Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

He looked up, followed the direction of Josh’s stare. Squads of troops were coming off the horizon, out of green dock, formed up and meaning business. Quietly, nonchalantly, he rose, dusted his clothing, turned his back to the dock to give Josh cover while he got up. Very casually they began to move along in the other direction.

  “Sounds like they’re about to get organized out there,” Josh said.

  “We’re all right,” he insisted. They were not the only ones moving. The niner hall of white was not that far. They drifted with others who seemed to have the same motive, found a public restroom next to one of the bars that sat at the corner of white nine; Josh turned in there and he walked in after. They both made use of it and walked out again, taking a normal pace. Guards had been posted at the intersections of the corridor with the dock, but they were not doing anything, only watching. He walked further down nine, stopped at a public call unit.

  “Screen me,” he said, and Josh obligingly leaned against the wall between them and the opening of nine where the guards stood. “Going to see what cards we have, how many credits, where the original owners belonged. I don’t need my own priority to do that, just a records number.”

  “I know one thing,” Josh said in a low voice. “I don’t look like a Pell citizen. And your face…”

  “No one wants to be noticed; no one can turn us in without being noticed himself. That’s the best hope we’ve got; no one wants to be conspicuous.” He thrust in the first card and keyed the override. Altener, Leslie: 789.90 credits in comp; married, a child. Clerk, clothing concession. He put that one in his left pocket, not to use, not wanting to steal from the survivors. Lee Anton Quale, single man, staff card with Lukas Company, restricted clearance, 8967.89 credits… an amazing amount for such a man. William Teal, married man, no children, loading boss, 4567.67 credits, warehouse clearances.

  “Let’s see yours,” he said to Josh. Josh handed his over together, and he shoved the first in, hastening feverishly, wondering whether so many inquiries in a row off a public terminal might not set comp central off. Cecil Sazony, single man, 456.78 credits, machinist and sometime loader, barracks privileges; Louis Diban, five-year marriage terminated, no dependents, 3421.56, dock crew foreman. He pocketed the cards and started walking as Josh followed and caught up with him, around the corner into a crosshall, and around the next corner to the right. There was a storeroom there; all the docks were mirror image one of the other when it came to the central corridors, and there was inevitably a storage room for maintenance hereabouts. He found the appropriate, unmarked door, used the foreman’s card to open it, and turned on the lights. There was ventilation, a store of paper and cleaning supplies and tools. He stepped in with Josh behind him and punched the door closed. “A hole to hide in,” he said, and pocketed the card he had used, reckoning it the best key they had. “We sit it out, go on alterday shift a day or so. Two of our cards were alterday people, single, with dock clearance. Sit down. Lights will go out in here in a moment. Can’t keep them on… comp will find a storeroom light on and turn it out on us, very economical.”

  “Are we safe here?”

  He laughed bitterly, sank down against the wall, legs tucked up in the cramped space to afford Josh room to sit down opposite him. He felt of the gun still in his pocket, to be sure it was there. Drew a breath. “Nowhere is safe.” Tired, the angel’s face, grease-smudged, hair stringy. Josh looked terrified, though it had been Josh’s instincts that had saved them under fire. Between the two of them, one knowing the accesses and one with the right reflexes, they made a tough problem for Mazian. “You’ve been shot at before,” he said. “Not just in a ship… close up. You know that?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I said I don’t.”

  “I know the station. Every hole, every passage; and if shuttles start moving again, if any ships start going and coming from the mines, we just use the cards to get close enough to the docks, join a loading crew, walk onto a ship…”

  “Go where, then?”

  “Downbelow. Or outworld mines. No questions asked in either place.” It was a dream. He fabricated it to comfort them both. “Or maybe Mazian will decide he can’t go on holding here. Maybe he’ll just pull out.”

  “He’ll blow it if he does. Blow the station, the installations on Downbelow with it. Would he want to leave Union a base to use against him when he falls back?”

  Damon frowned at truth he already knew. “You have a better suggestion what we should do?”

