Downbelow Station

by C. J. Cherryh

  No objections. The big man ... Tom— she recalled the name— got his arm about her, helped her walk. His cousin opened the lift door and hit the button inside. They walked out again into a fair-sided center, crowded at the moment by the lack of rotation. Main room and bridge were downmost, bridge forward, and the two brought her that way ... better now, much better. She walked on her own, into the bridge, amid the rows of equipment and the gathered crew. Neihart. Neihart was the ship's family; Viking-based. The seniors were on the bridge; some of the younger crew ... children would be snugged away topside, out of this. She recognized Wes Neihart, captain of the family, seamed and silver-haired, sad of face.

  "Quen," he said.

  "Sir." She met the offered hand, declined the seat they offered, leaned against the back of it to face him. "Q's loose; com's out. Please ... contact the other ships ... pass word ... don't know what's wrong in central, but Pell's in dire trouble."

  "We're not taking on passengers," Neihart said. "We've seen the result of that. So have you. Don't ask it."

  "Listen to me. Union's out there. We're a shell ... around this station. Got to stay put. Will you give me com?"

  She spoke for Pell, had done so, to this captain, to all the others; but this was his deck, not Pell, and she was a beggar without a ship.

  "Dockmaster's privilege," he allowed suddenly, swept a hand toward the boards. "Com's yours."

  She nodded gratitude, let them show her to the nearest board, sank into the cushion with a cramp in her lower belly— she put her hand there— not the baby, she prayed. She had a numbness in that arm, her back, where she had been hit. Instruments blurred as she reached for the earpiece, and she blinked the board into focus, trying to focus her mind as well as her vision.

  She punched in the ship-to-ship. "All ships, record and relay: this is Pell dock control, Pell liaison Elene Quen aboard Neihart's Finity's End, white 328

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  dock. Request that all docked merchanter seal locks and do not, repeat, negative, admit any stationers to your ships. Pell is not evacuating. Get this much on outside broadcast if you can make it heard on loudspeakers; station com is blacked out. Those ships in dock, if you can safely release dock from inside shutdown, do so; but do not undock. Those ships in pattern, hold your pattern; do not leave pattern. Station will compensate and regain stability. Repeat, Pell is not being evacuated. A military action is in progress in the system. Nothing will be served by evacuating the station. Please play the following section for outside broadcast where possible: Attention. By dockmaster's authority, all station law enforcers are requested to do their utmost to establish order in whatever areas they are. Do not attempt to go to central. Stay where you are. Citizens of Pell: you are in serious danger from riot. Establish barricades at all niner entries and all section lines and prepare to defend them to prevent the movement of destructive mobs. Quarantine has been breached. If you scatter in panic you will contribute to riot and endanger your own lives. Defend the barricades. You will be able to hold the station area by area. Station com is blacked out due to military intervention, and the G flux is due to unauthorized undock of military ships. Stability will be restored as quickly as possible. To any refugee out of quarantine: I appeal to you to contribute your efforts to the establishment of defense lines and barricades along with Pell citizens. Station will negotiate with you regarding your situation; your cooperation in this crisis will make a profound impression on Pell's gratitude, and you may be assured of favorable consideration as this situation is stabilized. Please remain where you are, defend your areas, and remember that this station supports your lives too. All merchanters: please cooperate with me in this emergency. If you have information, pass it to me on Finity's End. This ship will serve as dock headquarters during the emergency. Please play ship to ship and broadcast appropriate sections over exterior systems. I am standing by for your contact."

  Messages flashed back, frantic queries after more information, harsh demands, threats of bolting dock at once. All about her the folk of Finity's End were making their own preparations for flight.

  At any moment, she hoped, at any moment com might clear, station central might come through bright and sane, bringing contact with command— with Damon, who might be in central and might not. Not, she hoped, in those corridors with Q run amok. Mainday noon— the worst of 329

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  all times— with most of Pell out away from jobs and shops, in the corridors....

  Blue dock was his emergency assignment. He might have tried to come there; would have tried. She knew him. Tears blurred her eyes. She clenched her fist on the arm of the chair, tried to think away the diminishing ache in her belly.

  "White section seal just activated." Word came to them from Sita, which had a vantage. Other ships echoed reports of other seals in function; Pell had segmented itself in defense, the first sign that it had defensive reactions left in it.

  "Scan's got something," came panicked word from a crew member behind her. "Could be a merchanter out of pattern. Can't tell."

  She wiped her face and tried to concentrate on all the threads in her hands.

  "Just stay put," she said. "If we breach those umbilicals we've got dead in the thousands out there. Do manual seal. Don't break, don't break those connections."

  "Takes time," someone said. "We may not have it."

  "So start doing it," she wished them.

  vii

  Pell: sector blue one: command central

  The red lights which had flared across the boards had diminished in number. Jon Lukas paced from one to the other post and watched techs'

  hands, watching scan, watching the activity everywhere they still had monitor. Hale stood guard beyond the windows, in central com, with Daniels; Clay was here, at one side of the room, Lee Quale on the other, and others of Lukas Company security, none of the station's own. The techs and directors questioned nothing, working feverishly at the emergencies which occupied them.

