The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

the pile, left there, perhaps, by someone who wasn’t used to wearing them yet? Or someone who had gone to the toilet and didn’t want to be bothered with them? Thievery is supposed to be impossible, but this was an exception. Without a qualm, I put on the robe and draped the veil over my head, thankful the person they belonged to was about my height. Now, I might be seen by people, but I certainly couldn’t be identified by them.
    As I approached the wall between sectors, I saw the yellow doors of an empty lift standing open, and, almost miraculously, another set of doors, blue ones, at the back of the lift. The lifts served both sides! I took time to be sure no one was watching, then limped into the lift, took it down five floors, and went out the other doors into Yellow-blue. If the quad walls were also served by two-sided lifts, the cross-tower trip wouldn’t take as long as I’d feared.
    Another quarter-mile journey along the yellow wall under the blue numbers was interrupted only when a long procession of workers, half of them robed and veiled, emerged from a door in the service core and streamed along the quad cross wall toward the lifts, probably the night shift workers going home to their apartments in the tier above. To minimize podway crowding, most people who work in a tower also live in it. I didn’t hide. I just fooled around with the machine next to me until they were gone, then I called down the lift and went through it into blue quad, yellow sector.
    The rest of the way along the blue wall was almost totally silent, though I saw a few people leaving or entering the coreand half a dozen machine operators noisily inspecting a weird piece of equipment in a far corner. At the final wall, I called down another lift and stepped through it to the far side.
    Someone nearby said “Ahem,” almost tentatively.
    The figure was robed. It could have been anyone. I took a deep breath and risked it. “Hatty?”
    Hatty lifted her veil. “My dear. Are they wearing robes in NW Urbs?”
    â€œNo.” I gasped with relief. “They don’t. I found the stuff near where I came into the tower.”
    She sniffed back a tear. “Take that robe off, put it in the lift, and send the lift all the way up, just in case the robe might be identified somehow. Then put this one on. I bought it for you, so you could get to my level without being seen.”
    When I took off the robe, she gasped. “My dear, what in the name of serenity has happened to you?”
    â€œI forgot about not getting into an empty carrier.”
    â€œOh, child, child. You look beaten half to death. Your whole face is bruised, and look at your arms!”
    â€œAll of me is bruised, Hatty. Don’t fuss. It’s nothing that won’t heal.”
    Hattie started to hug me, then thought better of it since there was no nonlivid part of me to grasp. I struggled into the new robe, as she said, “I didn’t bring the flit because I thought people might be looking for you in the flit or pod lobbies, so we’re going to take the passenger lift to the sorting lobby on the fiftieth floor. There’s a fixed monitor to the right of the lift door as we go out. I’ll move out and put my large self right against it while you walk past me and get at least twenty feet away. It will yammer at me, ‘Do not loiter, move on,’ but you pay no attention, just move quickly past, so I can move and shut the thing up. We’ll do the same thing at each monitor until we get home. I’ve been scouting for two days. We can avoid all but five, but I know where all the beastly things are!”
    According to Joram, all four of the Lipkin sisters had been a bit wild. Seeing Hatty in action, I could believe it.She blocked the monitors all the way to her apartment, including her own door monitor, until I was safely inside. Only after we were inside did she tear up again, dabbing at her wet eyes with her