Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [37]
"I haven't seen a disposal unit anywhere," said Claire. "What else can we do with them?"
Tony's face screwed up with inner struggle. "Just leave it," he blurted. "On the floor. It's not like it's going to float off down the corridor and get into the air recirculation, here. Leave them all."
Claire gasped at this horrific, revolutionary idea. Tony, following up his own suggestion before his nerve failed, collected the four little wads and stuffed them into the far corner of the storage cubicle. He smiled shakily, in mixed guilt and elation. Claire eyed him in worry. Yes, the situation was extraordinary, but what if Tony was developing a habit of criminal behavior? Would he return to normal when they got—wherever they were going?
If they got wherever they were going. Claire pictured their pursuers following the dirty diapers, like a trail of flower petals dropped by that heroine in one of Silver's books, across half the galaxy. . . .
"If you've got him back together," said Tony with a nod at his son, "maybe we better start back toward the hangar. That mob of downsiders may be cleared out by now."
"How are we going to pick a shuttle this time?" asked Claire. "How will we know that it's not just going right back up to the Habitat—or taking up a cargo to be unloaded in the vacuum? If they vent the cargo bay into space while we're in it . . ."
Tony shook his head, lips tight. "I don't know. But Leo says—to solve a big problem, or complete a big project, the secret is to break it down into little parts and tackle them one at a time, in order. Let's—just get back to the hangar, first. And see if there's any shuttles there at all."
Claire nodded, paused. Andy was not the only one of them plagued by biology, she reflected grimly. "Tony, do you think we can find a toilet on the way back? I need to go."
"Yeah, me too," Tony admitted. "Did you see any on the way here?"
"No." Locating the facilities had not been uppermost on her mind then, on that nightmare journey, creeping over the floors, dodging hurrying downsiders, squeezing Andy tightly to her for fear that he might cry out. Claire wasn't even sure she could reconstruct the route they'd taken, when they'd been driven out of their first hiding place by the busy work crew descending upon their machines and powering them up—
"There's got to be something," Tony reasoned optimistically. "People work here."
"Not in this section," Claire noted, gazing out at the wall of storage cells across the aisle. "It's all robots."
"Back toward the hangar, then. Say . . ." his voice faltered. "Uh . . . do you happen to know what a gravity-field toilet chamber looks like? How do they manage? Air suction couldn't possibly fight the gee forces."
One of Silver's smuggled historical vid dramas had involved a scene with an outhouse, but Claire was certain that was obsolete technology. "I think they use water, somehow."
Tony wrinkled his nose, shrugged away his bafflement. "We'll figure it out." His eye fell rather wistfully on the little wad of diapers in the corner. "It's too bad . . ."
"No!" said Claire, revolted. "Or at least—at least let's try to find a toilet first."
"All right . . ."
A distant rhythmic tapping was growing louder. Tony, about to swing out on the ladder, muttered "Oops," and recoiled back into the cubicle. He held a finger to his lips, panic in his face, and they all scuttled to the back of the cell.
"Aaah?" said Andy. Claire snatched him up and stuffed the tip on one breast into his mouth. Full and bored, he declined to nurse, turning his head away. Claire let her T-shirt fall back down and tried to distract him by silently counting all his busy fingers. He too had become smudged with dirt, as she had; no big surprise, planets were made of dirt. Dirt looked better from a distance. Say, a couple of hundred kilometers. . . .
The tapping grew louder, passed under their cell, faded.
"Company security man," Tony whispered in Claire's ear.
She nodded, hardly daring to breathe. The tapping was from those hard downsider foot-coverings striking