Only half a year. Tayrey remembers her distress the day she realised that even allowing for calendrical complications she must have spent longer as a prisoner than she had as a lieutenant, actively. It's a faded grief, these days, but it's the reason she won't be too precise about her timings. She doesn't want him to calculate it, spot the gap.

'Thanks,' she says with a smile. 'Wish I could have lasted longer than half a year, but there it is. Some people die in flight training before they ever get that far.' And she has a second chance, after this.

Which leads her nicely into talk about Tradeline training methods. Safer ground. 'We don't have academies; we do all our training shipside. Apprentices spend one third of their shift studying, and the other two thirds doing actual work, so that we know how the whole ship operates, more or less - and we feel like part of the crew from the very beginning. There's simulator training for the complicated parts. As for the timing?' Tayrey grins. 'You've got to pass the lieutenants' examinations, which are real tough. Three years is about the lower limit, although the record is just under. Mine was closer to three and a half. Candidates who start at the minimum age usually take five or six, older candidates a little less. If someone hadn't passed in eight it'd get to be a problem.'

She explains, 'All you need is your captain's recommendation to try the exams. One of my seniors wanted me held back a year, thought it was too soon, but my captain said if I wasn't capable I wouldn't pass, and he was willing to let me try.' There's a wistful admiration in her voice when she speaks of the captain she hasn't seen in a long time. 'What was your academy like?' she asks him.