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Authors: Alex Stewart
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my guess, however, it moved aside, apparently of its own volition, tugged by a rather down-at-heel fellow in early middle age, whose halitosis preceded him like an honor guard.
“Sorry mate, di’n’t see yer,” he said, ducking through and hoisting a bag to his shoulder, before disappearing down the corridor, whistling. Since no one else seemed in the least bit surprised by his sudden appearance, I surmised that this was a commonly used, though distinctly unofficial, short cut, and so it proved to be. Lowering my head I clambered through the gap, finding myself in a narrow space between two walls, stuffed with far too many things festooned with warning decals color-coded by the ways they could kill you. A chink of light showed just ahead of me, however, so after a moment’s fumbling I was able to push aside the twin of the panel behind me, and straighten up gratefully in the passageway beyond.
Which was, if anything, even narrower and more wretched than the one I’d just left, though no less densely populated. I glanced up and down it, seeking some clue as to which direction my aunt might have taken. More people seemed to be heading towards my right, and the illumination in that direction seemed a little brighter, so I headed that way, essentially just drifting with the current.
By now, it must be said, I was becoming more than a little irritated. I could, of course, simply have bounced her a message demanding to know where she was and what the hell she thought she was playing at, but I was damned if I’d give her the satisfaction. Besides, she might not tell me. I was beginning to get the feeling that this was some kind of test, and after the Naval Academy debacle, I wasn’t about to fail if I could help it.
The lights up ahead were getting brighter, and the ambient noise was growing too: the sort of diffuse assault on the eardrums that comes from a lot of people in a large enclosed space trying to make themselves heard over everyone else’s conversation. There seemed to be music, too, quite a lot of it, if you stretched your definition of tonality to the breaking point, competing for attention from a dozen different sources.
Suddenly, the narrow corridor opened out into a wide, high-ceilinged space, roughly the size of a sports stadium. What its original purpose had been, I had no idea, but the number of pipes converging here, many large enough to have driven a sled down, hinted at a storage tank of some sort. These days, however, it seemed to be a marketplace, the stalls of which stretched into the distance, laden down with goods and junk of all kinds. Some served food, and, prompted by my growling stomach, I fished a couple of coins from my pocket and approached the nearest, though not without a sense of trepidation.
“What can I do you for?” the proprietor asked, in professionally friendly tones, taking in the cut of my garments in a single practiced glance. “We got meat pies, cheese pies, veggie pies, cheese an’ veggie pies, meat an’ veggie pies, cheese an’ meat pies, or meat, cheese an’ veggie.” He paused for a moment, perhaps wondering if he should have added “pies” to the end of the last selection, in case I’d missed that small but vital point. “Or fruit pies,” he added as an afterthought, “if you was thinking more along dessert kind of lines.”
“What kind of meat?” I asked, and his face furrowed, as he calculated how much honesty would be required to effect a sale.
“Hard to say,” he said at last. “They’re more of a mixture than anythin’, tell you the truth.”
In the end it was my stomach that made the decision, rather than my brain, by cramping vigorously in response to the surprisingly appetizing aroma.
“Meat and veggie,” I said, feeling I could at least mitigate the damage by spreading it out among the food groups, and the proprietor nodded, his good graces assured by the prospect of immanent money.
“Don’t get many groundsiders down here,” he
“Sorry mate, di’n’t see yer,” he said, ducking through and hoisting a bag to his shoulder, before disappearing down the corridor, whistling. Since no one else seemed in the least bit surprised by his sudden appearance, I surmised that this was a commonly used, though distinctly unofficial, short cut, and so it proved to be. Lowering my head I clambered through the gap, finding myself in a narrow space between two walls, stuffed with far too many things festooned with warning decals color-coded by the ways they could kill you. A chink of light showed just ahead of me, however, so after a moment’s fumbling I was able to push aside the twin of the panel behind me, and straighten up gratefully in the passageway beyond.
Which was, if anything, even narrower and more wretched than the one I’d just left, though no less densely populated. I glanced up and down it, seeking some clue as to which direction my aunt might have taken. More people seemed to be heading towards my right, and the illumination in that direction seemed a little brighter, so I headed that way, essentially just drifting with the current.
By now, it must be said, I was becoming more than a little irritated. I could, of course, simply have bounced her a message demanding to know where she was and what the hell she thought she was playing at, but I was damned if I’d give her the satisfaction. Besides, she might not tell me. I was beginning to get the feeling that this was some kind of test, and after the Naval Academy debacle, I wasn’t about to fail if I could help it.
The lights up ahead were getting brighter, and the ambient noise was growing too: the sort of diffuse assault on the eardrums that comes from a lot of people in a large enclosed space trying to make themselves heard over everyone else’s conversation. There seemed to be music, too, quite a lot of it, if you stretched your definition of tonality to the breaking point, competing for attention from a dozen different sources.
Suddenly, the narrow corridor opened out into a wide, high-ceilinged space, roughly the size of a sports stadium. What its original purpose had been, I had no idea, but the number of pipes converging here, many large enough to have driven a sled down, hinted at a storage tank of some sort. These days, however, it seemed to be a marketplace, the stalls of which stretched into the distance, laden down with goods and junk of all kinds. Some served food, and, prompted by my growling stomach, I fished a couple of coins from my pocket and approached the nearest, though not without a sense of trepidation.
“What can I do you for?” the proprietor asked, in professionally friendly tones, taking in the cut of my garments in a single practiced glance. “We got meat pies, cheese pies, veggie pies, cheese an’ veggie pies, meat an’ veggie pies, cheese an’ meat pies, or meat, cheese an’ veggie.” He paused for a moment, perhaps wondering if he should have added “pies” to the end of the last selection, in case I’d missed that small but vital point. “Or fruit pies,” he added as an afterthought, “if you was thinking more along dessert kind of lines.”
“What kind of meat?” I asked, and his face furrowed, as he calculated how much honesty would be required to effect a sale.
“Hard to say,” he said at last. “They’re more of a mixture than anythin’, tell you the truth.”
In the end it was my stomach that made the decision, rather than my brain, by cramping vigorously in response to the surprisingly appetizing aroma.
“Meat and veggie,” I said, feeling I could at least mitigate the damage by spreading it out among the food groups, and the proprietor nodded, his good graces assured by the prospect of immanent money.
“Don’t get many groundsiders down here,” he
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