Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  “I remember,” Hale said. “But we were run off, Mr, Lukas, for personal reasons. Konstantin was looking for an excuse. He’s changing your policies, tearing up things, disarranging everything you’ve done. And we tried, sir.”

  “Can’t help that,” Jon said. “I’m not down there. I’m not running things. And now you’re not. I’d rather Jacoby could have gotten you off with something lighter, but there you are. You’re in private employ now.” He leaned back at the desk. “I could need you,” he said soberly. “Figure on that too. So it could have turned out worse for you… station life now, no more mud, no more headaches from bad air. You work for the company at whatever comes up and you use your heads. You’ll do all right”

  “Yes, sir,” Hale said.

  “And, Lee…” Jon looked at Lee Quale, a level, sober stare. “You may be standing guard on Lukas property from time to time. You just may have a gun on your person. And you don’t fire it. You know how close you came to Adjustment on that account?”

  “Bastard hit the barrel,” Quale muttered.

  “Damon Konstantin runs Legal Affairs. Emilio’s brother, man. Angelo’s got it all in his pocket. If he’d had a better case he’d have sent you through the mill. Think about the odds the next time you cross the Konstantins on your own.”

  The door opened. Vittorio slipped in, ignoring his instant frown of discouragement. Vittorio came up beside his chair, leaned close to his ear.

  “Man came in,” Vittorio whispered. “Off a ship named Swan’s Eye.”

  “I don’t know any Swan’s Eye,” he hissed back. “He can wait.”

  “No,” Vittorio persisted, leaned close a second time. “Listen to me. I’m not sure he’s authorized.”

  “How, not authorized?”

  “Papers. I’m not sure he’s supposed to be on station at all He’s out there. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  Jon drew a quick breath, suddenly cold. An office full of witnesses. A dock full of them. “Send him in,” he said. And to Hale and the others: “Go on outside. Fill out the papers and hand them to personnel. Take whatever they give you for today. Go on.”

  There were dark looks from them, suspicion of offense. “Come on,” Hale said, shepherding the others out. Vittorio hastened out after them, vanished, leaving the door open.

  A moment later a man merchanter-clad slipped through and closed it. Like that, closed it. No fear, no furtiveness in that move. As if he commanded. An ordinary face, a thirtyish man of no distinction at all. His manner was cold and quiet.

  “Mr. Jon Lukas,” the newcomer said.

  “I’m Jon Lukas.”

  Eyes lifted meaningfully to the overhead, about the walls.

  “No monitoring,” Jon said, short of breath. “You walk in here in public and you’re afraid of monitoring?”

  “I need a cover.”

  “What’s your name. Who are you?”

  The man walked forward and wrenched a gold ring from his finger, took a station id card from his pocket, laid both on the desk in front of him.

  Dayin’s.

  “You made a proposal,” the man said.

  Jon sat frozen.

  “Get me cover, Mr. Lukas.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I came on Swan’s Eye. Time’s limited. They’ll take on supplies and head out.”

  “Name, man. I don’t deal with nonentities.”

  “Give me a name. A man of your own to walk onto Swan’s Eye. A hostage, one who can deal in your name if need be. You have a son.”

  “Vittorio.”

  “Send him.”

  “He’d be missed.”

  The newcomer stared at him, coldly adament. Jon pocketed card and ring, reached a numb hand for the intercom. “Vittorio.”

  The door opened. Vittorio slipped in, eyes quick with apprehension, let the door close again.

  “The ship that brought me,” the man said, “will take you, Vittorio Lukas, to a ship called Hammer, out on the peripheries; and you needn’t have apprehensions of the crew of either. They’re trusted, all of them. Even the captain of Swan’s Eye has a powerful interest in your safety… wanting her own family back. You’ll be safe enough.”

  “Do as he says,” Jon said. Vittorio’s face was the color of paste.

  “Go? Like that?”

