Beside him, one of the Wefts had tuned in the civilian newscast. Tim almost glanced at it when he heard the commentator's question to the evicted Security team and the answers, but he remembered what had happened last time he got distracted. More to the point were the angry questions from Airspace Control. They seemed to think he would interfere with scheduled traffic. He smiled to himself. Military shuttles would not have survived in service if they'd been blind to other craft. He knew where everything around him was at least as well as Airspace Control. And all of them knew, from hearing the smug Security teams brag about it, that FedCentral had no inner air defenses. The Bronthin had refused to allow them. From Tim's point of view, the only weapons down there were little stuff.
"We're not goin' to the 'port?" asked the Weft, Kiksi, her name was. If she was a she… Tim had never bothered to find out much about Wefts. He didn't dislike them, he just found his own amusements far more interesting than theoretical knowledge about aliens.
"No," Tim said. "They'll just try to impound us. And Commander Sassinak can't be there, or she'd have contacted us."
"Good thought," said the Weft. "Do you know where she is?"
"Nobody does," said Tim. He had punched up the mapping function and was now trying to decide just where he did want to land. FedCentral offered little open land close to where he thought Sassinak might be.
"Not strictly true," said the other Weft, Tenant Sricka. "Sassinak is not where the shuttle can reach her."
This time he did look away, though he kept his hands steady. "You know where she is? Why didn't you tell Arly?"
"She kept moving. She was under surface. We had no return contact."
"Under surface… like in a submarine?" FedCentral had only one ocean and Tim had not suspected it of submarine transport.
A chuckle from Kiksi, that made his ears burn. "No, under the city. Subways? Maintenance tunnels? We don't know. We don't talk with her in human Shape. We're not made for it. It's direction sense only. When we are nearer, I can shift, and then perhaps touch her mind more directly. But you, where are you planning to land the shuttle? And how to prevent detection?"
"I'm not sure."
He knew his ears were bright red and the back of his neck, under his uniform. It had seemed like a good idea, and even before Arly called on him, he'd daydreamed about rescuing Sassinak, poring over the maps of the vast complex. The shuttle could land on unprepared ground, could even make a direct vertical drop of fifty to a hundred feet, although he'd never done it. But he couldn't land on the roofs of ordinary buildings or on slideways or monorail tracks.
Sricka reached over and tapped the map-control console; the area he'd been watching slid aside, and another came up. Open, not too rough, and fairly near the city. He didn't recognize the code.
"Land fill," the Weft said. "That end's already covered, and the replanting cycle's only up to grass. And that yellow line there, that's a subway tunnel for returning workers to their housing. It's your decision, but if I were flying this thing, that's where I'd go."
He had no better ideas, and he was not about to ask for a vote. He could almost feel the marines' amusement tickling his backbone.
"Looks good," he said, trying to sound casual. "And thanks."
"Will it alarm you if I shift?"
"No. Of course not."
Nonetheless, he had to gulp hard when the ordinary human figure beside him turned into a mass of extra joints, spiky protruberanees, and all too many legs. And a row of bright blue eyes. Instead of staring, he entered his desired destination in the shuttle's navigational computer and saw to it that the course changes all went as planned. By the time he neared the landfill, flying the shuttle as if it were any aircraft, he knew that the Zaid-Dayan was long gone. He had to do it right this time. If he messed up, there would be no rescue.
Chapter Eighteen
For a moment, following Aygar up into the more public tunnels, Sassinak thought how she could explain all this to a Board of Inquiry, if she survived long enough. There were no Rules of Engagement covering this sort of thing. She remembered something about 'accepting civilian volunteers into a military mission' - not recommended, but it did happen -and more than one passage strongly cautioning Fleet officers from involving themselves in local politics. And this was hardly local politics. She had taken on some part of the Federation itself and even though she considered the people involved to be traitors, they could say the same of her.
She dared not think too far ahead or the weight of it would crush her. A single Fleet captain against the most powerful families in the Federation, against the massed pirates, plus the Seti? And with nothing but a ragged bunch of crazies and losers? How could she even be thinking of this? Yet the thought daunted her for only a moment. She had survived the raid on her home, against odds as high. She had survived battle after battle in space where any mistake could have killed her, and some nearly had. She had survived the jealousy of other officers, a hundred mischances, to be where she was now. If not you, who? Abe had said more than once.
No time for letting her mind drift, not even to the things Fleur had told her. She would have time later for more such talks, for long reminiscences, for shared tears and laughter, or they would both be dead. For now, she had Aygar to get safely to the rendezvous with his student friend, and whatever came after. She patted her midsection where the extra bulk Fleur had insisted she stuff into the pale blue worksuit felt itchy and unfamiliar. Even worse was the slight dowager's hump that prickled when she twitched her shoulders, trying to remember to slump. Although she'd seen in the mirror that the gray streaks Fleur had added to her hair as well as decidedly wrong makeup made her look years older, she kept thinking a more complete disguise would have been better. Aygar, whose height and shoulders made him unmistakable, had been turned into a male fashion plate. A voluminous magenta shirt unlaced halfway down his chest and tucked into tight gray shorts made him look like anything but fugitive. His mapper button now looked like one of the jewels studding a huge medallion hung on stout chain around his neck.
The first 'uptowners' they saw hardly glanced at them. The upsloping tunnel, linking one subway level with another, had streams of pedestrians scurrying in both directions. Most wore one-piece worksuits in grays, browns, and blues; the others were dressed as flamboyantly as Aygar. Homebound workers, Fleur had said, mingling with the pleasure-hunters who also tended to 'change shifts' at rush hours. Sassinak trailed him, trying to look as if she merely happened to be going in the same direction. In that brief time below, she'd forgotten how noisy large groups could be. Announcements no one could have understood boomed from the levels below and above; the scurrying feet were overlaid by a constant roar of conversation. A flare of Ryxi screeched, threatening, and the humans parted around them. A gray uniform approached at a jog. At the next level, the upbound stream bifurcated, a third veering left and two-thirds right. Even more noise broke over them. The synthesized voice of the transportation computers announcing train arrivals and departures, warning passengers away from the rails, repeating the same list of safety rules over and over. Friends met on the platforms with squeals of delight as if they had not seen each other at rush hour the day before. Less demonstrative workers glared at them or muttered brief curses. Aygar and Sassinak both turned right. Here, service booths backed the subway platforms: fountains, restrooms, public callbooths, even a few food booths. As he'd been directed, Aygar turned into the third of these. Sassinak paused as if to look over the menu displayed, then ducked in after him.