“That ought to work to our advantage,” Taucris said. “We have Extra-Hwae Relations and Planetary Safety behind us, we should be able to convince them to let us through, and we won’t have lots of people around us so you three will have an easier time getting right out on the platform hull without anyone noticing what you’re up to.”
But by the time they left their small cabin, a good hour before docking at Zenith, announcements had changed from No passengers will be allowed to exit the elevator at this time to Please keep the corridors clear and do not approach the exits, not just over communications but by loudspeaker. Repeated, over and over every few minutes. Usually at this point in the trip people were packing things up, looking for lost items, rounding up traveling companions, or forming an almost last-minute line at the vestige kiosks and the sanitary facilities. But despite announced orders, all of the many people they saw in the wide, shop-lined main corridor were headed single-mindedly for the lifts and even the stairs to the exit level, bags in hand.
And having reached the bare, brown-tiled exit level, they couldn’t reach the first exit they headed for. Frustrated, complaining passengers and their luggage filled the corridor. “Why are they here so early?” asked Taucris, her voice exasperated. “Why do they want to go onto the platform?”
“Why do we?” asked Garal.
“It’s hardly the same,” said Ingray, but there they were, and as she watched, one woman turned to a neman beside her and complained that it was ridiculous, she had important business to attend to on the station.
“I have family there,” agreed the neman. “And I’m supposed to just turn around and leave them?” E turned and caught sight of Taucris’s green Planetary Safety uniform. Opened eir mouth to complain but some disturbance in the crowd pushed the person ahead of em back. E stepped hastily out of the way and tripped over the bulky bag at eir feet.
Taucris and Ingray caught eir arms before e could fall headlong, but Taucris had to shout at the people ahead who had backed into the neman, to get them to clear room to put the neman safely on eir feet again. “This isn’t good,” said Taucris, with a perfunctory gesture at the neman’s flustered thanks. More people had come up behind and were pushing to find a path through the crowd.
“Change of plan,” said Tic, and the people nearest the spider mech flinched and stepped back, having apparently just realized that it wasn’t just a strangely shaped package, starting a new wave of collisions and potentially dangerous falls behind them. And more people were arriving, filling the corridor behind, groaning in dismay to see the crowd already there.
“I have to stay here,” said Taucris, and then, pointing at the newest arrivals and raising her voice, “You! Clear the exit corridor! This is an official warning!” Though she was, technically speaking, out of her jurisdiction.
“What about them?” cried a man, gesturing to the crowd ahead.
“They can’t go anywhere with you in the way!” Taucris replied, loud and authoritative. “You have been officially warned! Ten more seconds and I start giving out fines!” A few people turned to go. Taucris said, more quietly, “I have to stay here. This could get bad, a crowd like this, even if everyone means well. I need to stay here until Elevator Safety can get here, and I need to help them.”
“Yes,” agreed Garal.
Ingray, seeing the few who had turned to go, and so many still there and clearly dubious of Taucris’s authority, said, “You can’t stay all by yourself.”
“Go,” said Taucris. “I’ll be fine. I’ve already called Elevator Safety, and they’re sending someone but it will be a few minutes.” She leaned forward and kissed Ingray on the mouth, firmly. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
Garal took Ingray’s arm. “The officer said to clear the corridor,” e said in a carrying voice, pulling Ingray along as e followed the spider mech scurrying away. “Let’s do as she says.” And then, more quietly, “Don’t look back, you’ll trip. And anyway she’s fine.”
“You’re right,” Ingray agreed, sounding more confident than she felt. But she did look back, for just an instant, and saw Taucris frowning, speaking sternly to the people who were standing there. “She’ll be fine.”
It was easy to get a lift to the top level—everyone else was going down, and only a few people had taken Taucris’s orders seriously enough to move to another level. “This might actually be better,” Tic said when the doors closed and they were alone for a few moments. “I’ll pick you up from the elevator; it’ll be docked with the platform soon enough and I’m already headed there. And in all this, no one will be paying attention to us. There’ll be airlocks up top that will let us get out on the hull, it’s just a matter of walking the circuit until we find one. I don’t imagine there’ll be anyone there to see us; everyone’s trying to get to the exits.”
The top level was the upside-down mirror image of the bottom. It had been the entrance down on Hwae, and there were no shops or restaurants or cabins along the brown-tiled curving corridor, just bare brown walls punctuated by doors marked EMERGENCY EXIT or ALARM WILL SOUND or AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Ingray had always assumed that it was empty once an ascent began.
But it wasn’t empty. To judge by the occasional scattering of luggage and jumbled blankets, a few passengers who were unable or unwilling to pay for a cabin slept here. And quite a few of those had unpacked again, if they’d ever packed at all, and were apparently resigned to going directly back down.
Some passengers also appeared to use the mostly empty corridor as a place to stretch their legs, so that even once Ingray and Garal had strolled all the way around the circuit as casually as they could with the spider mech skittering along beside them, and Tic had settled on a likely door in an empty stretch of corridor, people would still walk by far too frequently.
Finally, after nearly five minutes of too-casual loitering by the chosen door in the hope of a break longer than ten seconds, Tic said quietly to Ingray and Garal, “All right. I’m going to do something drastic. It may mean I’ll have to stay behind to cover for you.”
“But …” began Ingray. But it seemed as though there would never be an opportunity otherwise, and this wasn’t really Tic, just a mech. Tic was safely away on his ship somewhere.
“Don’t worry about me,” said Tic. “Here, just in case.” The spider mech spat out a shiny black blob and handed it to Garal. “If I’m not with you, put that on the airlock controls. It should do the trick.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Garal.