Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  Chapter Eight

  Pell: 5/23/52

  They offered a chair. They were always courteous, always called him Mr. Talley and never by his rank — civ habit; or maybe they made the point that here Unioners were still counted rebels and had no rank. Perhaps they hated him, but they were unfailingly gentle with him and unfailingly kind. It frightened him all the same, because he suspected it false.

  They gave him more papers to fill out. A doctor sat down opposite him at the table and tried to explain the procedures in detail. “I don’t want to hear that,” he said. “I just want to sign the papers. I’ve had days of this. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Your tests weren’t honestly taken,” the doctor said. “You lied and gave false answers in the interview. Instruments indicated you were lying. Or under stress. I asked was there constraint on you and the instruments said you lied when you said there wasn’t.”

  “Give me the pen.”

  “Is someone forcing you? Your answers are being recorded.”

  “No one’s forcing me.”

  “This is also a lie, Mr. Talley.”

  “No.” He tried and failed to keep his voice from shaking.

  “We normally deal with criminals, who also tend to lie.” The doctor held up the pen, out of easy reach. “Sometimes with the self-committed, very rarely. It’s a form of suicide. You have a medical right to it, within certain legal restrictions; and so long as you’ve been counseled and understand what’s involved. If you continue your therapy on schedule, you should begin to function again in about a month. Legal independence within six more. Full function — you understand that there may be permanent impairment to your ability to function socially; there could be other psychological or physical impairments…”

  He snatched the pen and signed the papers. The doctor took them and looked at them. Finally the doctor drew a paper from his pocket, pushed it across the table, a rumpled and much-folded scrap of paper.

  He smoothed it out, saw a note with half a dozen signatures. Your account in station comp has 50 credits. For anything you want on the side. Six of the detention guards had signed it; the men and women he played cards with. Given out of their own pockets. Tears blurred his eyes.

  “Want to change your mind?” the doctor asked,

  He shook his head, folded the paper. “Can I keep it?”

  “It will be kept along with your other effects. You’ll get everything back on your release.”

  “It won’t matter then, will it?”

  “Not at that point,” the doctor said, “Not for some time.”

  He handed the paper back.

  “I’ll get you a tranquilizer,” the doctor said, and called for an attendant, who brought it in, a cup of blue liquid. He accepted it and drank it and felt no different for it.

  The doctor pushed blank paper in front of him, and laid the pen down. “Write down your impressions of Pell. Will you do that?”

  He began. He had had stranger requests in the days that they had tested him. He wrote a paragraph, how he had been questioned by the guards and finally how he felt he had been treated. The words began to grow sideways. He was not writing on the paper. He had run off the edge onto the table and couldn’t find his way back. The letters wrapped around each other, tied in knots.

  The doctor reached and lifted the pen from his hand, robbing him of purpose.

  Chapter Nine

  i

  Pell: 5/28/52

  Damon looked over the report on his desk. It was not the procedure he was used to, the martial law which existed in Q. It was rough and quick, and came across his desk with a trio of film cassettes and a stack of forms condemning five men to Adjustment.

  He viewed the film, jaw clenched, the scenes of riot leaping across the large wall-screen, flinched at recorded murder. There was no question of the crime or the identification. There was, in the stack of cases which had flooded the LA office, no time for reconsiderations or niceties. They were dealing with a situation which could bring the whole station down, turn it all into the manner of thing that had come in with Hansford. Once life-support was threatened, once men were crazy enough to build bonfires on a station dock… or go for station police with kitchen knives…

  He pulled the files in question, keyed up printout on the authorization. There was no fairness in it, for they were the five the security police had been able to pull across the line, five out of many more as guilty. But they were five who would not kill again, nor threaten the frail stability of a station containing many thousands of lives. Total Adjustment, he wrote, which meant personality restruct. Processing would turn up injustice if he had done one. Questioning would determine innocence if any existed at this point. He felt foul in doing what he did, and frightened. Martial law was far too sudden. His father had agonized the night long in making one such decision after a board had passed on it.

  A copy went to the public defender’s office. They would interview in person, lodge appeals if warranted. That procedure too was curtailed under present circumstance. It could be done only by producing evidence of error; and evidence was in Q, unreachable. Injustices were possible. They were condemning on the word of police under attack and the viewing of film which did not show what had gone before. There were five hundred reports of theft and major crimes on his desk when before there had been a Q, they might have dealt with two or three such complaints a year. Comp was flooded with data requests. There had been days of work done on id’s and papers for Q, and all of that was scrapped. Papers had been stolen and destroyed to such an extent in Q that no paper could be trusted to be accurate. Most of the claims to paper were probably fradulent, and loudest from the dishonest. Affidavits were worthless where threat ruled. People would swear to anything for safety. Even the ones who had come in good order were carrying paper they had no confirmation on: security confiscated cards and papers to save those from theft, and they were passing some few out where they were able to establish absolute id and find a station-side sponsor for them — but it was slow, compared to the rate of influx; and main station had no place to put them when they did. It was madness. They tried with all their resources to eliminate red tape and hurry; and it just got worse.

