Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  “Where’s Josh Talley?” he asked finally.

  “Somewhere aboard. There’s a glass in the cabinet over there. Want a drink?”

  “I want,” he said, “to be set out of here. To have this station handed over to its own lawful government. To have an accounting of the citizens you’ve murdered.”

  “Oh,” she said, laughed a breath and reassessed young Konstantin. Smiled sourly and pushed her foot against the bed, sending her chair back a bit. She gestured to the bed, a place for him to sit. “You want,” she said. “Sit down. Sit down, Mr. Konstantin.”

  He did so. He stared at her with his father’s mad dark stare.

  “You don’t really have any such illusions,” she asked him, “Do you?”

  “None.”

  She nodded, regretting him. Fine face. Young. Well-spoken; well-made. He and Josh were much alike. There were wastes in this war that sickened her. Young men like this turned into corpses. If he were anyone else… but his name happened to be Konstantin, and that doomed him. Pell would react to that name; and he had to go. “Want the drink?”

  He did not refuse it. She passed him her own glass, kept the bottle for herself.

  “Jon Lukas stays as your puppet,” he said. “Does he?”

  There was no need to torment him with the truth. She nodded. “He takes orders.”

  “You’re moving against green next?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me talk to them on com. Let me try to reason with them.”

  “To save your life? Or to replace Lukas? It won’t work.”

  “To save theirs.”

  She stared at him a long, bleak moment.

  “You’re not going to surface, Mr. Konstantin. You’re to vanish very quietly. I think you know that.” There was a gun at her hip; she rested her hand on it as she sat, reckoning that he would not, but in case. “Let’s say if I can find two individuals, I won’t vent the section. Names are James Muller and Judith Crowell. Where are they? If I could locate them right off… it would save lives.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know them?”

  “Don’t know where they are. I don’t think they’re still alive, if they’re supposed to be in green. I know the section too well; had means to have found them if they were there.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” she said. “I’ll do what I can as reasonably as I can. Promise you that. You’re a civilized man, Mr. Konstantin. A vanished breed. If I could find a way to get you out of this I’d do it, but I’m hemmed in on all sides.”

  He said nothing. She kept an eye to him, sipped a mouthful from the bottle. He drank from the glass.

  “What about the rest of my family?” he asked at last

  Her mouth twisted. “Quite safe. Quite safe, Mr. Konstantin. Your mother does everything we ask and your brother is harmless where he is. The supplies arrive on schedule and we have no reason to object to his presence down there. He’s another civilized man, one — fortunately — without access to large crowds and sophisticated systems where our ships are docked.”

  His lips trembled. He drank the last remaining in the glass. She leaned forward and poured him more of the liquor. Took a deliberate chance in leaning close to him. It was gambling; it evened scales. It was time to call it quits. If he outlived tomorrow he would learn too much of what would happen and that was cruelty. There was a sour taste in her mouth the brandy would not cure. She pushed the bottle at him. “Take it with you,” she said, “I’ll let you go back to your quarters now. My regards to you, Mr. Konstantin.”

  Some men would have protested, cried and pleaded; some would have gone for her throat, a way of hastening matters. He rose and went to the door without the bottle, looked back when it would not open.

  She keyed the duty officer. “Pick up the prisoner.” The acknowledgment came back. And on a second thought: “Bring Josh Talley while you’re at it.”

  That brought a flicker of panic to Konstantin’s eyes. “I know,” she said. “He’s minded to kill me. But then he’s undergone some changes, hasn’t he?”

  “He remembers you.”

  She pursed her lips, smiled then without smiling. “He’s alive to remember. Isn’t he?”

  “Let me talk to Mazian.”

  “Hardly practical. And he won’t agree to hear you. Don’t you know, Damon Konstantin, he’s the source of your troubles? My orders come from him.”

  “The Fleet belonged to the Company once. It was ours. We believed in you. The stations — all of us — believed in you, if not in the Company. What happened?”

