An orderly came into the small room with a tray, set down the cups of juice, then left.
Having people handle such simple tasks on the Wheel was cheaper than the trouble and expense of maintaining the servos and other mechanisms that performed such jobs elsewhere. Whatever Earth might lack in other resources, it had no shortage of people.
“You might have been taking a risk,” Alonza said, “even with our agreements. Ways might have been found to keep you both on Earth without violating any treaties.”
Te-yu’s eyes focused on her. Alonza finally had her attention. Benzi sipped some juice, then set his cup down. “We thought that most unlikely,” he said.
“But still possible.”
“Just barely.” He frowned for a moment, then drank more juice. She wanted him a bit apprehensive; that would make him and his companion less likely to interfere with her task.
They got through the meal while saying little of any significance. Benzi and Alonza exchanged opinions on the very few mind-tours and virtual concerts they had both experienced. The dinner, better than Benzi had clearly expected, inspired them both to discuss some of their favorite foods. Alonza mentioned in passing that she had been born in San Antonio, and Benzi said that although he had grown up on one of Venus’ Islands, he had been born in a small town on the North American Plains. Te-yu said almost nothing at all.
Alonza walked the two Habbers back to their room, then hurried to the nearest lift. The door slid shut silently; the cage hummed softly around her until the door opened and she knew that she had arrived at the Wheel’s hub.
Alonza welcomed the half-g of the hub, where all the docks were located. She came here often, to look at the ships and imagine herself on an endless journey aboard one; such musings were one of her few indulgences.
She entered the bay area, empty except for two technicians checking some readings, and went to the viewscreen. Often Tom Ruden-Nodell joined her here after a shift of duty at the infirmary, partly because the half-g eased his minor aches and pains. He was another one like her, according to his public record, someone who had been a child living on Basic and what he could scrounge for himself until he caught the eye of a benefactor who, impressed by his quickness and intelligence, had taken him away from his negligent parents and found him a place in a dormitory.
But they never spoke of the past. They sat in the bay and speculated about the travelers who passed through the Wheel and exchanged the stories they had each gleaned from them. There were workers in gray tunics and pants with tales of repairing seawalls and dikes near the flooded cities of New York, Melbourne, or Corpus Christi; Linkers in white robes with gossip about the sexual affairs of those close to the Council of Mukhtars; students and young scientists with stories of their future ambitions told with a mixture of youthful arrogance and insecurity. While listening to them, Alonza often thought of how far she had come from the wretched shantytown of people on Basic that nestled near San Antonio’s port.
“I might put in for a change,” Tom had told her the last time they were here in the hub.
“I’m thinking of making a move to Luna. They’ll need another physician there sooner or later, and there’d be the astronomers and other researchers to exchange ideas with and the engineers and miners to drink with. And one-sixth gravity might be just the thing for my old bones.” She had noticed the deep lines around his eyes then, the graying hair, the weariness his slouch betrayed.
“You’re not that old, Tom,” she said.
“I am that old, Alonza,” and he was right; he was eighty, and could expect another thirty or forty years if his rejuvenation therapy worked as it did for most people, but there were always exceptions, and Tom was already showing many of the signs of age. “Might not be a bad place for a Guardian officer to be posted either,” he added.
“And why is that?”
“Because there isn’t much to do except keep order and look out for people’s safety and maybe round up a few miners and workers when they get a little rowdy.”
“There wouldn’t be much chance for a promotion, though.”
“And not much chance of running afoul of ambitious officers either.” Tom had smiled to himself then, and for a moment Alonza had envied the physician the relatively peaceful life he had won for himself.
More docks had been added to the Wheel in recent years, and now there were fifteen of them filled with the metal slugs of freighters and dull gray torchships; other docks held the shuttles that traveled to and from Earth and Luna. The Habber vessel was unlike the other torchships; it was a slender spire of silver attached to the vast globe that housed its engines. Its passengers would board the vessel, perhaps expecting the diversions that other passenger ships offered, only to find out that they would be in suspension during the entire journey. The Habbers claimed that this was a more efficient way of transporting their passengers, that to have them safely stored in sleepers was more comfortable for them, given the high acceleration of their faster ships, but Alonza also suspected that the Habbers did not want anyone else poking around inside their vessels and maybe finding out more about them.
Alonza moved closer to the viewscreen. Outside the hub, two suited and helmeted figures crawled along the latticework of the dock that held the Habber ship. They had surely noticed by now that the components did not really need to be replaced this soon, according to the readings, but they were well-disciplined Guardian technicians and had not questioned their orders.
Alonza slapped the comm next to the screen. “How’s it going, Starling?”
“I’ve got two more components to go, Major,” the voice of Darlanna Starling replied.
“Richi’s got three.”
“Estimate?”
“Two more hours, maybe three.”
“Both of you better come inside for a break, Starling. That’s an order. When you get too tired, accidents can happen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get some food into you, maybe a nap if you think you need it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
That would give her some more time. Maybe she wouldn’t need much more; maybe this whole business would move along faster than she expected. Go to the lounge where the Venus-bound passengers were waiting, give them some bureaucratic gab, get Sameh Tryolla away from the others on some excuse, and send the two Habbers on their way with their ship.
Doubt bit at her again. It didn’t add up, the secrecy, holding the woman here, going to all this trouble. Alonza pushed those thoughts aside as she left the bay.
The people in the lounge seemed subdued. Some of them lay on the floor, their packs and duffels under their heads, while others sat on cushions. A few had helped themselves to cups of water from the wall dispenser and were drinking it listlessly. Perhaps they were still recovering from the weightless discomforts of the shuttle flight.
Sameh Tryolla was on one of the cushions, her back against the wall, looking even thinner and smaller than she had in her file image. She glanced toward Alonza, then looked away.
“…showed them to the lavatories,” the Guardian on Alonza’s right murmured, “and they haven’t given us any trouble. Might need to get fed soon, though.”
“They don’t have any credit to pay for their food,” Alonza said. The hopeful settlers had been forced to give up all their credit after reaching the camp; it was one way to help cover the expense of housing them while they waited for passage. “Thirty or forty hours on nothing but water won’t kill them,” she went on, thinking of times in her early childhood when she had had even less than that.
“Yeah, but you don’t want them to get weak, Major,” the Guardian said, “or we might get stuck with them for even longer.”