  “Tom,” he keyed, a private note to Tom Ushant, in the defender’s office, “if you get a gut feeling that something’s wrong in any of these cases, appeal it back to me regardless of procedures. We’re putting through too many condemnations too fast; mistakes are possible. I don’t want to find one out after processing starts.”

  He had not expected reply. It came through. “Damon, look at the Talley file if you want something to disturb your sleep. Russell’s used Adjustment.”

  “You mean he’s been through it?”

  “Not therapy. I mean they used it questioning him.”

  “I’ll look at it.” He keyed out, hunted the access number, pulled the file in comp display. Page after page of their own interrogation data flicked past on the screen, most of it uninformative: ship name and number, duties… an armscomper might know the board in front of him and what he shot at, but little more. Memories of home then… family killed in a Fleet raid on Cyteen system mines; a brother, killed in service — reason enough to carry grudges if a man wanted to. Reared by his mother’s sister on Cyteen proper, a plantation of sorts… then a government school, deep-teaching for tech skills. Claimed no knowledge of higher politics, no resentments of the situation. The pages passed into actual transcript, uncondensed, disjointed ramblings… turned to excruciatingly personal things, the kind of intimate detail which surfaced in Adjustment, while a good deal of self was being laid bare, examined, sorted. Fear of abandonment, that deepest; fear of being a burden on his relatives, of deserving to be abandoned: he had a tangled kind of guilt about the loss of his family, had a pervading fear of it happening again, in any involvement with anyone. Loved the aunt. Took care of me, the thread of it ran at one point. Held me sometimes. Held me … loved me. He had not wanted to leave her home. But Union had its dem
ands; he was supported by the state, and they took him, when he came of age. After that, it was state-run deep-teach, taped education, military training and no passes home. He had had letters from the aunt for a while; the uncle had never written. He believed the aunt was dead now, because the letters had stopped some years ago.

  She would write, he believed. She loved me. But there were deeper fears that she had not; that she had really wanted the state money; and there was guilt, that he had not come home; that he had deserved this parting too. He had written to the uncle and gotten no answer. That had hurt him, though he and the uncle had never loved each other. Attitudes, beliefs… another wound, a broken friendship; an immature love affair, another case in which letters stopped coming, and that wound involved itself with the old ones. A later attachment, to a companion in service… uncomfortably broken off. He tended to commit himself to a desperate extent. Held me, he repeated, pathetic and secret loneliness. And more things.

  He began to find it. Terror of the dark. A vague, recurring nightmare: a white place. Interrogation. Drugs. Russell’s had used drugs, against all Company policy, against all human rights — had wanted badly something Talley simply did not have. They had gotten him from Mariner zone — from Mariner — transferred to Russell’s at the height of the panic. They had wanted information at that threatened station; had used Adjustment techniques in interrogation. Damon rested his mouth against his hand, watched the fragmentary record roll past, sick at his stomach. He felt ashamed at the discovery, naive. He had not questioned Russell’s reports, had not investigated them himself; had had other things on his hands, and staff to take care of that matter; had not — he admitted it — wanted to deal with the case any more than he absolutely had to. Talley had never called him. Had conned him. Had held himself together, already unstrung from previous treatment, to con Pell into doing the only thing that might put an end to his mental hell. Talley had looked him straight in the eye and arranged his own suicide.

  The record rambled on… from interrogation under drugs to chaotic evacuation, with stationer mobs on one side and the military threatening him on the other.

  And what it had been, what had happened during that long voyage, a prisoner on one of Mazian’s ships…

  Norway … and Mallory.

  He killed the screen, sat staring at the stack of papers, the unfinished condemnations. After a time he set himself to work again, his fingers numb as he signed the authorizations.

  Men and women had boarded at Russell’s Star, folk who, like Talley, might have been sane before it all started. What had gotten off those ships, what existed over in Q… had been made, of folk no different than themselves.

  He simply pushed the destruct on lives like Talley’s, which were already gone. On men like himself, he thought, who had gone over civilized limits, in a place where civilization had stopped meaning anything.

  Mazian’s Fleet — even they, even the likes of Mallory — had surely started differently.

  “I’m not going to challenge,” Tom told him, over a lunch they both drank more than ate.

  And after lunch he went to the small Adjustment facility over in red, and back into the treatment area. He saw Josh Talley. Talley did not see him, although perhaps it would not have mattered. Talley was resting at that hour, having eaten. The tray was still on the table, and he had eaten well. He sat on the bed with a curiously washed expression on his face, all the lines of strain erased.

  ii

  Angelo looked up at the aide, took the report of the ship outbound and scanned the manifest, looked up. “Why Hansford?”

  The aide shifted his weight, distressed. “Sir?”

  “Two dozen ships idle and Hansford has a commission to launch? Unfitted? And with what crew?”

  “I think crew was hired off the inactive list, sir.”

  Angelo leafed through the report. “Lukas Company. Viking-bound with a stripped ship and a dock-bound crew and Dayin Jacoby for a passenger? Get Jon Lukas on the com.”

  “Sir,” the aide said, “the ship has already left dock.”

  “I can see the time. Get me Jon Lukas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The aide went out. In moments the screen on the desk went bright and Jon Lukas came on. Angelo took a deep breath, calmed himself, angled the report toward the pickup. “See that?”

