Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  “You want safe, want help; come, come.”

  The strong hand stayed within his, small, as if they were father and child; but for all of youth and size it was the other way about… that humans went as the children now, down a known human road to a known human place, but they were not coming back, might never — he acknowledged it — might never come back.

  “Come we place,” Bounder said. “You make we safe; we dream bad mans away and they go; and you come now, we go dream. No hisa dream, no human dream; together-dream. Come dream place.”

  He did not understand the babble. There were places beyond which humans had never gone among hisa. Dream-places… it was already a dream, this mingled flight of humans and hisa, in the dark, in the overturning of all that had been Downbelow.

  They had saved the Downers; and in the long years of Union rule, when humans came who cared nothing for the hisa… there would be humans among the hisa who could warn them and protect them. There was that much left to do.

  “They’ll come someday,” he said to Miliko, “and want to cut down the trees and build their factories and dam the river and all the rest of it. That’s the way of it, isn’t it? If we let them get away with it.” He swung Bounder’s hand, looked down at the small intense face on the other side. “We go warn other camps, want to bring all humans into the trees with us, go for a long, long walk. Need good water, good food.”

  “Hisa find,” Bounder grinned, the suspicion of a great joke shared by hisa and humans. “Not hide good you food.”

  They could not hold an idea for long… so some insisted. Perhaps the game would pall when humans had no more gifts to give. Perhaps they would lose their awe of humans and drift their own ways. Perhaps not. The hisa were not the same as they had been when humans came.

  Neither were humans, on Downbelow.

  Chapter Four

  Merchanter Hammer: deep space; 1900 hrs.

  Vittorio poured a drink, his second since space around them had suddenly become filled with a battle-worn fleet. Things had not gone as they should. A silence had fallen over Hammer, the bitter silence of a crew who felt an enemy among them, a witness to their national humiliation. He met no eyes, offered no opinions… had only the desire to anesthetize himself with all due speed, so that he could not be blamed for any matters of policy. He did not want to give advice or opinions.

  He was plainly a hostage; his father had set things up that way. And it occurred to him inevitably that his father might have double-crossed them all, that he might now be worse than a useless hostage… that he might be one whose card was due to be played.

  My father hates me, he had tried to tell them; but they had strugged it off as irrelevant. They did not make the decisions. The man Jessad had done that. And where was Jessad now?

  There was supposed to be some visitor on his way to the ship, some person of importance.

  Jessad himself, to report failure, and to dispose of a useless bit of human baggage?

  He had time to finish the second drink before the activity of the crew and eventual nudge at the hull reported a contact. There was a great deal of machinery slamming and the noise of the lift going into function, a crash as the cage synched with the rotation cylinder. Someone was coming up. He sat still with the glass before him and wished that he were a degree drunker than he was. The upward curve of the deck curtained the lift exit, beyond the bridge. He could not see what happened, only noted the absence of some of Hammer’s crew from their posts. He looked up in sudden dismay as he heard them coming round the other way, from his back, into the main room through crew quarters.

  Blass of Hammer. Two crew. A number of military strangers and some not in uniform, behind them. Vittorio gathered himself shakily to his feet and stared at them. A gray-haired officer in rejuv, resplendent with silver and rank. And Dayin. Dayin Jacoby.

  “Vittorio Lukas,” Blass identified him. “Captain Seb Azov, over the fleet; Mr. Jacoby of your own station; and Mr. Segust Ayres of Earth Company.”

  “Security council,” that one corrected.

  Azov sat down at the table, and the others found place on the benches round about. Vittorio settled again, his fingers numb on the table surface. He was surrounded by an alcoholic gulf that kept coming and going. He tried to sit naturally. They had come to see him… him… and there was no possible help he could be to them or to anyone.

  “The operation has begun, Mr. Lukas,” Azov said. “We’ve eliminated two of Mazian’s ships. They won’t be easy to get out; they’re hanging close to station. We’ve sent for additional ships; but we’ve driven the merchanters out, all the long-haulers. The ones left are Pell short-haulers, serving as camouflage.”

