*****
Our adventurers are still traveling, heading for the rim of our solar system. Their mode of propulsion this trip isn't like the way that D'Jymm chose on his way back alone. Back then, he was boosting to a good cruise velocity and then throttling back to idle to hide the heat blooms of active engines. His engines were at idle most of the way in.
This time, he's still trying to keep his heat blooms down until they get to the outskirts. They're accelerating slowly under low but constant thrust. With no drag in space, they've left Earth at escape velocity and will keep accelerating until they reach an equilibrium velocity. It's a bit of a nail-biting way to go, hoping not to be discovered, so they're avoiding the shipping lanes for now.
Somewhere beyond our system, out ahead, there is a world far less sophisticated than anything that they're used to. It's got its own troubles and it also plays a part in their story.
The change of scene happens a little way into this chapter.
0_o
*****
D'Jymm stood looking around and his gaze swept over the four Nahuals once a little slowly. They all stood as humans, naked and coated with tiny water droplets.
The conversation stopped as they all looked at him. He then looked beyond them, seeing the steam and the spraying nozzles behind them all.
"I have wanted to get clean all day," he said quietly just loud enough to be heard by them all, "but Lucas kept talking. Where I come from, it is considered a sign of good breeding if one listens attentively."
He sighed, "Surely there is a limit to even this. I now believe that I have heard almost the complete anecdotal telling of one Earth male's life - the first two thirds of it at the least."
Shaking his head, he said, "There was not very much of use to me or us as I listened. If it begins once again when he awakens, I will instruct him to remain in his cabin - and failing that or if he cannot comply, I will put him in the small brig on this vessel for his own safety. I do not wish to harm him, but he distracts me from what I try to do, to get us out of this system without being detected.
"If I miss or overlook even a small detail, we all face disaster, yet though I ask him to be still, he falls silent for at most a few moments and begins as soon as the next thought comes to him. It is very frustrating.
He noticed that they stood before him in a rough row and he smiled as he looked at Daniella.
"What is this that I am looking at now? Are you about to tell me that you have brought me the rest of all the ones who care very much about me?"
Daniella nodded, smiling coyly as she nudged Carla gently from behind. Seeing it, Maria looked at Ric and motioned him forward with her chin.
"We would like to come with you," Carla said.
D'Jymm shrugged, "I believe that it is self-evident that you are coming with me, is it not?"
Shaking her head, Carla tried to clarify. "We mean when we arrive at where you are going. We don't know anything about any other place but the one that we just left. That thought is one of the reasons that we suggested cleaning up the mess in here. We wish to be useful to you."
"You earned your passage - if that is what you mean - when you, Ric, and Lucas resolved my problems with the cabling on the engines," D'Jymm said, "If you mean what will happen upon our arrival, I cannot say as yet."
"There is a ... vault here, a ... safe," Carla said, "We found it while looking for cleaning supplies. The maintenance stores on this thing are as big a mess as this area was - though without the gritty, slimy tiling."
D'Jymm nodded, "I have seen it. The door looked damaged to me. I have no idea what it might contain and that worries me slightly. I will need to change the registration of this vessel sooner or later. If the crew was known to any enforcement agency and a search is made, I do not wish to be holding anything more criminal that I am aware of now. I would imagine that the registration also holds whatever key - real or numerical - is required for the authorities to gain entrance to the vault."
Carla said, "We don't know what is illegal in there because we don't know about how things are off of Earth, but there are a lot of documents."
D'Jymm tilted his head, "How do you know this?"
Carla shrugged, "We saw it."
"How?" Daniella asked.
"Ric opened it," Carla smiled.
As they looked toward him, Ric forced himself past his shyness and said, "It's a little old-fashioned, but from what Lucas told me, this was the bare bones civilian version of this type when it was built. All that got the buyer, whoever it was when they took delivery, was a basic ship's vault, the walk-in kind and the door has a big handle to pull it open and a big knob to enter the combination.
"It's an eight number combination left, right, left and so on and each number in the sequence is from zero to fifty-nine. The first four get you a second set of four numbers. There's an indicator - a tiny window that goes from red to yellow once you dial the first four numbers correctly.
"The last four are the hard ones because you only get two tries. If you get it wrong, the tumblers all re-spin and you're back at the beginning. Get it wrong in any way again - either set of numbers, and it detonates the small charge built into the door. It's made to kill a thief who tries to hear the tumblers drop when you guess your way along."
D'Jymm stared at them, "You were able to ... what is the term on Earth ...?"
"Crack the combination?" Carla suggested and he nodded.
"Oh yeah," she smiled, "Ric can get through most security devices with a little time. This one is so old school that it was a little special. Ric had never seen one like it, He'd only read of them in old books."
"But," D'Jymm stared a little, "What of the charge that you said was built into it?"
Ric shrugged very slightly, "It was blown a long time ago and never replaced, I guess. That's why the door looks burned. Probably killed the one trying to crack it.
"I didn't have that hard a time," he said, "I didn't need to work that hard at feeling and listening."
