For a wonder they didn’t, successfully maneuvering their way around the rest of the luggage to where the Spider and I waited. “Shall I open them?” I asked.

“No.” The Spider stepped over them and shifted to a five-legged stance, deftly inserting the ends of its other two legs into the handles and lifting the bags into the air like a weight lifter doing bending bicep curls. “They will be returned,” it added, and strode off toward one of the buildings beside the track where my Quadrail was scheduled to arrive.

I watched it go, wondering like everyone else in the galaxy what the devil was inside those dangling globes. But the Spiders’ metallic skin was just as effective at blocking sensor scans as the Coreline was. They could be robots, androids, trained ducks, or something so weird that no one had even thought of it yet. It disappeared-into the building, and with a sudden premonition, I spun around.

The Girl was standing over by the pile of luggage, her carrybag at her feet, watching me. For a second we held each other’s gaze across the distance. Then, as if she’d just realized that I was looking back at her, she lowered her eyes.

Scowling, I turned and headed for me platform. If the Quadrail was on time and I’d never heard of one being late it would pull into the station exactly eight minutes from now. Thirty minutes after that, it would pull out again, with me on board.

The Spiders had until then to return my luggage, or there was going to be hell to pay.

Seven minutes later, far down the Tube, the telltale red glow of our Quadrail appeared.

The rest of the passengers had gathered on the platform, and once again I could hear the amazed and slightly nervous twitterings of the first-timers.