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  There was fear in the room, more than fear of the attack outside. The presence of guns, the lasting blackout ... they knew, Jon reckoned, they well knew that something was amiss in Angelo Konstantin's silence, in the failure of any of the Konstantins or their lieutenants to reach this place.

  A tech handed him a message and fled back to his seat without meeting his eyes. It was a repeated query from Downbelow main base. That was a problem they could defer. For now they held central, and the offices, and he did not intend to answer the query. Let Emilio figure it a military order which silenced station central.

  On the screens the scan showed ominous lack of activity. They were sitting out there. Waiting. He paced the circuit of the room again, looked up abruptly as the door opened. Every tech in the room froze, duties forgotten, hands in mid-motion at the sight of the group which appeared there, civilian, with rifles leveled, with others at their backs.

  Jessad, two of Hale's men, and a bloodied security agent, one of their own.

  "Area's secure," Jessad reported.

  "Sir." A director rose from his post. "Councillor Lukas— what's happening?"

  "Set that man down," Jessad snapped, and the director gripped the back of his chair and cast Jon a look of diminishing hope.

  "Angelo Konstantin is dead, " Jon said, scanning all the frightened faces.

  "Killed in the rioting, with all his staff. Assassins hit the offices. Get to your work. We're not clear of this yet."

  Faces turned, backs turned, techs trying to make themselves invisible by their efficiency. No one spoke. He was heartened by this obedience. He paced the room another circuit, stopped in the middle of it.

  "Keep working and listen to me," he said in a loud voice. "Lukas Company personnel are holding this sector secure. Elsewhere we have the kind of situation you see on the screens. We're going to restore com, for 331

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  announcement from this center only, and only
announcements I clear.

  There is no authority on this station at the moment but Lukas Company, and to save this station from damage I will shoot those I have to. I have men under my command who will do that without hesitation. Is that clear?"

  There were no comments, not so much as the turning of a head. It was perhaps something with which they were in temporary agreement, with Pell's systems in precarious balance and Q rioting on the docks.

  He drew a calmer breath and looked at Jessad, who nodded a reassuring satisfaction.

  viii

  The webbery of ladders stretched before and behind, a maze of tubes across the overhead, and it was bitterly cold. Damon shone the beam one way and the other, reached for a railing, sank down on the gridwork as Josh sank down by him, the breather-sounds loud, strained. His head pounded. Not enough air, not fast enough for exertion; and the maze they were in ... branched. There was logic to it: the angles were precise; it was a matter of counting. He tried to keep track.

  "Are we lost?" Josh asked between gasps.

  He shook his head, angled the beam up, the way they should go. Mad to have tried this, but they were alive, in one piece. "Next level," he said,

  "ought to be two. I figure ... we go out ... take a look, how things are out there ..."

  Josh nodded. G flux had stopped. They still heard noise, unsure in this maze where it came from. Distant shouts. Once a booming shock he thought might be the great seals. It seemed better; he hoped ... moved, with a clattering ringing of the metal, reached for the rail again and started to climb, the last climb. He was overwhelmingly anxious, for Elene, for everything he had cut himself off from in coming this way ... No matter the hazard, he had to get out.

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  There was a static sputter. It boomed through the tunnels and echoed.

  "Com," he said. It was coming back together, all of it.

  "This is a general announcement. We are approaching G stabilization. We ask that all citizens keep to their present areas and do not attempt to cross section lines. There is still no word from the Fleet, and none is expected yet. Scan remains clear. We do not anticipate military action in the vicinity of this station ... It is with extreme sorrow that we report the death of Angelo Konstantin at the hand of rioters and the disappearance in violence of other members of the family. If any have reached safety, please contact station central as soon as possible, any Konstantin relative, or any knowing their whereabouts, please contact station central immediately.

  Councillor Jon Lukas remains acting stationmaster in this crisis. Please give full cooperation to Lukas Company personnel who are fulfilling security duties in this emergency."

  Damon sank down on the steps. A cold deeper than the chill of the metal settled into him. He could not breathe. He became aware that he was crying, tears blurring the light and choking his breath.

  "... announcement," the com began to repeat. "We are approaching G

  stabilization. We ask that all citizens...."

  A hand settled on his shoulder, pulled him about. "Damon?" Josh said through the noise.

  He was numb. Nothing made sense. "Dead," he said, and shuddered. "O

  God—"

  Josh stared at him, took the lamp from his hand. Damon thrust himself to his feet, for the last climb, for the access he knew was up there.

  Josh pulled him hard, turned him around against the solid wall. "Don't go,"

  Josh pleaded with him. "Damon, don't go out there now."

  Josh's paranoid nightmares. It was that look on his face. Damon leaned there, his mind going in all directions, and no clear direction. Elene. "My 333

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  father ... my mother ... that's blue one. Our guards were in blue one. Our own guards."

  Josh said nothing.

  He tried to think. It kept coming up wrong. Troops had moved; the Fleet had pulled out. Murders instant ... in Pell's heaviest security ...

