It was a dark and stormy night on Precipero, which was saying very little on a planet where it rained four hundred and twenty two days out of a four hundred and twenty day year. Matters of the weather were not helped any by the high percentage of free chlorine mixed into the clouds, a byproduct of massive undersea fusion reactors that powered the vast cities lining the deep seabeds of the waterworld. To the natives that dwelt beneath the waves the searing rain wasn't even important enough to be beneath their notice, but to the humans that settled trade outposts that squatted in the shallows? The eternal rain that burned any skin bared to the sky was just another reason to cycle out to any other posting as fast as possible.

  On Station Fifteen, a blocky expanse of platforms atop platforms covered in uniform plasteel habitats obstinately decorated by their inhabitants to bring some color to a bleak grey world despite its protests, sat the Cosmic Space Postal Service station. In its cramped little front office, little more than a stamp vending machine and a package acceptance counter, sat a woman behind the counter. She had been pretty, once, but time and hardship had worn her down, stripped any desire to try from her. Hard grey eyes set in a lightly tan face, framed by frizzy brown hair streaked with grey, glared at the sole customer: a hunched over alien in a heavy raincoat idly scrolling through a nearly infinite variety of stamps at the machine. She took a hard drag off her cigarette and held it in her lungs as long as she could, then jetted it out through her nose. Another drag took it down to the filter, made of the traditional cellulose just as it was two and a half thousand years ago when humans took their first steps off Earth, then rolled her chair over to the No Smoking sign and stubbed the butt out on it. Pack after pack after pack had worn it down to just an Oking sign. A kick took her back to the terminal, a vestige of an ancient time that was wholly unneeded with the ubiquity of neuralinks, and the most important thing in the entire damned building: Her pack, half empty, and the lighter resting on it. The briefest moment of hesitation took her, then she shrugged with a subaudible curse and kicked out another cig. In seconds it was lit between her lips, pleasantly moist and uncracked despite the utter lack of bothering with even lip balm. Such was the sole redeeming quality of the maxed out humidity of the world.

  Finally another customer entered the office, not so much walking as gliding-slither-squirming. The woman couldn't see the legs of the customer, just a truly massive bulk beneath a veritable tarp of a raincoat that dripped rank rain on the floor. Her nose wrinkled as the stench of chlorine assaulted it, the air filtration system struggling to cycle fast enough to deal with the overbearing tang. A few taps at her terminal scheduled a servicing for it and billed it priority; She had the authority, why shouldn't she use it for her own comfort? That looming bulk, now silently standing before the counter, seemed to grow ever larger. Needless to say, the woman was not impressed at yet another alien before her no matter how big it was, and took a drag of her fresh cig before deigning to recognize their existence.

  "Yeah?" The words came out in a husky growl, half the cigarettes and half her unyielding displeasure at life, the universe, and everything. In response the coat shifted and a face, such as something shaped like a shovel with seven citrine compound eyes arranged in a circle and a mouth that had more in common with a tunnel boring machine than anything else could be called a face, poked out. It focused on the woman, the glitter of those eyes brighter as they aimed direct at her, and she couldn't help but hold her breath.

  A cluster of tentacles, each as thick as a screwdriver handle, slid out from under the raincloak. In their grasp was a large, heavy strange-metal box that radiated coldness despite being utterly devoid of any cooling mechanisms. Only the faintest lines in its smooth, purple-gray surface implied that it might be anything other than a solid cube, faint cuts hinting at hinges and lids. Those tendrils gently, ever so carefully, placed the box upon the counter without letting it tilt a fraction of a degree.

  "I would like to send a package." Though it spoke like the soft pealing of bells, pure music formed into words, the voice that came from it was in perfect Terran Standard. Smoke escaped the woman in a plume, blown straight into the alien's face, then she coughed and tried to catch her breath. The creature's head tilted faintly, its eyes glittering as it contemplated her, but it remained silent.

  "S...sorry." Somehow she managed, those words even more alien to her than the alien before her. "Where would you like it delivered?" A gentle caress of tendrils atop the box illuminated a previously invisible screen, less a discrete display and more a layer of fluid light atop the metal, which swirled as it scribed out galactic coordinates followed by planets. The woman squinted at it, her neuralink interpreting the numbers into Galactic Zip, the standard system of the CSPS. Fingers flew as she tapped it into the terminal, a 2.5D holo of the Milky Way spinning into motion as a path wound into an entirely different arm. The view zoomed past thousands of star systems in a split second, then into one with a white sun, onto the third planet of that system, then a specific spot on said planet.

