It was hard to see anything. The blue light inside the cabinets was off. Control panels flashed with red or orange lights. Jens had done a very good job of disabling power.
She took the lead, running along the centre aisle through the hall.
With all the blue light gone, it was very dark and she had to be careful not to trip over anything.
They were almost through the hall when she spotted a silhouette on the lowest gallery.
“Careful,” she whispered to Evelle behind her. “There’s someone up there.”
“Where?”
Tina pointed at the man silhouetted against the light from an emergency exit. He walked awkwardly as if his legs weren’t working properly.
“Who are you?” Aliz asked.
A male voice made a gurgling sound and then coughed.
A woman said, “Vito?”
The only reply was more coughing.
The man stumbled down the stairs, where someone directed a light from the emergency lamp on his face.
The man looked pale, thin and his clothes were all wet with a slimy substance. His eyes were unfocused and he was shivering.
“Vito! It’s me, Miriam!”
He didn’t react to her.
“Quick, give him a blanket.”
“Look, there are some others. Gerry and Stan.”
Those men were just coming down the stairs. They, too, were wet and their expressions were distant.
Tina ran up the stairs.
Several of the cabinets where the men had been asleep had been vandalised. Broken glass lay on the ground, the lid was open and the control panel flashed red lights.
Wait—the glass had sprayed outwards on this one. That meant the cabinet had been opened from the inside.
Tina could only guess what had happened: the man had woken up because of the power failure and had smashed the cover from inside before helping others.
The women discovered eight crewmembers amongst the men. The others were merchants or pirates or travellers, or maybe people from the station, but their Sinolese was hard to understand.
It was hard not to stop and help them all, but they had to keep going.
Aliz and some of the other women helped the men who were unsteady on their feet. They didn’t say much, the empty expressions disturbing.
“Come on, walk as quickly as possible,’ Tina said.
The pirates would be on the lookout for the source of the trouble and she didn’t yet know how hard it would be to get through the checkpoint at the end of the agriculture sector.
They walked through the recycling plant and the agriculture hall. Whatever Jens had done had also disabled the banks of lights that hung over the plants. Only sporadic lights on the outer edges of the gallery illuminated the central aisle. Just as well it was wide and uncluttered.
Ahead Tina could already see the checkpoint.
With the men from the crew still shivering and weak, they walked slowly. A few people caught up with them. These were Freeranger pirates in their shipworld’s dress.
Tina couldn’t see the blue ones anywhere. The most prevalent ones were a group in mustard-coloured dress. They even had children with them.
From a distance, Tina spotted at least four guards at the checkpoint into the docks. A number of people also stood on the other side. One of the guards called out.
Someone behind her replied.
Damn, a group of pirates had come up from behind. Tina could hear voices and footsteps approaching through the dark hall.
The pirates at the checkpoint sprang into alertness.
“We’re caught between the two,” Evelle said. “They don’t know we’re here.”
“To the side,” Tina said, as loudly as she dared. “Hide.”
The group ducked into a side passage between two tables full of plants. It was extremely dark in here. Tina told all of them to sit on the floor. Several of the women helped the men. They were still dazed and none of them had spoken a word. What had the pirates done to them in those cabinets?
A moment later, a group of people strode past at a rather fast pace. From where Tina sat, she only saw them as silhouettes against the faint glow from a light on the other side of the aisle. Their voices carried through the empty hall. One of them sounded familiar, a woman’s voice.
At least ten men with the stout build of mutants accompanied her. In between the wall of mutant men, she spotted the figure of a slender woman. The group went in the direction of the checkpoint, out of Tina’s view.
The men at the checkpoint yelled for people to stand aside. This woman must be important. What was the bet that this was the station director?
Maybe she had an office in the agriculture sector and had been caught out by the power outage?
Tina had an idea how to get past those guards. She was still wearing the borrowed station overalls and could pass for a maintenance officer.
“Everyone pick up a box that looks like we’re moving stuff,” she said.
Shelves lined the walls, containing boxes of parts for the irrigation system, tools or sampling equipment. She found a number of transport boxes and handed them out to members of the group. She even found some lab overalls, which she handed to the men, who needed assistance putting them on.
Aliz said, “What are we doing? There are just tube connectors in this box.”
“We pretend we’re moving stuff, just to get past the check point. Everyone ready?”
But at this point, another, much bigger, group of people came from behind and walked through the aisle. The voices of those people sounded angry.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Tina could hear one of the guards at the checkpoint ask them.
The reply got lost in angry shouts, and an argument broke out.
At one point, a man called, “We don’t give out passes. You have to apply to station management.”
And then, a bit later, “I know the power is out. We’re working on it! Just have some patience.”
And then, “Wait. Who says you can go through?”
Another male voice called into the hall, “We could use some assistance here!”
Tina got up, peeping over the benches with plants. People were streaming through the checkpoint, while