  She glanced down without intending to, found it difficult to look up again and meet his ignorant eyes.

  “Someone’s insane,” Konstantin said.

  Quite possibly, she thought. She leaned back in the chair and found nothing to say.

  “There’s more than the other stations involved at Pell,” he said. “Pell was always different. Take my advice, at least. Leave my brother in permanent charge on Downbelow. You’ll get more out of the Downers if you do things the slow way. Let him manage them. They’re not easy to understand, but they don’t understand us easily either. They’ll work for him. Let them do things their own way and they’ll do ten times the work. They don’t fight. They’ll give you anything you ask for, if you ask and don’t take.”

  “Your brother will be left there,” she said.

  The light by the door flashed. She keyed it open. They had brought Josh Talley. She sat watching… a quiet exchange of glances, an attempt to question without asking questions… “Are you all right?” Josh asked. Konstantin nodded.

  “Mr. Konstantin is leaving,” she said. “Come in, Josh. Come on in.”

  He did so, with a backward anxious look at Konstantin. The door closed between them. Signy reached again for the bottle, added to the glass which Konstantin had left on the side of the desk.

  Josh too was cleaner, and the better for it. Thin. His cheeks had gone very hollow. The eyes — were alive.

  “Want to sit down?” she asked. From him she did not know what to expect. He had always been acquiescent, in everything. Now she watched, anticipating some act of craziness, remembering the time he had come to find her on the station, his shouting at her from the doorway. He sat down, quiet as he had ever been. “Old times,” she said, and drank. “He’s a decent man, is Damon Konstantin.”

  “Yes,” Josh said.

  “Still interested in killing me?”

  “There’s worse than you.”

  She smiled grimly and the smile faded. “Know a pair named Muller and Crowell? Know anyone by those names?”

  “The names mean nothing to me.”

  “Have any contacts on Pell who could handle station comp?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the sole official question. I’m sorry you don’t know.” She sipped at the glass. “Considering Konstantin’s welfare has you on good behavior. That it?”

  No answer. But it was truth. She watched his eyes and reckoned well that it was.

  “I wanted to ask you the question,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “Who are they… the people you want? Why? What have they done?”

  Questions. Josh had never questioned. “Adjustment agreed with you,” she said. “What were you up to when Australia’s men waded in on you?”

  Silence.

  “They’re dead, Josh. Does it matter now?”

  His eyes went unfocused, the old absent look… back again. Beautiful, she thought of him, as she had thought a thousand times. And he was another one there was no sparing. She had thought she might, had reckoned without his sanity. When Konstantin went, he would become very dangerous. Tomorrow, she thought. It should be done tomorrow, at least.

  “I’m Union,” he said. “Not a regular… not what the records showed. Special services. You brought me here yourself. And there was another one of us who found his own way on… the way he did at Mariner. His name was Gabriel. And he ruined Pell. He acted again
st you, never the Konstantins. He and his operation assassinated Damon’s family, lost him his wife… how it all went, I don’t know. I didn’t do it to him. But whatever the assumptions you’ve made, the power you’ve set in control of the station now… was bribed to murder by Gabriel. I know because I know the tactics. You’ve got the wrong man under arrest, Mallory. Your man Lukas was Gabriel’s before he was yours.”

  The alcohol left her brain with cold suddenness. She sat with the glass in hand and stared into Josh’s pale eyes and found her breath short. “This Gabriel… where is he?”

  “Dead. You got the head of it. Him. A man named Coledy; another named Kressich; Gabriel. Station knew him as Jessad. They were killed by the troops that took us. Damon didn’t know… didn’t know a thing about it. You think he’d have been there meeting with them if he’d known they killed his father?”

  “But you got him there.”

  “I got him there.”

  “He knew about you?”

  “No.”

  She drew a deep breath, let it go. “You think it makes a difference to us, how Lukas got there? He’s ours.”