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  "Rhombix 3?" Figures quantized on the terminal, calculating base fuel costs as well as danger assessing routes biased against costs and profits. "That's very out of the way, gonna be costly. Estimated delivery time... three weeks."

  "The package must be delivered as soon as possible." Somehow the song made dialog carried a harsh edge of imperative despite its beauty, the bells deeper and sharper.

  "We can send it priority, yeah. Get it there in two days. Gonna cost even more, four figures of Spesos costly."

  Another tendril slithered out from under the coat holding a thick booklet of stamps. "Money is no object. Do you accept stamps?"

  Steel grey eyes jumped to the stamp vending machine, still occupied by the scrolling alien, then back to the actual customer. "Think we do, yeah."

  Another tilt of that strange head came as it flicked open the booklet and began to peel off Corgis, the highest value of stamps offered, to paste on the strange-metal box. The woman's eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline as the alien rapidly pasted on over a thousand Spesos of loaf-dogs. It paused, tentacle poised over the next stamp.

  "There are special handling requirements." This time a soft statement. "The package must not be tilted beyond ten degrees on any axis, must not be shocked, dropped, jounced, jostled, impacted, exposed to zero gravity, or suffer any stresses such as pressure or higher than Earth standard gravities. It must also not be x-rayed, irradiated, placed in areas with high ambient heat such as reactor rooms, or scanned in any method including sonic resonance." A shift in ringing tones hardened the voice to an absolute command. "It must not, under any circumstances, be opened before delivery."

  If the woman's eyebrows could leap off her head like an archeotech cartoon character they would, though she suppressed the multitude of questions that leapt to mind.

  "That'll cost extra, but we can do that." Another half dozen of Corgis joined the others, easily covering the special handling fees and then some. "The CSPS operates under a strict no questions policy, but... to ensure delivery, I am allowed to ask: Does this package contain a singularity generator, quantum entangler, fusion warhead, or similar planet cracker level weapon of mass destruction? We have special holds for those."

  Another half dozen stamps, each depicting a Corgi in a different pose, joined the pupper armada already emblazoned on the strange-metal. "Please treat the package with all the care and caution due if it does."

  The box had more money on it than the woman's monthly salary, even after all the little bumps and raises she had snuck in for herself in the budget during the three years of her exile to this damp hell. A touch to a button beneath the table released an embedded grav plate which gently lifted the box, wafting it through an automatic door into the sorting room of the post office.

  "We'll get your package on the way within the hour." One more drag killed her cig, so she flicked the smouldering butt into the corner amidst all the other hulls. This time she tried to direct the exhale not directly into a very well paying customer's face, but a draft foiled that and put it right where she didn't want it to go. The alien remained in place before the counter, its glittering array of eyes fixed on the woman.

  "...can I help you with anything else?" She hazarded, unsure if she had offended the strange but affluent customer. In response it reached out a tentacle to gently brush her cheek; It was firm and warm but soft to the touch, and oddly comforting.

  "While I appreciate your courtship ritual, I regret to inform you that I am long mated. Rest assured that you are beautiful despite this refusal of your advances." It turned and departed, gliding out of the office as silently as it arrived. At the stamp kiosk the other customer finally selected a booklet of sleeping cats, paid with a touch, then shuffled out with nowhere near the grace. The woman just stared after the former, mouth agape in shock, and the only words she could think to say were fundamentally unfit for polite company. As well as most forms of impolite company.

  Seconds passed as her thoughts settled, a fresh cigarette shook free and lit, and in the quiet moment thick with hindsight... she actually felt a little disappointed despite intending no such thing. That irked her something fierce, so slender fingertips angrily poked at the terminal. The package needed a mailman to guide it where it needed to go, after all; Droneships were passé. A few taps took her down the list of crews... Most were off running rare deep sea minerals to waiting refineries or exotic spirits to magnates with infinitely more Spesos than sense. Lips twisted into a cruel smile when her eyes fell upon a certain name, one that she would be happy to hear was sucked into a spontaneous black hole. Little bastard always refused to play her game no matter how many hints she dropped, and that just wasn't acceptable. A fingertip tapped the "Assign" button, then a long hard inhale sucked the ember down until it burnt the filter. Smoke rose in a grey plume as she leaned back and blew, then as it swirled into the filtration system she laughed. It could be heard outside, even over the eternal hammering of caustic rain.