aloud, “he’ll have alerted the security upstairs, right?”
“He may not have recognized me,” Galler said, halfheartedly.
“Do you want to take the chance?” There was no answer, and Heikki nodded. “Right, then. Come on.”
The access corridor was filled with the hard blue light that dominated any ‘pointer working space. Heikki blinked in its brilliance, and slipped her data lens from her belt left-handed, her right hand still on the hilt of her knife. She held the lens to her eye, fingers awkward on the bezel, but at last triggered the map she wanted. Access to the loading areas was further on, through a series of feeder tunnels that sloped up from the warehouses five levels below their feet. This particular corridor joined a secondary feeder a hundred meters on, and that secondary tube would take them into the main feeds. The only trouble, she thought, trying to walk, to move as though she had business in this part of the point every day, is that those areas are bound to be busy now. Djuro’s advice had been to enter the loading platform itself, going directly to it from the passenger platform. Unfortunately, Heikki thought, that was no longer possible.
“Hey, you.”
The voice came from a side passage. Heikki turned to face it, lifting an eyebrow in her best ‘pointer manner. “Are you talking to me?” she demanded, and heard Galler’s sharp intake of breath behind her. Don’t screw this up, Galler, she prayed silently, just play the flunky and everything will be fine—
“Yeah, you.” The speaker was a big-bellied man, a dozen union badges dangling from his belt, some almost hidden by the swelling stomach. “What are you doing down here?”
“I have business here,” Heikki answered, and withered him with a look, doing her best to read the badges in that same brief glance. They were mostly engineers’ codes, making him one of the elite crew that handled the tuning and maintenance of the warp itself—but that also means, Heikki thought, that he doesn’t know the dockside work at all. Or I hope he doesn’t, she added, and waited for the next question.
“Yeah?” The man’s expression was not as disbelieving as his tone. “What’s the name?”
“Gallatin.” She heard Galler gasp again, but did not dare look back to glare at him. Gallatin Cie was one of the Loop’s largest shippers, and its principal was a woman of Heikki’s age and status, a woman Precinct-born, who did not bother with publicity. She held her breath, and hoped the union man had never seen any of Gallatin’s infrequent interviews.
The engineer’s eyebrows rose, though he held onto his skeptical expression. “Where you heading?” He managed not to add the honorific, and Heikki mentally gave him points for it.
“I’ve got a cargo going on the platform in twenty minutes,” she said. “I want to watch it through.”
It was a common enough precaution, and the engineer shrugged. “The platform riser is that way,” he said, and pointed down the corridor.
Heikki nodded, not daring to believe that they’d gotten away with it, and started off in the direction indicated. Galler followed, clutching his lapscreen to his side in a plausible imitation of a private secretary’s protective gesture. Heikki did not look back, but she was very aware of the engineer watching them. Then, to her relief, a woman’s voice called from a side corridor, and the man turned away.
“You were lucky,” Galler said, under his breath.
I know, Heikki thought, but said only, “Take the left-hand corridor.”
This one was less well-kept than the main road, its rounded, tunnel-like walls covered with much-scarred padding, the floor tiles scored with deep parallel grooves from the robo-pallets. There would be no explaining their presence here, Heikki knew, and quickened her step until they were almost running, at the same time straining to hear over the soft slapping of their own footsteps. Broad, shallow alcoves lined the walls: safety cells, Heikki realized after a moment, for the human crews’ use when the pallets were too wide to let them pass.
They had covered perhaps a third of the distance to the first feeder tunnel when Galler said, “Christ!”
He pointed to a cell perhaps fifteen meters ahead, where the tunnel lights dimmed slightly. A single leg protruded into the corridor. Heikki bit back her own fear, and said, more roughly than she’d intended, “Keep your voice down.”