  “You have a question?”

  “What’s going on here?”

  “We have holdings at Viking. Business to carry on. Shall we let our interest there sink into panic and disorder? They’re due some reassurance.”

  “With Hansford?”

  “We had an opportunity to engage a ship at below standard. Economics, Angelo.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I’m not sure I take your meaning.”

  “She carried nothing like full cargo. What kind of commodity do you plan to pick up at Viking?”

  “We carry as much as we can with Hansford in her present condition. She’ll refit there, where facilities are less crowded. Refitting is the hire for which we got her use, if you must know. What she carries will pay the bill; she’ll lade full on return, critical supplies. I’d think you’d be pleased. Dayin is aboard to supervise and to administer some business at our Viking office.”

  “You’re not minded, are you, that this full lading include Lukas Company personnel… or others? You’re not going to sell passage off Viking. You’re not going to pull that office out.”

  “Ah. That’s your concern.”

  “That has to be my concern when ships go out of here with no sufficient cargo to justify their moving, headed for a population we can’t handle if it panics. I’m telling you, Jon, we can’t take chances on some loose talk or some single company pulling its favored employees out and starting a panic on another station. You hear me?”

  “I did discuss the matter with Dayin. I assure you our mission is supportive. Commerce has to continue, doesn’t it, or we strangle. And before us, Viking. Stations they rely on have collapsed. Let Viking start running into shortages and they may be here in our laps with no invitation. We’re taking them foodstuffs and chemicals; nothing Pell may run short of… and we have the only two usable holds on the ship fully loaded. Is every ship launched subject to this inquisition? I can provide you with the company books if you want to see them. I take this amiss. Whatever our private feelings, Angelo, I think Dayin deserves commendation for being willing to go out there under the circumstances. It doesn’t deserve a fanfare — we asked for none — but we would have expected something other than accusations. Do you want the books, Angelo?”

  “Hardly. Thank you, Jon, and my apologies. So long as Dayin and your ship’s master appreciate the hazards. Every ship that launches is going to be scrutinized, yes. Nothing personal.”

  “Any questions you have, Angelo, so long as they’re equally applied. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Jon.” Jon keyed out. Angelo did so, sat staring at the report, riffled through it, finally signed the authorization after the fact and dumped it into the Record tray; all the offices were running behind. Everyone. They were using too many man-hours and too much comp time on the Q processing.

  “Sir.” It was his secretary, Mills. “Your son, sir.”

  He keyed acceptance of a call, looked up in some surprise as the door opened instead and Damon walked in. “I brought the processing reports myself,” Damon said. He sat down, leaned on the desk with both arms. Damon’s eyes looked as tired as he himself felt, which was considerable. “I’ve processed five men into Adjustment this morning.”

  “Five men isn’t a tragedy,” Angelo said wearily. “I’ve got a lottery process set up for comp to pick who goes and stays on station. I’ve got another storm on Downbelow that’s flooded the mill again, and they’ve just found the victims from the last washout. I’ve got ships pulling at the tether now that the panic’s worn down, one that’s just slipped, two more to go tomorrow. If rumor has it that Mazian’s chosen Pell for a refuge, where does that le
ave the remaining stations? What when they panic and head here by the shipload? And how do we know that someone isn’t out there right now, selling passage to more frightened people? Our life-support won’t take much more.” He gestured loosely toward a stack of documents. “We’re going to militarize what freighters we can, by some pretty strong financial coercion.”

  “To fire on refugee ships?”

  “If ships come in that we can’t handle — yes. I’d like to talk to Elene sometime today; she’d be the one to make the initial approach to the merchanters. I can’t muster sympathy for five rioters today. Forgive me.”

  His voice cracked. Damon reached across the desk, caught his wrist and pressed it, let it go again. “Emilio needs help down there?”

  “He says not. The mill’s a shambles. Mud everywhere.”

  They find all of them dead?“

  He nodded. “Last night. Bennett Jacint and Ty Brown; Wes Kyle yesterday noon… this long, to hunt the banks and the reeds. Emilio and Miliko say morale is all right, considering. The Downers are building dikes. More of them have been anxious for human trade; I’ve ordered more let into base and I’ve authorized some of the trained ones into maintenance up here: their life-support is in good shape, and it frees up some techs we can upgrade. I’m shuttling down every human volunteer who’ll go, and that means even trained dock hands; they can handle construction equipment. Or they can learn. It’s a new age. A tighter one.” He pressed his lips together, sucked in a long breath. “Have you and Elene thought of Earth?”

  “Sir?”

  “You, your brother, Elene and Miliko — think about it, will you?”

  “No,” Damon said. “Pull out and run? You think that’s what it’s coming to?”

  “Figure the odds, Damon. We didn’t get help from Earth, just observers. They’re figuring on cutting their losses, not sending us reinforcements or ships. No. We’re just settling lower and lower. Mazian can’t hold forever. The shipyards at Mariner… were vital. It’s Viking soon; and whatever else Union reaches out to take. Union’s cutting the Fleet off from supply; Earth already has. We’re out of everything but room to run.”