the patterns and the platform began rising. She quickly experimented to learn the correct procedures and the three of them began a descent.
The elevator platform did not have gravity plates, causing Fidelity and Rafael to barely retain contact with the descending surface. They used anchor loops on the surface of the elevator deck to put their toes into to hold them down. Samson held tightly to Fidelity.
They descended through the floor of the shipping room into a smaller chamber below, where pipes of every size and color curved and bent in every direction around its perimeter. They landed upon a four-sided dock among miscellaneous packages stacked in neat zones for shipment in or out of the museum. A single freight vehicle rested along one of the four sides of the dock. One of its hatches was open. It was not obvious to Fidelity where the tube-shaped vehicle entered and exited the museum. Its probable function as a cargo transport was only confirmed by looking inside the open hatch. A few packages of varying shapes and sizes were carefully stowed within. She urged Rafael to climb in with Samson as she studied the controls next to the hatch.
The transport cylinder was an ancient vehicle, judging from the streaks of wear along its length. Modifications had been made to the controls. Handwriting in old English next to the hatch described the functions of simple toggle switches which had been crudely added next to the smooth blank surface of the original control panel. Each toggle-switch function was well-described and the sequence was clear, but the names of one row of switches were abbreviated to the point of being useless. Those switch names had to be destinations.
Someone was coming. In the silence of the freight terminal faint sounds became less faint as they echoed in the distance from the maintenance passageways and traveled into the freight terminal through the elevator opening above them. Fidelity had to make a guess for a destination and flipped the switch at the end of the row. A slight bobbing motion of the vehicle gave Fidelity a clue to its readiness and its direction of exit - downward. She entered the hatch quickly and struggled to gain leverage to swing the hatch door shut. Just before closing the hatch completely, she flipped the sequence of switches to start the vehicle. When she pulled the hatch closed, the cylindrical vehicle dropped.
It was dark in the vehicle and Fidelity could only see in infrared. The freight car was small, which made it easier to brace against the unpredictable motions. Fidelity found shipping blankets and straps with which she secured Samson and herself. Rafael fitted himself into a narrow space between wall protrusions. The transport ended its maneuvering and accelerated. Fidelity tried to analyze the route of the vehicle based on inertial clues but soon gave up. She could not remember seeing anything from the pedestrian walkways that could have been used by the freight vehicle as a right-of-way. Its shape had suggested it travelled within a tube but it might also travel in the large open spaces of this world. The freight car accelerated and decelerated several times, then the vehicle accelerated for a longer period of time, followed by coasting in zero gravity.
There had been clues of sound and motion from the beginning of the journey that the cargo vehicle operated in vacuum. She had noticed the hatch seals before entering the vehicle and judged them capable of holding back a vacuum. She hoped they would arrive somewhere before the oxygen in the vehicle was depleted. She listened for air leaks. She heard Rafael fall asleep. Samson had immediately gone off to sleep. She was as exhausted as they were but didn't think she could sleep. Her data augments were processing a massive amount of material but she let the processes fade from awareness.
= = =
Fidelity awoke when she felt the freight vehicle begin maneuvering again, perhaps to dock itself. When it settled into stillness she listened for sounds of activity outside the vehicle but heard nothing. She opened the hatch and saw the freight car was parked at one dock at the end of a row of nine. Except for the style of freight vehicle, it could have been any warehouse in any space city in the Union. Because of a rougher fit and finish to its construction, the warehouse did not seem like it was a product of the same people who built the Big Ball.
It was quiet. Samson and Rafael still slept. She sat by the hatch and watched and waited.
= = =
Percival followed the spiral of upward exodus from the Great Museum, feeling relieved yet disappointed. He knew he was a coward. He had many stupid notions fed to him by his studies of the dramatic arts and their supporting works of fiction. Fiction did apply to real life in important ways. Almost all of it cleverly - if perhaps too cleverly at times - pointed out the weaknesses and immorality of the human race, and it did not presume to command anyone to be strong and moral. Nor did the voice of the Quiet One command such qualities of him. Or did it? Was it too late now to change his course, to find some higher meaning to existence?