  “No.”

  “I could turn myself in, negotiate to get back in control, evacuate the station…”

  “You believe that?”

  “No,” he said. That account too he had already added up. “No.”

  The lights went out. Comp had shut them down. Only the ventilation continued.

  ii

  Pell: station central; 2130 hrs. md.; 0930 hrs. a.

  “But there’s no need,” Porey said softly, his dark, scarred face implacable, “there’s no further need for your presence, Mr. Lukas. You’ve done your civic duty. Now go back to your quarters. One of my people will be sure you get there safely.”

  Jon looked about at the control center, at the several troopers who stood there, with the safeties off the rifles, with eyes constantly on the fresh shift of techs who managed the controls, the others under guard for the night. He gathered himself to pass orders to the comp chief, stopped cold as a trooper made a precise move, a hollow scrape of armor, a lowered rifle. “Mr. Lukas,” Porey said, “people are shot for ignoring orders.”

  “I’m tired,” he said nervously. “I’m glad to go, sir. I don’t need the escort.”

  Porey motioned. One of the troopers by the door stood smartly aside, waiting for him. Jon walked out, the trooper treading behind him at first and then beside him, an unwanted companion. They passed other troops back on guard in quiet, riot-scarred blue one.

  More of the Fleet was docking. They had drawn in to a tighter perimeter, decided finally to dock, which seemed to him military insanity, a risk he did not understand. Mazian’s risk. His now. Pell’s, because Mazian was back.

  Perhaps — he found it hard to think — Union had been beaten badly. Perhaps there were things kept secret. Perhaps there would be delay in the Union takeover. It worried him, the thought that Mazian’s rule might be long.

  Suddenly troops exited the lift ahead into blue one, troops bearing a different insigna. They intercepted him, presented his escort with a slip of paper.

  “Come with us,” one ordered.

  “I was instructed by captain Porey — ” he objected, but another nudged him with a gun barrel and moved him toward the lift. Europe, their badges said. Europe troops. Mazian had come in.

  “Where are we going?” he asked in panic. They had left the Africa trooper behind. “Where are we going?”

  There was no answer. It was deliberate bullying. He knew where they were going… had his suspicions confirmed when, after descent in the lift, he was walked down the blue niner corridor, out onto the docks, toward the glowing access tube of a docked ship.

  He had never been aboard a warship. It was cramped as a freighter for all its exterior size. It made him claustrophobic. The rifles in the hands of the troopers at his back gave him no more comfort, and whenever he would hesitate, turning left, entering the lift, they would push him with the rifle barrels. He was sick with fear.

  They knew, he kept thinking. He kept trying to persuade himself it was military courtesy, that Mazian chose to meet him as new stationmaster, that Mazian wished to bluff or bully. But from this place they could do what they pleased. Could vent him out a waste chute and he would be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other bodies which now drifted, frozen, a nuisance in the station’s vicinity for the skimmers to freeze together and boost off. No difference at all. He tried to pull his wits together, reckoning that he survived by them now or not at all.

  They showed him off the lift into a co
rridor with troops standing guard in it, into a room wider than most, with a vacant round table. Made him sit down in one of the chairs there. Stood waiting with the rifles over their arms.

  Mazian came in, in plain and somber blue, haggard of face. Jon rose to his feet in respect; Conrad Mazian gestured him to sit down again. Others filed in to take their places at the table, Europe officers, none of the captains. Jon darted glances from one to the next

  “Acting stationmaster,” Mazian said quietly. “Mr. Lukas, what happened to Angelo Konstantin?”

  “Dead,” Jon said, trying to suppress all but innocent reactions. “Rioters broke into station offices. Killed him and and his staff.”

  Mazian only stared at him, utterly unmoved. He sweated.

  “We think,” Jon said further, guessing at the captain’s thoughts, “that there may have been conspiracy — the strike at other offices, the opening of the door into Q, the timing of it all. We are investigating.”

  “What have you found?”

