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thanks."
"Will it alarm you if I shift?"
"No. Of course not."
Nonetheless, he had to gulp hard when the ordinary human figure beside him
turned into a mass of extra joints, spiky protruberanees, and all too many
legs. And a row of bright blue eyes. Instead of staring, he entered his
desired destination in the shuttle's navigational computer and saw to it that
the course changes all went as planned. By the time he neared the landfill,
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flying the shuttle as if it were any aircraft, he knew that the Zaid-Dayan was
long gone. He had to do it right this time. If he messed up, there would be no
rescue.
Chapter Eighteen
For a moment, following Aygar up into the more public tunnels, Sassinak
thought how she could explain all this to a Board of Inquiry, if she survived
long enough. There were no Rules of Engagement covering this sort of thing.
She remembered something about "accepting civilian volunteers into a military
mission"
not recommended, but it did happen and more than one passage strongly
cautioning Fleet officers from involving themselves in local politics. And
this was hardly local politics. She had taken on some part of the Federation
itself and even though she considered the people involved to be traitors, they
could say the same of her.
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She dared not think too far ahead or the weight of it would crush her. A
single Fleet captain against the most powerful families in the Federation,
against the massed pirates, plus the Seti? And with nothing but a ragged bunch
of crazies and losers? How could she even be thinking of this? Yet the thought
daunted her for only a moment. She had survived the raid on her home, against
odds as high. She had survived battle after battle in space where any mistake
could have killed her, and some nearly had. She had survived the
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jealousy of other officers, a hundred mischances, to be where she was now. If
not you, who? Abe had said more than once.
No time for letting her mind drift, not even to the things Fleur had told her.
She would have time later for more such talks, for long reminiscences, for
shared tears and laughter, or they would both be dead. For now, she had Aygar
to get safely to the rendezvous with his student friend, and whatever came
after. She patted her midsection where the extra bulk Fleur had insisted she
stuff into the pale blue worksuit felt itchy and unfamiliar. Even worse was
the slight dowager's hump that prickled when she twitched her shoulders,
trying to remember to slump. Although she'd seen in the mirror that the gray
streaks Fleur had added to her hair as well as decidedly wrong makeup made her
look years older, she kept thinking a more complete disguise would have been
better. Aygar, whose height and shoulders made him unmistakable, had been
turned into a male fashion plate. A voluminous magenta shirt unlaced halfway
down his chest and tucked into tight gray shorts made him look like anything
but fugitive. His mapper button now looked like one of the jewels studding a
huge medallion hung on stout chain around his neck.
The first "uptowners" they saw hardly glanced at them. The upsloping tunnel,
linking one subway level with another, had streams of pedestrians scurrying in
both directions. Most wore one-piece worksuits in grays, browns, and blues;
the others were dressed as flamboyantly as Aygar. Homebound workers, Fleur had
said, mingling with the pleasure-hunters who also tended to "change shifts" at
rush hours.
Sassinak trailed him, trying to look as if she merely happened to be going in
the same direction. In that brief time below, she'd forgotten how noisy large
groups could be. Announcements no one could have understood boomed from the
levels below and above; the scurrying feet were overlaid by a constant roar of
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conversation. A flare of Ryxi screeched, threatening, and the humans parted
around them. A gray uniform approached at a jog. At the next level, the
upbound stream bifurcated, a
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third veering left and two-thirds right. Even more noise broke over them. The
synthesized voice of the transportation computers announcing train arrivals
and departures, warning passengers away from the rails, repeating the same
list of safety rules over and over. Friends met on the platforms with squeals
of delight as if they had not seen each other at rush hour the day before.
Less demonstrative workers glared at them or muttered brief curses. Aygar and
Sassinak both turned right. Here, service booths backed the subway platforms:
fountains, restrooms, public callbooths, even a few food booths. As he'd been
directed, Aygar turned into the third of these. Sassinak paused as if to look
over the menu displayed, then ducked in after him.
He was already shaking the hand of a much smaller young man with a milder
version of the same outfit;
small-flowered purple print shirt, and looser green shorts but higher-heeled
boots. Backing him were two other young men, similarly dressed, and a girl who
seemed to have stepped out of a Carin Coldae re-run.
Her silvery snugsuit clung to the right curves, all the way down to sleek
black boots, and her emerald green scarf was knotted casually on the left
shoulder. Across the back of the bodysuit ran a stenciled black chain design
and short lengths of minute black chain hung from her ear lobes.
Sassinak managed not to snicker. Innocent bravado deserved a passing nod of
respect, although she could have told the young woman that carrying a real
weapon where she'd stashed her emerald-green plastic imitation needier would
make it hard to draw in time for practical use. Her own hand checked the
weapon Aygar had taken from the dead man behind the bar. She moved past them,
up to the counter, and ordered a bowl of fried twists that were supposed to be
real vegetables, not processor output.
Whatever it was, it would taste better than her last meal. She paid for it
from the money Fleur had given her and sat down at a largish table near the
clump of young people. They were talking busily, waving their arms and looking
like any other group of young people in a public place. Now they
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