Engineman - Eric Brown [28]
Her thoughts were interrupted by the activation of the interface. The blue light flickered and coruscated briefly, hinting at the vaguest outline of the 'port on the other side - then disappeared to be replaced by the rain-slicked tarmac, dull terminal building and overcast sky of Carey's Sanctuary. The slit portals and viewscreens in the frame of the interface glowed warm and yellow against the grey winter scene beyond.
The call went out for travellers to Carey's Sanctuary to assemble at the identity check-point. Perhaps fifty people stood and gathered their possessions. Ella remained seated, watching her fellow travellers move in line towards and through the security check. There were few families making their way to Sanctuary; the majority of travellers seemed to be business-people and soldiers in uniform.
Ella shouldered her bag and tagged onto the end of the queue, her pass and identity card at the ready. The Swedish courier was smiling them through. "I trust you've enjoyed your stay on A-Long-Way-From-Home, or if you were a transit traveller that you might return one day to enjoy our hospitality. Thank you."
Ella was the last traveller through.
"Excuse me," the courier said. "I thought you might like this. I found it in lost property." The women held out a black synthetic-leather jacket. 'Sanctuary is a Danzig-run world, they might give you a hard time if they knew you were a Disciple." She indicated the infinity symbol tattooed on Ella's arm.
"Thank you." Ella accepted the jacket. "That bad, is it?"
"They're clamping down on the passage of Disciples, E-men and -women to the Rim," the courier said. "At least this'll cover your tattoo."
Ella smiled and shrugged on the jacket. As she was zipping it, she saw the frayed name-tag on the chest of her silvers. She looked up at the Swede, who was watching her still - then ripped off the tag and handed it to the woman.
"Here," she said, "you might as well have this."
She hurried through the identity check.
A hover-coach carried them in a long arc across the tarmac to the interface, where it idled in a convoy of wheeled vehicles and hover-trucks passing though the 'face, ball-lightning sparking off their outlines as they made the transition. The coach edged slowly forward.
Ella watched the passengers seated before her pass though the advancing membrane of the interface. She awaited her turn with the kind of trepidation she had once experienced when awaiting surgery - the awareness that what was about to happen might go wrong, would be painful, but at the same time was necessary. Not many people had actually perished travelling this way, at least not since the early days, but it was the physical sensation of the process that scared Ella, rather than the danger of an accident. She tried to recall the sensation from the last time she'd interfaced, but she found the recollection of pain impossible - which in a way made the anticipation all the harder to bear. All she knew was that it hurt.
The man in the seat before her braced himself at the approach of the hazy membrane that hung between A-Long-Way-From-Home and Sanctuary. Silver lights outlined him briefly, and then he was on the other side. Ella took a deep breath as the interface hit her. The pain was intense, but mercifully fleeting - though in retrospect it seemed to go on forever. Cruel, invisible hands reached into her body and squeezed her vital organs. Nausea swept through her in a hot wave and she gasped.
Then she was on Carey's Sanctuary, and the pain was a thing of the past.
The portal deactivated with a swift rushing sound like a thousand birds taking flight. The sunlight that had poured through the interface was suddenly extinguished, and the blue light of the deactivated 'face washed over the coach as it crossed the spaceport towards the terminal building. A fine rain misted from the overcast