"I won't go in there," she said.
"You don't have to. You just came out."
"I did?" Oh, yes, I did. "Am I safe?"
"You are if you'll only take hold of the handrail. I've got to close the door before the smoke alarms go off. Do you have it?"
"Yes."
"Both hands."
"Got it."
Noyock inched away from her and reached through, closed the door, spun the seal, latched the latches.
"How are you feeling?" he asked Arran.
"Really sick. My head aches."
"You breathed in the exhaust duct."
"Did I? Dumb. Dumb, that's all."
"Dead tired, that's all. But we've got to go down before you can rest. All right?"
"I don't want to go anywhere."
"You're going to, though."
And so he helped her to the ladder, and this time they went down virtually together, Noyock's feet only a few rungs below hers, so that his head was at the level of her waist as they slowly descended the ladder.
It took forever.
"Stay awake," he kept telling her.
"Sure," she kept answering. And finally something changed, and he wasn't behind her, and then his hands lifted her off the ladder and laid her gently down on the heating duct.
She woke in near darkness, the air cool and musty, but clean compared to the atmosphere outside. Her head still ached, her knees smarted, and her eyes were dully tired as she opened them. But she was breathing, and felt better. Than what? Than she thought she should.
"Awake?"
"Alive. I didn't worry about anything else."
"Head?"
"Aches. But I can breathe."
"Hungry?"
She hadn't thought of it until he asked. "I could eat a person."
"I'll stand back."
"What are we going to do?"
"Get something to eat. Stay here."
"I'm coming with you," she insisted, trying to get up. But a pain shot through her from her head down her spine and she changed her mind. "I'll keep the home fires burning," she said. After he left, the darkness became overwhelming and she slept again.
"It's morning," a cheerful male voice said, and for a moment Arran was confused, and began speaking in character. "Morning, already? How can it be morning, and we just barely went to bed?" Her voice was seductive. But when she rolled onto her side (enhances cleavage, her manager had always reminded her) she realized she was dressed, and on a hard metal surface; more important, she was stiff and sore, with a headache. But the worst of the pain had dissipated while she slept. Noyock leaned over her, holding a bag of ragaway and another bag, this one cold and filled with —"What?"
"Milk."
"Do they still make that?"
"The only place I could make a pull was in a school lunch room."
She nodded, and he helped her sit up. "It's hard to believe I worked that hard," she said, "and there wasn't even a loop of it."
Hop laughed and looked around as she put her mouth to the nipple on the milkbag and drank a little. He walked away as she ate the ragaway, and didn't return until after she had finished and was lying on her back, looking up into the darkness.
His footsteps were muffled by dust, of course, but she heard him long before he arrived. "How do you feel?" he asked softly.
"I feel like getting the hell out of here," she said.
"Which brings us to the next item of business," Hop said. "I'm pretty good at pulling a living out of Capitol without a credit card — but you get pretty damn hungry that way, and you're competing with a lot of other people."
"Thieves? I never knew there were thieves —"
"At your level? Not many. Thieves can only afford to prey on the poor, Arran. The rich have Mother's Little Boys to protect them. The thieves have to live in the walls in the foulest boroughs. And I learned my trade in childhood — I doubt you'd catch on fast enough to keep from getting caught on one of your first pulls."
Arran smiled wanly. "It didn't occur to me that if I couldn't live honestly, I'd actually have to live dishonestly."
"There's another alternative," Hop said. "You could hook."
"Hook?"
"Whore."
"Oh my. Not even looped, I assume?"
"It pays very badly. And I'm not in love with the idea of being a pimp."
Arran laughed. "Do it on a loop in front of billions of eyes and it's an art. Do it in a dirty little room with no audience and it's a filthy career."
"If it's any consolation, I'd see to it the room was clean."
Arran shook her head. "If it's the only way. But Hop, that's the part of my job I hated worst. Do you realize that in four hundred years the only time I ever made love was to Farl? And he even preferred little boys."
"Well, you know that leaves us with only two other alternatives. One is to turn ourselves in."
"Throw ourselves on the mercy of the court."
"Not renowned for being particularly clement, especially when someone in a position of power has a vested interest in a guilty verdict. The other alternative, Arran, won't sound much better. The colonies."
"Are you joking?"
"Was it funny?"
They sat in silence, Hop making little balls of dust by allowing the last dregs of milk from Arran's milkbag to drip slowly out.
"You can't take any money into the colonies, can you?" Arran asked.
"You can't take somec, either, which is more to the point," Hop said.
"But what would you do when things got boring?"
"Stay awake and be bored," Hop answered. "You actually wouldn't lose any real lifespan, of course. Somec doesn't add to your lifespan. Just stretches it out over a few centuries."
"I know, I know. But it means that only three wakings from now, I'd be dead."
"That is what it means."
They sat for a while longer, and then Arran slowly got up. "I feel very old right now," she said, trying to make stiff muscles respond. "Dance exercises just don't prepare you for climbing kilometers of ladders."
"Have you made up your mind?"
"Yes," she said. "But of course that has no bearing on your decision. You can stay alive as a thief."
"You're going to the colonies, then?"
Arran shrugged, moved away a little. "I really don't have any other choice." She laughed. "I was getting bored with the life of a looper, anyway."
"Then I'll go with you."
"To the colonies registrar?"
"Yes. And then to the colonies. If you don't mind, I'd like to petition to be sent on the same ship with you."
"But why? You may not even be wanted, Hop. The colonies are like suicide."
"Whither thou goest, I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy god, my god."
"What in the world did that mean?"
Hop walked to her, put his arm around her waist, and began leading her in the direction of the nearest ladder down. "My mother was a Christian. That's from the Bible."
"A Christian. How quaint. What world are you from?"
"Here. Capitol."
"A Christian on Capitol! How unusual! And what did it mean?"
"It's from an old story that Mother told us a lot. I got very bored with it. It's about a woman whose sons die and her daughter–in–law still won't leave her. She just figured, I supposed, that like it or not their fates were wrapped up together."
"Do you really think our fates are wrapped up together, Hop?" Arran said, awkwardly, no hint of the famous Arran Handully, Seductress.