Downbelow Station

by C. J. Cherryh

  He heard it and still it took a moment to sink in. "Who have you been talking to? Who do you know?"

  "Not me. Someone who recognized you. Who wants your help. I don't know the whole story. A friend of yours. There's an organization ...

  stretches out among the Q folk and Pell. A number of people who know you might have the skill to help them."

  He tried to absorb it. "You know what a candle's chance we have with a Q

  mob— against troops?— and why go to you? Why you, Josh? Maybe they're afraid I'd recognize faces and know something. I don't like this."

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  "Damon. How much time can we have? It's a chance. Everything's a risk at this point. Come with me. Please come with me."

  "They're going to be checking all over white. I stumbled into an alarm over there ... may have killed someone. They're going to be stirred up, searching for someone using accesses ..."

  "Then how much time can we have left to think it over? If we don't—" He stopped, looked sharply about at Ngo's wife, who brought them bowls of stew, setting them on the table. "We're going somewhere. Keep it hot for us."

  Dark eyes stared at them both. Quietly, as everything about the woman was quiet, she gathered up the bowls and took them to another table.

  "Won't take long to find out," Josh said. "Damon. Please."

  "What are they talking of doing? Rushing central?"

  "Causing trouble. Getting to the shuttle. Setting up resistance on Downbelow ... a small number of us. Damon, it all relies on your knowledge. Your skills with comp, and your knowledge of the passages."

  "They have a pilot?"

  "I think there's someone who is, yes."

  He tried to gather his wits. Shook his head. "No."

  "What do you mean, no? You talked about a shuttle. You planned for it."

  "Not to have another riot on the station. Not with more people killed, in a plan that's never going to work...."

  "Come and talk to them. Come with me. Or don't you trust me? Damon, how long can we wait on chances? You haven't even heard it out."

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  He let go his breath. "I'll come," he said. "They're going to start checking ID's in green soon enough, I'm afraid. I'll talk to them. Maybe I know better ways. Quieter ones. How far is this place?"

  "Mascari's."

  "Across the corridor."

  "Yes. Come on."

  He came, out amongst the tables, past the bar.

  "You," Ngo said sharply as they passed. He stopped. "You don't come back here if you bring trouble. You hear me? I helped you. I don't want that kind of pay for it. You hear me?"

  "I hear," Damon said. There was no time to smooth it over. Josh waited by the front door. He walked out to join him, looked left and right and crossed the corridor with him into the noisier and darker interior of Mascari's.

  A man at the left of the entry rose and joined them. "This way," the man said, and because Josh went without question, Damon swallowed his protests and went with them, to the far side of the room, which was so dark it was hard to avoid chairs.

  A dim light burned in a curtained alcove. They went inside, he and Josh, but their guide vanished.

  And in another moment a second man came in at their backs, young and scar-faced. Damon did not know him. "They're coming," the young man said, and quickly the curtains moved again, admitted two more to the alcove.

  "Kressich," Damon muttered. The other was not familiar to him.

  "You know Mr. Kressich?" the newcomer asked.

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  "Only by sight. Who are you?"

  "Name's Jessad ... Mr. Konstantin, is it? The younger Konstantin?"

  Recognition of any kind made him nervous. He looked at Josh, finding discrepancies, bewildered. They were supposed to know him. This man should not be surprised.

  "Damon," Josh said, "this man is from Q. Let's talk details. Sit down."

  He did so, at the small table, uncertain and apprehensive as the others settled with him. A second time he looked at Josh. He trusted Josh.

  Trusted him with his life. Would hand him his life at the asking, having no better use for it. And Josh had lied to him. Everything he knew of the man insisted Josh was lying.

  Are we under some threat? he wondered wildly, seeking some cause for this charade. "What kind of proposal are we talking about?" he asked, wishing only that he could get himself out of here, and get Josh out, and get it all straight.

  "When Josh said that he had contacts," Jessad said slowly, "I didn't suspect who. You're far better than I dared hope."

  "Am I?" He resisted the temptation to look again in Josh's direction.

  "What precisely do you hope, Mr. Jessad from Q?"

  "Josh didn't tell you?"

  "Josh said I'd want to talk to you."

  "About finding a way to get this station back into your hands?"

  He did not change expression in the least. "You think you have the means to do that."

  "I have men," Kressich interjected. "Coledy does. We can raise a thousand men in five minutes."

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  "You know what would happen then," Damon said. "We'd have ourselves neck deep in troopers. Bodies in the corridors, if they didn't vent us all."

  "You know," Jessad said quietly, "that the whole station is theirs. To do with as they please. Except for you, there's no authority to speak for the old Pell. Lukas ... is done. He says only what Mazian hands him to read.

  Has guards about him everywhere. One choice is bodies in the corridors, true. The other is what they've given Lukas, isn't it? They'd give you prepared speeches to read too. They'd let you alternate with Lukas, or outright dispose of you. After all, they do have Lukas, and he takes orders

  ... doesn't he?"

