The steward bangs on the door, and the door rattles each time his fist withdraws. The panels rattle even after his assault seems through, shaking. The hinges lift, long-battered and chipped, revealing an interior lined with tufts of lichen and moss. Mustiness huffs out. There is moisture. Insulation and pipes are covered with flecks of colored, glowing mold and are fixed inside the space between the walls,behind the hinges.
The door stops shaking. The hinges return to the covering, covering the neglect of many.
This is a darkness perfected by the galaxy's brightest engineers. The pipes, the insulation—all of it is penciled in a file in the depths of some database. The wetness is a mistake. The mistakes in the installation, or the lack of maintenance, should be reported, but they aren't and won't be for a time. A different perfected darkness, the silhouette upon the panels—the steward, raises his fist once more. And the hinges lift once more. And the mistakes are visible again.
"I'm coming inside," he says. "Or better yet, you come on out—I know the mud is off your face by now. I got techs on me that can't get wet, so come on out and let me finish the scans so I can move on. They say anyone who finds a stowaway gets bonus merits. Say you're a stowaway, you'll be found regardless of my finding you—I'll split the merits with you. If you're a stowaway, you'll need all the love you can get."
"That's what they say?" Hella asks from the other side of the door. Her next sentence, start to finish, is a lie. "We ain't stowaways, but it's good to know what they say."
"You can get in on it then," he says. "Good first impressions and all—as soon as I scan you and yours, I can show you the room with the visors and you can get to hunting too. Good way to start your career, especially if you can entertain the clients up-top on your recording."
"Hm…" She widens her eyes and looks at Oren. "You see why we couldn't wait? It's all games here. You would've been performing for years and we would've died—"
"The two of you wouldn't have died—"
"We would've died waiting on you," she finishes.
The door rattles again. "I have people waiting," the steward says.
"We're coming!" Oren shouts, but he shouts as if a maiden of some court. "My sister and brother are almost through with the mud."
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Hella narrows her eyes. "Don't do that."
"What?"
"You're a person. Don't do that thing you do here."
"But this is why I was picked," he hisses, maidened as before. "This is why the registrars chose me out of everyone in the house, so let me serve. Let me placate. Let me help others—you make a new and selfish plan for the two of you and leave me from it, leave me far from any stowaway business. Until you sort yourselves out, any assistance I give will be of a collateral variety—like this."
And with the end of his sentence, in his starkness, where the folds of his flesh curve for all a sight, he opens the door. The steward jerks his head to the left, covering his visor with his hands. Oren continues on, saying, "Evening. I don't actually have your name…" He steps over the threshold to the lockers, closing the door.
She turns to Roman. His eyes hold nothing behind them. He is disinterested. She looks up, away. She looks past.
She walks past; she walks across the tiles and through the lakes of the clogged drains until her toes crest over the pan. She reaches the far end. Before her hangs the curtain leading to the crew's dormitories. She crouches down.
A hum thrums through the soles of her feet. She creeps closer, vibrations rising into her knees, chest, and throat.
Her reflection ripples in the pan and a tawny distortion is embedded in the chrome beneath. Through her reflection, she drags a finger.
The sterile scent of recycled air wafts under the curtains, mingling with the perfume of soap and vapor. She peels the curtain to the side. Her face is shrouded in steam. She doesn't step out, she only looks and listens.
People—their chatter overtakes the gurgling of pipes. There are no cameras. The visors the servants wear scan and pull data in three seconds. Doors to the cabins line the walls, framed by conduits and HVAC-ducts and entrypads.
Emigrants walk these halls, but they walk in such a way where it can be questioned whether Hella ever walked with them. There are two doors at the hall's end, and they walk toward those lairs, but before they enter, someone takes their wrist and guides them into the rooms of other stewards, wearing a familial smile. They are scanned as a greeting. They don't look back.
They are sized with tape measures for clothes which are company-casual. Strangers trail behind: other migrants who pass by their cabins on happenstance, washed, but still clad in the rags of pilgrimage. Their legs enter with a spirit they didn't realize on Earth, as do their arms and hearts.
They pull each other into these hostels and embrace. They state names or asked to be called by another they found in this exodus, unafraid of any soul, the souls of others and their own.
Hella observes their nerve. She watches their gaits. She mouths her name with no voice behind it. Chief Regard is not in these halls. She will be making this plan alone.