The Ancient Girl in the Autopod by Cameron Cooper

Author:Cameron Cooper [Cooper, Cameron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stories Rule Press Inc.
Published: 2020-05-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

There was nothing to Chaniri except the spaceport and the support services surrounding it. Chaniri was valuable real estate because of its location, with no other charms worth exploiting. Even the mineral content of the rock ball was negligible.

Chaniri had made the most out of its one feature. The spaceport itself was huge, with dozens, sometimes hundreds of landings and takeoffs every standard day. A city of support services had grown up around the spaceport. Everyone who lived on Chaniri worked in the spaceport itself or one of the businesses that supported the spaceport and its steady stream of interstellar traffic.

It was an easy place to get lost in, which I counted upon.

Ninety-Nine and I separated as soon as we stepped out of El Marsa Mistress, and dived into the floodplain of people moving through the multiple concourses and halls. Ninety-Nine would do what I had instructed, which was what I was now doing—switching directions unexpectedly, going around in circles and checking for who was still behind me. Changing my mind mid-stride, turning and heading back the way I came.

Then I stopped at a food bar, bought a bowl of noodles and ate them while standing and leisurely people-watching.

I didn’t see any familiar faces.

At close to the appointed time, I strolled across the concourse, through a couple of halls and into the grandly named Manifest Mezzanine, where every commercial flight operator had a booth, if not a full-service store with hot and cold running clerks.

I made sure to cross beneath the quaint display of analogue clocks showing time zones of various destinations, that hung from the cavernous roof of the hall. On my third pass, I brushed by Ninety-Nine, who shook his head and turned in to follow me a pace or two back.

The headshake was superfluous. Not because I didn’t trust his abilities to sniff out a tail—which I didn’t, simply because he’d never done this before. As I was as sure as I could be that I didn’t have a tail, it was even more likely that Ninety-Nine didn’t have one.

We drifted along the rows of booths, browsing for passage to Achora Etriedes. I intended to go as a full-paying customer on a commercial liner this time. We’d cut off any pursuit and could openly board a ship along with the other passengers. I was also thinking about our arrival and possible reception when we reached Achora, too.

We could even use our IDs. The El Marsa Mistress had acted as a near perfect cut-off. The only thing that might spoil that would be if one of the crew spoke out of turn and the wrong people heard them.

Given the goodwill Ninety-Nine and I had generated by working just as hard as the crew, I was comfortably sure that even when (not if) the crew got roaring drunk tonight, they would still keep their mouths shut about the two strange passengers who had hitched a ride with them to Chaniri.

The little commercial company booths each displayed a readout of upcoming departure times and destinations.

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