In the heart of the well in the hub, was a hatch that flowered with gold light. They came into it, and Weig and the others did.
Then it closed and delivered them to another chamber with several metal poles in it and a sign that told them where down was. Duun grabbed a pole holding onto Thorn; Mogannen and Chindi did; Spart and Weig took the other; there came a great shock that made them sway and then rise.
“Hang on,” Duun said when Thorn grabbed the pole for himself. “It does it one more time. We’re bound for the rim.”
It was like a ship moving; down began to feel alarmingly sideways, and the cylinder seemed slowly to change its pitch before it jolted into contact and the door opened.
There were attendants, men and women wearing ordinary kilts, all white; Duun pulled his helmet off and Thorn did so with the rest.
(Look your fill. Stare at me.) Thorn kept his eyes from them and handed the helmet to a woman he never looked at. “Sey Duun,” a man said, “they’d like to see you in the office.”
“They’ll have to come to me,” Duun said. He peeled his suit off, sat down and removed the boots. One attendant started to touch the baggage and Thorn moved and stepped on the strap. The attendant changed his mind. And Duun smiled with the twisted side. It was right. After drifting so long Thorn knew something, if only so small a thing. They did not touch him and they did not touch Duun and they kept their hands off the baggage.
Weig and his crew took their leave. “Duun-hatani,” Weig said, nothing else. He seemed moved. “Weig-tanun,” Duun said. “Appeal to me if things don’t go right.” And Duun gave a twisted smile: “Not all my solutions are so cursed difficult.”
“I’ll remember,” Weig said, and took his crew away; but Ghindi looked back once, and Thorn paused.
“Come on,” Duun said, standing up. Theirs was another door, that opened narrowly.
(Tubes. The spinning place. Tubes and people like me-)
But there were no such people. Thorn picked up the baggage and followed Duun, along the deserted corridor which bent upward and brought them to another room.
Hatani waited for them there, three of them; Thorn saw the gray cloaks and felt profound relief. “Tagot, Desuuran, Egin,” Duun said.
“Haras.”
There were courtesies. Thorn bowed, looked up into careful hatani faces which did not intrude their passions into anyone’s view. He held the baggage with hands to which the last shreds of the gel still clung, and it was as if he had stood in a battering gale of others’ feelings, others’ fears; others’ needs-and found a sudden calm.
“We’ll rest,” Duun said.
“Duun-hatani. Haras.” Tagot’s hand indicated the way, and he walked with them, the others at their backs, and that order was all settled with the slightest of signs that left no doubt Duun would let them at his back. Thorn slung the carry strap to his shoulder and walked a little at Duun’s heel, rumpled and with his knee abraded raw again, with the red scars of burns on his hands, his hair loose and tending to fall into his eyes; but so was Duun scarred; but so was Duun’s silver hide stained dark with sweat at his shoulders and the small of his back.
(Have we found a place, finally? Hatani live here. Is this a place we won’t be driven from?)
They passed doors; they rode down two levels in an elevator; they walked down a bowed hallway that might have been the city tower in some distorted mirror.
They opened one door; a hatani waited there in a short hall and opened yet another for them, on a large bare-floored room to which they had to step, as if it were all one riser on which other risers were built. The walls were barren and white. An elder hatani waited here. “Your rooms are safe,” that hatani said, and walked out, quietly, economically, with everything said that needed saying.
“Food, bath, bed,” Duun said. Thorn set the baggage down and Duun opened it and took out his cloak. It wrapped another one. “This is yours.” Duun laid it on the riser. “When you need it.”