“Wouldn't it be easier to just give you umbilicals to Tunies circulatory system like the other high-oxidizer requiring equipment?"

For some reason Omega was shivering revulsion at the statement, and Quarti laughing good naturedly. Their third, one known as Aleph was not yet awake but according to her companions she would be fine after a bit of rest from the shock.

Quarti responded to the latest suggested solution to their little ‘need oxygen constantly available because their cellular respiration was apparently a leaking sieve’ problem.

“Um, thank you but no Dear Pylo, it would simply not be proper. I’m afraid we need it on the outsides of our bodies to let us take it into our insides by our own means and at our own pace”

Drat that was Pylo’s last idea.

“Well... I suppose I can scrounge up something from the scrap holds, Give me a bit I need to check a few things around Tunie. You are sure Aleph will be alright? She’s been out of it for a while”

Omega prickled and muttered something extremely rude and mean.

Which Pylo decided to ignore, she did not Incept Aleph with anything but brain signals! Not even any info-dense spore! Just basic resonance between two mind-meats.

Some people were just rude.

Once again Quarti came to the rescue with all the decorem and politeness.

“Oh She will recover fine. You go and see about what you can manage for accomodations outside our current abode?”

Pylo nodded and then shoved off and away.

After she was clear of the hold she gave another shudder before sweeping through a lock.

“Tunie! I know you're busy but I need a little bit of help. Do we still have that mostly light permeable tunable filter membrane? We didn't sell all of it right?”

“▟▞▂▃◷⌒▃▁▁▃▁▆▄◸”

“Oh good! Thanks, sorry to bother, the passengers will be fine! Promise!”

No extra information in response there, just happy and confident humming through the infrastructure.

Then she was sweeping out her distals and other limbs to catch on supports and loops of the hull support structure. Gently tumbling herself fore over aft so she could better get contacts with any give limb.

Only braking enough to avoid flattening into the periodic lock interval.

At last she was in the scrap hold, drifting clumps, clouds and reefs in miniature scattered all around. Over there carefully packed spare info-crystals Pylo could not even remember what was written on them, probably poetry?

There some jars of a liquid which shined and heated up if shaken.

Over there were a drifting sculpture clumped up scrap that had been various data readers and stores that had not survived the test of Pylo’s time.

And many other thousands of sundry bits and scrap that were kept from the main bulk of shipments as compensation, or free samples from manufacturer ports or city shipyards.

It all kind of added up over the trade runs.

Pylo mused how she should probably clean this up and offload some of it soon.

Maybe in another stop or two.

Right she had some bits and bobs to find. First the membrane, it was fun stuff to play with. She vaguely remembered It came as packaging for some delicate bio-archives from twenty trips ago.

There had been more of the stuff then she and Tunie knew what to do with after they unloaded the archive, If she recalled they had eventually sold most of it to some canners.

She had not really understood what the point of it was till just this moment. Now if she could just find a few scraps of it!

Stone burner? Meh! pylo had better pest control.

Some golden box lid that sparked with electricity when she touched it? Nope.

Sheet of crinkly material that you could not see from one side but was completely black on the other side? Of course she found it after she didn't need it anymore. Better fold that up the other way around so she didn't lose it again!

A nebula of bones that the seller had honestly swore were invaluable ancient artefacts fit for any museum which NO ONE had wanted to buy.

A metallic blue cube that sparkled on the inside, meh.

Oh there it is!

Finally!

It was not a lot, but it should be plenty of the stuff to make an envelope or something. Just have to remember how to set it up right.

Now where did Pylo put that printer?

...​

It was pretty impressive she thought, scrounging together everything needed to meet the stupid Terran’s exacting specifications of ‘life support’.

And it would even let them look outside and move around!

The response was a bit underwhelming from Omega though.

“It looks like a giant bubble stuck to some robot legs. Are you sure you got it right? Will that even hold any air inside?”

Pylo huffed and turned to Quarti, Omega apparently found Pylo’s accent disturbing and would prefer to not hear it except during emergencies.

“It was able to store a lot denser atmosphere under a lot more acceleration than any of you would survive according to the handling instructions. Just need one of you to confirm I got the mix right and I can lock in the calibration.”

The child Aleph was hiding in one of the other compartments so she wouldn't see Pylo, poor girl. Must have given her a bit of a shock to actually hear someone speak properly to her for the first time.

Pylo could forgive the young their frailties, but Omega was apparently more matured and still a bit of a stonespawn about something Pylo could not even identify in her manner of speech. Not that Pylo would CALL her that, one did not insult the Passengers... to their face at least.

Omega frowned a bit at Quarti then sighed and turned to Pylo through the porthole.

“Okay you are going to have to repeat that to me, This is a bit too important. What do you mean by it’s ‘turgid and plump’ with the ‘lovesome fluids’ ?”

Really? If she was going to- whatever Omega was a Passenger! Pylo put on her best smile and bobbed her head to comply. Saying it over again.

“I made sure that it won’t leak, and I’ve personally seen this membrane hold up to significant acceleration, impacts and much higher pressures than you require. It should be fine! As long as I have the right mix which I believe I do but you are the ones that apparently need it”

Omega glared at it.

“And how are we going to confirm it has the right mix? We can’t go out there without digging into our emergency suits and those are not rated for long term use”

Pylo tilts her head, really? They thought she was that incompetent too? Very rude passengers, very rude!

“I was going to just push it against your airlock until it forms a seal and let you test it yourself”

Omega blinked at the bubble and Pylo obliged to move out of the way so she could appreciated it.

“I don’t see anywhere for it to attach, or open. How do we get in?”

