"Oh!" I glanced at my finger. "Yes, we should have grounded by now. Pete, they are searching for me!"
"I think so. But there was no point in waking you until the lights came on. By now they have had about four hours to make certain that you are not on the deck above with the first-class excursionists. They will have mustered the migrants as well. So, if you are hereÄ and not simply hiding out in the ship properÄyou have to be in this cargo hold. That's an oversimplification as there are all sorts of ways to play hide-and-seek in a space as big as this boat. But they'll watch the two bottlenecks, the cargo door on this level and the passenger door on the level above. Friday, if they use enough peopleÄand they willÄand if those jimmylegs are equipped with nets and sticky ropes and tanglefootÄand they will beÄthey will catch you without hurting you as you come out of this boat."
"Oh." I thought about it. "Pete... if it comes to that, there will be some dead and wounded first. I may wind up dead myselfÄbut they'll pay a high price for my carcass. Thanks for alerting me."
"They may not do it quite that way. They may make it very obvious that the doors are being watched in order to cause you to hang back. So they get the migrants outÄI suppose you know that they go out the cargo door?"
"I didn't."
"They do. Get them out and checked offÄthen close the big door and shoot this place full of sleepy gas. Or tear gas and force you to come out wiping your eyes and tossing your cookies."
"Brrr! Pete, are they really equipped in the ship with those gases? I wondered."
"Those and worse. Look, the skipper of this ship operates many light-years from law and order and he has only a handful of people he can depend on in a crunch. In fourth class this ship carries, almost every trip, a gang of desperate criminals. Of course he is equipped to gas every compartment, selectively. But, Friday, you won't be here when they use the gas."
"Huh? Keep talking."
"The migrants walk down the center aisle of this hold. Almost three hundred of them this trip; they'll be packed into their compartment tighter than is safe. So many of them this trip that I am assuming that they can't possibly all know each other in the short time they've had to get acquainted. We'll use that. Plus a very, very old method, Friday; the one Ulysses used on Polyphemus. .
Pete and I were hanging back in an almost dark corner formed by the high end of the generator and a something in a big crate. The light changed, and we heard a murmur of many voices. "They're coming," Pete whispered. "Remember, your best bet is someone who has too much to carry. There'll be plenty of those. Our clothes are okayÄwe don't look first class. But we must have something to carry. Migrants are always loaded down; I got the straight word on that."
"I'm going to try to carry some woman's baby," I told him.
"Perfect, if you can swing it. Hush, here they come."
They were indeed loaded downÄbecause of what seems to me a rather chinchy company policy: A migrant can take on his ticket anything he can stuff into those broom closets they call staterooms in third classÄas long as he can carry it off the ship unassisted; that's the company's definition of "hand luggage." But anything he has to have placed in the hold he pays freight charges on. I know that the company has to show a profitÄbut I don't have to like this policy. However, today we were going to try to turn it to our advantage.
As they passed us most of them never glanced our way and the rest seemed uninterested. They looked tired and preoccupied and I suppose they were, both. There were lots of babies and most of them were crying. The first couple of dozen in the column were strung out with those in front hurrying. Then the line moved more slowlyÄmore babies, more luggageÄand clumped together. It was coming time to pretend to be a "sheep."
Then suddenly, in that medley of human odors, of sweat and dirt and worry and fear and musk and soiled diapers, one odor cut through as crystal clear as the theme of the Golden Cockerel in Rimsky-Korsakov's Hymn to the Sun or a Wagnerian leitmotif in the Ring CycleÄand I yelped:
"Janet!"
A heavyset woman on the other side of the queue turned and looked at me, and dropped two suitcases and grabbed fne. "Marjie!" And a man in a beard was saying, "I told you she was in the ship! I told you!" And Ian said accusingly, "You're dead!" and I pulled my mouth away from Janet's long enough to say, "No, I'm not. Junior Piloting Officer Pamela Heresford sends you her warmest regards."
Janet said, "That slitch!" Ian said, "Now, Jan" and Betty looked at me carefully and said, "It is she. Hello, luv! Good on you! My word!" and Georges was being incoherent in French around the edges while trying gently to take me away from Janet.
Of course we had fouled up the progress of the queue. Other people, burdened down and some of them complaining, pushed past us, through us, around us. I said, "Let's get moving again. We can talk later." I glanced back at the spot where Pete and I had lurked; he was gone. So I quit worrying about him; Pete is smart.
Janet wasn't really heavyset, not corpulentÄshe was simply several months gone. I tried to take one of her suitcases; she wouldn't let me. "Better with two; they balance."
So I wound up carrying a cat's travel cageÄMama Cat. And a large brown-paper parcel Ian had carried under one arm. "Janet, what did you do with the kittens?"
"They," Freddie answered for her, "have, through my influence, gained excellent positions with fine prospects for advancement as rodent-control engineers on a large sheep station in Queensland. And now, Helen, pray tell me how it chances that you, who, only yesterday it seems, were seen on the right hand of the lord and master of a great superliner, today find yourself consorting with the peasantry in the bowels of this bucket?"
"Later, Freddie. After we're through here."
He glanced toward the door. "Ah, yes! Later, with a friendly libation and many a tale. Meanwhile we have yet to pass Cerberus."
Two watchdogs, both armed, were at the door, one on each side.
I started saying mantras in my mind while chattering double-talk
inanities with Freddie. Both masters-at-arms looked at me, both
seemed to find my appearance unexceptionable. Possibly a dirty
face and scraggly hair acquired in the night helped, for, up to then,
I had never once been seen outside cabin BB unless Shizuko had
labored mightily to prepare me to fetch top prices on the auction block.
We got outside the door, down a short ramp, and were queued up at a table set just outside. At it sat two clerks with papers. One called out, "Frances, Frederick J.! Come forward!"
"Here!" answered Federico and stepped around me to go to the table. A voice behind me called out, "There she is!"Äand I sat Mama Cat down quite abruptly and headed for the skyline.
I was vaguely aware of much excitement behind me but paid no attention to it. I simply wanted to get out of range of any stun gun or sticky-rope launcher or tear-gas mortar as fast as possible. I could not outrace a radar gun or even a slug rifleÄbut those were no worry if Pete was right. I just kept placing one in front of the other. There was a village off to my right and some trees dead ahead. For the time being the trees seemed a better bet; I kept going.
A glance back showed that most of the pack had been left behindÄnot surprising; I can do a thousand meters in two minutes flat. But two seemed to be keeping up and possibly closing the gap. So I checked my rush, intending to bang their heads together or whatever was needed.