Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  A handful of men poured out of the obscuring periphery of the gantries, unarmored… two running across to the far side, to take up position with rifles leveled. There was the sound of others running, and com was on again, warning of Norway itself inbound.

  “Get your head down,” Josh hissed, and Damon moved slowly, knelt by the brace of one of the movable tanks where Josh had taken closer cover, tried to see what was happening farther up, but there was a skein of umbilicals in the way. Mallory was using her own men for dock crews; but Jon Lukas must still be in command up in central, cooperating with Mazian, and in the pressure of Union attack, Mazian would choose efficiency over justice. Go out there, approach armed and nervous Company troops, raise a charge of murder and conspiracy while Jon Lukas physically held central and station, and Mazian had Union on his mind?

  “I could go out there,” he said, unsure of his conclusions.

  “They’d swallow you alive,” Josh said. “You’ve nothing to offer them.”

  He looked at Josh’s face. Of the gentle man Adjustment had turned out… there was nothing left, but perhaps the pain. Set him at a comp board, Josh had said once, and he might remember comp; set him into war and he had other instincts. Josh’s thin hands clutched the gun between his knees, and his eyes were set on the arch of the dock, where Norway was moving in to dock. Hate. His face was pale and intense. He might do anything. Damon felt the butt of the pistol in his own right hand, shifted his grip on it, moved his forefinger onto the trigger. An Adjusted Unioner… whose Adjustment was coming undone, who hated, who might go on coming apart. It was a day for murders, when the dead out there were too many to count, when there were no rules left, no kinships, no friendships. War had come to Pell, and he had lived naive all his life. Josh was dangerous — had been trained to be dangerous — and nothing they had done to his mind had changed that.

  Com announced arrival; there was the boom of contact. Josh swallowed visibly, eyes fixed. Damon reached with his left hand, caught Josh’s arm. “Don’t. Don’t do anything, hear me? You can’t reach her.”

  “Don’t intend to,” Josh said without looking at him. “Only so you have as good sense.”

  He let the gun to his side, finger slowly removed from the trigger, the taste of bile in his mouth. Norway was in solidly now, a second crashing of locks and joinings, a seal hissing into union.

  Troops boiled out onto the dock, formed up, with shouts of orders, took up positions relieving the rifle-bearing crewmen, armored figures, alike and implacable. And of a sudden there was another figure from high up the curve, a shout, and other troops came from the recess of the shops and offices along that stretch, from the bars and sleepovers, troops left behind, rejoining their comrades of the Fleet, carrying their wounded or dead with them. There was reunion, a wavering in the disciplined lines that took them in, embracings and cheers raised. Damon pressed as close to the concealing machinery as he could, and Josh shrank down beside him.

  An officer bellowed orders and the troops started to move in order, from the docks toward the green nine entry, and while some held it with leveled rifles, some advanced within it.

  Damon shifted back, farther and farther within the shadows, and Josh moved with him. Shouts reached them, the echoing bellow of a loudspeaker: Clear the corridor. Suddenly there were shouts and screams and firing. Damon leaned his head against the machinery and listened, eyes shut, once and twice felt Josh flinch at the now-familiar sounds and did not know whether he did also.

  It’s dying, he thought with exhausted calm, felt tears leak from his eyes. He shivered finally. Call it what they would, Mazian had not won; there was no possibility that the outnumbered Company ships had beaten off Union for good. It was only a skirmish, decision postponed. There would be more such, until there was no more Fleet and no more Company, and what became of Pell would be in other hands. Jump had outmoded the great star stations. There were worlds now, and the order and priority of things had changed. The military had seen it. Only the Konstantins had not. His father had not, who had believed in a way neither Company nor Union, but Pell’s — that kept the world it circled in trust, that disdained precautions within itself, that valued trust above security, that tried to lie to itself and believe that Pell’s values could survive in such times.

