The Greatest Commodity (First Draft)

A Day on the Town

A few minutes late, there was a knock on the door, Kessick went to answer it. "Jori, you're late." He said.

The woman on the doorstep, Jori Lemn, frowned slightly. "I overslept." As if to explain further, she yawned and stretched one of her arms.

"It's been a while since I last saw you," Kessick said. "What have you been up to all this time?"

"I've been working aboard the ship ever since the chief engineer fell ill. I was the only person with comparable training."

"Well, don't just stand there," Kessick said in a commanding tone that he knew would amuse his friend. "come on in!"

She nodded sleepily, rubbing her eyes. She stepped past him into his home, which he had meticulously tidied up for her visit. He usually kept to himself, preferring to prepare for visits. Frequently, his place would be quite messy until someone gave advance warning of their arrival, then he would become a whirlwind, cleaning the entire prefab within less than an hour; people used to say that he had a talent for destroying evidence -- indeed, he had more talent than he cared to admit.

"Coffee?" He asked, guessing that she hadn't had any yet.

"Please," She replied, her grogginess and familiarity with him made the notion of formality irrelevant. It was to her as though she'd never left.

Kessick went to the kitchen and started preparing some. While he did so, Jori eased herself into a chair and began to fall asleep again.

"Did you get any sleep, before coming here?" Kessick asked her, concerned for his friend's health.

"I only got..." She struggled to find the words through the mist that clogged her part-dormant mind. "... two hours of sleep... before the alarm rang."

"Dammit, Jori," Kessick exclaimed. "I would've fully understood if you called and asked for a few hours delay. The days here are very long, I could wait!"

With effort, she pulled herself out of the armchair's seductive coziness. "Lemme tell you something." She said, barely coherent. "When you're an engineer, everything must be done on time. If not, then the entire ship comes crashing down on your ass! And it's not as pleasant as it sounds."

"It doesn't sound pleasant at all!" Kessick protested.

"Well, you're entitled to your opinion."

The coffee maker made a ding, Kessick grabbed the handle of the coffeepot and extracted it from the machine. Since he had no clean cups available, he handed the whole thing to Jori. "Careful," He warned her. "It's still hot, sip carefully."

"If it ain't hot," She muttered. "It ain't good coffee."

Kessick responded with a shrug, she was entitled to her opinion.

She took a small sip and winced. "Kessick, I see you haven't changed at all, your coffee still sucks.

"Good to see that you haven't changed either, Jori, you nitpicky little tinkerer."

"Hehe, tinkerer," She mumbled, taking another sip.

"Is it really that bad?" Kessick asked.

"As far as coffee goes, yes. But I have tasted worse things."

"Like what?" He raised an eyebrow. Judging by her unending criticism of his coffee, he had imagined that there was nothing she found worse.

"Umm..." She said, the grogginess beginning to leave her system. "Do you remember the hazings back at the university?"