Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  Damon entertained hopes of finding him safe, refused to take alarm until the records search had come in; he had seen too many of these come across his desk only to discover a young merchanter who had had a falling out with his family or drunk too much to listen to vid. The whole thing was more security’s problem at this level, but security had its hands full, its men and women standing guard duty with haggard eyes and short tempers. LA could at least punch comp buttons and take up some of the clerical work. Another killing in Q. It was depressing, and there was absolutely nothing they could do but note the fact. There was a report of a guard under suspension, accused of smuggling a case of Downer wine into Q. Some officer had decided the problem should not wait, when it was likely there was petty smuggling going on everywhere among the merchanters out there. The man was being made an example.

  He had three postponed hearings in the afternoon. They were likely to be postponed again, because the council was meeting and the board of justices was involved in that. He decided to agree with the defender to that effect, and put the message through, reserving the afternoon instead for the disposal of more queries that the lower levels of the office could not handle.

  And having disposed of that, he swung his chair about and looked back at Josh, who sat dutifully reading a book on the auxiliary unit and trying not to look as bored as he ought to be. “Hey,” Damon said. Josh looked at him. “Lunch? We can take a long one and work out at the gym.”

  “We can go there?”

  “It’s open.”

  Josh turned the machine off.

  Damon rose, leaving everything on hold, walked over and gathered up his jacket, felt after cards and papers to be absolutely sure. Mazian’s troops still stood guard here and there as unreasonable as they ever had been.

  Josh likewise put on a jacket… they were about the same size, and it was borrowed. Lending, Josh would accept, if not giving, augmenting his small wardrobe so that he could come and go in the offices without undue attention. Damon held the door button, instructed the office outside to delay calls for two hours.

  “Back at one,” the secretary acknowledged, and turned to take an incoming call. Damon motioned Josh on through into the outer corridor.

  “A half an hour at the gym,” Damon said, “then a sandwich at the concourse. I’m hungry.”

  “Fine,” Josh said. He looked nervously about him. Damon looked too, and felt uneasy. The corridors had very little traffic even yet. People were just not trusting of the situation. : Some troops stood, distantly visible.

  “The troops should all be pulled back,” he said to Josh, “by the end of this week. Our own security is taking over entirely in white; green maybe in two days. Have patience. We’re working on it.”

  “They’ll still do what they want,” Josh said somberly.

  “Huh. Did Mallory, after all?”

  A shadow came on Josh’s face. “I don’t know. When I think about it, I still don’t know.”

  “Believe me.” They had reached the lift, alone. A trooper stood at the corner of another corridor, a fact in the tail of the eye, nothing remarkable. He pushed the code for the core. “Had a bit of good news come in this morning. My brother called up, said things are smoothing out down there.”

  “I’m glad,” Josh murmured.

  The trooper moved suddenly. Came toward them. Damon looked. Others further down the hall started moving, all of them, at a near run. “Abort that,” the first trooper snapped, reaching them. She reached for the panel herself. “We’re on a call.”

  “I can get you a priority,” Damon said — to be rid of them. The move indicated trouble; he thought of them shoving stationers around on other levels.

  “Do it.”

  He took his card from his pocket, thrust it into the slot and coded his priority; the lights went red. The rest of the troopers arrived as the car did, and armored shoulders pushed them aside as the troops all crowded in, leaving them there. The car whisked away, nonstop for whatever destination they had coded from inside. There was not a trooper left in the corridor. Damon looked at Josh, whose face was pale and set.

  “We take the next car,” Damon said with a shrug. He was himself disturbed, and quietly coded in blue nine.

  “Elene?” Josh asked.

  “Want to get down there,” he said. “You come with me. If there’s trouble, it’s likely to end up on the dockside. I want to get down there.”

  The car delayed in coming. He waited several moments and finally used his card a second time, a second priority; the lights went red, signifying a car on priority call, then blinked, signifying nothing available. He slammed his fist against the wall, cast a second look at Josh. It was far to walk; easier to wait for a car to free itself… quicker in the long run.

  He walked over to the nearest com unit, keyed in on priority, while Josh stood waiting by the lift doors. “Hold the car if it comes,” he said to Josh, punched the call in. “Com Central, this is Damon Konstantin on emergency. We’re seeing troops pulling out on the run. What’s going on?”

  There was a long delay. “Mr. Konstantin,” a voice came back, “this is a public com unit.”

  “Not at the moment, central. What’s going on?”

  “General alert. Emergency posts, please.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Com had cut itself off. A measured siren began to sound. Red lights began to pulse in the overheads. People came out of the offices, looked at one another as if hoping it was drill, or mistaken. His own secretary was outside, far down the hall.

  “Get back inside,” he shouted. “Get those doors shut.” People moved backward, retreated into offices. The red light by Josh’s shoulder was still blinking, indicating no car available: every car in the system must have jammed up down at the docks.

  “Come on,” he said to Josh, motioned toward the end of the hall. Josh looked confused and he strode over, caught Josh by the arm. “Come on.”