He stumbled along behind other museum patrons, his mind dwelling on the strangers, even though he should be trying to clean them entirely from his thoughts, to protect them, so the Fleet would not suspect him of hiding any information. Yet, their names stubbornly returned and remained in his mind, already miracles in themselves: Fidelity the woman, the warrior; the ancient man Rafael, so kind and vastly knowledgeable of art; and the boy Samson, the personification of innocence and victim, and curious about everything.
Percival almost wished he would have to tell the Fleet of Fidelity, so that she could make all of them see how inferior they were. But how could she protect Samson and Rafael? Only She- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could ultimately stop the Fleet, not that She ever would. No, the boy who had lost part of a leg deserved better from life. And even if the ancient Rafael had lived far longer than Percival thought necessary, he could not bear to see such a kind old man killed.
Rafael... That was the name of a very important artist. The old man had certainly known a great deal about art. Could he also be an artist? Could he be the artist?
Percival now had a dangerous thought. He paused at an information kiosk to look for the location of the works of the only Rafael he knew. He learned the location was along his route to the exit. He stopped at the location, entering a gallery of paintings and sculptures. He could only afford to stay for a few seconds, but a series of paintings of a brown woman in a yellow dress caught his attention. He thought the yellow dress could be identical to the one the woman Fidelity had worn, but the woman in the paintings was not her. He started to leave, unhappily disturbed by the yellow dress, when another portrait, larger and more prominently displayed, stopped him. Even as fear of the Fleet made him fight the urge, his feet took him closer to the portrait. It was magnificent, as if all the other yellow dresses had been prelude and practice for this one! This woman in the yellow dress was Fidelity! She was obviously a far more complex and important person than Percival could have imagined! And she seemed to be everything but a person of violence. He wept at this knowledge.
= = =
The Fleet found Percival on his knees before the painting. Blindly sensing their arrival he quickly arose and turned away from the profound portrait. He bumped into someone. The other person swore violently above the weak level of his attempted apology. A fist drove into his stomach, which was unprepared for the blow. Someone shoved him into the wall. The impact with the wall hardly registered. He fell to the floor on his knees, barely able to stop his face from hitting the floor. He spasmed across his midsection, trying to vomit and trying not to vomit. After he vomited he finally fought the pain to a draw. He listened to the silence and wondered if he was alone.
Percival saw no Fleet officers in the art gallery, so he struggled to his feet. Hands on knees, he saw blood among the vomit on the floor. He decided to leave before trying to find where the blood came from, although there was a clue from a spot above his left eye that it had struck something. Reaching the entrance to the gallery, he peered into the hallway. It was empty. He hobbled upward toward the exit of the museum.
"There he is!"
Percival started to run but quickly stopped and waited for the terror to become real. Two Fleet officers c
lamped hands on his upper arms and pushed him against the nearest wall.
"He nearly broke my nose!" a young Fleet officer complained.
"Caught you by surprise?" the other said derisively.
"Head-butted me!"
"It was an accident!" Percival tried to explain. "I didn't see you!"
Percival didn't notice the intended blow from the younger officer; he was trying to not look at their faces, trying to keep his head down and act subservient. The blow was blocked by the second officer.
"He can't talk if you knock his teeth into his throat! Calm down! Wait for Captain Sanda."
The third officer arrived many long moments later.
"Where was he?" Sanda asked.
"Some gallery down the way, sir," the young officer replied.
"What was he doing there?"
"Don't know, sir."
"Hiding?"
"No, sir. Just kneeling there in plain sight."
"Kneeling?"
"That's all I saw, sir," the young man answered defensively.
"There has to be a reason he was still in the building," the captain said impatiently. "Do you even know who we're looking for?"
"There was no woman in a-" The young officer halted in mid-sentence. "-yellow dress! He was kneeling in front of a picture of a woman in a yellow