  “You’re safe,” Jon said. “You’re precious well safe… safer than you’d be here, not when it comes to what it’s coming to. Your papers, your card, your key. Give them to him. Go on Swan’s Eye with one of the deliveries. Just don’t look guilty and don’t get off. It’s easy enough.”

  Vittorio simply stared at him.

  “You’re safe, I assure you,” the stranger said. “You go out there, sit, wait. Act as liaison with our operations.”

  “Our.”

  “I’m told you understand me.”

  Vittorio reached to his pocket, handed over all his papers. There was a numb terror on his face. “Comp number,” the other prompted; Vittorio wrote it down for him on the desk-pad.

  “You’re all right,” Jon said. “I’m telling you you’re better off there than here.”

  “That’s what you told Dayin.”

  “Dayin Jacoby is quite well,” the stranger said.

  “Don’t foul it up,” Jon said. “Get your wits together. You foul it up out there and we’ll all be in for Adjustment You read me clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Vittorio said faintly. Jon gave him a nod toward the door, dismissal. Vittorio tentatively held out a hand toward him. He took it perfunctorily — could not, even now, like this son of his. Came closest in this moment, perhaps, that Vittorio proved of some real service to him.

  “I appreciate it,” he muttered, feeling some courtesy would salve wounds. Vittorio nodded.

  “This dock,” the stranger said, sorting through Vittorio’s papers. “Berth two. And hurry about it.”

  Vittorio left. The stranger slipped the papers and the comp number into his own pocket.

  “Use of the number periodically should satisfy comp,” the man said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Jessad will do,” the man replied. “Vittorio Lukas, I suppose, when it comes to comp. What’s his residence?”

  “Lives with me,” Jon said, wishing otherwise.

  “Anyone else? Any woman, close friends who’ll not be sympathetic…?

  “The two of us.”

  “Jacoby indicated as much. Residence with you… very convenient. Will it excite comment if I walk there in this clothing?”

  Jon sat down on the edge of his desk, mopped his face with his hand.

  “No need to be distressed, Mr. Lukas.”

  “They — the Union Fleet — they’re moving in?”

  “I’m to arrange certain things. I’m a consultant, Mr. Lukas. That would be an apt term. Expendable. A man, a ship or two… small risk against the gain. But I do want to live, you understand, and I propose not to be expended… without satisfaction for it. Just so you don’t suffer a change of heart, Mr. Lukas.”

  “They’ve sent you in here… with no backing — ”

  “Backing in plenty when it comes. We’ll talk tonight, in residence. I’m quite in your hands. I understand there’s no strong bond between yourself and your son.”

  Heat flushed his face. “No business of yours, Mr. Jessad.”

  “No?” Jessad looked him slowly up and down. “It’s coming, you can be sure of that. You’ve bid to be on the winning side. To do certain services… in return for position. I’ll be evaluating you. Very businesslike. You take my meaning. But you’ll do well to take my orders, to do nothing without my advice. I have a certain expertise in this situation. I’m advised that you don’t permit domestic monitoring; that Pell is very adamant on this point; that there’s no apparatus.”

  “There isn’t,” Jon said, swallowing heavily. “It’s very much against the law.”

  “Convenient. I’d hate to walk in under camera. The clothes, Mr. Lukas. Acceptable in you
r corridors?”

  Jon turned, searched his desk, found the appropriate form, his heart pounding all the while. If the man should be stopped, if there were suspicion, his signature on the document… but it was already too late. If Swan’s Eye were boarded and searched, if someone noticed that Vittorio failed to leave it before it undocked… “Here,” he said, tearing off the pass. “This isn’t to show anyone unless you’re stopped by security.” He pushed the com buttom and leaned over the mike. “Bran Hale still out there? Get him in here. Alone.”

  “Mr. Lukas,” Jessad said, “we don’t need other parties to this.”

  “You asked advice about the corridors. Take it. If you’re stopped, your story is that you’re a merchanter whose papers were stolen. You’re on your way to talk to administration about it, and Kale’s your escort. Give me Vittorio’s papers. I can carry them. You daren’t be caught with them, with that story. I’ll straighten it all out when I get to the apartment this evening.”

