“Where is she?”
“On the cruiser,” said Brun. “Wait—I’ll explain—but you have to get into this line. You have to come with us—downside—”
“I don’t want to go back down there,” Cecelia said, aware even as she said it that it sounded foolish. “I’ve been there. I want to be on my ship.”
“Come on,” said Brun. “You can’t do that—there’s no crew, and when there is a crew it won’t be people you know—come on, get in line with us.”
Cecelia wavered. “Well . . .”
“Come on.” Brun stepped back, making room, but as Cecelia started toward the gap, angry voices rose.
“Hey! No cutting in front—you got no right—”
Brun turned on them. “She’s an old lady; she’s my mother’s friend—”
Another voice louder than the others. “A Rejuvenant! I’m not losing my chance to get home safe for any damned Rejuvenant!” People shoved forward, slamming into Brun and Sirkin, who could not help slamming into those ahead.
“Damn you!”
“Stop it!”
“No shoving there . . . keep order, keep order . . .” That was two harried-looking station militia. “What’s this now?”
Voices erupted, accusing, explaining, demanding. Finally things were quiet enough for explanation.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t have even one space left on the down shuttles. One’s filling now—hauling maximum mass—and the one you came in on will be the last down. You bought a one-way; you assured the clerk you were bound outsystem on your own ship—”
“That’s right,” said Cecelia. “But I can’t just abandon these two—” She nodded at Brun and Sirkin. “They’re friends’ children—”
“Sorry, ma’am . . . the clerk did try to warn you. As it is we don’t have shuttle capacity for everyone. Some’s got to stay and risk it—”
“I’m staying,” Brun said, swinging a long leg over the rope that kept them all in line.
“Brun, no!” Cecelia said. “If there’s real danger, I want you safe.”
“There’s always danger,” Brun said. “And Captain Serrano said to keep you safe. I can’t do that from down there—” She jerked her head in the direction of the planet. The line had closed in behind her, without a word but with absolute determination.
“Brun—” Sirkin turned, started to move.
“No!” Brun and Cecelia spoke as one. “No,” Brun said a moment later. “Not you.”
“Yes, me.” Sirkin too stepped over the rope. “I’m a navigator; I’m good for something in space, and nothing much onplanet. I know I don’t have your kind of flair, Brun, but I can free someone else by doing my own work.”
Over her head, Cecelia met Brun’s eyes. Nice child, Cecelia thought, and if we get out of this alive I will find her a safe berth on some quiet commercial line. Surely I have that much influence. She smiled at the station militia.
“Then you now have two more places for those who thought they must stay,” she said. “Do you need these tickets?”
“No, ma’am. Thank you.” One of the militia jogged toward the head of the line, and the other nodded to them.
“Well,” said Cecelia. “Come along, before the yacht vanishes into space and we’re left up here wondering how to run a space station.”
“It’s a lot like a ship,” Brun said. “I’ve been talking to the people who work here, and met this man who’s in charge of—”
“Fine,” said Cecelia. “Then if we’re stuck we have a chance of survival, but in the meantime, let’s catch a ship.”
No one was aboard the Sweet Delight. Brun and Sirkin both knew the dockside access codes, and the hatches opened for them. Cecelia lugged her gear to her own suite, and activated her desk. A stack of messages had accumulated since the last time she’d retrieved them, including one from Commerce Bank & Trust which informed her that her balance was more than adequate to purchase all the Singularity straws she wanted. She unpacked her duffel, and decided to shower. Whatever emergency was coming, she might as well meet it clean, in comfortable clothes. She stuffed her dirty clothes in the wash hamper, and turned the shower to full pulse.
She was finally feeling clean, all the travel grime and irritation out of her system, when the lights blinked off and back on so fast that her new panic in darkness didn’t have time to reach full strength. She elbowed the shower controls, from water pulse to radiant heat and blow dry. Her pulse slowed, as the lights stayed on, and the fan whirred steadily. She turned, running her fingers through her hair to let the warm air reach her scalp. Then she saw the shadow beyond the shower door, a moving shadow.
“What the hell—!” A male voice, a strange one. The door opened, yanked hard from outside, and Cecelia found herself face-to-face with a uniformed man armed with one of her own hunting rifles, the expensive ones Heris had bought for her back on Sirialis. At second glance he looked more like a boy dressed up to play soldier—a fresh-faced youth who couldn’t have been over twenty. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Kindly hand me my robe,” Cecelia said, not bothering to hide what he’d already seen. It wasn’t her problem anyway, even if he was turning an unnatural red around the collar. She felt wickedly glad that he was seeing her younger body, not the eighty-six-year-old version. When he didn’t move to comply, she lifted her chin. “It’s drafty—and my robe is right there, beside you on the warming rack.”
“Uh . . . yes, ma’am.” Without looking away, he reached out and snagged the robe, fingering the pockets quickly. Cecelia’s brows rose, then she realized he thought she might have weapons concealed in it, and her brows rose higher. Weapons? In a bathrobe? Her? He handed it over, and she shrugged into it, tied it around her waist.
“I’m coming out,” she said, when he showed no inclination to move, and he stepped back, giving her room. Without haste, she picked up one of the towels on the warming rack and finished drying her feet, then took another and toweled the rest of the dampness out of her hair. She moved to the mirrors, and picked up the comb on the shelf. “I’m Cecelia de Marktos,” she said into the mirror as she shaped her hair with the comb. “This was my yacht . . . it’s technically Heris Serrano’s now, but I’ve hired it. And who are you?”
“Pivot Major Osala . . . from the R.S.S. cruiser Vigilance. Ma’am.”
“And what are you doing on my ship?” Her hair was fluffing into an untidy brush after the shower; it needed trimming. Her lips felt dry; station and ship air was so much drier than the humid surface of Xavier. She spread a protective gloss on her lips and glanced at the soldier in the mirror. He was looking at her as if she were something else—a monster of some sort, a freak.
“Commander Serrano said—is that the same person you called Heris Serrano?”
“I suppose,” Cecelia said, turning to face him directly. “Heris Serrano, formerly an R.S.S. officer, and now my captain. She told you to come aboard? I suppose it’s all right then.”
“Commander Serrano . . . she’s taken command of the Vigilance.” He sounded unsure.
“She has? Good for her. Even though she did kill a raider with this yacht, if there’s trouble coming, she’d much better have a cruiser to fight with.”
“But ma’am . . . aren’t you scared at all? Of . . . of me?” The confusion on his young face almost made her laugh. “I have a weapon—”
Cecelia snorted. She couldn’t help herself, even if it was cruel, but she suppressed the laughter that wanted to follow. “Young man . . . pivot major is it? . . . didn’t Commander Serrano tell you about me?”
“Uh . . . no, ma’am. The ship was supposed to be empty, only we found the entry hatch open, and Jig Faroe went to the bridge with the rest of the crew except me and Hugh, we were supposed to look for stragglers.”