`Takes longer’n I thought it would,’ Mexalgo was muttering. `When are they going to `port me? Don’t want to be late for that meeting.
Awkward having different times on different worlds. Why’nt they synchronize?’ Zara would have laughed at his ignorance and his nervousness. She’d known when they left and when they’d arrived seconds later, and then the hatch opened.
`Miner Representative Mexalgo?’ and cool air flooded the carrier.
`I’m T-10 Guanil. Ground transport will take you to the Blundell Building where an air car awaits you. Here, let me undo that for you, sir.
Neither man had any inkling of her presence and Zara stopped the trembling in her belly. She did exert just a little pressure to keep the hatch from locking. Just that little bit wouldn’t be noticed but using the kinetics necessary to unlock it from the outside might be.
This was a secured area.
Outside she could hear all kinds of activity but then Earth Prime was an extremely busy facility, especially since the operations against the Hiver species had stepped up. She could pick up a gestalt from any one of the engines she heard moving about outside. But where did she want to go now?
She had to decide that no-one would expect to be `pathed here on the cargo field. And Roddie was bringing shipments in from Earth every day…
What if she could find one? If not today, then tomorrow.
Carefully she let her senses flow beyond the capsule, just as she’d been taught, to estimate and establish her surroundings. It had used to be a gene they’d all played, the reward of the most comprehensive report got one of Dad’s origami figures. She didn’t have as many as Laria, Thian and Rojer had got, but then she was younger than they were and hadn’t done that exercise as often. Morag’d only gotten two.
She was amazed at the size of the cargo yard, as the cradles emptied and filled almost instantaneously. Then she began to worry if hers would be flipped out again and quickly, despite her barked shins and bruised back, `ported herself underneath the carrier. There was no-one immediately near by so she cautiously looked around the prow of the capsule.
Gradually, as she `probed carefully, she realized that there were distinct areas: she was in `live’ cradle which was nowhere near as busy as some of the others, where goods were loaded on to and from immense grav-lift platforms that silently went up and down the ranks of drones, large and small. Most of the grav-lift was crated or wrapped. Nothing `fresh’ Nothing even marked fresh food.
She was suddenly startled to hear voices coming near her.
`OK, use that double, Orry, a man’s voice said.
`We can put the crates in. The Talent’s always careful lifting so nothing’ll roll Out or crash about.
Handles his stuff like he would a baby. Don’t know why he bothers since she doesn’t eat it.’ `Who does eat then? Them in the Module.’ `I doubt it,’ said the first voice with a snort. `It’d be contaminated or something, having been down there by that critter. I sure as hell wouldn’t touch it. All this choice number-one stuff going to an insect.’ `Big insect … OK, strap this down. Harness’ll just fit.
Zara did a scan, as she’d been taught, to assess mass and volume in a capsule. There wasn’t much space left. Yes, there was. If she folded into a tight ball, she could just fit on the end of the couch where the fresh fruit had been tied down.
This time she knocked herself on the head and nearly gave her presence away as well by her inadvertent exclamation of pain.
`You hear that, Orry?’ `Here what?’ Ah, nothing. Let’s get out of the way. Carrier FT-387-B ready for lift. Now like I said — And she heard the voices dwindle away.
She also felt the lift: a little jerky as the Talent had to expend more gestalt to `port her weight.
What have they sent along today? And, if she wasn’t mistaken, that voice was her cousin Roddie’s.
She had done her homework, however, and knew exactly where she’d been landed: in bay A, the Original facility of the now greatly expanded Module. A second carrier should be in the other cradle. She `ported herself out of the first one and then hid behind the second.