The guard who had not spoken made a pursing gesture with his lips, as though to say that he couldn’t speak, but wouldn’t contradict me.
I turned and starting running again, this time to find the administration offices.
A totally useless task, as I knew. And as I ran, the purposelessness and the shame overwhelmed me. The bureaucrats of Baret Station would never pay any attention to a transient worker on a temp-pass from the Diamond. My contract-holder was in imminent danger of death, and I couldn’t even get to the site! One’s own tarethi-din killed while in one’s custody … the thought was enough to turn bone to powder. How could anyone ever explain failure of this magnitude?
It was a while before I realized I was crying as I ran. That would have been another shame; my people have no taboo against tears among themselves, but we like to put up a brave front to outsiders. Too young for this assignment, I thought—that’s what everybody had said. She hasn’t even graduated yet, they said. Oh, but never mind, said the Chief Judge—we’ll bump her into the first rank, and she’ll live up to what’s expected. And now weren’t they all proved right, the damned critics, and the faith of the Society sorely misplaced? My thoughts, I discovered, were falling not into die dry and logical, created tongue of the Graykey, but the older and more lyrical language we still used for poetry, love, and cursing.
And as I ran on, half-blinded, I rammed against another person walking in the opposite direction. The young man in question was knocked forcibly into the wall and, entangled with a maddened Graykey, understandably fell over. “Terribly sorry,” he said, showing impeccable training in manners, since he was the clear victim. He reached out a hand to assist me, and as the cuff pulled back from his wrist I saw a blue tattoo there. Not a stationer’s tattoo, which would be plainly displayed on the face in any case. It was the Circle of Seven Stones—the Graykey symbol of wisdom.
I looked up into a freckled face that returned the gaze with a friendly one of its own; into green eyes and sandy hair. You may well believe that I did not, as I would at any other time, delve into the major statistical improbability of finding another Graykey here. Nor did I waste seconds even considering that the tattoo might be a coincidence. I looked up through blurry eyes and said, “Help me, brother.”
The young man blinked. “Sister?” he asked, in Graykey.
“I must get into the docking area. I must get to the ship that’s coming in.”
“It’s closed off—”
“You must help me! My tarethi-din is aboard that ship!”
His eyes widened, and he was silent a moment. Then he said, “Wait.”
He moved down the corridor to a station phone. I saw him speaking into it. I sat where I was, not knowing what else to do, afraid of hoping. My honor was hanging by a thread.
Eventually he returned. “Sorry it took so long,” he said, “I had to wait to be connected.”
“What happened?”
“I called my own tarethi-din. He has influence with the people who run the station. By the time we reach the docks, the guards will have been told to admit us.”
“Thank you, brother.” I kissed him on the cheek as he helped me up, as I would have a comrade at home in the same battle-section. “I won’t forget your mercy.”
“We would be the poorer by your death,” he responded politely. Then, in Standard, he said, “We’d better hurry.”
The Kestrel, we found, was already docked, and with no apparent damage. “A miracle,” said my new companion, “if the docking gear was really damaged.” We looked at each other calmly—Graykey do not believe in miracles. The outer doors of the Kestrel had to be forced open. The moment they parted, gray and white smoke billowed forth over the docks, sending the transport workers back. My friend and I wore green station medical badges, by virtue of the compromise that gained our entry onto the docks; we had to wear some kind of authorization, and local Transport badges would only have made trouble. All the Transport workers knew each other. The chief of the medical teams began handing out masks to all his people, and when I found one stuffed into my hands, I did not object.
Transport was finding its own masks, a little late; but with the Kestrel fully docked it was really in Medical’s hands now, in any case.
“Come on,” said my gift from the gods, who had made this possible (though the Graykey do not believe in miracles); and I followed. Walk with enough assertiveness, I told myself, and each team will think you belong to one of the others. Be a stationer for a while; you’ve been so many others. We entered the ship with the first of the medical people, stumbling through the smoke.
There were plenty of bodies. Apparently the entire ship’s complement had been heading for the exits when the fires broke out. I dropped down by each newly felt body, peering at it through the haze, feeling my eyes bum even through the mask, pulling each body toward the exit if there were any doubts as to identity … none of them was Tal.
None of them was outwardly hurt either. “No evidence of explosion,” said my companion. “I think they’re all out from smoke inhalation.”
“Just as dead,” I responded briefly. I meant, we both knew, that smoke was just as lethal to one’s tarethi-din as any other form of death; for a great many of the people we were stepping over in this methodical search were, in fact, still alive.
“There must be more exits,” I said.
We made our way farther in, following the outer corridors near the hull. There were no people along this way. “Cargo exit would be below,” said my companion.
“I know,” I said. Amazing how calm I sounded. As though it