  There were those who could shift from side to side, play any politics going. Jon Lukas could do so; evidently had. If Mazian had sense to judge men, he would surely see what Jon Lukas was and reward him as he deserved. But Mazian did not need honest men, only men who would obey him, and impose Mazian’s kind of law.

  And Jon would come out a survivor, on either side. It was his own mother’s stubbornness, that refusal to die; his own, maybe, that did not seek approach to his uncle, whatever he had done. Maybe Pell needed a governor in these latter days who could shift and survive, trading what had to be traded.

  Only he could not. If he had Jon in front of him now — hate… hate of this measure was a new experience. A helpless hate… like Josh’s… but there was revenge, if he lived. Not to harm Pell. But to make Jon Lukas’s sleep less than easy. While a single Konstantin was loose, any holder of Pell had to feel less secure. Mazian, Union, Jon Lukas — none of them would own Pell until they had gotten him; and that he could make difficult for them, for as long as possible.

  Chapter Three

  Downbelow main base; 1300 hrs; local night

  There was still no answer. Emilio pressed Miliko’s hand against his shoulder and kept leaning over Ernst, at com, while other staff clustered about. No word out of station; no word from the Fleet; Porey and his entire force had gone hurtling offworld into a silence that persisted into yet another hour.

  “Give it up,” he told Ernst, and when there was a murmuring among other staff: “We don’t even know who’s in control up there. No panic, hear me? I don’t want any of that nonsense. If you want to stand around main base and wait for Union to land, fine. I won’t object. But we don’t know. If Mazian loses he might take out this facility, you understand? Might just want to destroy it beyond use. Sit here if you like. I’ve other ideas.”

  “We can’t run far enough,” a woman said. “We can’t live out there.”

  “Our chances aren’t good here either,” Miliko said.

  The murmuring swelled into panic.

  “Listen to me,” Emilio said. “Listen. I don’t think their landing in the bush is that easy, unless they’ve got equipment we haven’t heard of. And maybe they’ll try blowing up this place; but maybe they’d do that anyway, and I’d rather have cover. Miliko and I are taking a trip down the road. We’re not going to work for Union, if that’s what it comes to up there. Or stand here and deal with Porey when he comes back.”

  The murmuring was lower this time, more frightened than panicked. “Sir,” said Jim Ernst, “you want me to stay by com?”

  “You want to stay here?”

  “No,” Ernst said.

  Emilio nodded slowly, looked about at all of them. “We can take the portable compressors, the field dome… dig in when we get somewhere secure. We can survive out there. Our new bases do it. We can.”

  Heads nodded dazedly. It was too hard to realize what they were facing. He himself did not, and knew it.

  “Flash it down the road too,” he said. “Roll up the operation or stay on as they choose. I’m not forcing anyone to head into the bush if he doesn’t think he can make it. One thing we’ve already seen to, that Union won’t get their hands on the Downers. So now we make sure they don’t get their hands on us. We get food from the emergency stores we didn’t mention to Porey; we take the portable com; take some essential units out of the machines we can’t take with us… and we just take a walk down the road and into the trees, by truck as far as we can take the trucks, dump the heavy stuff in hiding, carry it to our new dig bit by bit. They might blast the road and the trucks, but any other answer is going to take them time to mount. If anyone wants to stay here and work for the new management… or Porey, if he sh
ows up again, then do it. I can’t fight you and I’m not interested in trying.”

  There was near silence. Then some pushed out of the group and started gathering up personal belongings. More and more did. His heart was beating very hard. He pushed Miliko toward their quarters, to gather up the few of their belongings they could take. It could go the other way. Something could start among them. They could deliver him and Miliko to the new owners, if that was what it came to, gain points with the opposition. They could do that. There were far and away enough of them… and Q, and the workers out there…

  Of his family… no word. His father would have sent some message if he could. If he could.

