Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  Worse might still ensue, if humor turned; and bet on it, the story would break out repeatedly through the years, particularly since Hewitt was probably destined for office once Sol did get here—now a likelihood with a date attached—and there was no way he could ever get rid of the man unless Sol itself shipped him on.

  The man had taken unforgivable advantage of a convention old as human presence in space—e-hatches just were not locked. Why should they ever need to be? By definition they were for emergencies, and a suit with a hole in it didn’t allow time for hi-how-are-you’s.

  Well, after this—maybe they would be, and the why of it would always cite Alpha Station, under Ben Abrezio as the highest authority, no matter he’d been asleep and off-shift.

  Damn Cruz and Hewitt.

  Abrezio imitated Oldfield’s nice smile and sat down at the head of the table. It was war. Oldfield was on his right, Ames next to her, Ops and Admin respectively; Black, the Rights’ project deputy-director, under Cruz, was on his left, with Hewitt on Black’s right; and at the other end of the table—Cruz.

  Oldfield kept smiling pleasantly at Hewitt, with a subtle hint about the eyes that said she was visualizing the man that lay underneath all those buttons . . . and finding him lacking.

  Servers moved about, pouring tea, providing wafers. They were themselves ECE, under a supervisor who saw them out the door once the service was done.

  “We have a problem,” Cruz said brusquely.

  “We have several,” Abrezio shot back, “and a hell of a lot more serious than the potential loss of equipment or the current attitude on the Strip. I’m speaking of the disaffection of our local ships, on which this station depends for its existence. We have a merchant ship we can’t fix. That ship is now offered alternatives it would be a fool not to accept.”

  “And because of this blatant attempt to win ships away from this station, to control our supply of life-essentials and be sure the Company has no secure path back to its stations,” Cruz said, “we attempted, in vain, to find out what’s inside the ship that’s leading the attack. Expecting your support, my people were reprimanded . . .”

  “The Strip is laughing, sir. You may be very glad that that is the reaction.”

  “Are we to understand,” Hewitt asked, “that this is the response our administration will make? We were attacked, carrying out a lawful function under EC rules.”

  “After an unlawful entry, sir, nothing you did could be lawful. Do I have to get Legal in here to explain that, or do you grasp the situation?”

  “I will not sit here to be insulted.”

  “Mr. Director,” Cruz interposed. “I have to take Mr. Hewitt’s side. Your office has had ample opportunity to take a harder line with these people.”

  “My office does not choose to take a harder line with ships perfectly able to take their trade elsewhere. My office is trying to keep this station and its ships running, which depends on supply from places other than Earth. If that cuts off, we are in deep trouble, sir, and telling Sol about our impending starvation would surely stir them to action—in something a little under six years, oh, and immediate response if they happen to have a pusher-ship available. Which would get here in—”

  “We do not need a primer on the matter, sir. We need leverage, of which we have none.”

  “Leverage. I have to ask what orders sent Mr. Hewitt into Finity’s e-hatch, given that word leverage. You surely weren’t intending to hold that ship hostage.”

  Silence, narrowed-eyed and tight-mouthed.

  “I also have wondered . . . where did they catch you? Where were you headed? To the hold . . . or to the bridge? Were you, perhaps, hoping to invade files? To download data that might help Rights’ vanes do more than . . . hiccup? If so, I think you’re very lucky to have been given a towel.”

  “This is no laughing matter, sir,” Cruz snapped, and Abrezio met his hard gaze, frown for frown. That . . . had hit a nerve.

  “And I’m not laughing, Mr. Cruz. Fortunately, Finity is.”

  “We were unarmed,” Hewitt said. “We were threatened with lethal force.”

  “Unarmed. You carried tasers and cutters into a supposedly empty ship. The legitimate owners of that ship might well be forgiven for taking exception. Laughter and a cold ride in the lift is relatively benign. I am glad the Strip is taking it all as a joke, because what could have resulted was an all-out clash between spacers and enforcement, which would fix your name in history in a far worse light, I assure you. Rescue yourself with a sense of humor.”