  Jessad handed them over in return for the pass. “And what do they do with merchanters whose papers get stolen?”

  “They call in their whole ship’s family and it’s a very great deal of commotion. You could end up in detention and Adjustment if things go that far, Mr. Jessad. But stolen papers are known here, and it’s a better cover than your plan. If it happens, go along with everything and trust my judgment. I have ships. I can arrange something. Claim you’re off Sheba. I know the family.”

  The door opened. Bran Hale stood there, and Jessad shut his mouth on whatever he would have said.

  “Trust me,” Jon repeated, relishing his discomfiture. “Bran, you’re useful already. Walk this man to my apartment.” He fished in his pocket after the manual guest key.

  “See him there and inside and sit with my guest until I come, will you? Could be a long while. Make yourself free in the place. And if you get stopped, he has a different story. You just follow his cue, all right?”

  Hale’s eyes took in Jessad, flicked back to him. Intelligent man, Hale. He nodded, without asking questions.

  “Mr. Jessad,” Jon murmured, “you can trust this man to see you there.”

  Jessad smiled tautly, offered his hand. Jon took it, a dry grip of a man of no normal nerves. Hale showed him out and Jon stood by his desk, watching both of them depart. The staff in the outer office were all like Hale, Lukas people, administrative level and trustworthy. Men and women he had chosen… and not one of them was likely to be doubling on the Konstantin payroll: he had always seen to that. He was still anxious. He turned from the view of the door to the sideboard, poured himself a drink, for however unruffled Jessad was, his own hands were shaking from the encounter and the possibilities in it. A Unionist agent. It was farce, a too elaborate result of his intrigue with Jacoby. He had sent out a tentative feeler and someone had raised the stakes in the game to a ridiculous level.

  Union ships were coming. Were very close, that they would take the enormous chance of sending in someone like Jessad. He resumed his seat at his desk, holding the drink, sipped at it, trying to pull his thoughts into coherency. The proposed deception of comp could not go on. He reckoned the life of the Jessad/Vittorio charade in days, and if something went wrong he would be the one quickest caught, not Jessad, who was not in comp. Jessad was expendable in Union plans, perhaps, but he was more so.

  He drank, trying to think.

  Seized up paper with sudden inspiration, more forms, started the call-up procedure for a short-hauler. There were crews in Lukas employ who would not talk, like Sheba, men who would take a ship out and carry a ghost aboard, falsify manifests, falsify crew or passenger listings… the tracing of the black market routes had turned up all manner of interesting data that some captains did not want known. So this afternoon another ship would go out to the mines, and Vittorio’s comp number could be changed into the station log.

  A little ripple, a ship moving; no one paid attention to short-haulers. Out to the mines and back again, a ship incapable of threatening security because it lacked speed and star capacity and weapons. He might still have some questions to answer from Angelo, but he knew all the right answers to give. He transmitted the order to comp, watched in satisfaction as comp swallowed the order and sent out notification to Lukas Company that any ship moving had to carry some station items to the mines free-freighted. Ordinarily he would have kicked hard at the size of the assessment for free transport; it was outrageous. He keyed back at it: Accepted ¼ station lading; will depart 1700md.

  Comp took it. He leaned back with a great sigh of relief, his heart settling down to a more reasonable rhythm. Personnel was an easy matter; he knew his better men.

  He set to work again, pulling names from comp, choosing the crew, a merchanter family long in Lukas’s pay. “Send the Kulins in the moment they hit the office,” he told his secretary over the com. “There’s a commission waiting for them. Make it out and hurry about it. Scramble together anything we’ve meant to freight out, and get it going; then get an extra dock crew to make a pickup from station lading for free-freighting, no quarrels, take whatever they’re given and get back here. You make sure those papers are flawless and that there’s no snag… absolutely no snag… in comp entries. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the answer came back. And a moment later: “Contact made with the Kulins. They’re on their way and thank you for the commission, sir.”

