A Janitor's Adventure: 5.3

The cabin was silent all the way to where Lestili was taking him. Janny didn't even bother to ask where that was. He'd find out soon enough anyway, he was sure. The absolute silence was actually somewhat impressive, Janny noted several hours into their journey. But that was probably the point of a stealth ship, of course. He even rested his eyes for a while, realising that it had already been late evening when the disco on the Hub had started. Finally, there was a rustling of fabric as Lestili sat forward in her chair.

"Navigation: manual control," she said. The craft came to a sudden stop but juddered forward a moment later as Lestili squeezed the steering wheel. She explained, "We swap crafts around a lot in TIPO so I don't keep the route to my personal Hide Hole programmed in."

Janny shrugged. "Uh huh."

"Come on, mate," Lestili said. She didn't look round, but her voice was soft. "I'm sorry about the mixup. Really, I am. But my hands are tied. I'm going to send you off to a place people sometimes go until things boil over. I'll bring you back when your picture's not being circulated around every Hub entry administration, as long as you agree to not undermine the work of TIPO."

Janny didn't say anything. He watched Lestili's eyes screw up as she guided the craft. The screen had switched to a view of their immediate surroundings but Janny could barely make anything out. There was darkness, a few stars in the distance, and some faint lines shifting around that disappeared if Janny didn't watch them closely. But Lestili seemed to know exactly what she was doing and soon brought them to a stop. It occurred to him it might be worth asking what would happen if he did tell anyone what had happened, but somehow he thought it wouldn’t be too difficult a task for Lestili to track him down and take him away from home again.

Lestili leaned to the right and held her mouth close to a grey circle on the console. "Key: one four six, three two nine."

There was a faint rumbling sound and a square of dim light began to creep down the screen. Lestili had them drift forward through it. They stopped again as she called out to some sort of system to close the door. Then they picked up some proper speed and glided downwards.

Lestili rose from her chair and stretched her arms. "Alright, out you get then."

She had started walking towards the door as Janny got to his feet. Janny darted over to her.

"I can breathe out there?" he asked. "What even is a Hide Hole anyways?"

She swung the door open then turned to face him. "Don’t worry. I pumped this place full of breathable air when I set it up. Bought a new canister at the Hub as well. Hear that hiss? That’s it refilling. It’s a common technique really.”That must be what Ennet and Grescin did in their hide place… rock… thing.”

Lestili looked round at him. “Fancy telling me more about where your friends went when I was chasing them?”

Janny chewed his bottom lip, suddenly feeling the fact that he was stuck in this being’s captivity. “I don’t know… They trusted me with that information.”

Lestili rolled her eyes. “They were going to take that information away from you. You sure you’re not a Scentian?”

Janny didn’t answer. Instead he looked past her into the room they’d entered. The light was typically dim for an Endoleon’s place but he thought he could just about make out four walls, a floor and a ceiling. All were jet black, and the far wall was at least fifty metres away. There were large dark shapes jutting out from the walls and the ground all over the place but Janny was too far away from any of them to see what they were. He crouched down and tapped the floor. It seemed to be metal.

“Is this whole box artificial?” he asked. “What’re all those things over there?”

Lestili had moved away to the wall behind them. Janny could make out the bottom of a set of stairs but they went up too far for him to be able to make out the top in the darkness.

She leaned against the wall. “It’s a place I can come if I ever need to hide out for a little while. I got the materials and plans from the Hub, then dragged everything over magnetically. As for the stuff over there - chairs, food-heaters, temperature regulators, a television… This is my home… A home amongst the stars.”

Lestili was just close enough that Janny could see a wide smile spread across her face. She glanced about, which he supposed was less pointless when you had an Endoleon’s eyesight. He wondered what items she was looking at, which ones meant most to her, when suddenly she clapped her hands together and put her foot on the first step of the stairs.

“Right, let’s get you into the shuttle craft,” she said. “Before the SRA brings the entire region to a stop.”

Janny sighed and followed her up the steps, staring at his feet to make sure he didn’t stumble on any of the steps. They were climbing higher and higher and Janny wasn’t sure he could stop his form from slipping through the thin, widely spaced railing bars if he fell into it. Finally they reached a wider platform with the tiniest craft Janny had seen in his life in the middle.

“I’m going to have to crouch to get in this,” he said, craning over to look in the little front window.

“You’re a Fladian,” Lestili said, spreading her arms wide. “Reform yourself.”

“That,” Janny said, “is a recipe for some serious cramp.”

Still, he crouched down and leaned over, sliding sideways into the cabin, which took up most of the craft’s space. Lestili kneeled down so she could look in the door.

“It’s quite a small engine, as you may have noticed, but you’re also not in too much of a rush. There’s some carb-bars in that little box at your feet, and they’ve been calculated to get you there but not take up any more space than that, so only take what the instructions tell you to. Oh, and-” She popped a finger off and let it crawl along the ceiling. There was a clicking sound and a bright white light clicked on. Lestili shaded her eyes with one hand as she reattached the finger on the other. She said, “So you have something to read the instructions by.”

Janny looked up at her, slightly lower down than her even though she was kneeling. “Are you sure I can’t just go back to the Hub right now? I promise I won’t say anything.”

Lestili craned her neck down - the one part of an Endoleon that couldn’t detach was the head - and looked him in the eyes. “No, Janny. The SRA are trying to disrupt the order of society, destroy trade and undermine Endoleon-Fladian relations. This is for your own good.”

Lestili’s frown was deep, and her nose was twitching. Janny decided he definitely wouldn’t be telling people about all this when he eventually got back to the Hub.

“Fine,” he said. “Close the door, I suppose.”