Alexei closed his phone and looked at Mickey. "I am going to make too much money today, Mikhail. I will have to give you some of it or my conscience will trouble me—not too much, though. I do not have a very large conscience. You will share some of it with your new friends, da? That gives me another idea—later." He opened his phone again. "Mishka, when you get home to your kennel, don't let your mother bite you in the ass—listen to me, you son of a German whore—" I didn't know if Alexei was like all Russians, but he had a strange way of treating his friends. If those were indeed his friends. I wasn't sure.
When we got to the top, we came out of the tube into a narrow service corridor, the floor here had the steepest up-curve of all. The pseudo-gravity was too light for real walking, so we sort of bounced forward, caroming off the walls for a bit until Alexei slowed us down and suggested we conserve our energy. He pointed to handholds spaced along the walls. "Use those. Pull yourselves along. Pretend you're swimming. I will carry the little one—" I wished he hadn't said that about swimming. I was already having trouble remembering up and down. This wasn't as much fun as it looked. Stinky thought it was fun. He wanted to try bouncing by himself, but Alexei promised him that it would be more fun to ride on his back, so he decided to try that instead. How often do you get to piggy-back ride a Loonie in free fall?
We passed a whole bunch of keep out, this means you! and authorized personnel only! signs, but Alexei ignored them. Whenever we came to a locked hatch, Alexei would pull out an appropriate clearance card and pass us through. "How do you have all these cards?" Dad asked.
"Ah, it speaks—" Alexei laughed. To Dad, he said, "What do you think I came here to study? Domestic Ecology. I am on a work-study plan. I earn my education with hands-on experience. I am three years here, I have clearances everywhere. I can go anywhere on the station. It is the perfect job for a young smuggler, da? Do not worry, Mr. Dingillian, I do not abuse the trust of my employers. At least, not very often. And usually only for a good cause. This is a good cause. Besides, if what Mikhail tells me is true, I think that my usefulness here has just ended. I am returning to Gagarin very shortly. I will visit my money."
"When?" Dad asked.
"Tonight," laughed Alexei. "On the very same elevator as you. We go out together. Ann, here we are—"
Here was a thick hatch into a triple-sealed room—an airlock? Inside was a ladder up into a hatch in what would have been the ceiling, except there was so little gravity here, it didn't feel like a ceiling—except for the orientation of a big red arrow marked this side up in English as well as in several other languages.
Alexei passed Stinky into Mickey's arms and pulled himself up the ladder. At the top, he hesitated, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. He put his card into the reader and punched an entry code. The panel flashed green. He looked back down to us. "You must be very careful here. We are at the hub. The axis. The Line passes through a pressurized core. We run pipes and conduits and vents through the core all the way from Disk One to Disk Seven. It is the foundation for the next stage of construction—a common domestic ecology. But the core doesn't rotate, because it's connected to the Line itself. As you come through the hatch, it will look like the top side of the corridor is moving; it isn't—we are. It isn't fast, but it's fast enough to look scary. Just keep your head down, hold onto the railings, you'll be fine. I'll be right here to help. Any questions? No? Good. Let's go."
Alexei tapped the Go panel and the hatch slid open. He pulled himself up through the opening and disappeared for a moment. Then his head reappeared. "Hokay, Douglas, you come next please?" Douglas jumped and floated right up to the hatch, grabbing onto the handholds near the top. Alexei put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from sailing through. Douglas pulled himself up carefully and peered through the hatch. "That's right," Alexei coached. "Float through slowly. Hang onto this railing and just move down to make room." Douglas nodded and went through.
"Hokay, Charles—you come next. This is very easy, da?" I swallowed hard. For some reason, up and down and sideways had suddenly decided to stop being up and down and sideways and were all changing directions on me. I felt dizzy. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. Sometimes that helped. This time it didn't.
"Charles? Are you all right—?" That was Dad. I didn't answer.
"Charles—.'" That was Alexei. "Open your eyes and look at me. Do it now!" His voice was so hard it startled me. I opened my eyes. He was holding his hand out toward me. "Look at my hand, see? Just grab my hand, hokay? I'll do the rest."
Before I could shake my head no, or even as I did, I felt Dad lifting me up to take Alexei's hand. Alexei grabbed my arm and pulled me gently through the hatch. "See, that wasn't so bad—here, grab this railing and hold on. Douglas, hold him, please? Thank you. Move down now, just a bit. Make room for the others." I was still uncomfortable—almost close to tears, I didn't know why—but then Douglas put his arm around my shoulder and held me close and I didn't feel quite so bad anymore.
"Mikhail, I am ready for the little stinky one. Pass him here. That's it. Come to me, Bobby. Here, stick your head through. Look around—see? Nothing to be afraid of. The only monsters up here are your brothers. Hold onto this railing, please. Mikhail—? Send up Mr. Dingillian, please."
Dad came next, and Mickey followed. Alexei sealed the hatch behind him. Now, we were all clutching handholds on the inside of the steepest curve yet. Three meters away, the curved wall of the core whispered by. We could hear the air whooshing as it passed. We watched a steady progression of warning signs and arrows and numbers and access panels. There were tracks in the opposite surface, matching tracks in the wall we clung to.
Alexei looked anti-spinward expectantly, so I followed his gaze. I was still uncomfortable, but watching the moving ceiling sort of helped. I don't know why.
"Ahh," said Alexei. "Here it comes."
It was a bright red platform sliding toward us on the tracks. It slowed to a stop directly next to the access panel we'd climbed through. It had handholds and equipment boxes mounted all over it. All its corners were rounded, and most of its flat surfaces had bumper pads. There was a funny angular contraption in the middle, like a collapsible tower. Alexei pulled us all aboard, and then pushed a green Go button, and turned a dial. "We want the One-Gamma-Three entrance," he explained as the platform began moving spin-ward. "One is the disk we're on. Gamma is the cable. Three is the access. Capisce?"
We passed similar cars mounted on other tracks, on our side as well as on the rotating surface above / next to us; most of them were stopped and waiting, but our car sped up until we had matched speed with the inner wall. There was a panel there marked one-gamma-three. Alexei unfolded the collapsed contraption in the middle of the car. It was an extensible ladder and it went all the way across. "Hokay, let's go."
Alexei grabbed Stinky in a bear hug and started scrambling across like a pregnant spider. I shook off Dad's help, but not Douglas's. When we were all safely across, Mickey hit the release on the top of the ladder and it folded back down. Now the ceiling felt motionless and the floor was rolling past. Except it wasn't a floor anymore. It was just a rotating wall-surface, with a car tracking along beside us. Then the car began to slow, and pretty soon it disappeared around the curve behind us.