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.
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They knew, he kept thinking. He kept trying to persuade himself it was military courtesy, 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 corridor 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 all 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."
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"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?"
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"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."
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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.
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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 ex
isted, 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.
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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-sleep 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.
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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.
She closed her eyes finally, drew a deliberately peaceful breath. Graff stirred against her, settled again, a friendly presence in the dark.
v
Pell: sector blue one, number 0475;
2400 hrs. md.; 1200 hrs. a.
"She sleep," Lily said. Satin drew in a breath and settled her arms about her knees. They had pleased Sun-her-friend; the Dreamer had wept for joy to hear the news that Bluetooth had brought, the Konstantin-man and his friend safe ... so, so awesome the sight of tears on that tranquil face. All the hisa's hearts had hurt within them until they understood it was happiness ... and a warmth had sat within the dark and lively eyes, that they had crowded close to see. Love you, the Dreamer had whispered, love you every one. And: Keep him safe.
Then at last she smiled, and closed her eyes.
"Sun-shining-through-clouds." Satin nudged Bluetooth and he who had been zealously grooming himself— trying vainly to bring order to his coat, for respect of this place— looked toward her. "You go back, go and set your own eyes on this young Konstantin-man. Upabove hisa are one thing; but you are very quick, very clever Downbelow hunter. You watch him, come and go."
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Bluetooth cast an uncertain look at Old One and at Lily.
"Good," Lily agreed. "Good, strong hands. Go."
He preened diffidently, a young male, but others gave him place; Satin regarded him with pride, that even the old strange ones saw worth in him.
And truth: there was keen good sense in her friend. He touched the Old Ones and touched her, quietly excused himself toward the outside of the gathering.
And the Dreamer slept, safe in their midst, although a second time humans had fought humans and the secure world of the Upabove had rocked like a leaf on the breast of river. Sun watched over her, and the stars still burned about them.
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6
Downbelow: 10/11/52; local day
The trucks moved at a lumbering pace through the clear area, forlorn, collapsed domes, the empty pens, and above all the silence of the compressors, telling a tale of abandonment. Base one. First of the camps after main base. Lock doors banged loosely, unfastened, in a slight wind.
The weary column straggled now, all looking at the desolation, and Emilio looked on it with a pang in his own heart, this thing that he had helped to build. No sign of anyone staying here. He wondered how far down the road they were, and how they fared. "Hisa watch here too?" he asked of Bluetooth, who, almost alone of hisa, still remained with the column, beside him and Miliko. "We eyes see," Bluetooth answered, which told him less than he wanted.
"Mr. Konstantin." A man came up from the back, walked along with him, one of the Q workers. "Mr. Konstantin, we have to rest."
"Past the camp," he promised. "We don't stay in the open longer than we can help, all right? Past the camp."
The man stood still and let the column pass and his own group overtake him. Emilio gave Miliko's shoulder a weary pat, increased his own pace to overtake the two crawlers ahead of the column; he passed one in the clearing, overtook the other as they reached the farther road, got the driver's attention and signed him half a kilometer halt. He stopped then and let the column move until he was even with Miliko. He reckoned that some of the older workers and the children might be at the end of their strength. Even walking with the breathers was about the limit of exertion they could take over this number of hours. They kept stopping for rest and the requests grew more and more frequent.
They began to straggle as it
was, some of them stringing further and further behind. He drew Miliko aside, and watched the line pass. "Rest ahead," he told each group as they passed. "Keep on till you get there." In time the back of the column came in sight, a draggled string of walkers.
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The older ones, patient and doggedly determined, and a couple of staffers who walked last of all. "Anyone left?" he asked, and they shook their heads.
And suddenly a staffer was coming down the winding road from the other end of the column, jogging, staggering into other walkers, as the line erupted with questions. Emilio broke into a run with Miliko in his wake, intercepting the man.
"Com got through," the runner gasped, and Emilio kept running, the slanted margins of the road, up the treecurtained windings until he saw the trucks and people massed about them. He circled through the trees and worked his way through the crowd, which broke to let him, toward the lead truck, where Jim Ernst sat with the com and the generator. He scrambled up onto the bed, among the baggage and the bales and the older folk who had not walked, worked his way through to the place where Ernst sat, stood still as Ernst turned to him with one hand pressing the plug to his ear and a look in his eyes that promised nothing but pain.
"Dead," Ernst said. "Your father ... riot on the station."
"My mother and brother?"
"No word. No word on any other casualties. Military's sending. Mazian's Fleet. Wants contact with us. Do I answer?"
Shaken, he drew in a breath, aware of silence in the nearest crowd, of people staring up at him, of a handful of old Q residents on the truck itself looking at him with eyes as solemn as the hisa images.
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