The spider mech raised one claw, ran right up to her, and wrapped six legs around her. Another mech came scuttling around the bend of the ledge, and then another. And another. Ingray hadn’t realized that Tic had so many of them.
It wasn’t over. It would still be hours and hours. But she didn’t have to do anything now, and she could close her eyes and Tic would take care of the rest, and eventually they would be aboard his ship, where she knew they would be safe. “See you aboard,” she said, though of course Garal couldn’t hear her now their helmets weren’t touching. But e’d seen her mouth move, said something in reply that Ingray couldn’t interpret, as two spider mechs put their hairy legs around em.
The mech already holding Ingray reached out one claw and tugged on her hand that still held the rail. “Oh,” she said, and made herself let go, and then the surface of the ledge lifted away from her feet and she lost any sense of up or down. She closed her eyes and tried very, very hard not to scream. Tried to think of nothing but counting her breaths.
She lost count, lost all confidence that she hadn’t repeated the same few hundred numbers over and over, thought maybe she’d dozed at some point but there was no way for her to be sure. The view outside her faceplate was uninformative, claustrophobic black. She could look at the time just by blinking; she wouldn’t need to query the system communications to do it. But she was afraid of what she’d see—that it had only been a few minutes and there was still all the rest to get through. Or that it had been days and she’d somehow missed the destination, was drifting aimlessly away from anyone and anything that might get her out of the prisoning suit. She shouldn’t have done this. She should have stayed on the elevator and risked facing Planetary or Elevator Safety, or Omkem military mechs.
An alarm buzzed in her ears. She opened her eyes and saw the flashing orange of an alert. “Tic?” she gasped. “My air is getting low.” He’d said he’d bring extra; the distance to his ship was too long for a single vacuum suit’s supply. But, she realized, trying very very hard not to panic, she hadn’t seen any of the spider mechs carrying tanks.
“Not long now,” came the thready reply, barely audible through her faceplate. She had no idea where it was coming from, had never seen any of the spider mechs use a mouth to speak. “Stay calm.”
“I’m trying,” she said. But of course talking, and breathing hard the way she was now she wasn’t concentrating on taking each breath perfectly calmly, would just use up more air. She closed her eyes again and struggled to slow her breathing. Which worked for a while, but eventually her fingers were tingling again, and she must have been clenching her teeth, because she had the beginning of a headache. But Tic had said to stay calm. Had said it wouldn’t be long. She had no idea how much time had passed since he’d said that. It would be all right. She was not going to throw up here in the suit, because even though the suit would almost certainly clean up most of the mess it was still not a good idea to vomit in microgravity, and besides, she just wasn’t going to. There was a thunk; she’d run into something, or something had run into her. Down returned suddenly to the universe, beneath her feet. The ship, it must be. The gravity was a relief, and all she had to do now was wait for the airlock to cycle, and she could do that. She could wait, now she knew she was safe, and she was still not going to throw up. But it was going to be a near thing, and her head was hurting worse, and she couldn’t keep from gasping, and her helmet separated from her suit with a click and it felt so, so good to actually feel like she was getting air when she breathed again. She fumbled at the seals of her vacuum suit, and one of the spider mechs that had brought her here pulled at the others and helped her out of the suit.
She stood a moment, unsteadily, in a dimly lit compartment. Beside her a spider mech was helping Garal out of eir own suit, and e seemed to be all right. And a voice that Ingray couldn’t put a name to, but that seemed oddly familiar, said, “Oh, it’s you!”
Ingray turned toward the voice. Slouching in the doorway, in rumpled white coat and trousers and gloves, was the Radchaai ambassador to the Geck, Tibanvori Nevol. “I didn’t know you were coming along. But no one here tells me anything. You’re not claiming to be Geck, too, are you?”
“There isn’t anything like tea here,” said Ambassador Tibanvori, twenty minutes later, “or I’d offer you some.” She’d taken off her rumpled white coat but still wore a white shirt, trousers, and gloves. “The Geck humans drink warm water with salt in it in situations like this.” She grimaced. “I’ll have some brought if you like.”
“Thank you, no,” said Ingray. She sat beside Garal on a ledge—or, it wasn’t a ledge, exactly. More of a growth that rose out of the inner surface of the shadowed room. Which was narrower at the entrance than where Ingray and Garal sat, with no corners at all that Ingray could see, and half a dozen large and sinuous protrusions in various places, including the walls and ceiling. “I’m sorry about your coat.”
Ambassador Tibanvori waved that away and sat on a nearby protrusion. “Thankfully, you don’t seem to have eaten much before you set out. Still, I must say, the next time you plan to make a long journey in a vacuum suit—though it’s not the best idea to begin with—you might want to be sure you have enough air. Is your head feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you, Ambassador.”
“Is this ship still docked with Hwae Station?” asked Garal.
“It is,” Tibanvori acknowledged. “Treaty or no treaty, we’d have been better off leaving days ago. But no, the ambassador had to find this Tic Uisine person. And her ship. His ship.” She sighed.
“What’s happening on the station?” Ingray asked. The last she’d heard, military mechs had shot their way out of the docks, and that was still all she knew. “Is there still fighting? Do you know …” She knew people who lived and worked on the station. Netano was there. She risked a quick query to the station’s various news services, but all she found were warnings to seek shelter and remain there. That was a bad sign, she thought. But she would not allow herself to think too hard about that until she knew what was going on. Nuncle Lak certainly either knew where Netano was right now or was looking for information about her, and e would share what e knew when e knew it. There was no need for Ingray to add to the chaos by sending out queries of her own.
“I have no idea what’s happening on the station,” replied Tibanvori. “And you shouldn’t, either, if you’re claiming to be Geck.”
“I’m not,” said Ingray. “Garal is.”