It was a city of a hundred million.
He had an address on a piece of paper, written in an alien language he half-spoke and could barely read. It was the result of a comment made in passing, information only partly confirmed. But what else could he do?
Critaki he spoke well: he stopped one on the street, and was pointed in the right direction. Down a side street lined with merchant stalls from a thousand planets, down a flight of stone steps to a sub-basement, down a long dark corridor to a metal hatch with a hand-painted sign.
Humans.