An ap wo su pargha. Please sit down. An ap wo hi ga sha. Please open the door . . .
He remembered words he had written down but had no idea what they meant, but nand’ Bren had guesses.
That was how they had spent their time. And Veijico and Lucasi had told them stories about mountain winters. And Antaro and Jegari had told them about hunting in Taiben. He told them about crossing the straits on nand’ Toby’s boat, when he had first seen that much water. And how he and mani and nand’ Bren had ridden in a train car with fish.
Then he and his bodyguard had gotten to hook up and go forward into the crew compartment, with all the readouts and computers, and the copilot had explained how they would dock with the station when they got there, and even demonstrated some of the interesting-looking instruments.
That had been yesterday. He wished he could be up there during the whole last hour, just to watch, but he had things to gather up and mani’s orders to listen to, and they did have the television to show them what was going on, slow as it was.
Most of all he was beginning to be very ready just to be out of the cramped space of the shuttle seat, where one had to stay, once they started braking, and that was sitting still for a long, long time.
Braking had stopped, they were floating again, and he had hoped they would be allowed to get up, at least at their places, but the crew came on the address system and warned them all they had to keep the safety belts on and that there could be bumps.
It was an awfully long time.
And they had not been able to see anything but a wall for quite a while, on the displays. There was one blinking light. Just one.
Suddenly there was word from the crew to take hold.
He took hold of the seat arms. He already had his seatbelt fastened.
There were a lot of bangs and thumps as the shuttle made connections, and he expected those. He even thought he knew what they were, because the crew had told him.
The view in all the screens still just looked blank, but that, he understood, was because the cameras were aimed at the surface of the mast where they docked, and they had just latched on—at a relative stop. The crew had explained relative stop, too: meaning they were still going faster than anything on Earth, but they and the station were going very fast together.
And now the station’s docking machinery had them, and hugged them close. The thumping and whining going on was the connections being made for air and power.
Finally came a very big noise, which he had been warned would be the passenger debarkation tunnel locking on.
The most exciting thing in their arrival so far was seeing Phoenix from the outside. He had never seen the ship, even after traveling inside. And now he could show his aishid what he had been talking about forever. The ship was as beautiful as he imagined, complicated, huge, all white where it was white and absolute dark where there was any shadow.
Crew said that Phoenix ordinarily stayed up at the top of the mast, so people could come and go from it. Quite a few of the crew lived aboard, but now, they said, the ship had moved off a little—to give the kyo room, when they came in.
So the crew said.
But something his aishid had heard from the seniors said the ship moved out because it was just smart to have options when the kyo came in; and that sounded a lot more like the truth.
Debarkation was the next step, meaning to get up and leave. And the signal came.
They unbuckled and clipped on their safety lines, and put on their heavy clothes and gloves and masks for the actual crossing. In free fall and with the safety lines, it was not easy, and mani just wrapped herself in an immense velvet cloak that she had brought from Malguri.
Then it was time to leave. Two of the crew came back to guide them.
Mani went first, well, except for Cenedi.
“Thank you, nadiin,” mani said, in leaving, and gave the crew a little packet, which Cajeiri knew was a bundle of event cards, already signed and ribboned with red and black; and Cenedi gave them another set with a white ribbon, which came from nand’ Bren. Families collected those, generation to generation; and in their comings and goings on the shuttle, they had not had the chance to give cards before this, but they took care to do it now, and the crew, all in masks and gloves and heavy coats, too, bowed in the odd way one had to bow in free fall.
The strange thought came to him that the really unique card to have would be from the kyo themselves: that was one he would like to have—but the kyo would not be passing out any such when they came in, he was quite sure.
Still if he did get any keepsake, he would be sure to give it to his father. He decided that would be a good idea.
Maybe one for his mother.
Maybe one for Sei. That would be politic.
The hatch opened. The air that leaked in from the opening of that door was colder than anything one could even remember. It was so cold the outgoing gust from their shuttle made a sparkle of crystals against the ceiling lights. They had to move quickly now because of that cold, clip onto the safety line that was in the ceiling of the tube, go for a little ways, and then once they were entering the exit, transfer to another rail, all of which one had to do calmly and quietly, with one’s hands freezing, because getting in a hurry and dropping the line could make matters worse.
He was the one of his little group who knew how to do it: he was the one who had no hesitation about this part. He was very proud of that. In the lead except for Banichi and Jago, and the two crewmen going out ahead of all of them, he clipped onto the little unit on the line that went out to the tube, and pushed the button himself, the way crew had told him he should do. It yanked him immediately out the door.
And at that point the station swallowed them up, a ribbed yellow gullet with cold that bit deep and fast, between the heaters that operated at intervals. Cajeiri ducked his chin to keep the warmth inside his coat and hurried along, already panting a little, because it was so cold. Mani and Cenedi and Nawari went right behind him, and nand’ Bren and everybody else came right behind that, he was sure. Frost crystals sparkled in on the yellow ribs between the lights and the heaters.
At the end of the tube was the big dark cave of the mast itself, which was so big that lights could not touch the other side of it—and everybody had to stop, unhook from the first unit to another clip on another line, which snatched them along into a blue tube, and then just nothing—nothing, no tube, just the line. The crewmen ahead all whirled away into the gloom, and all one could see was the small light on each clip where it attached to the line, like lonely little stars.
Then they vanished. The mask limited his vision, and for a moment he saw was no light but the glow from the connection that was pulling them along. But it was all right. He was moving too.
Then there was a bright light, and shadows of people in suits: the lift shone bright in all that darkness—whether they were up or down or sideways he had no sense at all. He just wanted the machine to hurry, hurry, get them all where there was something but darkness.
That light came at a steady pace, surrounded them, drew them in, and people waited there, station crew, he thought, in bulky suits, who unclipped them and steered them like so many floating balloons into the lift car, which now, yes, he did remember. He was sure it was Nawari who gathered him in next to him and kept him from floating away; and near Nawari he saw mani, bundled tightly in her cloak, and Cenedi, who never left her. More and more of mani’s young men arrived in the lift.