  “I tell you so you know it’s finished. That there’s nothing more to go after. You’ve won. There’s no need for any more killing.”

  “I should take a Unioner’s word there’s nothing more to hunt?”

  No answer. He was not slipping off into nowhere. The eyes were very much alive, full of pain.

  “It was quite an act, Josh, that you put on with me.”

  “No act. I’m born for what I do. My whole past is tapes. I had nothing when they got through with me on Russell’s. I’m one of the hollow men, Mallory. Nothing real. Nothing inside. I belong to Union because my brain was programmed that way. I have no loyalties.”

  “But one, maybe.”

  “Damon,” he said.

  She considered the matter. Drained the glass until her eyes stung. “So why did you get him involved with this Gabriel?”

  “I thought I saw a way to get us off Pell. To get a shuttle for Downbelow. I have a proposition for you.”

  “I think I know.”

  “You’re in a position to get a man on a downbound shuttle… easily. Get him out of here if nothing else.”

  “What, not back in control of Pell?”

  “You said it yourself. Lukas’s mouth moves when you supply the words. That’s all you want. All you ever wanted. Get him out of here. Safe. What does it cost you?”

  He knew what was ahead, at least where it regarded Konstantin’s chances. She looked up at him and down at the glass again. “For your gratitude? You imply a certain soft-headedness on my part, don’t you? Quite a trade. Does any deep-teach work with you?”

  “Eventually, I imagine. What did you have in mind?”

  She pushed the button. “Take him back.”

  “Mallory — ” Josh said.

  “I’ll think on your deal,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  She thought about that. Nodded finally. “That’s cheap. You going to tell him how things were?”

  “No,” he said in a thin voice. “I don’t want him to know any of it. In small things, Mallory, I trust you.”

  “And hate my guts.”

  He stood up, shook his head, looking down at her. The door light flashed.

  “Out,” she said. And to the trooper who appeared in the doorway: “Put him with his friend. Give them any reasonable comfort they ask for.”

  Josh left with the guard. The door closed and locked. She sat still, moved finally to prop her feet on the bed.

  The thought had occurred to her that a Konstantin could be useful at a later stage of the war; if Union took the bait; if Union seized Pell and restored it. Then it might be useful to produce a Konstantin, in their hands — if he were like Lukas; but he was not. There was no use for him. Mazian would never go for it. The shuttle was one way out of the dilemma. And the thing would not be known — if the Fleet moved out soon. A long time before Union could ferret young Konstantin out of the bush. Long enough for the rest of the plan to work, Pell to die, depriving Union of a base, or live, causing Union organizational trouble. Josh’s idea might work. Might. She reached and poured yet another drink, sat with her hand white-knuckled round the glass.

  Union operative. She was frankly embarrassed. Outraged. Wryly amused. She had some capacity for humility.

  And that was what the Beyond came to be — a renegade Fleet and a world that bred creatures like Josh.

  Who could do what Josh did. What Gabriel/Jessad had tried to do.

  What they prepared to do.

  She sat with arms folded, staring at the desktop. At last she sipped at the drink, reached and keyed the in-built comp. Troop assignments?

  Locations and lists came back. They were all on the ship except the dozen guarding the access to the ship itself. She keyed the duty officer.

  Ben, take a walk outside and bring in those twelve we’ve got on the dock. Don’t use the com. Report to me on comp when you’ve done that.

  New code. Crew assignments?

  They flashed back to her. The alterday crew was on duty. Graff was still with Di.

  She keyed into com and started with Graff. “Get to the bridge,” she said. “Put a medic with Di. Di, stay quiet.”

  She started keying pager calls through comp for others; had gotten to armscomper Tiho when the duty officer keyed back mission accomplished. The armscomper keyed message received. She took a final sip and stood up, remarkably clearheaded. At least the deck did not pitch.

  She shrugged on her jacket and walked out and down the corridor to the bridge, stood there and looked about her as bewildered mainday and alterday crew turned and stared back at her.

