When Katya reached the head of the queue and walked out of the side of the transport aircraft, she couldn’t help but pause for a moment. She’d expected the landing area to be like one of the small pads that some of the submersible settlements had on top of their domes, designed for little more than small AG craft to alight. What she found as she stepped through the doorframe and onto the ramp in the lashing rain was something else again.
The platform was immense, perhaps three hundred metres in radius and a good hundred and fifty metres above the waves. The flat circle was black, marked out with landing stripes and lights, the circumference dotted with meteorological units, sensor cowlings and an observation deck beneath which she could see a cave-like entrance into which those preceding her were scurrying. She could have gawped at it all for another minute at least but an impatient push in her back reminded her of the major’s words, and she dogtrotted down the ramp and across the rain-slicked surface of the platform for what seemed like a very long time until she reached the entrance beneath the observation deck. There, she waited with the surviving crews of the Novgorod and Vodyanoi until they had all made the journey. Then the great doors slid quickly and almost silently shut, clipping the sound of the storm off as neatly as flicking a switch.
The two groups did not have to wait long standing sullenly looking at each other while dripping on the deck plates, before they were joined by a red-headed woman in Yagizban yellow clothing that clearly was not military uniform. “Bureaucrat,” murmured Petrov to Katya. “Almost every job has a recognisable uniform. The Conclaves are run like machines and every citizen had better fit.”
“Your attention,” said the women in a clear, penetrating voice. The chatter died down. “Welcome to station FP-1. I only wish you were here under happier circumstances.” Katya could have been wrong, but the comment seemed to be levelled more at the Vodyanois than the FMA people. “Quarters have been prepared for you and you will be taken to them now.” She gestured to another two Yagizban who had appeared by the access lifts and stepped smartly back herself.
After a moment’s indecision, the crews made their way to the lifts and started to percolate down into the depths of the platform. Katya was heading towards the lifts when the woman stepped out and took her by the arm. “Katya Kuriakova?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “You are to come with me.” Katya found herself taken at a brisk walk around the corner from the staging area and into a smaller personnel lift. As she was led away, she looked back for Lukyan, but only caught a glimpse of the back of his head as he turned this way and that, apparently trying to find her. Then the lift’s door closed and he was gone. She tried to protest, explain that she didn’t want to be separated from her uncle, but she might as well have been talking to a robot.
The woman refused to talk beyond polite generalities and Katya spent a frustrating couple of minutes boiling with curiosity as to why she had been separated out as the lift descended deep through the levels. The lift arrived at a floor that surely must have been deep below sea level and Katya was ushered out into a comfortably appointed area of the station. The woman, who finally identified herself as Mila Vetskya, led Katya to a storeroom, tapped out an entrance code on the door’s numerical pad and led her in. Inside were racks and stacks of clothing, uniforms as well as more casual wear. Mila cast an apprising eye over Katya and took down a selection of clothes and a pair of boots for her.
“Blues,” she said, “they should match your colouring better than those black FMA rags.”
Katya bit back a comment about even sea-stained black being a substantial improvement over the unpleasant dull yellow of Yagizban uniforms and took the clothes with polite thanks. Mila took her to a stateroom and left her with a warning about wandering the corridors, telling her to wait until she was called for. Katya agreed without complaint and smiled pleasantly as Mila left, closing the door behind her.
The instant the door clicked, the smile left Katya’s face.
She’d had enough of this, the lies and deceptions. That the Yagizban were apparently working with the pirates was very bad news. If the planet was going to defend itself against a foe like the Leviathan, everyone needed to be on the same side. Somehow, the government needed to know what was happening here and, as she was the only one not under constant supervision, the responsibility fell to her. The Russalkin were bred to shoulder responsibilities from an early age, but the urgency and importance of this one weighed upon Katya almost more than she could bear. It spoke much of her character and upbringing that she did not think of denying that responsibility for more than the briefest moment.
It was her or nobody; she had no choice.
She took a few moments to breathe deeply, to calm herself, and to focus on what needed to be done. She had no clear idea how she could communicate with the FMA, but that was the second thing on her list, anyway. She would worry about it once she had completed the first task — discovering what exactly the Yagizban were up to, and why they were conspiring with the likes of Captain Kane and his Vodyanois.
She quickly changed — the FMA uniform would draw attention like iron filings to a magnet — but she had no intention of staying in her quarters. As she shrugged off the distinctive black coverall, she felt something small but heavy in her pocket. She slowly took it out and sat on the edge of the bed looking at it but not seeing it, thinking fast. The small maser she’d recovered from Kane’s cabin. What to do with it? If she was found sneaking around the corridors carrying a gun, she could forget about them treating her like a civilian. Then again, if they found her sneaking around the corridors, they’d think that anyway. In the small bathroom attached to the room, she found a medical kit and took the stitch-tape dispenser. She turned it down to the bandage level of adhesion — she had no desire to use it at suture level and have to wait for it to metabolise away — and taped the gun to the back of her left calf. She could forget about making rapid draws with it, but at least it wouldn’t show up on a casual frisk.
She cast a quick eye over her surroundings as she pulled on the boots and snapped shut the fastenings; the stateroom was large, the sort of place rich prospectors lived in on the dramas. There, the similarities finished. Like everything else she had seen here, there was little embellishment. Space, comfort and functionalism, and that was enough for the Yagizbans. Katya couldn’t bring herself to dislike them for that; they had similar tastes to herself.
The corridor was empty. She’d seen so few people about she assumed that the station was not fully manned yet. Even if they hadn’t gone out their way to tell the FMA that they had such a facility, they couldn’t have kept it secret for very long. It was likely that it had only gone into operation recently and did not yet have its full complement. In which case, her quarters were probably earmarked for some senior officer or functionary at some point. She grinned to herself; she felt like a rat in a palace’s cellar.
She walked as quickly as she dared to the clothes store while still trying to appear casual to anybody who might happen upon her. Checking up and down the corridor, she tapped in the code she’d seen Mila use and ducked inside. For the second time in less than five minutes, she quickly changed, this time from the clothes that had been picked out for her into the same sort of bureaucrat’s clothes that Mila wore. The Yagizban seemed reliant on administrators and she hoped that by dressing as one, she would be invisible in many of station FP-1’s areas. She found a serviceable and efficient-looking carrying-case in the corner that might reasonably be expected to contain record discs, transcriptors, and the other adjuncts she imagined a serious young low-level bureaucrat would carry around. She carefully folded the civilian clothes as tightly as she could and crammed them inside. She might have to dump the disguise at some point and she would prefer to have something to change into rather running around the corridors in her underwear.