[i][b]Two Weeks Later
[/b][/i] 
 
"I cannot believe..." Neil huffed as he pitched one of the sacks of coffee onto the waiting cart. "That you actually sold this." The cart, a simple wooden affair that wouldn't have been out of place on Old Terra, was even drawn by two honest to god horses. They both whickered nervously as Saxon marched passed and tossed four sacks onto the back of the creaking wagon. It probably wasn't a real concern that Saxon would eat the beasts, but they were clearly not in a mood to take chances. Junebug pitched her own sack onto the growing pile with a puff of coffee dust. She wasn't sweating yet, enhanced biology and all, but she could feel the strain.

"Technically," she said, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "I only traded it." The freeze dried instant coffee had been old when Sayeeda had purchased it and had sat in the back of the hold for well over a year as they tripped from crisis to crisis before Ateran, finally, provided a market.

Ateran was a backwater at the backend of a backwater. Far from the trade lanes and the commerce of the galaxy, isolated by notoriously unfavorable and unreliable RIP currents. If past navigational patterns held, never a certainty, it would only be a functional shortcut for a few weeks before the currents shifted and left it isolated. While it held though, it provided the perfect way to cut across the Sigma Arm and back towards Taya's home. On average Ateran was a cold world. Large icecaps covered nearly a quarter of the planet, with only a narrow band of temperate land around the equator. The upside was that due to minimal axial tilt, there wasn't much of a winter, with a gentle alternation between balmy summer and fall without much of a winter. It boasted little accessible mineral wealth, although orbital scans suggested considerable deposits deep beneath the polar ice, to expensive to be easily accessed in a world where asteroid mining was the norm. Atrean was the kind of place that attracted a particular kind of settler. The colonists on Ateran were a religious community who were interested in living a simple life. The Fellowship of Man, as they styled themselves had come from civilized planets deeper into the core of human space. They had scraped together their credits and purchased a clapped out bulk freighter for a one way trip to the holy land. It wasn't such an uncommon tale, though it more frequently ended in capture by pirates or simply vanishing into the RIP on a ship that should have been scrapped years ago. Even those that made it were rarely successful, religious communes were usually short on construction experience, agricultural expertise, medical training and just about everything else needed to make a colony thrive. The Fellowship of Man had beaten those odds however. Partly that was because Ateran, though unpromising by conventional standards, was ideal for the kind of pastoral life the colonists pined for. The second factor was that the Fellowship had been willing to keep their luddite tendencies in check for a few decades, making use of construction equipment, sophisticated agritech and gene modding to lay the foundations of their new Eden. Once established they had let the skills fade. Now only a few of the original colonists remained, retired to rural life surrounded by their pious progeny. 
 
"What do these cretins trade," Saxon hissed, pitching another two hundred pounds of coffee into the back of the wagon.
 
"Cotton they grow here produces a biolumincent pigment," Sayeeda explained, holding up a hand to stop the loading. THe cart, sturdy as it was, couldn't take much more.
 
"They weave it into a textile they call shimmercloth, which they are happy to trade for coffee, and which we can turn around back in the civilized galaxy for a big pay out."
 
"I guess they aren't taking the drugs we..." Neil began but cut off as Junebug signaled furiously. It was unlikely that a religious community was going to react favorably to an offer of hundreds of kilos of high grade narcotics.
 
“Peace be upon you,” Brother Gerome said with a smile as he walked around the cart leading a dozen young men each carrying a bolt of cloth over a shoulder. The faintly glowing cloth clashed oddly with the simple homespun woolens that seemed to be the local garb. Gerome seemed to be the leader of the community here at Keshner’s Hollow. He was a boney man with a broad smile and face beaten bronze by long exposure to Ateran’s slightly whitish star. The laborers could have all been related to him for the resemblance they bore. Their smiles were less broad perhaps, having never been off world, they were less comfortable with outsiders or perhaps, like the horses, they weren't sure Saxon wasn’t about to eat them. Nervous they might be, but that didn’t stop them from surreptitiously eyeing the newcomers, particularly Sayeeda and Taya. Junebug was dressed in a white tank top which bared the tattoo on her shoulder. The tan on cream fabric of her combat pants and black assault boots were probably beyond their experience. Women’s clothing on Ateran was conservative and it was likely they were in breach of any number of local taboos.
 
“An exchange well made is a glory to the Lord,” Brother Gerome declared, eying the coffee approvingly. It was probable that even bad coffee would be a welcome reminder of old times to the original colonists, no matter how devout they might be.

“Saxon was just saying that,” Sayeeda replied blithely. Taya covered a snicker with her hand but Neil snorted less delicately. Gerome chuckled but several of the younger men stiffened indignantly. Nervousness transmuted to belligerence easily enough especially for men. 

“Heresy aside, perhaps you would care to join us. It is Rejuvenation Day tomorrow and we have prepared a feast. Seems fortuitous that you and your crew should arrive on such a day Captain Cyckali. We would be honored if you would join us.” Junebug cast a quick look around the others gauging their opinions. After nearly eleven straight days in the RIP they were all a little frayed. A free meal that didn’t come out of a ration tin might do them all some good.

“Sounds good,” she admitted, brushing at the fine sheen of coffee dust on her tank top.