  Annie was convenient, a ship comfortable enough for a prolonged tour of Lukas mine interests. Small enough for obscurity. He had taken such tours in his youth, learning the business. So Vittorio might. He sipped at his drink and thumbed the papers on his desk, fretting.

  iii

  Pell: Central Cylinder; 9/9/52; 1200 hrs.

  Josh sank down to the matting, sat, collapsed backward, in the gym’s reduced G. Damon leaned over him, hands on bare knees, the suspicion of amusement on his face.

  “I’m done,” Josh said when he had a breath; his sides hurt. I’d exercised, but not this much.“

  Damon sank to his knees by him on the mat, hunched and himself hard-breathing. “Doing all right, anyhow. I’m ready to call it.” He sucked air and let out a slower breath, grinned at him. “Need help?”

  Josh grunted and rolled over, heaved himself up on one arm, gathered himself gracelessly to his feet, shaking in every muscle and conscious of the men and women in better form who passed them on the steep track which belted all Pell’s inner core. It was a crowded place, echoing with shouted conversation. It was freedom, and the worst there was to fear here was a little laughter. He would have kept going if he could… had already run longer than he should, but he hated to have the time end.

  His knees shook, and his belly ached. “Come on,” Damon said, rising with more ease. Damon caught his arm and guided him toward the dressing rooms. “Take a steam bath, a chance to get the knots out at least. I’ve got a little while before I have to get back to the office.”

  They went into the chaotic locker room, stripped and tossed the clothing into the common laundry. Towels were stacked there for the taking. Damon tossed a couple at him and showed him into the door marked steam, through a quick shower into a series of cubbyholes obscured by vapor, down a long aisle. Most places were occupied. They found a few vacant toward the end of the row, took one in the middle and sat down on the wooden benches. So much water to waste… Josh watched Damon dip up water and pour it on his head, cast the rest on a plate of hot metal until the steam boiled up and obscured him in a white cloud. Josh doused himself after similar fashion, mopped with the towel, short of breath and dizzy in the heat

  “You all right?” Damon asked him.

  He nodded, anxious not to spoil the time, anxious all the while he was with Damon. He desperately tried to maintain his balance, walking the line of too much trust on the one side and on the other — a terror of trusting anyone. He hated being alone… had never… sometimes certainties flashed out of his tattered memory, firm as truth… had never liked being alone. Damon w
ould tire of him. The novelty would wear off. Such company as his had to pall after a while.

  And then he would be alone, with half his mind and a token freedom, in this prison that was Pell.

  “Something bothering you?”

  “No.” And desperately, to change the subject, for Damon had complained he lacked company coming to the gym: “I’d thought Elene would meet us here.”

  “Pregnancy is beginning to slow her down a little. She’s not feeling up to it.”

  “Oh.” He blinked, looked away. It was an intimacy, such a question; he felt like an intruder — naive in such things. Women, he thought he had known, but not pregnant ones, not a relationship — as it was between Damon and Elene — full of permanencies. He remembered someone he had loved. Older. Dryer. Past such things. A boy’s love. He had been the child. He tried to follow the threads where they led, but they tangled. He did not want to think of Elene in that regard. Could not. He recalled warnings… psychological impairment, they had called it. Impairment…

  “Josh… are you all right?”

  He blinked again, which could become a nervous tic if he let it.

  “Something’s eating at you.”

  He made a helpless gesture in reply, not wanting to be trapped into discussion. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re worried about something.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t trust me?”

  The blink obscured his vision. Sweat was dripping into his eyes. He mopped his face.

  “All right,” Damon said, as if it were.

  He got up, walked to the door of the wooden cubicle, anything to put distance between them. His stomach was heaving.

  “Josh.”

  A dark place, a close place… he could run, clear this closeness, these demands on him. That would get him arrested, sent back to hospital, into the white walls.

  “Are you scared?” Damon asked him plainly.

  It hit as close to the mark as any other word. He made a helpless gesture, uncomfortable. Elsewhere the noise of other voices became like silence, a roar in which their own cell was remote.