  "You put it neatly, Mr. Jessad." And what about the shuttle? he thought, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Josh, who met his eyes with a troubled stare. He glanced back again. "What's your proposal?"

  "You get us access to central. We take care of the rest."

  "It'll never work," Damon said. "We've got warships out there. You can't hold them off by holding central. They'd blow us; don't you count on that?"

  "I have means to make sure it works."

  "So let's have it. Make your proposal, flat, and let me have the night to think about it."

  "Let you walk around knowing names and faces?"

  "You know mine," he reminded Jessad, and obtained a slight flicker of the eyes.

  "Trust him," Josh said. "It will work."

  Something crashed outside, even over the music. The curtains came inward, with Coledy, who landed atop the table with a hole burned in his forehead. Kressich sprang up shrieking in terror. Damon hurled himself back, hit the wall with Josh beside him, and Jessad clawed for a pocket.

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  Shrieks punctuated the music outside, and armored troops with leveled rifles filled the doorway of the alcove.

  "Stand still!" one ordered.

  Jessad whipped out the gun. A rifle fired, and there was a burned smell as Jessad hit the floor, twitching. Damon stared at the troopers and the leveled rifles in dazed horror. Josh, at his side, did not move.

  A trooper hauled another man in by the collar— Ngo, who flinched from Damon's stare and looked apt to be sick.

  "These the ones?" the trooper asked.

  Ngo nodded. "Made me hide them out. Threatened me. Threatened my family. We want to go over to white. All of us."

  "Who's this one?" The trooper nodded toward Kressich.

  "Don't know," Ngo said. "Don't know him. Don't know these others."

  "Take them out," the officer said. "Search them. Dead ones too."

  It was over. A hundred thoughts poured through Damon's mind ... going for the gun in his pocket— running for it, as far as he could get before they shot him down.

&nbs
p; And Josh ... and his mother and his brother ...

  They laid hands on him, turned him against the wall and made him spread his limbs, him and Josh beside him, and Kressich. They searched his pockets and took the cards and the gun, which in itself was cause for a shooting on the spot.

  They turned him about again, back to the wall, and looked at him more carefully.

  "You're Konstantin?"

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  He gave no answer. One hit him in the belly and doubled him, and he flung himself at the man shoulder-on and low, carried him and a chair over under the table. A boot slammed into his back and he was trampled in a fight which broke above him. He tore free of the man he had stunned, tried to claw his way to his feet by the table rim, and a shot burned past his shoulder, hit Kressich in the stomach.

  A rifle clubbed him. His knees loosened, refusing to drive him to his feet; a second blow, on the arm stretched on the table. He went out, doubled as a boot slammed into him, stayed doubled against the blows until they knocked him half senseless. Then they hauled him up between two of them. "Josh," he said dazedly. "Josh?"

  They had Josh up too, slumped between two of them, trying to shake him into life, and he managed to get his feet under him. His head rolled drunkenly. He was bleeding from the temple. For Kressich there was no use in urging; he was still moving, gut-shot and bleeding fast. They were leaving him.

  Damon looked about as they were taken out into the main room. Ngo had fled or they had taken him. The patrons had fled. There was only a scattering of corpses, and a few troops standing about with rifles.

  The troops hauled him and Josh outside, into the corridor. A few at Ngo's stood outside to stare as they were marched along and Damon turned his face aside, shamed to be publicly paraded in his arrest.

  He thought they would be taken to the ships across the docks. And then they turned the corner onto the docks and headed left, and he realized otherwise. There was a bar the troops had taken for themselves, a headquarters, a place civs avoided.

  Music, drugs, liquor— anything the civ sector had to offer— Damon stared numbly as they were hauled inside, into a lowering smoke and a thunder of music. A desk was there, incredibly enough, a concession to something official. The troops brought them to it and a man carrying a drink sat down and looked them over. "Got ourselves something here,"

  said the leader of the group which had brought them in. "Fleet's looking 470

  Downbelow Station

  for these two. Konstantin, this one. And we've got ourselves a Unioner here. Adjusted man, the rumor says...but Pell did the Adjusting."

  "Unioner." The sergeant at the desk looked past Damon, grinned unpleasantly at Josh. "And how did the likes of you get onto Pell? Got a good story, Union man?"

  Josh said nothing.

  "I do," a harsh voice said from the door, fit to shake the walls. "He's Norway property."

  Laughter and conversation stopped, if not the music. The newcomers, armored as most in this place were not, came in with a brusqueness that startled the rest. "Norway," someone muttered. "Get out of here, Norway bastards."

  "What's your name?" the newcomer bellowed.

  "Or you shoot all of us?" someone else said.

  The short man with the loud voice punched the com button at his shoulder and spoke something the music drowned, turned and waved his hand at the dozen troopers with him, who fanned out. He looked then at the rest, a slow circuit of the room. "You're none of you in fit condition to handle anything. Straighten up this den. Any of our people in here I'll skin 'em. Is there?"

  "Try down the row," someone shouted. "This is Australia territory.

  Norway's got no call to be putting us on report."

