Across the Spectrum by Pati Nagle, editors Deborah J. Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

as she
headed for the clearsteel door, her matter-of-fact brusqueness hiding her
breathless fears.
    She half expected to find the entrance lock-down engaged.
Like all structures this one had its own emergency aircleaner, its own
independent—if finite—power supply. But the door slid smoothly aside for her,
ejecting her out on the inner-ring walkway. Clearsteel lined that, too,
separating her from the open station core.
    But not blocking her view.
    At first all she saw was the movement. Down a few levels,
center west; she had to push against the clearsteel, craning her neck against
the arc of the inner ring and leaving smudges the autos would clean as soon as
she moved away. Center west, location of the finest residences and normally the
quietest slice of the station. Too far away to make out anything but the
activity, and a wrongness so unexpected that she literally couldn’t resolve
what she was seeing into an image that made sense.
    Nor did the alarms. The ones that had been going off for
some time now. Not the screeching you-might-die breach alarms, but the
swell-and-fade tones of the alarm that merely admitted something had happened,
and if you paid attention the station techheads would eventually tell you what
it was.
    Except . . . in the distance, Shadia thought
she heard shriller sounds. Harsher vicinity alarms, the ones that meant if you
were there to hear them, you might die anyway.
    Or already be dead.
    Duster reflexes kicked in, urging her to move off. The
dusters knew all the safest nooks and crannies of a station—the structural
strengths, the environmental neutral areas. She’d take the time to shout back
into the shop and release Amandajoy and the first jobber from their duties here
so they might secure the animals and follow if they wanted, but then she’d shed
her shallow perm facade and take back the duster ways that had served her so
well. Back to the east side.
    Wait a moment. Center west. The finest residences. The
luxury residences. Half my clients live there. Gite’s people. The Rowpins.
They’re perms . . . but they’re nice perms. Kind perms.
    Kind people.
    Shadia’s hand brushed over her vest, on which she’d recently
sewn an exotic bit of weaving. Meant to be a small spot of wall decor, and
acquired by Claire Rowpin on her latest off-station jaunt. She fingered the
newest bead in her hair, something the rrhy’s owner—a shy young man—had
hesitantly offered, noticing her fondness for such things. Just something he’d
had around the house, he’d said.
    She’d doubted it.
    She stuck her head back into the petcare facility, a
building unidentified from the outside by anything other than a utilitarian
number. “Something’s happened in center west,” she told Amandajoy, who’d
succeeded in calming Gite enough to secure him in his den-cage. The starkly
normal sounds of the cleaning machine emanated from Feef’s room; Shadia nodded
at it. “Let the ’jobber go home. You can go too, if you want.”
    “Don’t you want me to stay with the animals?” Amandajoy
asked, torturing the corner of her work apron into a twisted knot.
    Shadia couldn’t answer right away; it wasn’t the response
she’d expected. After a moment she said, “Yes, I do. But it’s up to you.”
    “I’ll stay, then,” Amandajoy said, not hesitating. “I don’t
want to leave them alone, and people might call in and get worried.”
    “Turn on the gridnews,” Shadia said, and left. Still feeling
the tug of the east side. . . and still headed for center west. Not even sure
why, only that the tug was somehow—frustratingly—stronger. Within moments—still
true to duster ways in this, at least—she’d slipped down the maintenance poles
few perms even knew existed and re-entered the inner ring several levels below
her own. New territory.
    Chaos prevailed. Perms running away from the alarms, other
perms running toward them. Perms crying and stark-faced and grim. Uniformed
station personnel muttering