  There were others in the hall, farther on. He snapped an order at them, cleared them out, not blaming them… there were others besides Konstantins who had loved ones scattered about the station, children in school and nurseries, people in hospital. Some ran ahead of them, refusing orders. A station security agent shouted out another order to halt; ignored, laid a hand on his pistol.

  “Let them go,” Damon snapped. “Let be.”

  “Sir.” The policeman’s face relaxed from a grimace of panic. “Sir, I’m not getting anything over com.”

  “Keep that gun holstered. You learn those reflexes from the troops? Stand your post. Calm people down. Help them where you can. There’s a scramble going on. Could even be drill. Ease up.”

  “Sir.”

  They walked on, toward the emergency ramp, in the quiet hall… not running; a Konstantin could not run, spread panic. He walked, trying to hold off panic in himself. “No time,” Josh said under his breath. “By the time the alert gets here, the ships are on us. If Mazian’s been caught at dock…”

  “Got militia and two carriers out from station,” Damon said, and remembered all at once who Josh was. He caught his breath, gave him a desperate look, met a face as worried as his own. “Come on,” he said.

  They reached the emergency ramp, heard shouting, loud as they opened the doors. Runners were headed in down it from other levels. “Slow down!” Damon yelled at those who passed him, and they did, several turns, but a few became many, and suddenly there were more coming up, the noise increasing, more running… the transport system jammed everywhere and all the levels pouring into the spiral well. “Take it easy,” Damon shouted, grabbed shoulders physically and tried to slow it, but the rush accelerated, bodies jamming in, men, women, and children, impossible now even to get out of it. The doors were full of people trying to go down.

  “The docks!” he heard shouted. It spread like fire, with the red light of alarm burning in the overhead, the assumption that had been seething in Pell since the troops came — that someday it would come, that the station was un
der attack, that evacuation was underway. The mass pressed down, and there was no stopping it.

  ii

  Norway; 1105

  cfx/knight/189-8989-6877 easyeasyeasy/scorpiontwelve/zerozerozero/ endit

  Signy keyed back acknowledgment and turned to Graff with a wide sweep of her hand. “Hit it!” Graff relayed, and go sounded throughout the ship. Warnings flared, spreading to dockside. Troops outside finished stripping the umbilicals. “We can’t take them,” Signy said when Di Janz fretted in com. It sat ill with her to abandon men. “They’re all right.”

  “Umbilicals clear,” Graff shouted across, off com. It was a go-when-ready from Europe, which had left its troops, already moving out. Pacific was moving. Tibet’s rider was still heading in behind the wave of the original message, signaling with its presence what Tibet had already sent; and what was happening on the fringes of Pell System was as old as the light-bound signal that came reporting it, ships inbound, more than an hour ago. The lights on Norway’s main board flicked green, a steady ripple of them, and Signy released clamp and set Norway free, with the troops who had made it aboard still hastening for security. Norway moved null for a moment under the gentle puffs of directionals and undocking vents, continued the roll of her frame and cut in main thrust with a margin that skimmed Australia’s clearance and probably set off alarms all over Pell. They acquired hard G, the inner cylinder under combat synch, rolling to compensate stresses: weight bore down, eased, slammed down again.

  They came to heading, with a clutter of merchanters in lower plane; Europe and Pacific ahead of them, Australia breaking clear behind. Atlantic would be moving any second; India’s Keu was on-station and headed for his ship; Africa’s Porey was downworld. Africa would move out under its lieutenant’s command and rendezvous with Porey shuttling up from Downbelow, running tailguard at best.

  The inevitable was on them. That rider was some minutes behind Tibet’s message, insurance. Its message was reaching them now; and a chatter of further transmission from Tibet itself, and North Pole’s voice added itself, along with the alarm of militia ships helplessly in the path of the strike. Tibet was engaged, trying to make the incoming fleet dump speed to deal with them. North Pole was moving. Merchanter vessels serving as militia were altering course, slow ships, short-haulers, at a standstill compared to the speed of the incoming fleet. They could slow it if they had the nerve. If.

  “Rider’s turned,” scan op said in her ear. She saw it onscreen. The rider had gotten their acknowledgment minutes ago, had put about; that scan image was meeting them now. Longscan comp had put the rest of the arc together and the comp tech had reasoned the rest by human intent… the yellow fuzz going off from the red approach line was long-scan’s new estimate of the ridership’s position; the old estimate faded to faint blue, mere warning to watch that line of approach in case. They were headed right down it in outgoing plane, while the incoming rider was obliged to go nadir. And they were all streaming out together, right down the line.

  Signy gnawed her lip, cautioned scan and com monitor to keep up with events all around the sphere, fretting that Mazian had hauled them out in one vector only. Come on, she thought with the taste of one disaster in her mouth, no more like Viking. Give us a few options, man.

  cfx / knight / 189-9090-687 / ninerninerniner / sphinx / twotwotwo triplet / doublet / quartet / wisp / endit.

