This Alte is really bored with this job.

"All right. Trial spacer. We'll give crew six two weeks to determine whether he's worth training up. Your number is - " he consults a screen he's holding. "Atekri Spacer 83462. Repeat it back."

"Atekri Spacer 83462."

What in the nine hells, he thinks as distinctly as possible. 

"Good. You report to 572061 Atekri. The psyon can show you."

The restraints at his legs snap open.

The psyon gets up and waits for him by the door, putting a hand up to be sure of when she's reached the wall.

Vel follows, continuing to think about all the ways in which he is a terrible choice to be a spacer, and trying but failing to leave out all the memories of Sher. 

She takes him down several hallways and stops at a large door, which opens with a key code. The room is full of triple bunk beds on one side, some with curtains and some without. At the other end there are tables and chairs. The room is housing about seventy percent of its theoretical full capacity, which is still pretty packed.

" - Imrainai, can you deal with that one?" says a woman wearing overseer stripes, as soon as she sees him.

"Hi!" says a different woman, this one with entirely too much cheer. She did not, in fact, need to be told to deal with the situation before attempting to deal with the situation. "Did you need something?"

"I am well, I don't think I need anything."

"Vel?"

The action Vel does next has no word in Etra La but on some cultures on Earth is called "glomping."

"Thou art well-- thou art alive-- I thought thou wert dead-- they said they had tortured thee-- I thought I would never see thee again--"

As Vel expected, Sher catches him without any apparent discomfort and hugs him as tightly as possible.

"Art thou hurt-- art thou okay-- I missed thee like words cannot say-- I love thee-- never again leave me- I was going to jump out the airlock--"

"Fie! No. Even if I'm dead, don't jump out an airlock."

" - so he's the same as the other," says the psyon, despite the fact that she would really like to escape out the door right now and leave these people to their theatrics. "Cargo on one of the ships that disappeared in this area before they found Earth. Liars called it the Niath. Way old. Found the two of them still in cryo and, well, finders keepers."

"Thou wouldst have theatrics too if thou thought thy husband were dead and now he is alive."

"That would imply that many other things had also gone wrong," she says, deadpan.

Sher laughs. He does not let go of Vel. "I guess from the language shifts that we've been in cryosleep, oh, about four hundred years, so I fear we may need some time to understand the new technology."

"Sure, of course. We can show you what we're doing here. Are you sure you don't need anything, that seems like, uh, an eventful recent history."

Sher makes a noise that implies that what he needs is a Vel and, oh, what a coincidence, here he has one.

"I need to lie down in my bunk and have nothing important happen for, oh, eight hours." His stomach rumbles. "...And probably food, I apparently haven't eaten for four hundred years."

"OK, cool. I, uh, I can get you six hours and at least one thing that isn't a nutrient block. Probably."

"I have not actually had a nutrient block since I was ten, I fain would have one for nostalgia."

"What is a nutrient block?"