Free Mary Rosenblum by Horizons

to the touch. “Don’t wrap it,” she told the woman as she started to fold the sari. “I think I’ll wear it right now.”
     
    “Oh, what a marvelous idea!” the woman gushed. “You’ll look lovely in it and it’s quite secure in microG
    with the hidden closures. Are you headed to a Platform?”
    “Dragon Home.” Ahni nodded and palmed the milky oval of the reader set into the counter. It chimed completion of her purrchase as the woman scooped the sari and shirt into her arms. ”We have a fitting room here.”
    Ahni followed her into a curtained alcove lined with mirrors and hangers for garments. She stripped awkwardly, even with the woman’s deft hand to keep her from drifting, pulled the shirt on over her head, and let the woman wrap the sari around her. Hissing softly to herself, the shopkeeper tucked and arranged the drape of the fabric to her satisfaction, fastening it into place so that it wouldn’t float too freely. “You can open the fasteners when you reach Dragon Home,” she said as she pushed herself away to eye Ahni critically. “It looks even better on you than I expected.”
    It looked lovely, Ahni thought absently. She stretched her senses, searching for a hunter’s cold purpose, felt only the white noise of a crowded travel plaza–weariness, expectation, nausea in microG, and annoyance. The woman continued to gush compliments, hands clasped, her smile as bright as the ruby fiberlight inlay on her forehead, shaped to resemble a caste mark. Ahni studied her reflection briefly. The sari would confuse her pursuers briefly. She bought a scarf on the way out, pinned it into her hair, sloppily so that it drifted across her face. Waved away the shopkeeper’s clucking attempt to fix it. Many Moslem women wore decorative head scarves and it added to the distraction. The shopkeeper graciously packed her discarded singlesuit into a shopping bag with the shop’s logo prominently glowing in fiberlight script, handed it to her with a bow.
    Leaving the woman reciting blessings on her health and future, Ahni proceeded down the corridor, senses alert, feeling less conspicuous. She passed a string of offices, a flower seller’s shop, a small tea and coffee bar featuring Turkish pastries, and exited into the main travel plaza, her senses alert.
    Passengers emerged from an arriving climber, while others waited to board for the trip down, or purchased tickets from the many kiosk screens scattered at all levels about the room. Ahni made her way to the nearest screen, her body language hesitant and awkward, a tourist, unfamiliar in microG. She touched in her ticket purchase, using an anonymous cash card. She received her Economy Class ticket and struggled across the crowded plaza along the guiding handrails, pausing to bend over a small, wide-eyed child and smile, a doting auntie to any onlooker, a tourist on her way home from a first time in Near Earth, bringing souvenirs for those at home.
    Ahni let hurrying families haul themselves along the handrails past her, scolding their playful children, slowing her down, getting in her way, leaving this timid auntie confused and blinking as the shimmering holo clocks blinked closer to departure time, a look of helplessness and mild dismay on her face. She hesitated, pretending to rearrange a fold of her sari. Almost time … A couple of hurryying latecomers scurried through the gate and entered the car.
    Now.
    Lifting her head, she pulled herself forward, ignoring the uniiformed attendant who pushed off to stop her. He raised his voice, his irritation hidden behind a polite face, thinking her deaf, or stupid and she gave him the confused, obedient expression he expected, used his instant relaxation to duck around him, grab the bar, and fire herself through the entry port. The closing doors hissed, halted, opened for her, then closed again, right in the face of the pursuing attendant.
    He could stop the climber, hold up the trip, but that would afffect the schedule