Free Tripoint by C. J. Cherryh Page B

complete stop—and it also would do a full stop at any regular Section Center, but otherwise you just intercepted it when it made one of its scheduled rolling stops, stepped up as you grabbed the boarding rail, and stepped off the same way.
    One of those full stops was, of course, the station offices in blue sector. Marie got up, as the stop came up. He waited beside her, hanging onto the rail until the transport slowed down. A crowd was waiting to board, confronting a good number getting off. You could always figure that blue would be the highest traffic area on the station, give or take the insystemer bars at maindark or alterdark shift-change, or the occasional concert or public event: blue held all the station business offices, the administrative offices, the main branches of all the banks, the embassies and trade offices, the big corporate offices, and the station media centers. You saw people in business suits, people in coveralls—half the crowd carried computers or wire-ins, pocket-coms, you could take your pick of accountants and security officers, official types—those usually in single cab-cars that wove in and out of foot traffic, and hazardously close to the ped-transports: step off without looking and you could get flattened.
    Heart-stopping, close call, that, just then, cab and pedestrians, human noise of a sort you only heard in places this dense with people. It gave him the willies… just too many people, all at once, going in chaotic directions, not caring if they hit each other. Marie stepped off in the middle of it. He stepped off beside her, his eyes tracking oncoming traffic.
    “Straight on,” Marie said, as if she’d had an inborn sense where things were—or maybe she’d checked the charts. He hadn’t. He really didn’t like the jostling and the racket—he’d looked all along the dockside they passed for Corinthian patches, or for any reaction at all from Marie, as if she’d seen something or might be looking for something other than what she said, but Marie was cold and calm, all business, Marie tolerated people shoving into them, which was steadier nerves than he had, and fell back as the crowd surged toward the stopped transport. He caught his balance as a man shoved him, looked around for Marie as the transport started to roll, with people still trying to grab the rails and board.
    Marie was back on the transport.
    People shoved past him in a last-moment rush for available deck-space. He elbowed back and tried to catch the boarding rail, but others were in front of him and the transport was gathering speed, faster and faster.
    “Marie!” he yelled, knocked into a man in a suit, and into a rougher type, who elbowed him hard. He wasn’t interested in argument. He ran, chasing the transport in the wake it made in the crowd, knocked into a woman as they both made a frantic grab for the standing pole on the rear of the transport flatbed. He caught it, and clung to it.
    The woman had gone down. Others were helping her up, he saw them diminishing as, having gained the platform, he spared the glance back. He hoped the woman wasn’t hurt. He didn’t know what else he could have done, and he’d made it.
    Wobbly-kneed and out of breath, he excused himself past several pole-hangers on the standing-room-only transport, worked his way up to where Marie was standing, likewise holding to the pole.
    She awarded him a cold glance.
    “Dirty damned trick,” he panted. “I knocked a woman down, Marie! Where in hell do you think you’re going? Where’s this about appointments with Records?”
    “Did I bring you up to be naive?”
    “Dammit, you brought me up to tell the truth!”
    “That’s to me. Don’t expect any favors from the rest of the universe. Why don’t you jump off at the next stop?”
    “Because I didn’t lie to you! I want to help you! Can’t you take loyalty when you get it?”
    “I take it. For what it’s worth.”
    “God, Marie!” He couldn’t get his breath. He hung