[The construction process is quite remarkable, even if it seems wasteful to Ari, building new ships when so many fine ones are sitting unused. It's all relative, though. Her expectation had been that she'd be saving up her profits in the hope that in a decade or so she could buy a second-hand ship of her own. This shipyard? It's wealth beyond the imagining of even the most successful Company worlds.

She doesn't recognise the man's uniform, but in a way it's reassuring nonetheless. She's not the only one who had a legitimate spacer career before signing up for this.]

I think that there is a Fortuna, but it isn't the miracle we're being told it is, all things to all people. It's something that SUPERBIA [or the people behind it; she hadn't thought of that but it's perfectly plausible now that he says it] wants, and needs us to get, and is absolutely going to try to take from whomever is successful.

[She doesn't seem terribly concerned about the prospect either, and grins at him.] I'm up for a wager on it if you are.