The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(119)
There wasn’t time. The ship she’d bought passage on departed in three hours, which meant she had to be aboard in less time than that. And even if she’d had time – and any money at all – she could hardly queue for noodles with this body-size crate in tow that she could barely steer. She thought away every message except the route to her ship, and kept going. She could eat on board.
The route she’d been given kept her mostly out of the station’s busiest areas, though on Tyr Siilas “less busy” was still quite crowded. At first she was self-conscious, afraid she’d attract unwelcome curiosity pushing a suspension-pod-size crate through the station’s thoroughfares, but the crowds split and streamed around her without contact or comment. And she was hardly the only person pushing an awkward load. She had to swerve carefully around a stack of crates full of onions, apparently trundling along under its own power, and then found herself stuck for a few frustrating seconds behind what at first she took to be a puzzlingly tall mech, but when it finally moved she realized it was actually a human in an environmental support suit, someone from a low-gravity habitat, to judge from their height and need to wear the suit.
At one point she had to wait a half hour for a freight lift, and then spent the ride pinned against the lift’s grimy back wall. She regretted wearing her stiff, formal sandals and the silk jacket and long, full skirts that she’d kept when she’d sold the rest of her clothes, with the intention of looking as seriously businesslike as possible. Very probably pointless – the Facilitator likely didn’t care so long as her money was good, and whoever was on the other side of the deal she’d made couldn’t see her anyway.
As soon as she was off the lift she girded up her skirts, and took off her sandals and set them on the crate along with the small bag that held everything else she owned now – her identity tabula and a few small toiletries – and then set out on the long stop-and-start trek through the docks, swerving around inattentive travelers when she could, the time display in her vision reassuring her, at least, that she still had plenty of time to reach her ship, which was, predictably, in the section of the docks farthest from where she’d entered.
She arrived at the bay tired, frustrated, and anxious. The bay was much smaller than she’d expected, but then she had only ever taken the big passenger liners between systems. Had taken one here, but she could not afford even the cheapest available return fare home on such a ship. She’d known this ship was small, a cargo ship with a few extra berths for passengers, known that her trip home would be cramped and unluxurious, but she hadn’t stopped to consider what that would mean now that she was bringing this crate with her. If this had been a passenger liner, there would have been someone here she could turn the crate over to, who would make sure it got to Ingray’s berth, or to cargo. But the bay was empty. And she didn’t think she could get both herself and the crate into the airlock.
While she stood thinking, a man came out of the airlock. Short and solid-bodied, and there was something undefinably odd about his squarish face – something off about the shape of his nose, or the size of his mouth. His hair was pulled back behind his head, to hang behind him in dozens of tiny braids. He wore a gray-and-green-striped lungi and a dark gray jacket, and he was barefoot – less formal than what nearly everyone here wore for business dealings or important meetings, but still perfectly respectable. “You are Ingray Aughskold?”
“You must be Captain Uisine.” Ingray had booked this berth through the Tyr Siilas dock office, days ago, before this ship had arrived here. “Or is it Captain Tic?” Somewhere like this, where you met people from all over, it was difficult to know what order anyone’s name was in, or which one they preferred to be addressed by.
“Either one,” said Captain Uisine. “You didn’t say anything about oversize luggage, excellency.”
“No,” Ingray said. “I didn’t. I wasn’t expecting it myself.”
Captain Uisine was silent a moment. Waiting, Ingray supposed. Then, “It’s too large for the passenger compartments, excellency. It will need to be loaded into cargo. That’s accessed on the lower level. But it’s sealed up at the moment. And I’m not opening it before I see a duly registered Statement of Contents.”
She didn’t even know there was such a thing, or that she might need it. Then again, she’d never expected to have to deal with cargo at all. “I can’t…” She really ought to have eaten something that morning. “I can’t leave it behind. Is there time to open the cargo access?” She thought she was standing quite still, but she must have moved the hand that rested on the crate, because now it slid forward. She grabbed for it.
Captain Uisine laid a hand on it to stop and steady it. “Plenty of time. Departure’s delayed. Have you not checked your notifications? We’re here another two days.”
“Two days!” It didn’t seem possible. She summoned her notifications to her vision, and saw what she would have seen immediately if she’d checked her personal messages – a brief, bare note about the delay, from Captain Tic Uisine. Unavoidable delay, the note called it, due to current events.
Current events. Of course. Ingray pulled up the news, looked closer at the information about the Geck diplomatic mission. Which mentioned, quite clearly but further in than she’d bothered to look, that arrivals and departures were being rearranged to fit the Geck in as quickly and safely as possible.