  “Humor, sir!”

  “Yes, humor. You are alive and back on the station instead of chucked out Finity’s lock without a suit. I recommend you locate a generous sense of humor and promote it within your own command as well.”

  “Sir!” Cruz said.

  “Mr. Vice Admiral, sir. I suggest you look beyond your own balance sheets, and consider the ramifications of setting these people off. We’re struggling to repair rather than replace, all over the station. We’re not up to handling the kind of damage outright sabotage could inflict. Unless, of course, you’re willing to release your stranglehold on the materials storehouse. Since I sincerely doubt that will happen, I suggest, Mr. Hewitt, that enforcement take the incident as a case of high spirits and view it as a relatively good-natured response. I suggest that pronouncements from your office should defuse, rather than inflame, any sense of outrage. Smile, Mr. Hewitt, because a population out there, straining at the seams of our facilities, is stirred up by Finity’s proposals and outraged that the ECE, masquerading as customs, took a route off-limits to station use.”

  “We are not smiling, . . . sir,” Hewitt said darkly. “And if you choose to fold all objection to an attack on us . . .”

  “I say again, Mr. Hewitt, smile. I am choosing to regard the incident as settled. I am not going to fault Finity for being on guard . . . especially since you proved their suspicions correct. We will negotiate politely for the return of the hardsuits and pusher craft we have scant resources to replace, should Finity decide to keep them.”

  “Whose side are you on, Mr. Director? Pell’s?”

  And there they had it: the direct challenge to his loyalty. Cruz had been prepping for years to step into station office the moment the Sol gap was bridged. Tell Cruz it was now out of his hands, that the clock was running, and that Sol authority was very possibly—assuming Sol had their own FTL ships and crews just waiting for the critical coordinates—going to arrive here before Cruz had gotten Rights into working order? With Abrezio, the source of those precious numbers, as the hero of the moment?

  Knowledge might be power, but knowledge unshared was greater power.

  “I am on the side of our survival, Mr. Cruz.” By now the lightspeed message was headed out of Alpha system, a few hours out on a nearly six-year journey to Sol. It was beyond recall, what he had done. He knew that should worse come to worst, Alpha could survive, by the skin of their teeth. They had water, the recycling functioned, and they had supplies enough to sustain basic food production for six or seven years, granted all estimates were true and Sol had probes ready to test those coordinates and get back with an answer. That was the margin he had. When it ran on to eight, nine, ten years, only the charity of spacers and nearby stations could keep them functioning. And even then, only if all their ships didn’t desert them. Stations had bled to death before. Ships that did call had relieved the pressure on supplies by taking away some of the population, all non-essential personnel, splitting up families, shutting down whole sections, reducing consumption to a minimum, until there was no margin left. Then a station died. Galileo and Thule had gone that route, hastened by the violence of their stars—not the only cause, but a major part of it.

  “Survival,” Hewitt echoed. “By conspiring with Pell?”

  Definitely a challenge.

  By the terms of Alpha’s Charter, the ECD, the
Earth Company Directorate, dictated policy and the ECE, Enforcement, carried out that policy . . . which put the ECE, in this case, Hewitt, under the ECD . . . Abrezio himself. Which meant, bottom line, Abrezio was in charge. The Rights project had blurred that line, sending first a Sol-office appointee, Cruz, to control the project, and then complicating the issue with a Sol-born ECE director, Hewitt, with his own mandate: protect the project. Cruz and Hewitt, Sol-born and EC to their core, had no loyalty to Alpha. They’d given lip service to that hierarchy for years, but respect it? Respect him? They never had.

