"Please ensure that all your extremities are behind the yellow line until the doors open. If you are not a Sub-Tram passenger, please proceed to your destination, thank you," crackled a recording in Ayan's proximity radio. From the looks of her team, they had heard it as well.
"This way, we have to get to an info station," said Victor.
Ayan followed his lead, trying not to bump into anyone on her way. She quickly discovered that no one else had such scruples. If she was in someone's path, they simply pressed past her or bumped her out of the way.
The smell was overpowering. Urine mixed with sweat, grease, ozone and garbage assaulted Ayan's olfactory, and there was no relieving it, as though the whole place had bathed in it. Laura glanced at her wide eyed and tilted her head over her shoulder.
Ayan looked up and caught sight of a larger, twenty meter long transport above offloading a long rush of goats. The people guiding them down the ramp and into a narrow hallway with the help of prearranged metal barriers didn't look anything like spacers. Their manner of dress made them look like they were farmers from an old period film.
Victor looked behind and followed what Ayan and Laura were staring at. “That's something you don't see every day.”
“I've never seen one in person,” Laura replied.
“You'll see a lot more if I'm right,” said Jenny. “Livestock owners are probably making more than ever, I'd guess. It’s cheaper to grow food and keep livestock on an old terraformed planet like this than it is to run materializers who eat up power than can be used for industry. The smell takes some getting used to though.”
Ayan looked at the symbol in the bottom left corner of her hood that manually activated the face plate of her vacsuit, sealing her in. In seconds the suit cleaned the air and the fragrances were gone, but she could still smell them to a lesser degree, as though they had nested in her nose and wouldn't let go.
There was no commonality to the way the other travellers were dressed. Some were in vacsuits that came in every colour and shape, while most wore clothing of every cut imaginable. Many of the people not dressed for space travel were wearing synthetic clothing made for warm weather. They finally reached the information kiosk, a narrow post that had been plastered over many times by animated and non-animated advertisement postings.
"All right, we're looking to buy food, survival supplies, and find somewhere to move to, right?" asked Jenny as she pulled at advertisements covering the front of the information booth.
"Right, food first," Ayan confirmed.
Jenny managed to pull an advertisement for skin pigmentation modification pills called Sliskin off the main panel and gave it a withering look as it declared; 'insert five UCW or equivalent credits' with a colourful holographic projection.
Ayan dug in her messenger bag for a moment and presented the three GC pennies she’d gotten for change. “I think the exchange is pretty brutal for UCW credits.” She said as she dropped two of them into the slot that was easy to find, thanks to a large green, bouncing arrow. The machine said; “Thank you, your information is being prepared.” A rotating dish appeared on screen and animated for several seconds before it was replaced with a message that read; ‘MORE PLEASE’ before the bouncing green arrow appeared again. "What the?" she asked no one in particular.
A traveller with a salt and pepper beard stopped and tapped her on the shoulder. "Most of these have been hacked, miss. You just paid someone somewhere whatever you dropped in the slot. You could wait around and shoot whoever ripped you off when they come along to empty the machine or you can get on with things. What are you looking for?"
"We're looking to buy food wholesale, and survival gear."
He reached over her head and pulled a plastic page from the post with two hard jerks. "You can't access the free net through that thing. Not since the H virus. Look for open postings."
Ayan took the sheet and smiled at the stranger. "Thank you,"
"Your welcome. One thing; are you the folks that landed in the Dower Wastes a little while ago?”
“Maybe,” Ayan answered with an upraised eyebrow.
He pointed over her head and behind her; “Word’s out.”
A flickering projection displayed footage from her speaking to the customs officer in the rain. It began sending audio to her proximity radio the moment she looked directly at it. “…can say why this controversial, known associate of Freeground and Jonas Valent is here, but judging from her companions, their armament and level of combat readiness, we’d best hope they’re here to help in the fight against the Order of Eden,” said an excitable narrator’s voice. “This woman, simply known as Ayan, an old Earth name that means ‘Sheppard’ or ‘bright light’, is the re-inception of Ayan Rice, a Freeground Military Officer who is said to have been present when Jonas Valent allegedly released the base code of the Holocaust Virus into a base ship nearly a decade ago. The Carthans maintain that Regent Galactic and the Order of Eden have not gathered enough evidence to warrant the arrest of the memory transfer clone, Jacob Valance, or his cohorts. According to records we obtained only moments ago, Ayan is the registered owner of a small armada of combat ready ships, and even claims to be a commanding officer of the Triton, the ship that Regent Galactic claims Jonas Valent was most recently seen on. She has been given a privateering licence by the Carthan government, whether they believe Jonas Valent is secretly pulling the strings as we do, no one can say. What matters now is that they are here, and they have been given permission to move from the Dower Wastes to a recognized port.”
Ayan realized several people were watching her and looked away. “I can’t believe this, Regent Galactic put us right in the middle of everything and they’ve got so much of the story completely wrong.”
“They also have some of it right,” Laura told her. “This could work to our advantage.”
"Best of luck, you’re on two out of five news streams. Hope you’re here for the right reasons, and if Valance is really with you, tell him he’s got a few friends on the ground. Good luck, miss," he said as he fell in step with the crowd headed to the shuttles.
Ayan watched him disappear into the press of bodies. "Let's get out of here so we can take a better look at this."
They followed each other as though they were moving through a grand melee. Ayan had instinctively taken the lead and regretted it almost immediately. Vic passed her a moment later and she stepped in behind him as though she were riding his wake. Laura was behind her with her hand on her shoulder and everyone else followed.
They made their way up an incline and through the doors, emerging onto the edge of an expansive circular courtyard. The star and sword emblem of the United Core World Confederation was the main feature in the centre of the circle, and it looked as though someone had come along with heavy equipment and had tried to scrape it clear, denting it in places and smoothing the indentations of the lines out in others. Wandering across its surface was a man stripped to the waist. On his chest the words; HATE FATE had been written in tall black letters. “The Order is everywhere! Look to the ones who stayed alive, stayed rich and never met a bot they didn’t use! They are the foothold, they will make the beach head, and while the war rages in the stars our children will buy into the promise of paradise, and become the new consumers! Tear away the devices! The trappings! Grow food! Live in the jungle! Turn away from the paradise they promise, make your own!”
The energy and conviction he put into the words pushed more people away than it attracted. Several by passers watched and listened from a distance, however, it was impossible not to. Ayan didn’t want to make her attention obvious, however, and turned her attention to the structural surroundings once again, looking up. There were fifteen storeys above them, each with their own balconied open air walkway looking down into the courtyard. Along each railing ran a myriad of departure and arrival times, current news items along with the current position of each moon.