  He turned the other way, the way they had just come, his hands shaking so he could hardly grip the railing. Josh shone the light for him, caught his elbow to stop him. He turned on the steps, looked up into Josh's masked, light-distorted face.

  "Where?" Josh asked.

  "I don't know who's in control up there. They say it's my uncle. I don't know." He reached for the lamp, to take it. Josh surrendered it reluctantly and he turned, started down the ladders as quickly as he could slide down the steps, Josh following desperately after.

  Get down again. Down was easy. He hurried at the limit of breath and balance, until he was dizzy and the lamp's beam swung madly about the framework and the tunnels. He slipped, recovered, kept descending.

  "Damon," Josh protested.

  He had no breath for arguing. He kept going until his sight was fading from want of air, sank down on the steps trying to pull air enough through the breather to keep from fainting. He felt Josh leaning by him, heard him panting, no better off. "Docks," Damon said. "Get down there ... get to ships. Elene would go there."

  "Can't get through."

  He looked at Josh, realized he was dragging another life into this. He had no choices either. He got up, started down again, felt the vibrations of Josh's steps still behind him.

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  The ships would be sealed. Elene would be there or locked in the offices.

  Or dead. If the troops had hit him ... if for some mad reason ... the station was being disabled in advance of a Union takeover ...

  But Jon Lukas was supposed to be up there in central.

  Had some action failed? Had Jon somehow prevented them from hitting central itself?

  He lost count of the stops for breath, of the levels they passed. Down. He hit bottom finally, a gridwork suddenly wider, did not realize what it was until he searched with the light and stopped finding downward ladders. He walked along the grid, saw the faint glimmer of a blue light, that over an access door. He reached it, pushed the switch; the door slid back with a hiss and Josh followed him into the lock's brighter light. The door closed and air exchange started. He tugged down the mask and got a full breath of air, chill and only slightly tainted. His head was pounding. He focused hazily on Josh's sweating face, marked with the mask, distraught. "Stay here," he said in pity. "Stay here. If I get this cleared up, I'll come back; if I don't— decide for yourself what to do."

  Josh leaned there, eyes glazed.

  Damon turned his attention to the door, got his breathing back to normal, rubbed his eyes to clear them, finally pushed the button and put the door in function. Light blinded him; there was shouting out there, screaming, the smell of smoke. Life-support, he thought with a chill ... it opened on one of the minor halls, and he headed out, started running, heard running footfalls behind him and looked back.

  "Get back," he wished Josh, "get back in there."

  He had no time to argue with him. He ran, down the hall ... had to be in green sector; it had to be nine in this direction ... all the signs were gone.

  He saw riot ahead of him, people running scattered through the halls; and some had lengths of pipe and there was a body in the hall ... he dodged it and kept going. The rioters he saw did not look like Pell ... unshaven, unkempt ... he knew suddenly what they were, and flung everything into 335

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  his running, pelted down the hall and up a turn, headed as close to the docks as he could get without going into the main corridor. He had to break into it finally, dodged a runner among other runners. There were more bodies on the floor, and looters ran rampant. He shouldered past men who clutched pipes and knives and, some of them, guns ...

  The entry to the dock was closed, sealed. He saw that, staggered aside as a looter came swinging a pipe at him, for no reason more than that he was in the way.

  The attacker kept going, a half-circle that pulled him about and ended against the wall, with Josh, who slammed his head into the wall and came up with the pipe in his hand.

&nbs
p; Damon whirled and ran, for the sealed doors ... reached for his pocket, for the card, to override the lock.

  "Konstantin!" someone shouted behind him.

  He turned, stared at a man, at a gun leveled at him. A length of pipe hurtled out of nowhere and hit the man, and looters scrabbled for the gun, a surging mob. In panic he whirled, thrust the card for the slot; the door whipped back, with the vast dockside beyond, and other looters. He ran, sucking in the cold air, down the dock toward white sector, where he saw other great seals in place, the dock seals, two levels tall and airtight. He stumbled from exhaustion and caught himself, pelted up the curve toward them, hearing someone close behind him and hoping it was Josh. The stitch that had started in his side unnoticed grew to a lancing pain ... Past looted shops with dark, open doors, he reached the wall beside the huge seals, fetched up against the closed door of the small personnel lock, thrust his card into the slot.

  It was dead. No response. He pushed it harder, thinking it might have failed contact, inserted it a second time. It was cut off. It should at least have lighted the buttons, given him a chance to put through a priority code, or flashed the hazard signal.

  "Damon!" Josh reached the door beside him, caught at his shoulder, pulled him around. There were people moving behind them, thirty, half a 336

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  hundred, from all across the docks ... from green nine, in greater and greater number.

  "They know you got a door open," Josh said. "They know you've got that kind of access."

  He stared at them. Snatched his card from the slot. Useless, blanked; control had blanked his card.

  "Damon."

  He grabbed at Josh and ran, and the crowd started forward with a howl. He raced for the open doors, for the shops ... into the dark doorway of the nearest. He whirled inside, pushed the button to seal the door. That at least worked.