  “Open intraship,” she said. “All stations and quarters, every speaker.”

  The com tech pushed the main switch.

  “They ran us off the docks,” she said, clipping a button mike to her collar, as she did when they were on casual op. She reached her own station, the control post beside Graff’s, central to the bowed aisles. “Everyone’s aboard. Crew, troops, everyone’s aboard. Mainday to stations, alterday to backup. Flash battle stations. I’m pulling us out of here.”

  There was stunned silence for a moment. No one moved. Suddenly everyone did, shifting seats, reached for controls and com, techs scrambling for the lateral posts shut down during dock. Boards hummed, tilting for use. Lights flashed red overhead and the siren went.

  “No undock, rip her loose.” She flung herself back into her own cushion, reached for straps. She would have taken helm herself, but she did not, at the moment, trust her reflexes. “Mr. Graff, skin her by Pell and take her out bearing…” She sucked air. “Bearing nowhere at all. I’ll take her then.”

  “Instructions,” Graff asked calmly. “If fired on do we fire?”

  “No holds barred, Mr. Graff. Take her out.”

  There were questions coming in via ship’s com, troop officers belowdecks wanting to know the emergency. The riders were on patrol. There was no bringing them in for consultation. There was no bringing them in at all. Graff was running his final check, setting up his sequence of orders, checking the positions of everything and making sure comp had it. Screens flashed a proposed course, a chute over Pell incredibly close to atmosphere, a whip behind the world and gone.

  “Execute,” Graff said.

  There was a crash, the lock seal, the emergency disengage; and a jolt that wrenched them out of Pell’s slow spin. They hammered into a zenith rise and mains cut in, slammed them over station. Something hit the hull and slid: trailing connection. They kept accelerating with Downbelow’s dark side looming at them.

  “Mallory!” a voice shouted over ship-to-ship.

  It was alterday. Captains were abed. Crews and troops were scattered on the dock and they had breached umbilicals…

  She clenched her teeth as Norway hurtled over Pell’s far rim and headed for a course closer to a plane
t than comfortable. Held her breath and listened to the curses that crackled over com.

  Pacific and Atlantic were ordered to intercept. They had not a prayer of getting into line in time, the rest of the Fleet in the way; and Norway had Downbelow coming up for cover. Australia was breaking loose from station, with no obstructions between them, and that was the danger. “Armscomp,” she ordered. “Aft screens. That’s Edger. Get him.”

  No acknowledgment; Tiho reached for switches in rapid motion and lights flashed, screens shaping it up.

  They had no riders for tail cover. Australia had none for bow. Norway’s combat seals went into place, segmenting them. G was increasing as cylinder synch calculated maneuver-possible. Over com came a frantic query from one of their own riders, asking instructions. She gave no answers.

  Downbelow loomed in vid and they were still accelerating all out. Approach warnings were flashing. Australia was the bigger ship, the more at hazard.

  Screens and lights flashed. They were fired on.

  vii

  Pell; blue dock; Europe; 2400 hrs. md; 1200 a.

  “ No.” Mazian hovered by his post, a hand pressed to the earplug while his bridge swirled in chaos. “Hold where you are, hold for troop pickup. Warn all troops blue dock is breached. Pick up any trooper on green no matter what ship. Over.”

  Acknowledgments crackled back. Pell was in chaos, a whole dock breached, air rushing out the umbilicals, pressure dropped. Debris floated between Europe and India, troopers who had been on the dock, dead and drifting, sucked out when an access two meters by two was ripped from its moorings without warning. The dock was void. Everything had gone. Ships’ locks had closed automatically the instant the depressurization hit, cutting off even those closest to safety.

  “Keu,” he said, “report.”

  “I have given the necessary orders,” the imperturbable voice came back. “All troops on Pell are moving for green.”

  “On the run… Porey, Porey are you still in link?”

  “This is Porey. Over.”

  “Pass orders: destroy Downbelow base and execute all workers.”