Saltation by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page A

purposeful shoves. Rather each package was selected, tossed gently by the tall young woman in the blue work top or the muscular guy with the strange mostly-bald-but-ponytail hairdo, and caught quietly, with an odd twisting motion . . . 
    Asu's complaints were subdued at the moment, and Theo gathered that the young man on the left side of the receiving line, the one with the shorts and—one willingly imagined—overall tan, was the object of her distraction.
    That interesting twisting motion wasn't entirely a show-off, either, Theo saw. Instead, it looked like the handlers were making sure a read strip on each package was illuminated by a quick rainbow of light . . . 
    " 'Ware!" cried Blue Top over the bustle of the room, as the package she was in the process of moving took on an uncharacteristic wobble.
    "Hah!"
    The shorts and their inhabitant moved smoothly, the wobble was corralled, the read strip rainbowed, and the package passed on, no fuss, really, and nothing dropped or broken.
    Asu's exclamation followed another pair of transfers.
    "Security! The strips are passive, so they don't give off an ID to anyone with a listener. You can't just flash a frequency and hope to get a reading, and you can't get a type count that way, and you—"
    "Next, please!"
    Next was not them, but they had to move up in the slowly shortening line so the view of the workers was not as interesting. The overhead apparatus was more visible now, though, with multiple light sources and small buttons that were probably actually cameras.
    "Guess it makes sense to keep it simple—" Theo said.
    Asu harrumphed.
    "I guess it works, but it seems slow. The refids are fast and self-reporting, though, and these are slow and require people. People are nosy. People are expensive! And they create lines!"
    There was a gentle laugh from behind, which turned into the words. "Economy is such a variable concept, do you know. In some places, people work and expensive machines replaced thereby. Having people, conditions may be noticed without an official record being made. With people, you may reward and advance individuals, and train leaders for practical direction, without using sims and psych tests, both of which have surprising margins of error."
    Even on a campus full of pilots and would-be pilots, Theo was becoming unused to being surprised by the silent approach of anyone. Flight Instructor yos'Senchul's voice was as smooth as his bow.
    "Pilots," he said bowing to Theo, and then to Asu.
    Asu's bow was instant, and probably overdone: obviously she'd been studying something , but yos'Senchul hadn't bowed any fancy bows, just a bow of acknowledgment and even a taste of "in this line together" with that motion of his hand . . . 
    Theo bowed as if acknowledging a remark from Captain Cho or Win Ton.
    The pilot's hand flurry said is good , combined with a nod that was almost a wink.
    Asu was by now waving a polite hand forward, as if to offer her place to yos'Senchul. He flipped his hand with a practiced equanimity.
    "Thank you, but no. This is my off-hour just as it is yours, and as pilots, we ought practice standing in line together as well as orbiting harmoniously, since we need do the first more often than the last—or so it seems."
     
    "Erkes," Asu said with some asperity when they at last arrived at the head of the line, "Suite three-oh-two. Package pickup note."
    "Well, we're so glad you could make it! Any longer on all these and we'd have been charging you rent!"
    The rather pale young man on the counter tossed a crumpled ball of paper or plastic over a short wall lined with tables, calling out at the same time, "Hey, wake up back there! Bring out that Erkes mountain, will you?"
    "Any longer?" Asu demanded. "We'd have been here sooner except we had a line in front of us, you know!"
    Theo admired Asu's restraint.
    "They've been here for hours!" The counter guy answered. "If you didn't sleep late you could have had this out of here at