Better.

“Where?”

“No idea.”

This clearly failed to improve the situation.

“I’m staying near zhe hotel.”

“Near?”

“Walking distance.”

The guard considered.

Kimia knew the conversation happening behind his eyes.

Duchess. Foreign city. Night. Recent security gathering. No itinerary.

He lost.

Not because her plan was good, but because she outranked the objections.

“I’ll come.”

“Plain clozhes.”

He looked down at himself.

“Already there.”

Kimia pointed toward the indrel.

“And it.”

The guard glanced over.

The indrel's mask clicked.

Nobody asked whether a seven-foot-something armored insectoid would undermine Kimia's attempt at anonymity.

The Passage sat close enough to the Indrel Mountains that seeing civilized indrels in public was unusual without being astonishing.

Probably.

Kimia hoped.

The soldier rose.

It unfolded more than stood.

Within moments, the three of them were moving toward the elevator.

The hotel lobby had thinned.

One clerk worked behind the desk.

A doorman read something folded beneath the counter until the doors opened and cold air came in.

The clerk looked up as Kimia crossed the lobby.

Recognition flickered.

Not certainty.

Perhaps the clothes did their work. Perhaps he simply understood that important guests sometimes wished to stop being important for a while. 

He said nothing. Kimia felt grateful towards this.

Outside, Val Salia waited.

Cool air touched Kimia's face.

Not Peshtulan cold.

Nothing close.

But clean enough.

A faint breeze moved between the buildings and pulled some of the hotel's heat off her fur.

Kimia stopped on the pavement.

Breathed.

The parking lot was nearly full.

Motorized carriages sat under lamps in neat rows.

A few taxis waited near the entrance, drivers asleep or reading.

Somewhere beyond the hotel grounds came the low continuous machinery of the city.

Engines. Electrical hum. A distant horn. Aircraft. People.

Kimia started walking.

No destination.

This itself felt strange.

Most of her movement had destinations.

A meeting. Library. Bedroom. Dining room. Motorized carriage. Aircraft. The Diet.

Travel under authority consisted almost entirely of being moved between prearranged locations.

Now:

Sidewalk.

Choose direction.

She chose left because it existed.

The human guard followed at a distance close enough to matter and far enough to preserve the fiction that Kimia was alone.

The indrel followed closer. It had no interest in fiction.

They left the hotel grounds.

Street.

A taxi passed.

Then another motorized carriage.

Headlights swept over Kimia.

She looked toward them too long.

Small translucent threads and dots from the floaters in her eyes appeared across her vision, made visible by the light shining onto her eyes.

Kimia blinked.

There.

Ordinary.

She smiled faintly at the relief of having an explanation before fear arrived.

The city at night differed from the city seen through the aircraft window.

From above it had looked like circuitry. From the sidewalk it became individual decisions.

A laundromat still open. A pharmacy with its interior lights dimmed. A electronics store displaying newly arrived computer terminals from Dinnlan behind glass. Apartments over narrow businesses. A restaurant closing. Another opening. A fuel station with a lone yinglet attendant reading a magazine while listening to music on a radio. A corner with a large collection of garbage bins and recycling bins.

Kimia used buildings to count distance.

Hotel. Laundromat. Pharmacy. Electronics store. Two apartment blocks. Two restaurants. A small fuel station. Corner.

She did not know the street names.

This pleased her.

Nobody expected policy from a person who did not know where she was.

After perhaps twenty minutes she found a corner store.

Open.

Yellow-white fluorescent light spilled onto the pavement.

A paper sign in the window advertised cigarettes, canned soup, and discounted electrical batteries.

Kimia stopped.

Why not, she thought to herself. 

She entered.

A bell sounded above the door.

The human guard continued past the window, then doubled around and entered several moments later with the expression of someone who had independently decided that groceries were important at this hour. 

The indrel came inside behind Kimia.

The shop suddenly became smaller.

The cashier looked up.

Human man. Middle aged. Unshaven. Shirt sleeves rolled.

A tiny televox set sat beside the register played an old black-and-white movie.

Some grim-looking yinglet actor, wearing a tunic with a hood and holding a spear, was explaining something to a human man who had clearly wronged him.