Lift Four arrived as Farrell and Daye entered the rotunda. Three workmen, one of them carrying a powered jack as long as her arm, pushed aboard with the strikers. The cage would easily have held twenty.
There wasn’t a call button inside, nor had Farrell noticed one in the rotunda. The cage paused twenty seconds at each deck with the door open, then rose again without command. A workman hopped off at the next stop. Three more got on two decks above.
Farrell frowned. He hadn’t realized the degree to which the transport was automated. He’d thought the term applied only to the navigation system. It looked like the passengers would be treated as canned goods in all fashions.
Well, at least the strikers were used to that.
“Sir,” Daye said, “what the fuck are we doing here?”
“All I know is that C41 is the security element for a new colony,” Farrell said. “The planet’s BZ 459, and I haven’t gotten to a database that has anything to add to the bare listing.”
Daye frowned. “External security, sir?” he asked. “Or police for the folks themselves?”
“I don’t know,” Farrell said. He stared at the door, wishing there were answers written there instead of the stencilled notice MOUNT THIS DIRECTION with an arrow up.
“We’re not cops, sir,” Daye said. “Shit-fire, they wouldn’t be that dumb, would they?”
“I don’t know,” Farrell repeated. Though the real answer was: that dumb, no; that callous, maybe.
“Shit-fire,” Daye repeated softly.
For the first half dozen times the door opened, racket from the deck beyond made the cage vibrate. The last workman got out on Deck 10; above that the pauses were quiet. Only occasionally did Farrell glimpse somebody in the corridor. It occurred to Farrell that he didn’t know how many levels the ship had.
When the lift reached Deck 25, Farrell heard angry voices. He nodded to Daye and the pair of them stepped out of the cage just before the door closed. Insulation covered the floor as well as bulkheads and ceiling. It was as soft as a deep-pile carpet. Foot traffic had already dented it.
A young woman stood at the door of an austerely furnished office/conference room. She nodded as they approached and called, “Major Farrell and Sergeant Daye have arrived, sir.”
Farrell had no idea who she was.
A man in his sixties sat behind an electronic desk which was welded to the floor. Like the woman he wore loose, many-pocketed clothing that would have been battledress if there’d been any badge or patch on it.
The cloth was brown rather than chameleon-dyed, but it was still the same synthetic that went into the strikers’ uniforms. The fabric was tough and breathed even better than natural fibers, but it was harsh enough to take your skin off when pressed against you by armor and equipment. Maybe these civilians wore underwear.
The three other civilians—a man of thirty, a woman in her fifties, and another man who was probably as old as the fellow at the desk—turned when the strikers entered. All of them wore ordinary business clothes of excellent quality, though the older man’s socks were mismatched.
The younger man had been shouting in a resonant tenor voice. The three were standing, though the bulkheads had fold-down seats. Two short benches could also have been pulled up from the floor to face the desk.
“Gentlemen,” the young woman said, “this is Project Manager Jafar al-Ibrahimi. I’m his assistant, Tamara Lundie—”
Farrell saw a thought flick behind Lundie’s eyes, though she didn’t blink physically.
“I’m a Manager 3, that’s the equivalent of a senior lieutenant,” Lundie continued. “Manager al-Ibrahimi is the equivalent of a full colonel and is in sole charge of the project.”
Farrell felt his mouth smile. Did she think strikers were so rank-conscious that they needed to have civilian pecking orders explained to them? Oh, God, his poor strikers, being dropped into another ratfuck . . .
“Major,” al-Ibrahimi said, “is the remainder of your unit on schedule?”
The project manager was a slight man who appeared brittle, an appearance Farrell decided was false as soon as he heard the man speak. Al-Ibrahimi wasn’t going to break, and Farrell didn’t think he’d be easy to grind down either. What surprised Farrell was the degree to which something had already ground al-Ibrahimi down.