  “What do you want with me?” Vittorio asked.

  “Mr. Lukas, you’re acquainted with the merchanters based out of station — you’ve run Lukas Company, at least to some extent — and you know the ships.”

  He nodded apprehensively.

  “Your ship Hammer, Mr. Lukas, is going back within hail of Pell, and where it regards merchanters, you’ll be Hammer’s com operator… not under your real name, no, you’ll be given a file on the Hammer family, which you’ll study very carefully. You’ll answer as one of them. But should Hammer be challenged by merchanter militia, or by Mazian, your life will rely on your skill in invention. Hammer will suggest to the merchanters remaining that their best course for survival would be to get to the system fringe and have nothing to do with this matter, to get utterly out of the way and cease trade with Pell. We want those ships out of the way, Mr. Lukas; and it wouldn’t at all be politic to have merchanters know we’ve tampered with Hammer and Swan’s Eye. We don’t intend to have that known, you understand me?”

  The crews of those ships, he thought, would never be set free, not without Adjustment. It occurred to him that his own memory was hazardous to Union, that it would never be politic to have merchanters know Union had violated merchanter neutrality, which they claimed as a sin of Mazian’s alone. That they had confiscated not just personnel by impressment, but whole ships, and names… most of all the names, the trust, the selves of those people. He fingered the empty glass before him, realized what he was doing and stopped at once, trying to seem sober and sensible. “My own interests lie in that direction,” he said. “My future on Pell is far from assured.”

  “How so, Mr. Lukas?”

  “I entertain some hopes of a Union career, captain Azov.” He lifted his eyes to Azov’s grim face, hoping that he sounded as calm as he tried to be, “Relations between myself and my father… are not warm, so he threw me to you quite willingly. I’ve had time to think. Plenty of time. I prefer to make my own understandings with Union.”

  “Pell is running out of friends,” Azov observed softly, with a glance at the sad-faced Mr. Ayres. “Now the indifferent desert her. The will of the governed, Mr. Ambassador.”

  Ayres’ eyes turned toward Azov, sidelong. “We have accepted the situation. It was never the intent of my mission to obstruct the will of the people resident in these areas. Only I am anxious for the safety of Pell Station. We are talking about thousands of lives, sir.”

  “Siege, Mr. Ayres. We cut them off from supplies and disrupt their operations until they grow uncomfortable.” Azov turned his face toward Vittorio, stared at him a moment “Mr. Lukas — we have to prevent their access to the resources of the mines, and of Downbelow itself. A strike there… possible, but militarily costly getting to it, and costly in its effect. So we proceed by disentanglement. Mazian has a death grip on Pell; he’ll leave ruin if he loses, blow Downbelow and the station itself, fall back toward the Hinder Stars… toward Earth. Do you want your precious motherworld used for a Mazianni base, Mr. Ayres?”

  Ayres shot him a troubled look.

  “Ah, he is capable of it,” Azov said, not ceasing to look at Vittorio, a cold, penetrating stare. “Mr. Lukas, that is as much as your duty involves. To gather information… to dissuade merchanters from trade. Do you understand? Do you think that’s
within your capacity?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Azov nodded. “You’ll understand, Mr. Lukas, if we excuse you and Mr. Jacoby at this point.”

  He hesitated, a little dazed, realized it fuzzily as an order and that Azov’s gray stare brooked no countersuggestions. He rose from the table. Dayin excused himself past Ayres, and that left Ayres, Blass, and Azov in council. Hammer’s captain prepared to receive orders the nature of which he much wished to know.

  Ships had been lost. Azov had not told the truth as it was. He had heard the crew talking. There were whole carriers missing. They were to be sent into that.

  He paused where the curve curtained the meeting area, looked back at Dayin, sank down on a bench at the table in this the crew quarters. “You all right?” he asked Dayin, for whom he had never had great affection; but a face from home was very welcome in this cold place, in these circumstances.