  And right now he had Cruz sitting at the end of the table, obdurate, angry, and immoveable—Cruz, who had been given, in the form of Hewitt, implied control of anything he deemed necessary to protect Rights. That control should, at most, be confined to station security, but while customs might get its policy from his ECD office, customs’ security operations often involved the ECE, which Cruz could order—should he deem the project threatened.

  And all it took to make ECE actions at least borderline legal was for Cruz to say he felt the project was threatened.

  It was not an optimum situation. But when had Sol taken particular thought for the citizen component of Alpha? Abrezio had suspected for some time that Cruz was prepared to override the Directorate’s control of policy, should he decide it was in his interest. Hewitt, he was virtually certain, had come with his own particular empowerment. Once Hewitt had arrived from Sol to take over security in A-mast, Cruz had used Sol’s directive to leverage Hewitt from project security to a direct interest in Strip security, with Bellamy Jameson increasingly uncertain of his authority outside citizen areas.

  Black, who had arrived with Hewitt, appeared simply to work for Cruz—sub-director, under Cruz’s authority. Basically, he filled out forms and reports and gave Cruz deniability, in this instance. Black sat there looking at no one, smug, taking occasional notes.

  Smug . . . the lot of them . . . not knowing what was speeding its way to Sol.

  “I want to make it clear,” he said. “You will vet any change in policy with this office, and you will not undertake general police operations on the Strip or any operation involving the ships in our space without also clearing it with me personally. If I am blindsided once more by some midnight operation, if I am kept out of information, if I am in any way surprised by some dealing with ships and crews, I will invoke provisions of the Charter to declare a state of stationwide emergency, in which police power rests entirely in my hands, and civil law is suspended. I am not bluffing. I can do it, and I will.”

  “Do it, and the home office will hear about it.”

  “I’m sure they will, but be aware that Sol in its wisdom left one power in the hands of station administration alone. That power has been entrusted to me, and I stand by the decision to use it if the safety of this station is at stake. One more thing: we will not discuss the balance of powers outside this room, but rest assured, I can and I will take that measure.”

  Cruz closed his notebook. Loudly.

  “The home office will hear.”

  “Be my guest, Admiral. I’ve already made my report.”

  The log would show a transmission on the Stream. But the content from the stationmaster’s hand—took his signature and thumbprint to unlock. For a system several centuries old, it still defended itself adequately.

  There followed a significant moment of silence in the meeting. “Move the meeting adjourn,” Adima said.

  “I don’t think we ever actually called the meeting to order,” Oldfield said. “But for neatness’ sake, I second.”

  “Antiquated rules. Antiquated thinking. Power vacuum,” Cruz said, and stood up. His allies stood up.

  Oldfield sat quietly tapping her stylus on the table surface, tap, tap, tap.

  “Moved and seconded,” Abrezio said. “We stand adjourned.”

  Chapter 10

  Section i

  Jen was standing quietly at a shop display, grey jacket, black patch, dark hair, seeming quite engrossed in a try-it display that marched miniature models across a black field. Every junior-junior on ships that called at Alpha had probably run the lingerie displays, about which some ships cared and Galway never had.

  Jen was, however, looking at jackets.

  “Nice one,” he said.

  “Waiting for you,” she said, hooked his arm and walked him away toward nowhere in particular. Could bugs pick them up? Easily. Was somebody interested? It was a good bet.

  “How’d it go?”

  “I’d say favorable.”

  Station, if it was eavesdropping, probably could put that together. But at a certain point it wasn’t that important what station thought. If they all signed . . . if that list on the stick was accurate, and all those ships were signed up . . . then they could stand in the middle of the Strip and shout out that they were likely going to sign with Finity.

  “Quiet all along,” he commented. “Except the blue-coats.” Those were standing, not walking, and standing in pairs or clusters, just watching. Taking notes of who was together, maybe.

  “Senior captains laid down the law,” Jen said. “No hijacking of the vid. No rowdiness. No drunk and disorderly nor even disrespectful. Senior captain says if he has to liberate one of us from lockup it’ll be serious. I imagine various captains have said a lot the same. Not saying there’s probably not shopkeepers who’ve had run-ins with Customs themselves.”

