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was it? I've been on this run four years, and I am so damned tired of coming
back to a lot of half-witted bend-over jokes "
The mercenary woman's laughter burst against the overhead girders, her head
thrown back. "The secret of your abandonment revealed, Athosian," she said to
Ethan. "Should I take him in hand, then, being by virtue of my sex innocent of
the suspicion of, er, unnatural lusts?"
"For all of me, you can," allowed Dom, shrugging. "I have a wife to get home
to." He walked pointedly around Ethan.
"Good-oh. I'll look you up later, all right?" said the woman.
The crewman nodded to her, rather regretfully, and trod off up the exit ramp.
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Ethan, left alone with the woman, suppressed an urge to run after him begging
protection. Recalling vaguely that economic servitude was one of the marks of
the damned, he had a sudden horrible suspicion that she might be after his
money and he was carrying Athos's entire purse for the year. He became
intensely conscious of her sidearm.
Amusement livened her strange face. "Don't look so worried. I'm not going to
eat you," she snickered suddenly, " conversion therapy not being my line."
"Glck," blurted Ethan, and cleared his throat. "I am a faithful man," he
quavered. "To, to Janos. Would you like to see a picture of Janos?"
"I'll take your word for it," she replied easily. The amusement softened to
something like sympathy. "I really have you spooked, don't I? What, am I by
chance the first woman you've met?"
Ethan nodded. Twelve exits, and he had to pick this one. . . .
She sighed. "I believe you." She paused thoughtfully. "You could use a
faithful native guide, though. Kline Station has a reputation for travelers'
aid to uphold it's good for business. And I'm a friendly cannibal."
Ethan shook his head with a paralyzed smile.
She shrugged. "Well, maybe when you get over your culture shock I'll run
across you again. Are you going to have a long layover?" She pulled an object
from her pocket, a tiny holovid projector. "You get one of these automatically
when you get off a proper passenger ship I don't need mine." A colorful
schematic sprang into the air. "We're here. You want to be here, in the branch
called Transients' Lounge nice facilities, you can get a room actually, you
can get most anything, but I fancy you'd prefer the staid end of things. This
section. Up this ramp and take the second cross-corridor. Know how to operate
this thing? Good luck " She pressed the map module into his hand, flashed a
last smile, and vanished into another exit.
He gathered his meager belongings and found his way to the transients' area
eventually, after only a few wrong turns. He passed many more women en route,
infesting the corridors, the bubble-car tubes, the slidewalks and lift tubes
and arcades, but thankfully none accosted him. They seemed to be everywhere.
One had a helpless infant in her arms. He stifled a heroic impulse to snatch
the child out of danger. He could hardly complete his mission with a baby in
tow and besides, he couldn't possibly rescue them all. It also occurred to
him, belatedly, as he dodged a squad of giggling children racing across his
path to swoop like sparrows up a lift tube, that there was a 50% chance the
infant was female anyway. It assuaged his conscience a little.
* * *
Ethan chose a room on the basis of price, after an alarming teleconference
between the transient hostel's concierge, the Kline Station public computer
system, a Transients' Ombudsman, and no less than four live human officials on
ascending rungs of the station's governing hierarchy about the exchange rate
to be assigned to Ethan's Athosian pounds. They were actually quite kind in
computing the most favorable translation of his funds, via two currencies of
which Ethan had never heard, into the maximum possible number of Betan
dollars. Betan dollars were one of the harder and more universally acceptable
currencies available. Still he ended with what seemed far fewer dollars than
he had had pounds before, and he passed hastily over the proferred Imperial
Suite in favor of an Economy Cabin.
Economy proved more cabinet than cabin. When he was asleep, Etlian assured
himself, he wouldn't mind. Now, however, he was wide awake. He touched the
pressure pad to inflate the bed and lay on it anyway, mentally reviewing his
instructions and trying to ignore an odd myopic illusion that the walls were
pressing inward.
When the Population Council had finally sat down to calculate it, returning
the shipment to Jackson's Whole with Ethan to demand their money back cost
more than the dubious refund, so Jackson's Whole was scrubbed. Ethan was at
last, after much debate, given broad discretionary powers to choose another
supplier on the basis of the freshest information available at Kline Station.
There were subsidiary instructions. Keep it under budget. Get the best. Go as
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far afield as needed. Don't waste money on unnecessary travel. Avoid personal
contact with galactics; tell them nothing of Athos. Cultivate galactics to
recruit immigrants; tell them all about the wonders of Athos. Don't make
waves. Don't let them push you around. Keep an eye peeled for additional
business opportunities. Personal use of Council funds will be considered
peculation, and prosecuted as such.
Fortunately, the Chairman had spoken to Ethan privately after the committee
briefing.
"Those your notes?" he nodded to the clutch of papers and discs Ethan was
juggling. "Give them to me."
And he dropped them into his oubliette.
"Get the stuff and get back," he told Ethan. "All else is gas."
Ethan's heart lifted at the memory. He smiled slowly, sat up, tossed his map
module in the air and caught it in a smooth swipe, pocketed it, and went for a
walk.
* * *
In Transients' Lounge Ethan found the bright face of the tapestry at last by
the simple expedient of taking a bubble car through the tubes to the most
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