Up Against It - M. J. Locke [36]
She exited. Sounds of machines and human voices wobbled through the big space, echoing back on themselves. But it was quieter than usual. Many companies had cut back their Hub activities over the past two days, to conserve power. She had forgotten—temperatures were dropping. In her rush to get back to the office she had not dressed warmly under her suit. And, she realized, she had also left her bag of spare clothing and toiletries at home. Jane swore. She shot Xuan a request to bring it tonight, drifting very slowly toward the bulkhead, in this one Zekeston area that felt Phocaea’s true gravitational pull. Then she disconnected, and moved away from the lifts.
She noted that the air was rather humid. The vitamin-y smell of YuanBioPharma’s vents came to her, and a whiff of mingled antiseptic and urine from the nearby hospital. And machine oils, of course. Perhaps a hint of mercaptans. The mercaptans could mean any number of things, including merely that a Jovian methane harvester had just unloaded cargo. But it also could mean they had cut back too far on the bug flow to the sewage recyclers, down on the high-gee city Rim. If that were the case and she was smelling it here, it would need attention right away. Jane shot a note to Aaron, who was in charge of city assemblyworks and utilities. Aaron’s answer came within seconds: I’ll get right on it.
She spotted Marty waiting off to one side. He kicked over and beamed her a copy of her speech for the memorial, along with a summary of messages she’d received. Among others, she’d had calls from twelve senior political staffers; four CEOs, two of them from local corporations; the city hospital administrator; and a partridge in a pear tree. She sighed. Full day ahead, simply responding to calls. Never mind all the meetings, e-mails, and emergency requests for information that had to be processed, dealt with, and/or delegated.
She gestured at the handles on her pack. “Care for a lift?”
He grinned. “Beats crawling along the webbing.” Marty took hold of the handles of her suit, and she set out, using her compressed-air pack to cross the space, dodging machinery and commuters.
Jane was cheating. Commuters were supposed to stick to the webworks. But they weren’t the only ones afloat in midspace. Today there were many more commuters than dock machines. People flooded out of the lifts like waves of bees. Most were carrying luggage: migrating in from the burbs. They far outnumbered the pneumatic-powered robotics that carted shipment crates to and from Zekeston’s freight lifts. Most of the cargo machines were locked in place near the Hub docks like rows of insectoid tin soldiers.
Marty tapped her shoulder and pointed. Some of the commuters were armed—she spotted several pistols at people’s hips, a rifle or two slung over shoulders, and some makeshift weapons built from various types of hand tools.
“Notify Commissioner Pearce?” he asked.
“Right away. We start rationing today. There could be trouble. We’ll need Security to disarm people as they show up to get their supplies.”
Jane warmed up as she and Marty headed up Easy Spoke, using handholds and the leap-rebound-tumble-leap gymnastics that served for pedestrian transit in the lower-gee section of the spokeway. As they dropped past multiple levels, Jane saw squatters and their mech sapients pitching tents and other privacy screens in the public spaces. It was going to get crowded in here.
At around Level 50, they swung over to the stairway and walked the rest of the way down to Level 60, where the memorial was to be held. Gee pull here was about one-fifth of a gee; stronger than the moon’s gravity. Jane told Marty, as he started to head off, “Schedule calls for sometime today, if possible, with Johnston and Malachi”—the two local CEOs who’d called her—“and Kazuo,” the hospital administrator. “And a meatspace meeting with Hiro Matsuko immediately after the memorial.”
“Right.”
“And see if you can find me a sweater or long-sleeved shirt or something, would you?”
“You got it.”
“Oh, did you arrange for seats for the Agres?