“How the hell did you open the lock?”
Heikki grinned in the darkness. “This isn’t high security. Almost everybody who ships by rail codes the capsule lock to the date and time of the shipment. I punched that in, and, sure enough, it opened.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Galler swore. “How can they be so stupid?”
“Write them a memo,” Heikki suggested. The capsule lurched suddenly, and she swallowed her laughter. The copper taste of fear was in her mouth; she dug her fingers into the plastic covering the bolts to either side, wishing she had never listened to her brother, this time or any time. The capsule swayed again, carried by the lifting field, then bounded forward a meter or two.
“What the hell?” Galler said again, and there was enough of a note of hysteria in his voice to force Heikki to answer.
“The passenger train just linked up,” she said, and hoped he believed her. It was a plausible enough explanation, anyway, whether or not it happened to be true. Then the capsule lifted a final time, the movement steadier, more controlled, and slid forward toward the warp. Heikki braced herself, staring into the darkness, and felt the gentle bumping as the capsules began to slide into the warp. Their capsule lifted, and her with it, her body rising into a silent explosion filled with indescribable color, colors that did not, could not exist in anything approaching reality. She felt her body floating, then streaming away, as though the unimaginable forces of the warp were sweating the last atom of flesh from her bones. She clasped her hands in denial, felt the touch of skin on skin, but the sensation of melting, of dissolution continued, more real than the thin pain of finger against finger.
And then, mercifully, it was over, ending with an abruptness that left her dizzy, mind still reeling in non- space. The capsule slowed, bumping to a stop, and Heikki forced herself to move, feeling in the darkness for the raised letters that marked the emergency release. There was less time on arrival; the loaders would appear all too quickly…. She found it at last, and slammed her palm against the release button. The lid did not budge, and she hit it again, harder, bruising the heel of her hand painfully, her breath catching in a gasp that was almost a sob. This time, the release worked, and the lid rose majestically, letting in the dim light of the cargo platform on EP7.
Even that seemed bright, after the cave-like darkness of the capsule. Heikki blinked away tears, and pushed herself up onto her knees, forcing herself to hurry. “Come on, damn it,” she said, as much to herself as to Galler. “Come on.”
Galler groaned, and pushed himself up into a sitting position, both hands at his temples. Heikki swore, and reached for him, but he batted her hand away, and slid out of the capsule on his own. He reached back for his lapscreen, slinging it shakily over his shoulder, and said, “I don’t think much of your cheap flights, Gwynne.”
Heikki, hauling at the bolts they had pushed aside, did not bother to answer. Light flared above them then, flooding the platform with a hard blue glare.
“Leave that,” Galler said, with sudden urgency. “The loaders are coming.”
“I know,” Heikki snarled, and slammed the capsule shut. She could see, at the far end of the platform, the red-painted door that was the emergency exit to the passenger platform. She pointed to it with one hand, the other fumbling in her pocket for the seal she had removed from the lock. “Get going, go on.”
“But—” Galler bit off whatever protest he had been about to make, and started for the emergency exit at a trot.
Heikki slapped the seal back into place, and drew out the molecular probe again, frantically twisting the dial until she had the setting she wanted. She slid the probe back into the hole she’d originally made, and triggered the button. In the background, she thought she could hear the snarl of a robo-pallet’s power plant, but dismissed it as imagination. Light flared, and the stasis field vanished, the seal resuming its original spongy composition. She withdrew the probe with hurried care, certain now that she heard pallets approaching, and sprinted for the emergency exit. I hope to hell Sten was right and the lock’s been jinxed already, she thought, and knew it was entirely too late to be worrying about that. Galler was at the door already, beckoning wildly. Behind her, Heikki heard the thudding as the first hatch was opened, and then she was at the emergency door. She slapped the release bar hard, no longer caring if she triggered all the alarms on the station, and saw Galler gaping at her, mouth and eyes wide as if in protest. The door swung outward easily, without alarm or even the shriek of hinges, and Heikki barely managed to catch it before it swung too far. And then they were through, staring at the crowd streaming out of the passenger capsules toward the main exit. Heikki closed the emergency exit gently behind them, hardly able to believe she was here and safe, and saw the same disbelief on Galler’s face.
“We made it,” he said, foolishly, and Heikki could not stop herself from laughing.
“We made it,” she agreed, and started toward the main exit, walking like a woman in a dream.
CHAPTER 10
They passed through Customs’ usual cursory check without difficulty, without even attracting the full attention of the young man on duty at the residents’ gate. After the struggle to get off EP4, Heikki found it hard to muster the strength for fear, and could see from Galler’s face that he was feeling equally numb. The sights and sounds of the main concourse roused her a little, let her shake off the lethargy that had closed around her, and she caught at her brother’s arm to hold him back from the jitney line.
“Let me call Santerese first,” she said.
“You’re expecting trouble?” Galler asked, and Heikki shook her head.
“No, but there’s no harm in being careful.” She hesitated, but could not resist adding, “You stirred up enough trouble on EP4; it may have spread by now.”
Galler made a face, and did not deny it. Heikki left him slumped on a bench in the orbit of one of the concourse’s grand mobiles, staring at the intricate exposed clockworks that sent tuned spheres bouncing through a maze of nuglass and chiming crystal, and went in search of a public combox.
She found an empty one at last, half a level below the main concourse, on the mezzanine overlooking the floater platforms. She settled herself in the booth, latching the door behind her, and fed her personal card into the machine. The system considered it for a moment, matching numbers and credits, and flashed a clear screen. Heikki punched in the callcodes, and waited.
It took a few minutes for Santerese to respond to the summons—an unusually long time, Heikki thought, and sat up straighter on the hard bench, frowning at the screen. Then the picture cleared, and Santerese’s broad face looked out at her.
“Heikki.” There was something in her tone that was not quite right, and Heikki’s frown deepened.
” ‘Shallin. I’m back, with what I went for.” The evasion came out smoothly, almost without thought. “How’re things at home?”
“All right.” Again, there was an unfamiliar note in Santerese’s voice, a hesitation that was not normally there, almost, Heikki thought, as though she were choosing her words for an offscreen listener. “I’m glad you were successful, doll. We’ve had—a bit of a time here.”
“What do you mean?”
Santerese grinned, but it was a shadow of her usual smile. “I told you there were questions about our working methods? Well, the investigation is official now— nothing’s showed up, nor is it likely to, but it’s been expensive, and a hassle. I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I,” Heikki said. The story was plausible enough, and would certainly account for Santerese’s harried look, but…. They had set up codes, check phrases, long ago, the first time they had worked apart on a politically restless planet; over the years, the system had come in handy more than once. “What does that do to the Morgan job?”
There was a moment’s pause before Santerese answered. “I thought we could hand it over to Penninzer, if worst comes to worse.”
That was the countersign, the signal that everything was all right. Heikki relaxed, and said, “Good enough. But I hope we won’t have to.”
“Me, too,” Santerese answered. “Are you coming straight here?”
Heikki nodded.
