Then he saw nand’ Bren, the other person smaller than his aishid, and once they were in, last of all, the crewman pushed buttons and extended safety bars. Those rods separated them into sections and sorted out where down was going to be—he remembered that part, too, all in a flash, that one would not want to be facing wrong when the lift moved.
The big lift car was filled shoulder to shoulder.
The door shut.
And, thump! the car began to move.
The floor came up to meet his feet. And there was a down again. Tall bodies in front of him cut off the view. The frost was melting fast around the heating outlets. Some people started taking their masks off, which made him think it was probably all right. He pulled his off, and breathed in air still icy cold and so dry it made him cough. He was by no means encouraged to take off his heavy coat. But a hot wind was blowing hard from the vent, and the lift went on clanking and moving, pressing their feet hard to the floor.
“Keep the gloves on,” he heard someone say, and he did. He could see Cenedi from here. He saw Banichi, who was taller than most everybody, up near the doors, and that was where nand’ Bren would be standing.
He began to shiver, and he kept blinking fast because of the cold, but the hot air kept flooding in, and eased breathing. They were all heavier: it was like taking off in a jet standing up: the lift was moving that fast.
But that feeling let up so they almost floated, and then a warning began to sound and a loud voice said hold on to the bar, just before the whole lift thumped, and jolted awfully, sideways.
Cajeiri could see nothing on eye level except the back of a Guild jacket, which he thought was Algini’s.
But their weight was just what it ought to be.
Then the motion had slowed so it just felt like any lift anywhere, well, mostly, except the walls were still cold, even where the hot air blasted out and melted the frost so fast it evaporated. The air became less dry. Breathing was easier.
Then they slowed, stopped, so he had to take hold of the bar. He was a little worried about mani. But Cenedi was there. Nawari was. They would hold her.
He remembered. But some things were different. They had changed the lifts. It had used to be much scarier. Or he was that much bigger.
He definitely remembered getting to the shuttle by the lifts.
But not getting from it the first time, before the voyage.
He had been very little. And someone had held him close.
He began to remember the corridors inside the station. He remembered the texture of the decking, and the way the walls curved. All sorts of details came back to him. Human faces, all of them together in the dark.
And the apartment and his room there.
But that had been on the ship. Textures and smells and sights that had gotten away from him. He remembered. He went on remembering, pieces sliding into place.
Tunnels. And mani’s pretty draperies. And nand’ Bren’s plants. There had been one plant. In space, it had just kept growing. And making more stems, that made more plants, all white and green, Great-uncle’s colors. It was like a dream. But it had really done that. He had not imagined it.
Everything jumbled up in his mind. Memories exploded through his head, so fast. Where things were—routes they had taken—but those were on the ship.
The halls they had run through, to get down to Earth before their enemies knew.
The places he had been before they had gone on the ship. Everything was confused.
He was never lost.
Except now.
He had been young. Now he was fortunate nine, and remembered three worlds—four, if one counted the kyo ship. Memory. Dreams. Sometime nightmares, on the world and up in space.
He was back where most of his real memories began. And he felt an unaccustomed fear, because before his memories, before his first flight, where his parents had been—so much of it was just blank.
He had never known there was so much gap. But the gap had happened here. In this place. Here was where he had forgotten things.
Where he had forgotten his parents, and most of all, his mother.
· · ·
The readout panel had said aishidi’tat at the beginning, in Ragi characters—which, Bren thought, should warn any human he’d stepped into the wrong lift if he didn’t want to go to the atevi section . . . where he was extremely relieved to be headed, given the troubling fact Central direction had been in Mosphei’ for the rest of the flight. Central had picked up the kyo signal, Central had gotten word from the ship—and Central had not budged since, no ordinary switchover to atevi control, no communication to speak of, except the steady direction from operations, which was under atevi control while an atevi shuttle was inbound.
Operations—and, early on, and again before they committed to dock—he had talked to Jase.
Who periodically assured them, in Ragi, that there was no change in the kyo situation, and that they should proceed as planned. It was Jase, definitely. They had exchanged their code words, and Jase hadn’t given him the one that meant trouble.
What is going on with the station communications? he had asked Jase in the second of those two conversations, and Jase’s answer had been simply, The man refuses to leave.
Well, they had a problem. And they were about to have another, since the Mospheiran shuttle was entering the picture, with a need for their spot at the mast much sooner than they had ever asked of the technical crews.
But viewing that they had Tillington sitting in Central, he left that communication to ground control and Tillington.
“Everything is prepared,” had been the end of Jase’s communication just before dock. “You can skip customs. Your lift will be routed to station nearest the residency. Lord Geigi will meet you.”
One hoped. He had quietly advised Ilisidi.
“We have the option to remain at the mast, docked,” he had said, regarding whether they should board the station or wait for atevi direction, “but this will become increasingly uncomfortable for us. We shall do better, one thinks, to go ahead.”
“Of course we shall go ahead,” was the dowager’s answer. “Shall we be inconvenienced? We shall expect Lord Geigi has things in better order.”
So.
They had, among the few things they did carry, the black bags that remained in Guild hands. They had the atevi crew’s communications with atevi ops should they have to call on any outside assistance—and they had the crew riding with them in the lift, inputting their destination.
Not to mention half the station in atevi hands and half the ship captains disposed to their side of an argument, if it came to that.
There were only Mospheiran numbers at the first of their journey, during the long trip up to the horizontal shift. At that point the lift moved sideways, like a train, and there began to be Ragi numbers, then Ragi names on the board: the Fortunate, the Auspicious, the Happy, the Healthy, the Wise and Creditable, and within them, East and West, North and South—such things flickered past in mad succession. Those were sections. They were in Ragi territory.
Until, amid the Celestial, in the North, the lift slowed and stopped, sanely, as tamely as a train coming into the station.
The separating bars retreated smoothly. The door opened.
And Lord Geigi himself, with his bodyguard and several station staff, was there to meet them—a very welcome sight, that round, smiling face, a vast relief.
Jase, however, was not there.
Bren took off his mask as others did, slipped the fastenings on the insulated coat and let it slide, stiff as it was with cold, glistening with melted frost. Beside him Ilisidi emerged from the insulated cloak looking as if she made this sort of trip daily. She leaned on her cane, not a hair out of place, and Cenedi took the thick garment over his arm. Tano took Bren’s coat, and, as they exited, dropped it on the floor.