  “And had more luck getting stuff through by talking to other crew,” Ross said. “Always has been the situation. Crews here get along. We’re polite to our merchants. We’re not used to having assigned turf, and there was a little fuss when they assigned us to particular bars, but they gave us Rosie’s and the Fortune, so we weren’t upset. You can be anywhere else—we could go to Critical Mass, no problem, and the bar wouldn’t complain about a flood of customers. But if a fight happened, presumption of innocence goes to the assigneds.”

  “Funny they didn’t presume us innocent,” Jen said. “That Hewitt guy sent a real angry note to the captains.”

  “Well, strangers are never innocent.” He gave her arm a hug. “Station can’t pick a fight with us locals, that’s how it works. That’s the thing we have to assure them if we do join up, you know, that Alpha’s going to get cargo. And they will. People like Rosie and his staff, Farah and her kids at the Fortune, we wouldn’t run out on them.”

  “That’s the way with us,” Jen said. “We’ve got people on Pell that we always see. People on Venture and Mariner we care about. That’s the thing. We’re not going to leave the stations worse off than before. Better, is our hope—ships that can keep schedules. Cargoes that arrive. Maybe more cargo, at least nothing worse. And if a ship is out for repair, maybe we can work with the stations—divert for a run or two. I dunno. I dunno that end of it. But we’re not selling doom for the stations, far from it.”

  “It sounds good. I just don’t see how it works out.”

  “The more ports the better. More for us. More for you.”

  “I don’t see how it’s more. We’re not one of the newest ships. And other stations have their regulars.”

  “There’s Venture. We call at Venture sometimes. We might run into each other there.”

  “The chance of being there at the same time . . .”

  “Fallan and our Fourth, all those years,” Jen said, pressing his hand. “Neither of them ever forgot. That’s special.” A pause. Her fingers were gentle on his. “I hope we do meet after this. I don’t think I’ll forget you.”

  He was sure he wouldn’t forget her, for a variety of reasons, not least of which was she confused hell out of him. She could be all business and then shift into friend, and to this hour he didn’t know which one really was business, that was the hell of it. Thoughts of her were all tangled up in threats to life and livelihood, a major shift in his whole world. And she’d been, well—

&nb
sp; She’d occupied his thinking uncommonly often since they’d met—for various reasons, including an occasional suspicion of betrayal. There were two girls he knew who were on station at the moment, and he hadn’t, in the craziness, had time to message either of them, just to wave once, in passing. And she probably thought he was with the other one. But Jen had a way of both fascinating and worrying him, all at the same time.

  She’d lived in his mind a few short and worried days, and he could honestly see himself down the years, maybe as long-lived as Fallan, thinking of her, wishing he could tell her some fool thing, because, well, Jen had a universe-view that in a lot of ways made sense to him. She wasn’t full of herself, she’d told him the truth—all the truth, he hoped—about as soon as she could have gotten a decent reading on him: he didn’t really begrudge that. He hadn’t told her every family secret either.

  Fact was, in not very long at all Jen had posed a serious disturbance in his way of life. He did like her. If she said sleepover he’d be right there. He’d never understood what people said about chemistry until it hit him like an oncoming rock.

  And yes, he could find himself in years to come wondering where she was. Which was fairly useless, with Finity coming from a whole other set of runs. He could find himself from now on measuring the local girls against Jen, and thinking—it wasn’t the same.

  Bad case of it, he said to himself. Stupid case of it. And he felt her warm hand on his and her arm wrapped around his and thought he wanted that to last, to remember, as long as possible.

  God, he had it bad. He wished she’d start a fight so they could just break up and be over it.

  He wanted her. Really badly.

  Hell. “Nothing doing at the moment. What do you say we go back to your sleepover.”