Kaspar's Box

The terminal wasn't really a passenger terminal, either, although it had a small section for that. Mostly it was for captains of orbiting freighters to check in, get their records and orders and bills of lading straight, and to arrange to have whatever part of their cargo was destined for here off-loaded by tugs and delivered to the right docks or for the cargo to be picked up to be put aboard. Only small vessels like port tugs and the occasional shuttle came through this area; there was a commercial passenger shuttle bay on the other side for the use of such passengers when a liner or fully equipped passenger module on a freighter was available.

A woman with short hair and dark skin and eyes wearing a lime green uniform approached them, nodded crisply, and said, "Military shuttle passengers follow me, please!"

Maslovic couldn't help noticing that the woman, clearly Customs and Immigration, had given a more than cursory glance at the three pregnant young women and there was a fleeting look of surprise, perhaps disdain, when she'd done that.

If anyone was here to meet the passengers, clearly they weren't going to be wearing a uniform.

The young woman punched in a code and a sliding door opened on the far wall to reveal a moving walkway. "Does anyone need to sit down?" she asked. "You can pull down seats if you like from the far wall, but please do not touch the area outside of the walkway."

The three young women all looked more than relieved and, when they followed the leaders onto the belt, immediately pulled down the hinged seats and sat.

As they went, they were scanned as thoroughly as they ever had been in their lives. By the time they reached the end point of the walkway, perhaps a kilometer or so, the master Customs and Immigration computers could tell them how many hairs they had on their heads (if they had any), where their scars were, what they'd had for breakfast, and almost everything else. At the end, each of them had to stand and place their right index fingers in a small fitted slot before moving on. Although none felt a thing, their genetic histories were now added to the files.

It ended at an unstaffed set of kiosks. A green light would go on, and you had to enter, one at a time. Lieutenant Chung was first, depositing the credit and authorization cube from the shuttle. It would allow the navy pair to charge throughout the city region and order whatever maintenance was necessary on the shuttle. The others were simply asked by a disembodied voice to state their full names, their planet of origin, and how long they would be on Barnum's World. The girls were told to say "We don't know at this time," to that, which resulted in a warning that they had a week to find out and notify authorities or they would be located and deported.

There was nothing else required of them. No matter where they went on Barnum's World from this point, their own DNA matched to the database just compiled would be known, and their every move tracked within the city. Outside of the city, the transport would be known, so that authorities generally could find them as needed.

The one thing the girls couldn't do was buy anything. That made them totally dependent on Murphy for now, or on whoever might meet them. Murphy wasn't all that worried about that part of it. Even on their own, he bet himself that the girls and their funny gemstones would allow them to buy almost anything they wanted without the transaction ever even registering. When you took over a naval frigate, what was a government tracking system?

For all the precautions taken, and this was typical of modern, well-run colonies now, even Murphy knew how to bypass almost every system they had, and he didn't even have to.

Finally, they reached another double door setup quite like the last part but this time much cleaner and better maintained. When they went through the second of them, though, they were back into the hot, humid, and smelly air of Barnum's World and now facing transport into the city. It ranged from robotic taxis and a basic mass transit train to the more exotic. There were carts about, and carriages, and all sorts of other conveyances, which were in many cases pulled by great beasts the likes of which none but Murphy had ever seen before. Elephants, both Indian and African type, and camels, among others.

"There's some of the smell, ladies," he told them, pointing. "The local cheap and scenic route."

They just gaped at it all, the taxis and trains as exotic as the bizarre animals, unable to take it in.

"Welcome to Barnum's World," said Captain Murphy.

VI: THE ORDER OF SAINT PHINEAS

The maglev train, with no sound to speak of and no obvious driver, pulled into the station and came to an equally silent stop and opened its sliding doors.

"Is it alive?" Mary Margaret wanted to know.

"Of course not!" Sergeant Maslovic responded, sounding amused. "You've never seen a train before?"