  New orders. The late ships were given the other vectors. Pacific and Atlantic and Australia moved onto new courses, slow motion flowering of the pattern to shield the system.

  iii

  Pell: stationmaster’s offices

  merchanter hammer to ecs in vicinity/maydaymaydaymayday/union carriers moving/twelve carriers our vicinity/going for jump/maydaymaydaymayday…

  swan’s eye to all ships/runrunrunrun…

  ecs tibet to all ships/relay/…

  Over an hour old, proliferating through the system in relay through the com of every ship receiving and still going, like an echo in a madhouse. Angelo leaned to the comp console and keyed through to dockside, where the shock of a massive pullout still had crews spilling out on emergency call: military crews had handled it, their own way, undocked without interval. Central was in chaos, with a pending G crisis if the systems could not adjust to the massive kickoff. There were palpable instabilities. Com was jammed. And for nearly two hours the situation on the rim of the solar system had been in progress, while the message flashed its lightbound way toward them.

  Troops were left on the dock. Most had been aboard already, barracked onship; some had not made it, and military channels on-station echoed with incomprehensible messages, angry voices. Why they had pulled the troops, why they had delayed to board those they could with attack incoming… the implication of that was the liberty of the Fleet to run out on them. Mazian’s order…

  Emilio, he thought distractedly. The schematic of Downbelow on the left wall-screen flickered with a dot that was Porey’s shuttle. He could not call; no one could — Mazian’s orders… com silence. Hold pattern, traffic control was broadcasting to merchanters in orbit; it was all they could say. Com queries flowed from merchanters at dock, faster than operators could answer them with pleas for quiet.

  Union was bound to have done this. Anticipated, Mazian had flashed him, in what direct communication he had gotten. For days the captains had stayed near the ships — troops jammed aboard in discomfort — not in courtesy to station; not in response to their requests to have the troops out of the halls.

  Prepared for pullout. Despite all promises, prepared for pullout.

  He reached for the com button, to call Alicia, who might be following this on her screens…

  “Sir.” His secretary Mills came on com. “Security requests you come to com central. There’s a situation down in green.”

  “What situation?”

  “Crowds, sir.”

  He thrust himself from his desk, grabbed his coat.

  “Sir — ”

  He turned. His office door opened unasked, Mills there protesting the intrusion of Jon Lukas and a companion. “Sir,” Mills said. “I’m sorry. Mr. Lukas insisted… I told him…”

  Angelo frowned, vexed at the intrusion and at once hoping for assistance. Jon was able, if self-interested. “I need some help,” he said, and his eyes flicked in alarm at the small movement of the other man’s hand to his coat, the sudden flash of steel. Mills failed to see it… Angelo cried aloud as the man slashed Mills, scrambled back as the man flung himself at him. Hale: he recognized the face suddenly.

  Mills shrieked, bleeding, sinking against the open doorway; there were screams from the outer office; the blow struck, a numbing shock. Angelo reached for the driving hand and met the weapon protruding from his chest, stared disbelievingly at Jon… at hate. There were others in the doorway.

  Shock welled up in him, with the blood.

  iv

  Q

  “ Vassily,” the voice said over com. “Vassily, do you hear me?”

  Kressich, at his desk, sat paralyzed. It was Coledy, of those who sat about him, hunched and waiting, who reached past him and punched the respond button. “I hear,” Kressich said past the knot in his throat. He looked at Coledy. In his ears was the buzz of voices out on the docks, people already frightened, already threatening riot.

  “Keep him safe,” Coledy said to James, who was over the five others who waited outside. “Keep him very safe.”

  And Coledy went. They had waited, had hovered about com, one of them always near it, gathered here in the confusion. It was on them now. After a moment there was a rise in the noise of the mob outside, a dull, bestial sound which shook the walls.

  Kressich bowed his face into his hands, stayed so for a long time, not wishing to know.

  “The doors,” he heard finally, a shout from outside. “The doors are open!”

  v

  Green nine

  They ran, stumbling and breathless, jostling others in the corridor, a sea of panicked people, red-d
yed in alarm lights. A siren still went; there was a queasiness of G as station systems struggled to keep themselves stable. “It’s the docks,” Damon breathed, his vision blurring. A runner hit him and he fended the body off, pushed his way, with Josh in his wake, where the ramp opened onto nine. “Mazian’s peeled off.” It was all that made sense.

  Shrieks broke out and there was a massive backflow in the crowd that brought all the press to a stop. Of a sudden traffic began to go the other way, people retreating from something. There were frantic screams, bodies jammed against them.

  “Damon!” Josh yelled from behind him. It was no good. They were pushed back, all of them, against the crush of bodies behind. Shots streaked overhead, and the whole jammed mass quivered and rang with screams. Damon got his arms in front of him for leverage, to keep from being suffocated… ribs were compressed.

  Then the rear of the press turned, running in panic down some route of escape; and the crush became a battering flood. He tried to stand in it, having his own direction. A hand caught his arm, and Josh caught up with him, staggered as the mob shoved and stampeded and they tried to fight the current

  More shots. A man went down; more than one — hit. The fire was going into the crowd.

  “Stop shooting!” Damon shouted, still with a wall of people in front of him, a wall diminishing as if a scythe were hitting it. “Cease fire!”