"But Max, I've never seen a rainbow before."
"Yes and now everybody within earshot knows it." He towed her along the roadway toward a large flight of stairs that led into the ground. Rue didn't want to go underground, she was too busy cataloguing all the strange and wonderful objects in the near and far distance: trees, grass, hills, buildings, many of them familiar through inscape or movies, but all wonderful.
"You've got to get a grip," Max grated. "We've got a lot to do and you're going to have to have your head screwed on right for it."
"What are you talking about?"
He let go of her arm. "This is the way to the subway. We need to get you home; all this exposure isn't a good idea. Listen, haven't you been paying attention to the news?"
"No. Should I?"
"Yes! Your cycler is the talk of Treya."
"My cycler?" She allowed the bitterness to show in her voice. "It's not my cycler, Max. And I don't want to hear another thing about it."
"But couz, it's not responding to hails! And it's coming in from a very strange direction; there's no known cycler ring on that radiant."
People were funneling down the stairs into the subway. The press carried Rue and Max along. People were dressed in all kinds of ways, with way more variety than she'd expected from her investigations aboard the shuttle. The walls of the stairwell were festooned with garish screens advertising all manner of wonders; the people behind her were discussing a publishing venture of some kind. Compared to this, Max's news was just a bothersome reminder of things past.
"I do not want to hear any more about the cycler! Is that clear?"
"But until they've got a positive I.D. on the thing, you've got to be circumspect, Rue, don't you understand? That means no going out without an escort for now; you can't look for work yet and most of all, no talking to anybody! Especially the media."
Rue stopped walking, but was immediately pushed by somebody behind her. "What are you talking about?"
"I know that newshound was poking about the hospital again today. Rue, he's bad news. The best thing for you right now is anonymity."
They had emerged onto a huge underground platform. She recognized it as a subway from movies. There was a train sitting there and people were cramming themselves into it. Chimes filled the air and Max dashed in its direction just as the doors closed.
"Damn! That was our train." He walked back. "You gotta understand, Rue, you can't trust anybody."
Another train was pulling in on the other track. Rue kept her face neutral, eyeing it as the doors opened and people poured out.
"How's the cool-suit?" asked Max after an awkward silence.
There was the chime; Rue spun on her heel and sprinted for the closing doors of the train. "You're right, Max!" she shouted back. "I don't trust anyone!"
She barely made it in as the doors hissed shut. Max pounded on the glass, but the car was already in motion. Rue stuck her tongue out at him, then they were in a tunnel painted blue and dotted with long lozenge-shaped beasts that could be fishes. Rue let out a shaky sigh and turned to catch about a dozen people looking away quickly.
"It's okay," she said, a bit loudly. They all studiously ignored her.
She groaned; Max had been nice and he'd paid her bills and bought her the cool suit. Maybe he really meant well— how was she to know? Jentry was the best example of the male species she knew and he'd sure sounded like Jentry there, ordering her not to talk to people. But how was she going to get anywhere if she couldn't trust anybody?
She wanted to cry, but she'd be damned if she would do it in front of an audience. Instead Rue took a seat demurely at the window and after watching the painted fish flit by for a while and calming her breathing, she phoned Rebecca.
THE APARTMENTHAD a window that opened on dusk. There was a lot of Rebecca's personal memorabilia scattered about: pictures on the walls, little sculptures she appeared to collect, and real folio-bound books. It was the window that attracted Rue, though. It faced the Penumbra, the edge of the sunlit realm of Treya. Rue thought the subtle fade of bright to dark blue toward the northern horizon was beautiful. She stood there for a while, impressed, until Rebecca told her, "This is what the poor people get to see." Rebecca's side of the building was much cheaper to rent than the south-facing side, precisely because of this view. On the other side of the building, the southern penumbra was over the horizon and so according to Rebecca the illusion of being on Earth was nearly complete, except for the fact that the sun never moved in the sky.
"If I had any money at all I'd be living on the south side." Rebecca plumped some pillows on her small couch. "You can sleep here tonight. I don't know what we'll do with you in the morning."
"I'm really sorry to impose on you," said Rue. She sat down.
Rebecca glanced at her, then did a double-take. "Rue, how did you come to be in space alone, in that shuttle?"
"I… sort of, well I didn't steal it, I half own it. But I ran away. From my brother."
The intern nodded slowly, looking at her. "I thought there was something like that. You've got the mannerisms of the abused, like the way you're sitting now scrunched into one corner of the couch."
"I wasn't abused," said Rue. "I always fought."
Rebecca didn't smile. "Is that why you ran away from Max? You thought he was like…?"
"Jentry. Yeah. That was it."
"You were probably wise to do so." Rebecca disappeared into the apartment's tiny galley kitchen. "Tea?"
"Sure." Rue fidgeted for a while. Her gaze kept returning to the window— an actual window! Such things didn't even exist on Allemagne; here it symbolized Rebecca's poverty.
"What about you?" she asked. "You're not so poor, surely. You're studying to be a doctor."
Rebecca poked her head around the corner. "To tell the truth, I don't know where I'm going from here," she said. "There've been no offers. You know, people from the stations who train here generally end up back on the stations. And you know why? It's because nobody'll hire them here on Treya."
"Oh." Rue thought for a while. "I guess it comes down to which do you want more: to be a doctor, or to live in Treya."
Rebecca muttered something. Then she said, "I want them both, Rue. Both."
"Oh. Um, listen, remember that guy I told you about? The newshound? He wants to interview me. Tonight. I'm, well, kind of nervous about it. Can I trust him?"
"Do you want me to go with you?"
"Um. Can we invite him here?"
Rebecca's head appeared again. "What? Have an actual man in my apartment? It'll be the talk of the corridor!"
"Come on, Rebecca."
She laughed. "Of course you can. I'll play mother hen just this once. Then tomorrow, you start looking for you own place. And a job. Deal?"
"Deal."
The water boiled and Rebecca carried out a little china teapot in the shape of a half-melted station. "Cute, ain't it?"
"Yeah."
"Rue, do you like this newshound?"
"Blair? Yeah. He's really cute."
"Ah." Rebecca nodded pensively. "Just wondering. Drink up."
AWAKE AGAIN. THIS was the third night in a row that Rue had awoken in darkness, unsure of where she was or what was happening. This time it only took her a minute or so to recognize the ruffling sound above her as the fabric of her tent rippling in the breeze. In the distance the wind made a soughing sound along the hillside. On the first night, she had been terrified by its lonely music— an alive but inhuman thing stalking the dark, unlike the wholly manmade sounds that permeated sleep-shift in Allemagne. Last night, she hadn't been afraid, but wonder had kept her awake. Both times, she had ended up sitting outside the tent for hours, staring up at the shimmering, restless aurora. Every now and then she could see stars through it and once or twice made out the cloud-smudged disk of Erythrion. She could feel the warmth of Erythrion on her face, even when she couldn't see it.