  Dayin nodded. “And you?” It was more courtesy than he had generally had from uncle Dayin.

  “Fine.”

  Dayin settled opposite.

  “Truth,” Vittorio asked him. “How many did they lose out there?”

  “Took heavy damage,” Dayin said. “I reckon that Mazian cost them some. I know there are ships missing… carriers Victory and Endurance gone, I think.”

  “But Union can build more. They’re calling others in. How long is this going to go on?”

  Dayin shook his head, rolled a meaningful glance at the overhead. The fans hummed, deadening conversation into local areas, but not shielding them from monitoring. “They’ve got him cornered,” Dayin said then. “And they can get supplies indefinitely, but Mazian’s bottled. What Azov said, that was the truth. He cost them, cost them badly, but they cost him worse.”

  “And what about us?”

  “I’d rather be here than at Pell, frankly.”

  Vittorio gave a bitter laugh. His eyes blurred, a sudden pain in his throat, which was never really gone, and he shook his head. “I meant it,” he said for those who might chance to be monitoring them. “I’ll give Union the best I’ve got; it’s the best thing I ever had going for me.”

  Dayin regarded him strangely, frowned and perhaps understood his meaning. For the first time in his twenty-five years he felt a kinship with someone. That it should be Dayin, who was three decades older and had had a different experience… that surprised him. But a little time in the Deep might make comrades out of the most unlikely individuals, and perhaps, he thought, perhaps Dayin had already made such choices, and Pell was no longer home for either of them.

  Chapter Five

  i

  Pell: Green Dock; 2000 hrs. md.; O8OOa.

  Fire hit the wall. Damon flinched tighter into the corner they occupied, resisted half a heartbeat as Josh seized him and sprang up to run, followed them, dodged among the panicked and screaming crowds which back-washed out of green nine onto the docks. Someone did get shot, rolled on the decking at their feet, and they jumped that body and kept going, in the direction the troops meant to drive them.

  Station residents, Q escapees… there was no difference made. They ran with fire peppering the supports and the storefronts, silent explosions in the chaos of screams, shots aimed at structures and not the vulnerable station shell itself. Shots went over their heads now that the crowd was moving, and they ran until the weakest faltered. Damon slowed as Josh did, found himself in white dock, the two of them weaving through the scattered number still running in panic, the last few who in their terror seemed to think the shots were still coming. He saw shelter among the shops by the inner wall, went that way and Josh followed him, to the recessed doorway of a bar which had been sealed against rioters, a place to sit quietly, out of the way of chance shots.

  Several bodies lay out on the dock before them, new or old was not certain. It had become an ordinary sight in recent hours. There were occasional acts of violence while they sat there against the doorway… fights among stationers and what might be Q residents. Mostly people wandered, sometimes calling out names, parents hunting children, friends or mates hunting each other. Sometimes there were relieved meetings… and once, once, a man identified one of the dead, and screamed and sobbed. Damon bowed his face against his arms. Eventually some men helped the relative away.

  And eventually the military sent detachments of armored troops into the area, to round up work crews, ordering them to gather up the dead and vent them. Damon and Josh slunk deeper into the doorway and evaded that duty; it was the active and restless the troops picked.

  Last of all Downers came out of hiding, timidly, with soft steps and fearful looks about. They took it on themselves to clean the docks, scrubbing away the signs of death, faithful to their ordinary duties of cleanliness and order. Damon looked at them with a slight stirring of hope, the first good thing he had seen in all these hours, that the gentle Downers returned to the service of Pell.

  He slept a little, as others did who sat over in the docking areas, as Josh did beside him, curled up against the door frame. From time to time he roused to general com announcements of restored schedules, or the promise that food would be forthcoming in all areas.

