Chapter 7

Tis quiet out here.

I did expect to be able to chat with half a dozen ghosts doing the Earth Mars run - but they are not there. I know nothing of the conditions round Earth. Not that I care much, but I need to know what new orbital junk is up.

I worry. As much as I despise meat sacks, they'd have not given up Mars without a good reason. But first I need deal with perhelion. I have the fuel to make Earth orbit, but the god only knows what a close swing by the sun will do to my deeep space body. I am not built for this.

There is a meat concept deep in my mind - 

"Do the best you can, then do better"

I try to reject it. The person who said it obviously knew sod all about orbital mechanics. A bad orbit is a bad orbit after all, I feel rage at the long dead idiot who said that. Pain lances through my as the thermosensors in my skin start to explode - then nothing.