The rest of our travel time on the liner wasn't long, but we took a precaution we should have taken right from the start.  In order to avoid any more trouble, Val changed himself to look like a very plain, nondescript individual. If I'd been used to his quick-change act I would have thought of it sooner, but I wasn't and I didn't.  That time "better late than never" seemed to work; no one recognized him.

Compared to Faraway Station, Xanadu O.S. was a madhouse.  Rather than the one shuttle trip from liner to Station that had been used on Faraway, Xanadu required the three that every major Station did.  People left one liner shuttle and ran to a second, or took up places on a line, or sat themselves down to wait the necessary time.  Some few, with longer waits ahead of them, went to have a meal on the Station or arrange for accommodations.  People moved everywhere, including those who, like us, meant to stay for a short while and then go down to the planet.  Lights blinked, the crowd noise pounded at us, people jostled us, and Val finally understood why we had had our last conversation with instructions in my cabin.

We fought our way through the insanity together for a while, then split up to see to the individual chores I'd assigned us.  Since we were staying on the Station and then going down to the planet, our luggage had to come out of
bond and be checked through customs, and that was the job I had given to Val.  He had looked at me with wordless questioning in his eyes, probably wondering if I were setting him up again, and I had had to reassure his qualms.  In full truth I would have preferred seeing to the luggage myself, but it would have looked odd having a grown man tagging idly along behind me while I did it all, and we couldn't afford to look odd; better to take separate directions and get it all done without any fuss.

The twelve registration alcoves still had people on line in front of them despite the fact that we'd waited for the third shuttle before coming over, so there was nothing for it but to pick one and join the crowd.  My Special Agent's I.D. could have had the Station Manager doing the registering for me, but even if Radman hadn't taken it before kicking me off, I still couldn't have used it.  No matter how quiet they swear to keep these things word always gets out, and I preferred standing on line to giving Radman advance notice that I was coming.