Rob Chilson - Refuge

Ariel could not care less about Earth’s rumors. “The important thing is to get back into space,” she said.

“You’re right,” Derec said. “I’m more than tired of concrete caves and the troglodytes that live in them.” She smiled fleetingly at the term. “So the third thing is to find out how to get to the spaceport. The first being to have those directions to the nearest Personal repeated, and the second, to find a shoe store.”

Ariel grimaced, but said, “You’re right.”

When put to the question, R. David said, “The spaceport is located near New York, Miss Avery.”

They looked at each other blankly. Of course they knew that there were eight hundred Cities on Earth. They had been thinking in terms of one giant City covering all Earth, the natural extension of their Earthly experience.

“What City is this, then?” Ariel asked.

“The City of Saint Louis,” said R. David. “It is on the same continent as New York, so travel is facilitated. One may take the train, and for a third of the distance the way is enclosed and roofed over. Ittakes less than twelve hours-half an Earthly rotation, Mr. Avery.” He had detected the question on Derec’s face.

Ariel had no idea what a “train” might be, and wasn’t happy about its being enclosed-she visualized something like the expressway. She looked at Derec, who looked equally unhappy.

“Do we have the money-the rating or whatever-to go on the train?” Derec asked dubiously.

R. David said, “Your travel vouchers have not been touched, but I believe there is an inadequate amount. As Fours, you do not rate much, nor do many Earth people often travel between Cities.”

“Even though we are Transients?”

“You are Transients in this sector, but not necessarily in this City.”

“We’d better visit the Personal first,” said Ariel tiredly. “We’ll think it over when we get back.”

R. David repeated his directions to the Personals, which turned out to be in opposite directions. Rather reluctantly, they split up, and Derec left with a backward glance. Ariel walked slowly toward the women’s Personal, hoping Derec’s stockinged feet would not be too noticeable.

Since this was the Personal assigned to her, Ariel found a shower cubby with the same number as the one on her tag, and took a shower. Again, no towels; she saw a woman carrying a little cloth satchel into a similar cubby and presumed it contained a towel, combs, and so on. She wouldn’t need one, as short a time as they expected to be on Earth. She had, of course, brought a comb, though she should see about getting a brush. Fortunately, her hair wasn’t long.

She made her way back to Sub-Section G, Corridor M, Sub-Corridor 16, Apartment 21, without difficulty, hardly seeing the crowds of Earthers who swarmed through the passageways.

Derec was back before her and full of energy. Despite their brush with the mob, he wanted to go check out the “train station.” He was careful not to say so in front of R. David, who might think it dangerous, but she thought he wanted to see if they could devise a method of stowing away.

Showing them on the map, R. David gave them directions that would take them, by the route they had previously followed, to Old Town and something called the Gateway Arch Plaza. The station was beneath that. They would pass several shoe stores on the way.

Ariel felt distinctly nervous as they threaded their way again through the corridors to the junction and took the down ramp, but nobody paid any attention to them. She would have liked to have changed clothes, but their shipsuits were all they had, and they weren’t all that conspicuous. It still wasn’t rush hour, so they had the freedom of the express platforms, and went straight up to them on the eastbound side.

The clerk in the shoe store was a human, a plump, youngish woman, older than Ariel. She quirked her mouth in a half-humorous fashion at Derec’s socks and said, “Been running the strips, eh?” She produced neat, cheap shoes expeditiously, checked his ration tag in her machine, accepted the money tag, and waved them away, calling, “Next time be more careful of the edges!”

Back to the expressway.

She heard Derec’s breath speed up beside her, as Old Town Sector came rushing toward them, but they saw none of the yeast farmers from before-less than an hour ago.

“I’ll walk the rest of the way before I’ll ride this thing into-Yeast Town,” she said, leaning over to shout at Derec.

“Yeah,” he said weakly. Ariel saw that he was staring up at the high ceiling, which was higher here than in Webster Groves. There was probably nothing overhead but the roof of the City, for here the ways were in a great slash through the building blocks. No matter-he was having a claustrophobic attack.

Ariel sympathized-she had had several of them herself. At the moment it was the crowds, not the oppressive buildings, that made her own breath come short.

Before she could attempt to reassure him, Derec gripped her arm and pointed: Gateway-Arch Plaza Exit. They descended hastily and rode the ramp down under the ways, found a sign pointing north, and followed it to a localway, also plainly marked.

Presently they entered the Gateway-Arch Plaza.

It was enormous. Gaping like rubes, they stepped out of the way of swarms of chattering Earthers, and frankly stared. The Gateway Arch itself was smaller, perhaps, than the Pillar of the Dawn on Aurora that commemorated the early pioneers, and surely was less moving than the memorial at the pillar’s base, where outstanding men and women of each generation were honored. But at a hundred ninety meters tall, the arch was no small monument. Its span was nearly equal to its height, and the roof was another ten meters above it. It was all matte stainless steel, ancient looking but in good repair.

The room that enclosed the whole mastodonic fabrication was commensurate in size, over two hundred meters in diameter, its circular walls a cliff of concrete and metal around the arch. This cliff was covered with the balconies of high-rated apartments.

Derec walked boldly toward the lower area between the feet of the arch, and Ariel followed, inwardly amused at the awe on the faces of some of the Earthmen-some showed unmistakable signs of agoraphobia, exposed to this much open space.

Below the arch was a museum dating from pre-spaceflight times, which might have been interesting, but they were looking for a train station. Quietly determined to ask no directions, they wasted half an hour, some of it in looking at exhibits. Ariel was struck by the unfinished look of the items people used in the pre-industrial age, all made by crude hand methods. Derec pointed out a plaque that stated that, in the old days, citizens had ridden a sort of tramway up inside the arch

“Agoraphobia,” he said, echoing her thought.

Ariel nodded and led him briskly out of the museum. It felt like underground to her, and the crowds of Earthers swarming around were bringing on another claustrophobic attack. She felt much more sympathetic to them and less inclined to sneer at Earthly phobias.

They had to leave the plaza itself to find the route to the station; they had been following the plaza signs and hadn’t noticed the station signs when they left the localway. The station was a level or two deeper, and a different route took them there.

There were fewer people here, but below the passenger level they found a series of freightways crisscrossing the City, which carried heavy items in bulk containers. Many men in rough clothing rode these ways in handling carts, shunting the big containers off the belts at their destinations. These freightways all traveled at a walking pace, no more.

At the station they also found the terminus of a tube system for small capsules. Letters and small items-parcel post-could be blown about the City very rapidly by this system, and Derec became quite excited by it.