Outside the spaceport proper, the corridors were warm bordering on hot, the entropic load of the city trapped by the thermos-bottle vacuum of space. Moisture thickened the air, and the smell of bodies and dried piss was like seeing an old friend’s smile. Three-meter-high screens shouted advertisements for machine rigs one second and high fashion the next, their clamor only a thread in the constant, roaring symphony of voices and carts and machinery. A public newsfeed was showing images of fighting somewhere on Earth. Another little insurgent cult or traditional ethnic conflict calling for its due in blood again, important only because it was on Earth. Even for Belters who’d called the float their home for generations, Earth carried a symbolic load. The mother of humanity with her boot firmly on Belter necks. On the screen, a pale-skinned man with blood sheeting down from a scalp wound held up a book. Probably a holy book. He was shouting, his mouth squared by rage. Kill as many people in the Belt, and it wouldn’t have been news. Even now.
She turned spinward, looking for a food kiosk serving something appealing. There were the usual corporate products, the same at any station. Now that the OPA ran Ceres, there were also other options. Dhejet and egg curry, cow-style noodle bowl, red kibble. The foods of her childhood. Belter foods. The kitchen on the Rocinante had been designed by someone in the Martian Navy, and the food stocks it accepted were always nourishing, usually good, and sometimes excellent. But they weren’t her food.
She opted for red kibble from a scarred kiosk with adhesive from generations of nightclub flyers caking its sides. It came in a brown pressed-shred container that fit in her left palm with a plastic spatula like a flattened spoon to eat with. The first bite filled her mouth with cumin and her mind with dust-covered memory. For a moment, she was in her bunk on Tio Kriztec’s ship, huddled over the white ceramic bowl she had loved then and forgotten for years, eating quietly while the others sang in the galley. She couldn’t have been more than six at the time, but the memory was fresh and bright. She took another bite, savoring it. As she did, she saw the man following her.
He was thin, even for a native. His hair, a dirty gray that flowed back from his head like the folded wings of a bird. He stood maybe fifteen meters away, watching the newsfeed with an air of mild boredom. She couldn’t have said what drew her attention to him and left her certain that he was there because of her. Something about the casual way he didn’t look toward her, maybe, or the angle of his stance.
Naomi turned spinward again, moving quickly without running, forcing him to keep up. As she walked, she scanned the crowd around her. If she was right, there might be others working in a team. She slid easily through the gaps in the press of bodies, finding the places that opened for a moment as people crossed her path and each other’s. She had spent six months on Ceres when she was thirteen and between ships, but the station was still a long way from home territory for her. She did her best, making for a side corridor that she was almost certain ran between the wider pathways.
And maybe she was wrong. Maybe the man, whoever he was, had just happened to be there when she was feeling particularly anxious. She didn’t look back until her side corridor rejoined the larger flow of foot traffic from the next gate over. She took the ground in at a glance, and found the place she needed. A currency-changing booth four meters away with opaque privacy walls made a little space in the flow of people like a stone in a river. Without pausing, she walked to the dead space at its far side and leaned against it, her shoulder blades taking in the cool of the metal. The air was thick enough that she was sweating a little, a dampness at her collarbone and the fringes of her hair. She made herself small and unobtrusive, and counted slowly backward from a hundred.
At thirty-two, Wings hurried past her, his chin high, scanning the crowd before him. The bright metallic taste of fear filled her mouth, and she turned back into the booth, and then past it the other way, down the corridor she’d just left. As she retraced her steps, her mind raced through possibilities. Marco had finally decided to end their standoff, and the threat to Filip had been bait for the trap. Or the security forces had been waiting all this time, and she was about to get caught at last. Or someone who’d watched the newsfeeds from Ilus too much had decided to stalk her. Or Marco was just sending his men to check up on her. The last wasn’t least likely.