  “Nothing as yet. We suspect the presence of Union agents passed somehow into station during the processing of refugees. Some were let through, may have had friends or relatives left back in Q. We’re puzzled as yet how contacts were passed. We suspect connivance of the barrier guards… black market connections.”

  “But you haven’t found anything.”

  “Not yet.”

  “And won’t very quickly, will you, Mr. Lukas?”

  His heart began beating very fast. He kept panic from his face; he hoped he succeeded at it. “I apologize for the situation, captain, but we’ve been kept rather busy, coping with riot, with the damage to station… lately working at the orders of your captains Mallory and…”

  “Yes. Bright move, the means you used to clear the halls of riot; but then it had quieted a little by then, hadn’t it? I understand there were Q residents let into central.”

  Jon found breathing difficult. There was a prolonged silence. He could not think of words. Mazian passed a signal to one of the guards at the door.

  “We were in crisis,” Jon said, anything to fill that terrible silence. “I may have acted high-handedly, but we were presented a chance to get control of a dangerous situation. Yes, I dealt with the councillor from that area, not, I think, involved in the situation, but a calming voice… there was no one else at the — ”

  “Where is your son, Mr. Lukas?”

  He stared.

  “Where is your son?”

  “Out at the mines. I sent him out on a shorthauler on a tour of the mines. Is he all right? Have you had word of him?”

  “Why did you send him, Mr. Lukas?”

  “Frankly, to get him off the station.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he had lately been in control over the station offices while I was stationed on Downbelow. After three years there was some question of loyalties and authorities and channels of communication within the company offices here. I thought a brief absence might straighten things out, and I wanted someone out there in the mine offices who could take over if communications were interrupted. A policy move. For internal reasons and for security.”

  “It wasn’t to balance the presence on-station of a man named Jessad?”

  His heart came close to stopping. He shook his head calmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain Mazian. If you’d be so good as to tell me the source of your information — ”

  Mazian gestured and someone entered the room. Jon looked and saw Bran Hale, who evaded his eyes.

  “Do you know each other?” Mazian asked.

  “This man,” Jon said, “was discharged on Downbelow for mismanagement and mutiny. I considered a previous record and hired him. I’m afraid my confidence may have been misplaced.”

  “Mr. Hale approached Africa with some thought of enlistment… claimed to have certain information. But you flatly deny knowing a man named Jessad.”

  “Let Mr. Hale speak for his own acquaintances. This is a fabrication.”

  “And one Kressich, councillor of Q?”

  “Mr. Kressich was, as I explained, in the control center.”

  “So was this Jessad.”

  “He might have been one of Kressich’s guards. I didn’t ask their names.”

  “Mr. Hale?”

  Bran Hale put on a grim face. “I stand by my story, sir.”

  Mazian nodded slowly, carefully drew his pistol. Jon thrust back from the table, and the men behind him slammed him back into the chair. He stared at the pistol, paralyzed.

  “Where is Jessad? How did you make contact with him? Where would he have gone?”

  “This fiction of Hale’s — ”

  The safety went off the pistol audibly.

  “I was threatened,” Jon breathed. “Threatened into cooperation. They’ve seized a member of my family.”

  “So you gave them your son.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Hale,” Mazian said, “you and your companions and Mr. Lukas may go into the next compartment. And we’ll record the proceedings. We’ll let you and Mr. Lukas settle your argument in private, and when you’ve resolved it, bring him back again.”

  “No,” Jon said. “No. I’ll give you the information, all that I know.”

  Mazian waved his hand in dismissal, Jon tried to hold to the table. The men behind him hauled him to his feet. He resisted, but they brought him along, out the door, into the corridor. Hale’s whole crew was out there.

  “They’ll serve you as well,” Jon shouted back into the room where the officers of Europe still sat. “Take him in and he’ll serve you the same way. He’s lying!”

  Hale grasped his arm, propelled him into the room which waited for them. The others crowded after. The door closed.

  “You’re crazy,” Jon said. “You’re crazy, Hale.”