Pylo leveled her best unimpressed pout of annoyance at Omega and slowly pushed one of her distal appendages into the pressurized chamber til it was waggling at Omega, then dragged it out without even a puff of air being lost.

“What do you take me for? Some kind of canner? there are a lot BETTER ways to keep chambers from contaminating each other then your weird little metal twisty doors”

Nevermind that pylo had pulled the thing together from left over packaging and a cheap armature design she printed on the fly, no one had to know how unprepared she was!

Omega just blinked then gestured towards the airlock with a slightly surprised face. Aleph had drifted into view but trembled and winced when Pylo looked her way. Pylo of course turned away to avoid upsetting the little one.

Aw, she hoped the Aleph got over it, Pylo liked kids...

Usually.

Some species had very annoying larval stages but most that actually did mind development all in one life stage like the terrans were good.

Anyway, she gently nudged and shoved the metal legged membrane orb around until it was pressing into the metal. Then slapped and smacked it with short jabs until the membrane began to settle over the surface of the metal mechanisms of the airlock and form a seal.

Omega, Quarti and even Aleph started discussing who should go first, but Aleph eventually made the good point that she was the most ‘disposable’ if something went wrong.

Apparently this upset Omega but she only double checked that Aleph was ‘sure’ before letting her pass.

Quarti didn't really get involved and understood Pylo was a Civil and Professional Courier who would not go through all this trouble just to kill them.

She was trying her hardest to keep them alive even!

That scrap can of theirs was hardly space worthy. The sooner Pylo could get them into something more robust the safer they would be.

Pylo huffed and ran her distal most forelimbs over her face. That was also extremely rude saying any of them were ‘disposable’, they were all equally indispensable to her.

It said so in the contract that she had to make every effort to maintain the special-care-instruction cargo’s functioning and integrity and that of it’s packaging in that order of priority.

The canner chaff cylinders and the nitrogen and the oxygen and carbon dioxide were all packaging far as Pylo was concerned. The Terrans were obviously the subject meant by the cargo.

So it was required by contract to look after them even if Pylo did not also have an obligation to them as Passengers on Tunie.

Stupid contract.

But Pylo was not going to void this one. Incompetence was a very dangerous trait in Reef Travelers and even more so in Traders.

And she had agreed to it for her and Tunie.

Finally, after putting on a layer of sealed up something or other (probably some stupid salad tasting polymer) Aleph entered the Airlock and even spoke to Pylo.

So brave!

“I’m coming out to test the atmosphere. Um... uh... Sorry about fainting earlier... You were a bit overwhelming”

And unlike Omega Aleph was polite too!

Maybe Omega was just frumple or something.

Pylo nodded and conveyed only to quarti, No point in scaring the infant again.

“It’s perfectly alright, Omega explained that you have very sensitive brains that I should only touch certain parts of. I apologize for scaring you like that, it was not my intention”

Quarti conveyed the message more or less accurately, although a bit more flowery here and there.

However aleph sitting there floating in the airlock, looking out of a porthole into the clear orb frowned and looked over her shoulder at Quarti.

“That cannot be what she said! There is no way it was that bad! Like really? You expect me to believe that?! That sounded like a really flirty and just obscene limerick!”

Pylo huffed and shook her head, why in all the reef had the terrans sent people who didn't even speak the same dialect together? It really did not present confidence in the terrans surviving to be traded with in future.

Omega was trying to talk to Aleph, but apparently she was ignoring them now.

The airlock changed light colors on Pylo’s side, and began opening slowly.

It naturally permeated through the membrane.

Aleph soon followed with some wibbly Canner looking box of some fidgeting whatsit.

Probably to test the air because if it was a little bit bad in some hard to convey way it would kill the poor things.

“Yeah screw listening to Quarti scramble the translation on me. Just, talk to me directly, but uh gently? Without the brain fondling in the no go spots Omega mentioned? Because that was FREAKY and I kinda never want to not know who I am like that again”

Pylo could see Aleph was shaking, she could taste fear, awe and wonder coursing through her head.

It was a very brave thing.

It was also adorable!

Who was Pylo to deny such a request.

“Oh certainly little Aleph, lets try this again. Hello I am Pylo. Are you doing well? Is there anything I can help you with?”

Aleph stopped shivering, then looked up at Pylo, looked over every bit of her slowly, then turned back over her shoulder and shouted.

“Quarti how is it possible that you were making this thing sound even LESS lewd!?”

Quarti just laughed.

Omega apparently just was exasperated and shouted back.

There was a song that Pylo could not follow buzzing between all three of them. Focused on their spines.

“I Told you! I swear it makes me want to wash between my ears every time it says anything!”

Pylo pouted again.

That was just mean making fun of her accent like that. She even let a little bit of her professionalism slip.

“Oh shut it all three of you... Is that stupid canner beepy box saying it’s safe for you to ‘breathe’ in there or not?”

Aleph shuddered then looked down at the box in her grip and laughed a bit.

“Ah uh... Wow! Um... I’m gonna just assume that you are never actually flirting or propositioning me alright Mister or uh miss uh... Pylo? But yeah It says we are good”

Pylo huffed and shook her head.

“It’s Miss of course, why would it be anything else?”

Aleph nodded a little with her cheeks pumping heavily with blood. She reached up to the neck of her weird wrapping thing and something made a hissing sound as it opened up and the two fluids or as the terrans called it ‘air’ mixed.

Omega was yelling about something and Quarti was already trying to cycle the airlock back around to the interior.

Aleph apparently was ignoring them again though breathing calmly and then looking up, she shivered when she saw Pylo, but although strained her smile was bright.

“Oh! This is great! It smells so FRESH! Like in the mountains!”

Pylo preened, at least two out of three of the passengers were nice.

When they weren’t making fun of her.