The used covers were a perk of the stewards. They were in demand among dockside whores in each of the Empress’s ports of call.
“Of course . . .” Ran said professionally while his eyes searched his immediate surroundings and his brain dealt with three problems:
What was the emergency?
Where was the IR head serving this huge worn?
How could he get shut of these lonesome passengers without off ending them?
Some minds lock up when faced with simultaneous tasks. Others deal stolidly with one problem at a time, even though everything’s going to hell in a handbasket outside their immediate narrow focus. Ran Colville treated batches synergistically. His responses weren’t deep and they didn’t even attempt to be “best”; but he was very fast, and fast got you a long way in a crisis.
“Right over here, madam,” he said.
The IR head would be central, so he needed to move the passengers if his commo unit was to face the correct direction. He took the female passenger by the arm and swept her a short distance to the side where a cleaning robot industriously polished the floor.
In keeping with the decor, the robot was disguised as a meter-high column base, covered with contorted acanthus vines. Ran toggled off the mechanical switch and dropped the unit firmly to the deck. With the woman in the crook of his left arm, he said, “Lieutenant Colville. Go ahead.”
The passengers beamed, and Bridge—in this case the central control AI buried somewhere deep in the Empress—spewed information through the ship’s structure and up the flex to the commo pod, which broadcast it to Ran’s ear clip microphone.
Like her husband, the woman was well into middle age, overweight, and as desperately good-natured as a puppy. She was dressed in high style, a pleated dress of natural linen and a great deal of gold and faience jewelry, both mimicking Egyptian taste of the Amarna Period. She was obviously uncomfortable in such garb, but she was determined to be In on the voyage of a lifetime.
“Stateroom eight-two-four-one,” said the artificial intelligence. “There has been a double booking. The Purser has requested aid.”
The man’s camera was a skeletonized handgrip supporting a body the size of a walnut. The triple lenses were of optical fibers as fine as spidersilk, with a 150-mm spread to create a three-dimensional image. The unit whirred as Ran turned to the woman and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Madam, sir,” he said with a broad smile. “Enjoy your voyage on the finest vessel in the galaxy!”
Ran spun on his heel and strode from the Social Hall with a set expression that dissuaded other passengers from accosting him. Three steps along, he realized that he’d forgotten to turn the cleaning robot back on.
The hell with it. That was a problem the stewards could handle.
* * *
The prefix 8 indicated a First Class cabin. 241 was a location: Deck B, starboard rank. Deck A cabins were often thought to be the premium units because entrances to the main public rooms were off that lower deck, but a number of sophisticated travelers preferred the higher level for just that reason. Traffic in Deck B corridors was only a small fraction of that on A
Passengers, stewards, and luggage on static-repulsion floats littered the halls in sluggish movement, like cells in human blood vessels. Cabin doors stood open as stewards fed cases inside one at a time while occupants discussed shrilly where the items should be stowed. It would all get where it was going, eventually; but Ran Colville at the moment regarded the bustle as a moving obstacle course.
A party of Rialvans stood with their backs to the stretch of balcony overlooking the Dining Salon. They waited stolidly while, across the corridor, the dominant Rialvan female looked over their two-cabin suite with the steward. The process might take more than an hour, but it wasn’t a problem. The heavy-bodied Rialvans were painstaking to a degree that would be considered insane in any human culture, but they tipped well and they never made active problems for the staff.
No, the trouble was down toward the end of the corridor. Two stewards, dark-skinned men from New Sarawak like most of the Trident cabin staff, snapped to attention when Ran appeared—not because of his rank, but because they were so glad to pass the problem on to someone else.