  "Hand the prisoners over," the short man said. No one moved. Rifles of the Norway troops leveled, and there were outcries of shock and rage from the Australia troopers. Damon stood with his vision hazing as two of the dozen moved in on him and Josh, as a rough grip seized his right arm and jerked him from the hand which held him, hauled him along toward the door. Josh came without struggling. He did. As long as they were together

  ... it was the most they had left.

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  "Get them out," the little man bellowed at his troops. They were pushed and hastened outside; two troopers stayed with their officer, in the bar. It was not until theywere passing the niner corridor that other troops intercepted them, other Norway troopers.

  "Get to the Australia post," one yelled at the others, a woman's voice.

  "McCarthy's. Di's got them all at rifle point. He needs some numbers in there, fast."

  The troopers headed past them at a run. Four of those escorting them kept on, taking them toward the blue dock access door, where guards stood.

  "Pass us through," the officer of their escort demanded. "We've got a potential riot situation back there."

  The guards were Australia. The lettering and emblem proclaimed it.

  Reluctantly the squad opened the emergency doors and let them through the passage.

  Thereafter was blue dock, where Norway occupied a berth next India, Australia, and Europe. Damon walked, beginning to feel shock from his injuries, if not pain. There was only the military here, troops coming and going, supply bales being loaded by military crews in fatigues.

  Norway's access tube gaped before them. They walked the ramp, into the passage, passed through that chill into the airlock. Others met them, troops all with Norway's emblem.

  "Talley," one said with a surprised grin. "Welcome back, Talley."

  Josh bolted. He made it as far as the middle of the access tube before they caught him.

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  iv

  Pell: Norway; blue dock; 1/8/53; 1930 hrs.

  Signy looked up from her desk, for a moment dialed down the com noise, the reports of her troops on the docks and elsewhere. She gave a quizzical smile at the guards and at Talley. He was considerably the worse for wear

  ... unshaven, dirty, bloody. There was a swelling on his jaw.

  "Come to see me?" she mocked him. "I hadn't thought you'd ask again."

  "Damon Konstantin ... they've got him aboard. The troops have got him. I thought you'd want to talk to him."

  That perplexed her. "You're trying to turn him in, are you?"

  "He's here. We both are. Get him out of there."

  She leaned back, looked curiously at him. "So you do talk straight," she said. "You never talked."

  And now he had nothing to say.

  "They played games with your mind," she observed. "And now you're a friend of Konstantin's, are you?"

  "I appeal to you," he said in a faint voice.

  "On what grounds?"

  "Reason. He's useful to you. And they'll kill him."

  She regarded him from half-lidded eyes. "Glad to be back, are you?"

  There was a call blinking, which was something com evidently could not handle.

  She dialed up the sound and punched it through. "There's a fight broken out," she heard, "at McCarthy's."

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  "Di out of there?" she asked. "Give me Di."

  "Busy," she heard. She waved a hand at the guards, dismissing the business of Talley. Another light was flashing.

  "Mallory!" Talley shouted at her, being forced out the door.

  " Europe's wanting you," Com said. "Mazian's on."

  She punched through. They had gotten Talley out, to lock him up somewhere, she hoped.

  "Mallory here, Europe. "

  "What's going on over there?"

  "I've got trouble on the dock, sir. Janz needs instruction, by your leave, sir." She punched out on him. "He's down, " she was hearing on another channel. "Captain, Di's shot. "

  She clenched a fist and held it back from the unit. "Get him out, get him out, what officer am I talking to?"

  "This is Uthup," a woman's voice came back. "One of Austral
ia's shot Di."

  She punched another button. "Get me Edger. Quick!"

  "We're through the door," she heard from Uthup. "We got Di."

  "General alert Norway troops. We have dock trouble. Get out there!"

  "Edger here," she heard. "Mallory, call your hounds in."

  "Call yours in, Edger, or I'll shoot them on sight. They've shot Di Janz."

  "I'll stop it," he said, and cut out. Alert was sounding in Norway's corridors, a raucous klaxon, blue lightsflashing. Boards and screens in her office were coming to life as the ship turned out to emergency ready.

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  "We're coming in," Uthup's voice came back. "He's still with us, captain."

  "Get him in, Uthup, get him in."

  "Going down there, captain." That was Graff, heading to the dock. She started pushing buttons, hunting a visual and cursing at the techs; someone should have it on vid. She found it, the group coming in carrying more than one of their number, Norway troops pouring out onto the dock in haste and taking up positions around the umbilicals and access. "Get med on the com," she ordered.

  "Med's ready," she heard, watched a familiar figure reach the troops and take charge. Graff was out there. She found leisure for a quieter breath.

  " Europe's still holding," com advised her. She punched that channel.

  "Captain Mallory. What war are you fighting out there?"

  "I don't know yet, sir. I'm going to find out as soon as I can get my troops aboard."

  "You've got Australia's prisoners. Why?"

  "Damon Konstantin's one, sir. I'll be back in touch as soon as I can get a word out of Janz. Your leave, sir."

  "Mallory."

  "Sir?"

  " Australia has two casualties. I want a report."