Skulking through back alleys was asking for trouble. If they found her there, there would be no witness to what happened to her.
She made her way toward the cliffs and the main buildings. That was surely where the United Council people would be. If she could work out which government building they were headquartered in, she could at least watch for a chance to approach one of them.
She wondered if they would be easy to pick out. She recalled the tall, pointy-eared aliens from the video clip on the screen earlier, and the shorter, stockier aliens, all standing around a stage with three human women. She'd watch for anyone who looked like them.
She guessed her ace in the hole was her appearance. If she worked out who the UC teams were, they would certainly recognize her.
They wouldn't simply dismiss her.
But until then, her appearance would only endanger her.
She had wrapped her scarf around her mouth again and tugged at the hood of her cloak so it hid her face, but it also narrowed her scope of vision, made it difficult to see anyone coming at her from the side.
It was still safer than showing more skin, though.
She reached the main street and stepped into the flowing crowd.
There seemed to be more people around now than there had been earlier, and there was an ugly mood, with people shoving past others and shouts of annoyance as people were jostled.
When she'd been in the square earlier she'd sensed the tension and the discontent, but now the UC team had actually arrived, it had intensified.
She was careful not to bump anyone.
Keeping her head down, she made her way along the length of the street.
A crowd was gathered in the square, but she slowed down before she reached it, sensing violence in the air. She had the feeling things could turn nasty in a blink, and she wasn't sure which side the security forces were on.
Or if there even was a side represented here.
It didn't feel organized or cohesive.
The security officers, whatever their personal feelings, were much more visible than they'd been earlier. They stood in small groups of two or three, scattered through the square and in the street Lucy was on, for the most part seemingly relaxed as they chatted with the public.
There were other Tecran who, like her, were hovering, avoiding making the decision to step into the square. On the faces of some of them she could read fear, in others, contempt.
Someone gave a shout deep in the crowd of the square, and it decided her. She turned away, but before she could find a group of people to attach herself to for cover, she noticed more than one cafe had now set tables outside, despite the cold. There were enough people sitting at them, watching the unfolding drama in the square, for her not to stand out.
She veered out of the stream of pedestrians, moving carefully between small tables to find one in deep shadow, and sank down.
The tabletop immediately flickered to life, offering a variety of menu options. Nervous that not ordering something would bring her attention she couldn't deal with, she placed an order for grinabo and chose a dish at random.
The credit bank she'd been given that morning worked again, and she relaxed a little, feeling more secure here than she had on the street.
She took a careful glance around, but no one was looking her way, with most of the attention on the gathering crowd in the square.
A few protesters were standing on the benches in the square to address the crowd, and more had made their way up onto the dais in the center of the massive space.
She tuned them out and pulled the handheld she'd stolen from Gugi out of her bag.
It lit up, and she stared at it, perplexed, unsure how to work it.
Before she could try, a server slid a tray in front of her, his attention barely on what he was doing, let alone her, as his gaze fixed on what was happening in front of him.
He walked away, setting a second tray on another table, and then stood, legs apart, arms crossed, watching the growing mayhem.
“How do I find out where the United Council team are right now?” she asked eventually, recalling the scientists often spoke into wrist units at the facility.
She'd never seen any of them with a handheld, had never been offered one of her own, but that was clearly because they didn't want her to understand just how illegal, even in their own system of laws, what they were doing to her was.
She'd spoken in Tecran, but the handheld obviously had trouble understanding her, because suddenly there was a keyboard option, and with a sigh of relief, she began tapping in search terms.
She sipped at the grinabo with one hand as she read the information, although it was a struggle, because she could speak Tecran far better than she could read it.
The food smelled sour, but not disgusting, and she lifted up a spoonful of what looked like black rice and gave it a nibble.
It was okay.
She wasn't hungry enough to chance getting sick, though, so she pushed it away.
She started searching for more information about the Earth women who'd been taken, but nothing came up.
She frowned, wondering why that was when she'd seen that clip of them singing on stage in a magical city, looking both at home and at ease.
A sudden longing swept over her. She wanted to go home.
She'd started to dream in Tecran, and that frightened her.
She tried a few alternative phrases, trying to find the clip, when her screen went blank and then a sentence popped up.
“Who are you?”
She stared at it, feeling winded. As if every bit of breath had been sucked from her lungs.
She wheezed and her hand shook as she reached out a finger to touch the words.
They were in English.
Which was impossible. The Tecran alphabet was nothing like the English alphabet.
The virtual keyboard that came up didn't even have the letters for her to respond in kind.
Carefully, heart thundering, she typed back in Tecran. “Who are you?”
There was no immediate answer.
“Seriously, how do you know my language?” Lucy typed. “How are you even communicating with me?”
“Are you Lucy Harris?”
She leaned back in her chair so sharply, the front two legs momentarily lifted off the ground.
“Yes.”
There was another delay. Lucy wondered if it was a connectivity issue, or whether the person communicating needed time.
And then, suddenly, her Tecran keyboard was replaced with an English one.
“Where are you?”
“I don't think it's wise for me to say.” She lifted her gaze from the screen. The open area in front of the cafe was thick with people now, far more crowded than it had been when she first sat down.
It gave her a start that the situation had changed so much, so quickly, and a little thrill of fear ran down her arms and lifted the hair at the back of her neck.
Things were getting worse.
The security officers weren't chatting in a friendly way anymore.
She watched as one walked around the crowd, hand on the weapon strapped to his thigh.
The shouting in the square was louder now, too, as if there were people competing to have their views heard, and she could no longer see the benches through the press of people.
The screen gave a chirp, and she started, looked back down at it.
The sentence “Are you there?” was repeated five times.
“Yes! Sorry. Got distracted.” She almost stumbled at typing in English. It was a QWERTY keyboard. It was impossible, and yet, it was right in front of her. “Please. Are you one of the women they took from Earth?”