"Hi, Dex," she said. "How long has he been waiting?"
"Since about eleven? He keeps coming down to the crew mess to see if you've landed. Mr. Kemble's in the main saloon with his laptop. He's been on the phone with the owner's office twice and the broker once. The weather router wants to talk to you at two, she says the window's narrower than it was this morning. The surveyor from Narragansett Lifting is coming at two instead of three, I moved him. Ratline has two day workers on the way, but they want to know who's paying." He took a breath. "How's Hamish?"
"Awake. Sore. Mad about the Aberdeen game." She shifted the duffel on her shoulder. "His mother landed at six this morning. I left them together."
"Okay." Dex let out a long breath. "Okay. Good. Here, I'll get the gate."
But the man in the windbreaker was already reaching into his pocket. He had a key fob on a coiled cord, and he held it up toward the reader on the post and then stopped, his hand in the air, and looked at her.
"Ma'am," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't..." He seemed to run out of sentence. He tried again. "You're with the Coriolis."
"I'm with the company that manages her," she said.
"I should have asked."
"Yes," she said. "You should have."
He took that. He did not argue and he did not explain, and she gave him credit for both. He just stood there with the fob in his hand, waiting to open the gate for her, and his face had gone a dull red under the weather, and she saw his eyes go once to the laminated card in his pocket and come back. She wondered what was on it.