A couple of million kay out, Ram's men boarded a well-stocked lifeboat and headed back to a prearranged pick-up. The Raven settled into outbound, Brad aware of an opportunity to merge with traffic at a not too distant spunnel gate.
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Brad brought his mind back to the present as the flitter settled on the landing pad near air lock 22. Entering the pressure compartment and attaining atmospheric balance the Sentinels removed their suits and sealed them in wall lockers. The switch of weapons and holsters to clips on their inner coveralls completed, they strolled out of the storage room and mingled with a throng of citizen commuters. Moments later they were on a moving transit strip on their way to beautiful downtown Coldfield.
The strip cut across and through narrow streets and alleys lined with huts fused from the gray detritus of the planet.
Occasionally, a mall or square appeared along the transit route, lined with workshops, playgrounds, and colorful private houses or apartment complexes. Occasionally, they passed a dwarf tree or a flowering shrub in an earth-filled container.
Running and leaping alongside the moving strip as it passed slowly through stations, hawkers waved and shouted at the commuters and passers-by, inviting them to examine and purchase the novelties and artefacts they waved about or in nearby open air stalls. From above, lighted globes, strung close beneath the dome, cast a harsh, grotesque glare across the city.
People swarmed, and a raucous clamor shrilled along the tightly packed streets and alleys. Men, women and children in all shapes and sizes: tall, short, stocky, slender, organic, bionic, robotic, and combinations thereof. Hairstyles ranged from totally shaved skulls to elaborate hair-puffs, and garments from dreary, simple shifts to flamboyant, complex robes that twisted, circled, and knotted around their wearers.
This was Planet Pluto post-secession: a mixture of migrants from across the system. The tank town took them all, for itself or for Slingshot, or both. Those who stayed procreated, natural or clone, according to their customs or inclinations. The effect was a mixture of breeds whose interactions had brought out a bewildering patchwork of hybrid cults, philosophies and arts. Behavior ran the gamut; newcomers accepted or were overwhelmed.
Kumiko pointed ahead. The Condor loomed, a sprawling, multi-storied, down-at-the heels apartment-hotel, its surface colors akin to the low, drab rise on which it stood.
Disembarking the strip, the companions assembled, slipped into an alley and entered a portal into the crowded lobby. Joining the laughing, chattering throng, they squeezed their way to the desk robot, and registered as a group. Individual identicards ejected from an aperture, assigning them to a small apartment with sleeping cubicles off a common room. The communal lavatory and electronic bio-shower were down the hall.