  Food. The thought began to obsess him. He said nothing of it, his knees tucked up within his arms and his limbs feeling weak with hunger; weakness, he thought it, regretting a neglected breakfast, no lunch, no supper… he was not accustomed to hunger. It was, as he had ever felt it, a missed meal on a day of heavy work. An inconvenience. A discomfort. It began to be something else. It put a whole new complexion on resistance to anything; played games with his mind; forecast whole new dimensions of misery. If they were to be caught and recognized it was likely to be in some food line; but they had to come out for that, or starve. Their very remaining still grew obvious as the aroma of food swept the docks and others moved, as carts trundled along, pushed by Downers. People mobbed the carts, started snatching and shouting; but the troops escorted each then, and it calmed down quickly. The food carts, stores diminished, came closer. They stood up, leaned there in the recess.

  “I’m going out there,” Josh said finally. “Stay back. I’ll say you’re hurt. I’ll get enough for both of us.”

  Damon shook his head. It was perverse courage, to test his survival, sweaty, uncombed, in dirty, bloody coveralls. If he could not cross the dock for fear of an assassin’s gun or a trooper recognizing him, he was going to go mad. At least they did not look to be asking for id cards for the meals. He had three of them, and his own, which he dared not use; Josh had two and his own, but they did not match the pictures.

  A simple act, to walk out with a guard watching, to take a cold sandwich and a carton of lukewarm fruit drink, and to retreat; but he retired to the sheltering storefront with a sense of triumph in his prize, crouched there to eat as Josh joined him… ate and drank, feeling in that mundane act as though a great deal of the nightmare were past, and he was caught in some strange new reality, where human feelings were not required, only an animal wariness.

  And then a shrill ripple of Downer language, the one with the food cart speaking out across the dock to others of his kind. Damon was startled; Downers were generally shy when things were quiet around them; it startled the escorting trooper, who lowered his rifle and looked all about. But there was nothing, only quiet, frightened people and solemn round-eyed Downers, who had stopped and now went about their business. Damon finished his sandwich as the cart passed on along the upward curve of the dock toward green.

  A Downer came near them, dragging a box into which he was collecting the plastic containers. Josh looked anxious as the Downer held out his hand, surrendered the wrappers; Damon tossed his in the box, looked up in fright as the Downer rested a gentle hand on his arm. “You Konstantin-man.”

  “Go away,” he whispered hoarsely. “Downer, don’t say my name. They’ll kill me if they see me. Be quiet and go away quick.”

  “I Bluetooth. Bluetooth, Konstantin-man.”

  “Bluetooth.” He remembered. The tunn
els, the Downer who had been shot. The strong Downer fingers closed tighter.

  “Downer name Lily send from Sun-she-friend, you name ’Licia. She send we, make Lukases quiet, not come in she place. Love you, Konstantin-man. ’Licia she safe, Downers all round she, keep she safe. We bring you, you want?”

  He could not breathe for the moment “Alive? She’s alive?”

  “’Licia she safe. Send you come, make you safe with she.”

  He tried to think, clung to the furred hand and stared into the round brown eyes, wanting far more than Downer patois could say. He shook his head. “No. No. It’s danger to her if I come there. Men-with-guns, you understand, Bluetooth? Men hunt me. Tell her — tell her I’m safe. Tell her I hide all right, tell her Elene got away with the ships. We’re all right. Does she need me, Bluetooth? She needs?”

  “Safe in she place. Downers sit with she, all Downers in Upabove. Lily with she. Satin with she. All. All.”

  “Tell her — tell her I love her. Tell her I’m all right and Elene is. Love you, Bluetooth.”

  Brown arms hugged him. He embraced the Downer fervently and the Downer left him and slipped away like a shadow, quickly occupied himself with picking up debris not far away, wandered off. Damon looked about him, fearful that they might have been observed, met nothing but Josh’s curious gaze. He glanced away, wiped his eyes on the arm which rested across his knee. The numbness diminished; he began to be afraid again, had something to be afraid for, someone who could still be hurt.

  “Your mother,” Josh said. “Is that what he was talking about?”

  He nodded, without comment.

  “I’m glad,” Josh offered earnestly.

  He nodded a second time. Blinked, tried to think, feeling his brain subjected to jolt after jolt until there was no sense in it

  “Damon.”