  “Make it quick,” he told Miliko. “Word of this is going every which way out there.” He slipped one of the base’s only handguns into his pocket as he snatched up his heaviest jacket; he gathered up a boxful of cylinders for the breathers, took up a canteen and the short-handled axe. Miliko took the knife and a couple of blankets rolled up, and they went out again, into the confusion of staff packing up blanketrolls in the middle of the floor. They stepped over it. “Get the pump shut down,” he told a man. “Get the connector out of it.” He gave other instructions, and men and women moved, some for the trucks and some for acts of sabotage. “Move it,” he yelled after them. “We’re moving in fifteen minutes.”

  “Q,” Miliko said. “What do we do with them?”

  “Give them the same choice. Get down the line, put it to the regular workers, if they haven’t heard yet.” They passed the lock door, through the second and up the wooden steps into night-bound chaos, with people moving as fast as the limited air would let them. There was the sound of a crawler starting up. “Be careful,” he yelled at Miliko as their paths diverged. He headed down over the crushed rock path, down and up again onto the shoulder of Q’s hill, where the patched, irregular dome showed wan yellow light through its plastic, where Q folk were outside, dressed, looking as if they had had no more sleep than others this night.

  “Konstantin,” one yelled, alerting the others, and word went into the dome with the speed of a slammed door. He kept walking, went into the midst of them, his heart in his throat “Come on, get everyone out here,” he yelled, and they began to pour out with a swelling murmur of numbers, fastening jackets, adjusting masks. In a moment the dome began to collapse, and the lock sighed the air out, a gust of warmth and a flood of bodies that began to surround him. They were all but quiet, a murmur, nothing more; the silence did not comfort him. “We’re pulling out of here,” he said. “We don’t get any word out of station and it’s possible Union’s in control up there; we don’t know.” There were outcries of distress, and some of their own number ordered silence. “We don’t know, I say. We’re luckier than station; we’ve got a world under us, food to eat; and if we’re careful… air to breathe. Those of us who’ve lived here know how to manage that… even in the open. You have the same choice we do. Stay here and work for Union, or take a walk with us. It’s not going to be easy out there, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the older ones and the youngest, but I’m not so sure it’s going to be safe here either. We’ve got a chance out there, that they’ll think we’re too much bother to come after. That’s it. We’re not sabotaging any machine you need for life. The base here is yours if you want it; but you’re welcome with us. We’re going… never mind where we’re going; unless you’re coming with us. And if you come, it’s on equal terms. Now. Immediately.”

  There was dead silence. He was terrified. He was crazy to have come among them alone. The whole camp could not stop them if they panicked.

  Someone at the back of the crowd opened the door to the dome, and of a sudden there was a murmur of voices, a backflow into the dome, someone shouting that they would need blankets, that they would need all the cylinders, a woman wailing that she could not walk. He stood there while all of Q deserted him into the dome, turned on the slope and looked across to the other domes, where men and women were coming from the residents’ domes in businesslike haste, carrying blankets and other items, a general flow down to the trough of the hills, where motors whined and headlamps showed. They had the trucks ready. He started down there, faster and faster, walked into the chaos that swirled about the vehicles. They were putting on the field dome and some spare plastic; a staffer showed him a checklist as businesslike as if they were loading for a supply trip. Some people were trying to put their personal loads on the trucks and staff was arguing with them, and Q was arriving, some of them carrying more than they ought on Downbelow.

  “Trucks are for essential materials,” Emilio shouted. “All able-bodied walk; anyone too old or too sick can perch on the baggage, and any room left, you can put heavy items on… but you share loads, hear? No one walks light. Who can’t walk?”

  There were shouts from some of the Q folk who had caught up, and they put forward some of the frailer children, some of the old ones. They yelled that there were some still coming, shouts with a tone of panic.

  “Easy! We’ll get them all on. We’ll not be going fast. A kilometer down the road, forest starts, and there’re no armored troops likely to hike into it after us.”

