It took Helena Haig twenty-three planetary minutes to orbit Andromache V in the prototype SpacePod. The press corps have now spent at least twice that long getting holos of her. Still, at least the 'Pod has cooled down a bit, now. When the holo-session started, the 'Pod was super-heated and, regardless of the temperature-regulation system in her skinsuit, Helena was almost melting, just by standing near the spacecraft. Some monkey with a holocam asked her to lean on the 'Pod and pretty much drained Helena's reserves of diplomacy, all in one go - she's been running on empty ever since. The 'Pod remains discernibly warm now, but her 'suit can cope. The strange thing is that no-one has thought to ask her what she thinks of the SpacePod. It is supposed to deliver fast transport between any two planetary points. That would involve a rocket-launch, to put the thing above the atmosphere, the orbital trip, then a re-entry and a controlled landing. Helena Haig has shown that the orbital part is feasible, but it's the outer parts of the sandwich that bother her. She will be telling the board of StarSwift Technologies, with the authority of their Chief Test Pilot: kill the SpacePod, or kill your customers. She thinks of all of the imminent, wrong-headed headlines about the breakthrough in personal transport and her smile grows and the holocaps, who were just showing signs of flagging, blaze away again, with renewed vigour. Terai Yuki 2 from CP