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“CUSTOMS HALL,” THE automated female voice said. “Those with goods for trade please walk the bumpy lane. Visitors walk the striped lane. Those with immunity and returning residents, please walk the smooth lane. Move along.”
“Please move along.”
“Mithering kind of soul, ain’t she?” Padg said.
“I was going to go for firm,” Tali said.
“Do we play along?” Dun said.
“I’d say we do,” Myrch said, “We haven’t got a better search plan yet and playing along avoids setting off any automated systems that might not be so friendly.”
“So what are we?” Dun said. “Traders or visitors?”
“Friend or Foe?” Padg said.
“Let’s do our best to avoid foe,” Myrch said. “Shall we go for trader? It’s most like us for now.”
Dun felt the carpet texture under his feet. It branched three ways, the left-most being bumpy.
“It’s left,” he said.
They walked along the bumpy track.
“Trade lane. Please make a sample of your goods ready for inspection and assay. Please move along.”
“What shall we say we have to trade?” Dun said.
“What have we got?” Padg said.
“Not a great deal left after our encounter with our metal rat friend,” Tali said. “All the rations are shot now; I’ve thrown the rest of what got wet. I’ve got some flasks of various stuff left, but I don’t want to trade any of that.”
“We’re not really trading anything though, are we?” Dun said.
“No, but that doesn’t account for what might happen if we say we want to trade something,” Padg said.
“True,” Myrch said. “These legacy systems could do anything.”
“Customs. Please place any samples on the counter for assessment. Thank you.”
They stopped in front of the counter.
“I wonder,” Tali said. “Have either of you two got a sack I can put this stuff in?”
“Sure,” Dun said. He rustled in his pack. “Here, it's not massive.”
‘I haven’t got all that much left.”
There was much clinking and clanging as Tali’s remaining equipment was transferred across. Then she draped the tattered backpack on the counter.
“Customs. Please place any samples on the counter for assessment. Thank you.”
“That doesn’t qualify as goods then,” Dun said.
“I’m not sure it even qualifies as a backpack anymore.” Tali sighed.
“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Myrch said. “Try your knife, Tali.”
She unsheathed her knife and placed it carefully on the counter.
“Unauthorized weapon in the customs area. Please stay where you are and officials will be along to help you.” A discreet alarm siren sounded too. A low ululating wail.
“Not bloody likely,” Padg said.
“Wait,” Myrch said.
“Unauthorized weapon in the customs area. Security officials have been dispatched. Please stay where you are.”
They waited. One hundred clicks, two hundred. It was easy to keep count with the ubiquitous clock in the background everywhere they went.
Three hundred, Four. There was no security coming. No evidence of them, automated or otherwise. Or any other systems being activated.
“Hmm,” Myrch said and lifted the dagger off the counter handing it back to Tali hilt first. The sirens stopped.
“Customs. Please place any samples on the counter for assessment. Thank you.”
“Good day for trading knives, then,” Padg said.
Tali sighed. “Now what?”
“Don’t know...” Myrch said. “Let’s work out what should have happened. Dun, carry on along the carpet. I guess there’s an out door somewhere.”
“Okay,” Dun said, walking slowly, feeling for the pattern on the carpet.
“Please present your customs bill to the slot and the doors will open.”
“There’s a set of doors here and a kind of pillar in front to one side. I think... Yes, that’s where the slot is,” Dun said.
“So all we need now is a customs bill,” Myrch said.
“Do you suppose that’s what one of these is?” Padg said.
“Where did you get that?” Tali said.
“Well, if they will leave their posts abandoned and all this stuff lying around,” he said.
“Hmm...” Myrch said.
“Do you think we’ll need one each to get through?” Dun asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Padg said. “I’ve got loads.”
They gathered around the small pillar, and Padg placed the ticket in the hole.
“Customs. Your goods tithe is ... zero. Please proceed through the doors.” There was a small hiss as they opened and a cacophony of sounds and smells from the other side.
“Perhaps this is where everyone is?” Dun said.
“Perhaps...” Myrch said.
They walked through the doors into a huge space. Music played and voices talked from every level and direction. This must be a marketplace, but there was something wrong. Lots of folk voices, but Dun’s air-sense couldn’t pick up that feeling of a space occupied by moving objects. No folk here. And listening carefully, the voices: all insistent but not conversant, more stored voices? Yes, now they all listened. The closest ones they could hear repeated after a short phrase or swift tune. But slightly more alarming than that, there was a smell: still, lingering, complex, because this was a marketplace after all, but waning. There had not been a fresh smell created here for, what? Five cycles, maybe more. Near them, a food stall, with that familiar vent smell, but when Dun moved behind the counter to check, the food on the vent heater was dried up.
“Hey, there’s food here,” Tali said.
She had found another stall. This one with dried patties of chopped leaf and fungus.
“Be careful,” Dun said. “We’re not sure how long its been here.”
“Nah, tuck in,” she said. “This stuff keeps for eons.”
They ate rapidly, not realizing how hungry they’d become. Each of them pocketed more of the stuff for later.
“Hey,” Dun said from across the market from them. “Got a present for you Tali!”
“Oh right?” she said.
“This stall sells bags,” he said amused. “Nothing as useful as your backpack, but still.”
“I’ll find something,” she said and ferreted amongst the stock.
“No looters,” Myrch said.
“Sorry?” Dun said.
“This place has been abandoned for what...”
“Ten cycles?” Dun said.
“...give or take, and the things that strike me are no folk, no chaos, no looting.”
“They left in an orderly way?” Dun said.
“Or were forced to, yes,” Myrch said. “And no one has been here since. It’s left like they’ve only just gone.”
“Creepy,” Padg said.
“But where did they go?” Tali said.
“More importantly, why?” Dun said.