  Miliko reached him. He felt her hand on his arm and put his arm about her, hugged her to him. He remained slightly numb; a man had a right to be when his world ended. They were prisoners up there on station. Or dead. He began to think of that possibility too, forcing himself to deal with it. He felt sick at the stomach, shaking with an anger which he kept in that numb place, away from his thinking process. He wanted to strike out at someone… and there was no one at hand.

  They got the com unit on. Ernst supervised the loading of it onto the truckbed, and between emergency power and portable generator they had that for information… if any came.

  Last of all, the people who would ride, and room enough for bedrolls and sacks, a protective nest. People moved at a run, panting, but there seemed less panic; two hours yet till dawn. The lights were still on, on stored power, the domes still glowing yellow. But there was a sound missing, in all the noise of the crawler engines. The compressors were silent. The pulse was gone.

  “Move them out,” he shouted when there seemed order, and the vehicles started up, began to grind their patient way along the road.

  They fell in behind, a column shaping itself to the road as it began to parallel the river. They passed the mill and entered the forest, where hills and trees closed on the right hand of the night-bound landscape. The whole progress had a feeling of unreality, the trucks’ headlamps shining on the reeds and the grass tops and the hillside and the trunks of trees, with the silhouettes of humans trudging along, the hiss and pop of breathers in curious unison, amid the grinding of the engines. There were no complaints, that was the thing most strange, no objections, as if a madness had seized them all and they agreed on this. They had had a taste of Mazian’s governance.

  The grass moved beside the road, a serpentine line in the waist-high reeds. Leaves moved among the bushes beside the road hillward. Miliko pointed to one such disturbance, and others had seen it, pointing and murmuring in apprehension.

  Emilio’s heart lifted. He reached for Miliko’s hand and pressed it, left her and strode out into the weeds and under the trees while the trucks and the column kept on. “Hisa!” he called aloud. “Hisa, it’s Emilio Konstantin! Do you see us?”

  They came, a handful, shyly advancing into the lights. One came holding out his hands, and he did. The Downer came to him and embraced him energetically. “Love you,” the young male said. “You go walk, Konstantin-man?”

  “Bounder? Is it Bounder?”

  “I Bounder, Konstantin-man.” The shadowed face looked up at him, dim light from now-stopped trucks glinting off a sharp-edged grin. “I run, run, run come back again watch you. All we eyes to you, make you safe.”

  “Love you, Bounder, love you.”

  The hisa bobbed in pleasure, fairly danced with it. “You go walk?”

  “We’re running away. There�
�s trouble in the Upabove, Bounder, men-with-guns. Maybe they come Downbelow. We run away like the hisa, old, young, some of us not strong, Bounder. We look for a safe place.”

  Bounder turned to his companions, called something which ran up and down scales and chattered from them back to the trees and into the branches above. And Bounder’s strange, strong hand slipped about his as the hisa began to lead him back to the road, where all the column had stopped, those rearmost crowding forward to see.

  “Mr. Konstantin,” one of the staff called from the passenger seat of a truck, nervousness in his voice, “they all right coming in with us?”

  “It’s all right,” he said. And to the others: “Be glad of them. The hisa are back. The Downers know who’s welcome on Downbelow and who isn’t, don’t they? They’ve been watching us all this time, waiting to see if we were all right. You people,” he called out louder still to the unseen masses beyond, “They’ve come back to us, you understand? The hisa know all the places we could run to, and they’re willing to help us, you hear that?”

  There was a murmuring of distress.

  “No Downer ever hurt a man,” he shouted into the dark, over the patient rumble of the engines. He closed his hand the more firmly on Bounder’s, walked down among them, and Miliko slipped her hand within his elbow on the other side. The trucks started up again, and they walked, at the same slow pace. Hisa began to join the column, walking along in the weeds beside the road. Some humans shied from them. Others tolerated the shy touch of an offered hand, even Q folk, following the example of old staffers, who were less perturbed by it.

  “They’re all right,” he heard one of his workers call out through the ranks. “Let them go where they like.”

  “Bounder,” he said, “we want a safe place… find all the humans from all the camps, take them to many safe places.”