Starliner(16)
Like her husband, the woman was well into middle age, overweight, and as desperately good-natured as a puppy. She was dressed in high style, a pleated dress of natural linen and a great deal of gold and faience jewelry, both mimicking Egyptian taste of the Amarna Period. She was obviously uncomfortable in such garb, but she was determined to be In on the voyage of a lifetime.
"Stateroom eight-two-four-one," said the artificial intelligence. "There has been a double booking. The Purser has requested aid."
The man's camera was a skeletonized handgrip supporting a body the size of a walnut. The triple lenses were of optical fibers as fine as spidersilk, with a 150-mm spread to create a three-dimensional image. The unit whirred as Ran turned to the woman and kissed the tips of her fingers. "Madam, sir," he said with a broad smile. "Enjoy your voyage on the finest vessel in the galaxy!"
Ran spun on his heel and strode from the Social Hall with a set expression that dissuaded other passengers from accosting him. Three steps along, he realized that he'd forgotten to turn the cleaning robot back on.
The hell with it. That was a problem the stewards could handle.
* * *
The prefix 8 indicated a First Class cabin. 241 was a location: Deck B, starboard rank. Deck A cabins were often thought to be the premium units because entrances to the main public rooms were off that lower deck, but a number of sophisticated travelers preferred the higher level for just that reason. Traffic in Deck B corridors was only a small fraction of that on A.
Passengers, stewards, and luggage on static-repulsion floats littered the halls in sluggish movement, like cells in human blood vessels. Cabin doors stood open as stewards fed cases inside one at a time while occupants discussed shrilly where the items should be stowed. It would all get where it was going, eventually; but Ran Colville at the moment regarded the bustle as a moving obstacle course.
A party of Rialvans stood with their backs to the stretch of balcony overlooking the Dining Salon. They waited stolidly while, across the corridor, the dominant Rialvan female looked over their two-cabin suite with the steward. The process might take more than an hour, but it wasn't a problem. The heavy-bodied Rialvans were painstaking to a degree that would be considered insane in any human culture, but they tipped well and they never made active problems for the staff.
No, the trouble was down toward the end of the corridor. Two stewards, dark-skinned men from New Sarawak like most of the Trident cabin staff, snapped to attention when Ran appeared—not because of his rank, but because they were so glad to pass the problem on to someone else.
A pair of male passengers, Caucasians who looked to be about 70 years old, waited in the corridor as well. One of them was a trim, tall man who stood with military stiffness. His fellow was short, soft, bald, and seated on a cabin trunk. The plump man leaned against the corridor wall—a mural of a prairie in late summer, with the milkweed pods beginning to open—with his right ankle crossed over his left knee.
"Ah," said the tall passenger as he noticed Ran. "Lieutenant, I believe? Very good to see you. I'm Richard Wade, this is my friend Tom Belgeddes—"
The shorter man grunted to his feet. "Charmed," he said in a friendly tone. He sounded rather as if he meant something more than conventional pleasantry.
"—and there seems to be a bit of a problem with our cabin," Wade continued without having paused for his friend to speak.
The cabin door was open. Another man popped his head out, then disappeared back inside.
"You'll take it from here, sir?" a steward asked Ran.
"Stick around," Ran replied. "There's going to be some luggage to move in a little bit."
He stood in the doorway. Wade and Belgeddes closed in to either side, making it look as though the Third Officer was the shock troop for their point of view—which was the last thing the situation called for. Ran stepped into the cabin and switched the door down behind him, closing the passengers out in the, corridor.
Luggage, much of it in the form of bales and packets instead of purpose-built cases, filled the center of the bed-sitting room. A family of six was positioned around the gear like the Huns at Chalons prepared to defend their leader on a pile of saddles.
"I am Parvashtisinga Sadek," announced the man who'd looked into the corridor. "This is my cabin. See!"
He offered Ran his ticket, a data crystal etched on the outside with the company's trident. The crystal was a wafer, 1-cm by 2. Its information could have been contained on a microscopic speck: the additional size was necessary for handling by life-forms rather than by computers.
Ran put the ticket in the palm-sized reader on his belt and projected the data in the form of a hologram that hung forty centimeters in front of his eyes. It was an Earth to Tellichery ticket, via the Empress of Earth in Cabin 8241, with everything in order. Five-person occupancy, which might be arguable, but a babe in arms would normally travel free. Date of issue was the twelfth of last month, three weeks before. The only unusual circumstance was that the ticket had been cut on Am al-Mahdi rather than either of the terminus worlds.