Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [61]
They ducked through the flex tube and into the transfer station proper. Leo headed for the elevator stack that ran up—or down—the length of the spoke to the rim where the transient rest cubicles were to be found.
Leo waited for an empty elevator. But it stopped again, and others boarded. Leo had a brief spasm of terror that Silver might try to strike up a friendly conversation—he should have told her explicitly not to talk to strangers—but she maintained a shy reserve. Transfer station personnel gave them a few uncomfortable covert stares, but Leo gazed coldly at the wall and no one attempted to broach the silence.
Leo staggered, exiting the elevator at the outer rim where the gee forces were maximized. Little though he wished to admit it, three months of null-gee deconditioning had had its inevitable effect. But at half-gee, Silver's weight didn't even bring their combined total up to his Earthside norm, Leo told himself sternly. He shuffled off as rapidly as possible away from the populated foyer.
Leo knocked on the numbered cubicle door. It slid open. A male voice: "Yeah, what?" They had cornered the jump pilot. Leo plastered an inviting smile on his face, and they entered.
Ti was propped up on the bed, dressed in dark trousers, T-shirt, and socks, idly scanning a hand-viewer. He glanced up in mild irritation at Leo, unfamiliar to him, then his eyes widened as he saw Silver. Leo dumped Silver as unceremoniously as a cat on the foot of the bed, and plopped into the cubicle's sole chair to catch his breath. "Ti Gulik. Gotta talk to you."
Ti had recoiled to the head of the bed, knees drawn up, hand viewer rolled aside and forgotten. "Silver! What the hell are you doing here? Who's this guy?" He jerked a thumb at Leo.
"Tony's welding teacher. Leo Graf," answered Silver smearily. Experimentally, she rolled over and pushed her torso upright with her upper hands. "This feels weird." She raised her upper hands, balancing, Leo thought, for all the world like a seal on a tripod formed by her lower arms. "Huh." She returned her upper hands to the bed, to lend support, achieving a dog-like posture, fine hair flattened, all her grace stolen by gravity. No doubt about it, quaddies belonged in null-gee.
"We need your help, Lieutenant Gulik," Leo began as soon as he could. "Desperately."
"Who's we?" asked Ti suspiciously.
"The quaddies."
"Hah," said Ti darkly. "Well, the first thing I would like to point out is that I am not Lieutenant Gulik any more. I'm plain Ti Gulik, unemployed, and quite possibly unemployable. Thanks to the quaddies. Or at any rate, one quaddie." He frowned at Silver.
"I told them it wasn't your fault," said Silver. "They wouldn't listen to me."
"You might at least have covered for me," said Ti petulantly. "You owed me that much."
He might as well have hit her, from the look on her face. "Back off, Gulik," Leo growled. "Silver was drugged and tortured to extract that confession. Seems to me any owing in here goes in the other direction."
Ti flushed. Leo bit back his annoyance. They couldn't afford to piss off the jump pilot; they needed him too much. Besides, this wasn't the conversation Leo had rehearsed. Ti should be leaping through hoops for those morning-glory eyes of Silver's, the psychology of reward and all that—surely he must respond to a plea for her good. If the young lout didn't appreciate her, he didn't deserve to have her—Leo forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand.
"Have you heard about this new artificial gravity field technology yet?" Leo began again.
"Something," admitted Ti warily.
"Well, it's