The gentle hum of the engines had put me to sleep once more, this always happens on interplanetary flights I pass out like a small child who stayed up too late. In no other situation did I have this problem just here on these interplanetary shuttles. They expect you to nap on the slow ones but this is a top of the line model it takes a mere 2 hours to get to Mars from the lunar colonies. A vast improvement over the 17 hour flights of the previous generation, at this rate of improvement we will have means to travel to Centari in just a few more years.

I am once more awakened rudely by an overly loud PA system. Rubbing my eyes and my right ear, which had the misfortune of being against the seat cushion, I sit up and look about the room. In my groggy state I fail to notice nearly everybody looking at me, when I do notice I have only one response, "What are you looking at?" It's so annoying they act like they have never seen an Anthropomorphic. Jeez humans these days I thought they had banished their rude tendency to discriminate eons ago, but I am repeatedly proven wrong. The same reaction as always they look away as if I didn't notice, sighing I start my mental checklist. After checking to make sure all the things I came in with I will be leaving with I get up and pad into the docking area of the ship passing a few more groups of gawking humans.

The docking area is a large room mostly empty space it also lacks the artificial gravity systems that the rest of the ship has. There is an array of very large windows on the sides of the docking zone their view is rather dull at the moment but I have heard that when passing the outer planets the view can be quite breath taking. That unfortunately is not the case right now as all that can be seen is the inside of the docking bay at the Mars space elevator once the ship docks this room will be very active. So to avoid the inevitable crowds I have collected my cargo in advance. Fortunately the clerks are a bit more tolerant of other races and give me only a passing glance as they hand over my briefcase and suitcase.

The ship lurches to a halt and people start pouring in from the doors in the back wall. I make my way to a docking port and await the completion of the connection and pressurization processes. The door in front of me hisses and pulls away into the wall. I am immediately bombarded with the scent of poorly recycled air, an unpleasant surprise. I was sure they would have at least given thought to putting some decent air recyclers in a spaceport but I'm not the one in charge so I can't stop them from using the crappy ones. Profit over people I guess. First out of the docking tube I have the largest number of signs to look at to find the representative here to pick me up. Still hazy from waking up it takes an inordinate amount of time to find my rep, but then again him having the smallest sign of the bunch sure didn't help.