power of our glorious leader."

"Oh, shit," Mindeham muttered to himself. He spoke quiet enough so that Lae couldn't hear him, but that didn't matter. She turned to face him.

"Min-uel," she hissed. "What did you do?!"