Her fingers were buzzing, her rings calling. She held them to the side of her head. “I told you not to go home.” It was Herman. “The police have noticed an airlock trip. You have three minutes at most to clear the area. They’ll think you did it.” Silence.
Wednesday could hear her heartbeat, the swish of blood in her ears. An impossible sense of loss filled her, like a river bursting its banks to sweep her away. “But Dad—”
The next thing she knew she was standing in the corridor beside a slowly deflating emergency airlock, walking round a bend back toward human territory, away from the blue-lit recesses of the service tunnel. “Jacket, back to normal.” The hood dropped loose and she pushed it back, forming a snood; the leggings could wait. She walked away jerkily, tugging her gloves off and shoving them into a pocket, half-blind, almost walking into a support pillar. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. She slid back into the aimless stroll of a teen out for a walk, slowly reached up with a shaking hand to unfasten her jacket. It relaxed quickly, blousing out loosely around her. Oh shit.
Posessed by a ghastly sense of loss, Wednesday headed toward Transit Terminal B.
Centris Magna was a small hab; its shuttle port wasn’t designed to handle long-haul craft, or indeed anything except small passenger shuttles. Bulk freight traveled by way of a flinger able to impart up to ten klicks of delta-vee to payloads of a thousand tons or so — but it would be a very slow drift to the nearest ports of call. Only people traveled by fast mover. Consequently, the terminal was no bigger than the hub of Old Newfie, its decor dingy and heavily influenced by the rustic fad of a decade or so earlier. Wednesday felt a flicker of homesickness as she walked into the departure lounge, almost a relief after the sick dread and guilt that had dogged her way there.
She zeroed in on the first available ticket console. “Travel ticketing, please.”
The console blinked sleepy semihuman eyes at her: “Please state your destination and your full name?”
“Vicky Strowger. Um, I have a travel itinerary on file with you for educational purposes? Reference, uh, David Larsen’s public schedule.”
“Is that Vocational Educator Larsen, or the David Larsen who paints handmade inorganic toys and designs gastrointestinal recycling worms for export to Manichean survivalists?”
“The former.” Wednesday glanced around nervously, half-expecting blank-faced fuckmonsters with knives and manglers to lurch out at her from behind the soft furnishings. The wide hall was almost empty; grass, service trees, gently curling floor (it was so close to the axial end cap that the curvature was noticeable and the gravity barely a quarter of normal) — it was too big, positively threatening to someone who’d spent her youth on a cramped station.
“Paging. Yes, you have a travel itinerary. Payment is debited to the Outbound Project on—”
It’s now or never. “I’d like to upgrade, please.”
“Query?”
“Sybarite class, please, or the nearest thing to it you can find for me.” She’d checked her credit balance and she was damned if she was going to hunch restlessly in a cattle class seat for the duration of the transfer flight.
The terminal mumbled to itself for a while. “Acknowledged. Annealing to determine how we can accommodate your wishes — confirmed. Departure from bay sixteen in two hours and four minutes, local shuttle to Centris Noctis orbital for transfer to luxury liner WSL Romanov for cycle to Minima Four. Your connection will be in twenty-eight hours. Which option would you like and how would you like to pay?”
“Whichever.”
The terminal cleared its throat: “I’m sorry, I was unable to understand that. What economic system would you like to pay in? We accept money, approved modal barter, agalmic kudos metrics, temporal futures, and—”
“Check my purse, dammit!”
The terminal abruptly closed its eyes and opened its mouth. A small blue six-legged mouse poked its head out. “Hello!” it piped. “I am your travel voucher! Please allow me to welcome you to TransVirtual TravelWays on behalf of all our entities and symbionts! We hope your journey with us will be enjoyable and your business will be fruitful! Please keep your travel voucher in your possession at all times, and — squeep—”
Wednesday caught it.
“Shut the fuck up,” she snarled. “I am not in the fucking mood. Just show me to my cabin and fuck off.”
“—Please note that there is a security deposit for damage to TransVirtual TravelWays property, including fittings, fixtures, and emotivationally enhanced passenger liaison systems! We hope you have a pleasant voyage and a succulent profession! Please ensure your luggage remains under your control at all times, and proceed now to the green walkway under the cherry tree for transit to departure bay sixteen, where the VIP suite is awaiting your excellency’s attention.”
The mouse-ticket shut up once Wednesday transferred it to a pocket that didn’t contain any power tools or high-density energy storage devices. The path winked green in front of her feet, red behind her, as it guided her round a couple of strategically placed cherry trees and into a blessedly spartan metal-walled walkway that curved up and over the departure hall like a socialist-realist rendering of a yellow brick road.
Three hours to go. What am I going to do? Wednesday wondered nervously. Wait for Herman to phone? If he could be bothered talking to her — for some reason he didn’t seem to want to stay close. A twinge of loneliness made her clench her jaw. What am I letting myself in for? And then a stab of guilt so sharp she nearly doubled over fighting back the urge to vomit. Mom! Dad!
The VIP lounge was privacy-spoofed, a huge acreage of black synthskin and gleaming ivory patrolled by silent gray partition walls that flickered from place to place while her back was turned, ensuring that she could wander freely without seeing — or being seen by — the other transit passengers. A dumb waiter followed her around, all bright gleaming brass and scrollwork, eager to fulfill her every desire. “When do we board?” she asked.
“Ahem. If madam would follow me, her personal transshipment capsule is being readied now. If there are any special dietary or social or religious requirements—”
“Everything is just fine,” Wednesday said automatically, her voice flat. “Just find me a sofa or something to sit on. Uh, maximum privacy.”
“Madam will find one just behind her.” Wednesday sat. The walls moved around her. A few meters away the floor was moving, too. It all happened too smoothly to notice by accident. Something in one of her pockets twitched, then began to recite brightly: “We provide a wide range of business services, including metamagical consultancy, stock trading and derivatives analysis systems, and a full range of communications and disinformation tools for the discerning corporate space warrior. If you would like to take advantage of our horizontally scalable—”
Wednesday reached into her pocket and picked up her travel voucher by the loose skin at the scruff of its neck. “Just shut up.” It fell silent and drew its tail up, clutching it with all six paws. “I want a half hour call before boarding. Between now and then, I want total privacy — so private I could die and you wouldn’t notice. No ears, no eyes, no breathing gas mixture analysis, nobody disturbs me. Got it?”