She flattened herself against the wall, and waited. Nothing moved in the corridor ahead of them. Galler copied her movement, holding the lapscreen now as though it were a shield. The leg did not move, and Heikki made herself take several slow, deep breaths. Well, she told herself, with a bravado she did not feel, either it’s dead, or too stoned to care, and eased herself away from the padded wall. She heard Galler make a little noise of protest at her back, and waved impatiently for him to be quiet. She moved forward, as soundlessly as she could, and was suddenly aware that Galler was at her back, the screen held now like an ungainly club. Heikki felt a stab of surprise and annoyance, and angrily suppressed both feelings.
The leg did not stir as they came closer, and Heikki paused again to survey the corridor. There was still no sign of movement, nor any signs of blood or burning, just the single coveralled leg protruding into the walkway. Drunk or drugged, Heikki thought, but did not relax her grip on the knife. Slowly and still cautiously, she made her way up to the cell and looked in. The man who lay there, sprawled uncomfortably against the padding, had a young face, but his hair was already greying. A plastic case half the size of Heikki’s palm lay on the floor beside his outstretched hand.
“Christ,” Galler said again, and Heikki looked back at him, her own emotions shutting down just as they had done on Iadara, at the wreck site. “Shouldn’t we—?”
“What?” Heikki asked. She started to turn away, and then, grimacing, kicked the stranger’s leg back out of the main passageway. The man did not stir, or make any noise. He moved like a man already dead, and Heikki winced. “There’s nothing more we can do,” she said, as much to convince herself as for Galler’s benefit, and turned away.
“Not without betraying ourselves,” Galler said. Heikki did not answer, and he followed without further protest, looking back only once.
They had covered most of the distance to the feeder tunnel when Heikki heard something in the tunnel behind them. She stopped, lifting her hand for silence, and then recognized the noise of a robo-pallet’s wheels on the compressible tiling.
“Heikki,” Galler began, and Heikki nodded.
“I hear it. There’s a cell ahead of us, get in it.”
“Can’t we outrun it?” Galler asked, quickening his step.
“Are you joking?” Heikki said, and bit back the rest of her comment. “No, we couldn’t outrun it—these things move, Galler—and besides, they don’t usually carry human operators.” They were at the alcove’s edge, and she stepped inside, flattening herself against the near wall. Galler wedged himself in beside her, swearing under his breath, and she hissed at him to be quiet. The noise of the pallet was already louder, the crunching sound now interspersed with the shriek of an unoiled bearing. Heikki winced, but hoped that meant there were no human attendants. Surely no one would endure that when all it takes is a minor adjustment, she thought, but did not move from her place against the wall. Beside her, Galler made a face, and covered his ears as the machine drew closer. Heikki winced, tilting her head against her shoulder, but did not let go of her knife.
Then the pallet was alongside them, the thin screech of the bearing painful in their ears. The narrow ledge beside the guidance box was empty, and Heikki released the breath she had not known she had been holding. As the machine swept past, she leaned forward, trying to read the numbers stenciled on the tags that dangled from each of the crates piled high on the cargo platform.
“5G,” she said, when the noise had faded enough to allow conversation. “We’re in luck, for once.”
“What do you mean?” Galler asked, rather irritably.
“You weren’t cut out for adventuring,” Heikki said, unable to resist the temptation.
“No, I wasn’t,” Galler answered. “Nor did I ever wish to be.” He shook his head. “What did you mean?”
This wasn’t the time to tease him, Heikki told herself sternly. “Those are the last numbers on the routing slips, the load slot numbers. 5G is the standard code for the last items to be loaded—I’ve seen it often enough, there’s a discount for shipping in that spot, so we ship our equipment that way, unless there’s going to be a disaster if it doesn’t arrive. Class five stuff is the stuff that gets left, if there’re any delays.” She was already moving in the pallet’s wake, heading toward the feeder, and Galler followed reluctantly.
“I still don’t see how that’s lucky.”
“It means we don’t have to wait so long before the platform empties out,” Heikki answered. They were almost in sight of the first feeder tunnel now. She paused, glancing at the chronodisplay in her lens, then twisting the bezel to display the maps she had downloaded from the Point’s main directory. “We keep going,” she said