  “You’ve lost,” Hale said.

  iii

  Merchanter Finity’s End: deep space; 2200 hrs. md; 1000 hrs. a.

  The wink of lights, the noise of ventilators, the sometime sputter of com from other ships — all of this had a dreamlike familiarity, as if Pell had never existed, as if it were Estelle again and the folk about her might turn and show familiar faces, known from childhood. Elene worked her way through the busy control center of Finity’s End and pressed herself into the nook of an overhanging console to obtain a view of scan. Her senses were still muzzy with drugs. She pressed her hand to her belly, feeling unaccustomed nausea. Jump had not hurt the child… would not. Merchanters had proven that time and again, merchanter women with strong constitutions and lifelong habituation to the stresses; it was nine-tenths nerves, and the drugs were not that heavy. She would not lose it, would not even think of it. In time her pulse settled again from the short walk from main room, the waves of sickness receded. She watched scan acquire another blip. Merchanters were coming into the null point by drift, the way they had left Pell, frantically gathering all the realspace speed they could on entry to keep ahead of the incomers who were rolling in like a tide on a beach. All it needed was someone overshooting minimum, some over hasty ass coming into realspace too close to the point, and they and the newcomer would cease to exist in any rational sense, shredded here and there. She had always thought it a peculiarly nasty fate. They would ride for the next few minutes still with that end a very real possibility.

  But they were coming in greater and greater numbers now, finding their way into this refuge in reasonable order. They might have lost a few passing through the battle zone; she could not tell.

  Nausea hit again. It came and went. She swallowed several times in calm determination to ignore it, turned a jaundiced eye on Neihart, who had left the controls of the ship to his son and came to see to her.

  “Got a proposition,” she said between swallows. “You let me have com again. No running from here. Take a look at what’s following us, captain. Most of the merchanters that ever ran freight for Company stations. That’s a lot of us, isn’t it? And if we want to, we can
reach further than that.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “That we stand up and safeguard our own interests. That we start asking ourselves hard questions before we scatter out of here. We’ve lost the stations we served. So do we let Union swallow us up, dictate to us… because we become outmoded next to their clean new state-run ships? And they could take that idea into their heads if we come to them begging license to serve their stations. But while things are uncertain, we’ve got a vote and a voice, and I’m betting some of the so-named Union merchanters can see what’s ahead too, clear as we can. We can stop trade — all worlds, all stations — we can shut them down. Half a century of being pushed around, Neihart, half a century of being mark for any warship not in the mood to regard our neutrality. And what do we get when the military has it all? You want to give me com access?”

  Neihart considered a long moment. “When it goes sour, Quen, word will spread far and wide what ship spoke out for it. It’s trouble for us.”

  “I know that,” Elene said hoarsely. “But I’m still asking it.”

  “You’ve got com if you want it.”

  iv

  Pell: Blue Dock; aboard Norway; 2400 hrs. md.; 1200 hrs. a.

  Signy turned restlessly and came up against a sleeping body, a shoulder, an inert arm. Who it was she did not remember for a moment, in her half-asleep confusion. Graff, she decided finally, Graff. She settled comfortably again, against him. They had come offshift together. She kept her eyes open on the dark wall for a moment, the row of lockers, in the starlight glow of the light overhead — not liking the images she saw against her lids, the remembered reek of dying in her nostrils, that she could not bathe away.

  They held Pell. Atlantic and Pacific made their lonely patrol with all the riders in the fleet, so that they dared sleep. She earnestly wished it were Norway on patrol. Poor Di Janz was in command over the docks, sleeping in the forward access when he got sleep at all. Her troops were scattered throughout the docks, in a dark mood. Seventeen wounded and nine killed in the Q outbreak did not improve their attitude. They would stand watch one shift on and the other off and keep on doing it. Beyond that, she made no plans. When the Union ships came in, they would come, and the Fleet would react as they had been doing in places of odds as bad as this… fire at the reachable targets and keep the remaining options open as long as possible. Mazian’s decision, not hers.