Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  He went, walking quickly, for he did not reckon it would take Damon and Elene long to reach the hospice.

  They searched him. Of course they would do so. He endured it for the third time this day, and this time it did not bother him. He was cold inside, and outer things did not trouble him. He straightened his clothes and walked with them up the ramp, past sentries at every level. On green two they entered a lift and rode it the short rise and traverse into blue one. They had not even asked for his papers, had scarcely looked at them more than to be sure that the folder held nothing but papers.

  They walked a short distance back along the matting-carpeted hall. There was a reek of chemicals in the air. Workmen were busy peeling all the location signs. The windowed section further, crammed with comp equipment and with a few techs moving about, was specially guarded. Norway troops. They opened the door and let him and his guards in, into station central, among the aisles of busy technicians.

  Mallory, seated at the end of the counters, rose to meet him, smiled coldly at him, her face haggard. “Well?” she said.

  He had thought the sight of her would not affect him. It did. His stomach wrenched. “I want to come back,” he said, “on Norway.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m no stationer; I don’t belong here. Who else would take me?”

  Mallory looked at him and said nothing. A tremor started in his left knee; he wished he might sit down. They would shoot him if he made a move; he thoroughly believed that they would. The tic threatened his composure, jerked at the side of his mouth when she turned away a moment and glanced back again. She laughed, a dry chuckle. “Konstantin put you up to this?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve been Adjusted. That so?”

  The stammer tied his tongue. He nodded.

  “And Konstantin makes himself responsibile for your good behavior.”

  It was all going wrong. “No one’s responsible for me,” he said, stumbling on the words. “I want a ship. If Norway is all I’ve got, then I’ll take it.” He had to look at her directly, at eyes which flickered with imagined thoughts, things which were not going to be said here, before the troopers,

  “You search him?” she asked the guards.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stood thinking a long moment, and there was no smile, no laughter. “Where are you staying?”

  “A room in the old hospice.”

  “The Konstantins provide it?”

  “I work. I pay for it.”

  “What’s your job?”

  “Small salvage.”

  An expression of surprise, of derision.

  “So I want out of it,” he said. “I figure you owe me that.”

  There was interruption, movement behind him, which stopped. Mallory laughed, a bored, weary laugh, and beckoned to someone. “Konstantin. Come on in. Come get your friend.”

  Josh turned. Damon and Elene were both there, flushed and upset and out of breath. They had followed him. “If he’s confused,” Damon said, “he belongs in the hospital.” He came and laid a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Come on. Come on, Josh.”

  “He’s not confused,” Mallory said. “He came here to kill me. Take your friend home, Mr. Konstantin. And keep a watch on him, or I’ll handle matters my way.” There was stark silence.

  “I’ll see to it,” Damon said after a moment. His fingers bit into Josh’s shoulder. “Come on. Come on.”

  Josh moved, walked with him and Elene, past the guards, out and down the long corridor with the work crews and the chemical smell; the doors of central closed behind them. Neither of them said anything. Damon’s grip shifted to his elbow and they took him into a lift, rode it down the short distance to five. There were more guards in this hall, and station police. They passed unchallenged into the residential halls, to Damon’s own door. They brought him inside and closed the door. He stood waiting, while Damon and Elene went through the routine of turning on lights, and taking off jackets.

  “I’ll send for your clothes,” Damon said shortly. “Come on, make yourself at home.”

  It was not the welcome he deserved. He picked a leather chair, mindful of his grease-stained work clothes. Elene brought him a cool drink and he sipped at it without tasting it.

  Damon sat down on the arm of the chair next to his. Temper showed. Josh accepted that, found a place at his feet to stare at.

  “You ran us a circular chase,” Damon said. “I don’t know how you got past us but you managed it.”

  “I asked to go.”

  Whatever Damon would have wanted to say, he swallowed. Elene came over and sat down on the couch opposite him.

  “So what did you have in mind?” Damon asked evenly.

  “You shouldn’t have gotten involved. I didn’t want you involved.”

  “So you ran from us?”

  He shrugged.

  “Josh — did you mean to kill her?”

  “Eventually. Somewhere. Sometime.”

  They found nothing to say. Damon finally shook his head and looked away, and Elene came over behind Josh’s chair, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  “It didn’t work,” Josh said finally, tripping on the words. “It went everyway wrong. I’m afraid now she thinks you put me up to it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Elene’s hand brushed his hair, descended again to his shoulder. Damon simply stared at him as if he were looking at someone he had never seen before. “Don’t you ever,” Damon said, “think of doing that again.”

  “I didn’t want you two hurt. I didn’t want you taking me in with you. Think how it looks to them — you, with me.”

  “You think Mazian runs this station all of a sudden? And you think a captain in the Fleet is going to break relations with the Konstantins, whose cooperation Mazian needs… in a personal feud?”

  He thought that over. It made sense in a way he wanted to believe, and therefore he suspected it.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Damon said. “So forget about it. No trooper is about to walk into this apartment, you can depend on it. Just don’t give them excuses for wanting to. And you came close. You understand that? The worst thing you can do is give them a pretext. Josh, it was Mallory’s order that got you out of detention. I asked it. She did it a second time back there… as a favor. Don’t depend on a third.”

  He nodded, shaken.

  “Have you eaten today?”

  He considered, confused, finally thought back to the sandwich, realized that at least part of his malaise was lack of food. “Missed supper,” he said.

  “I’ll get you some clothes of mine that will fit. Wash up, relax. We’ll go back to your apartment tomorrow morning and get whatever you need.”

  “How long am I going to stay here?” he asked, turning his head to look at Elene and back at Damon. It was a small place. He was aware of the inconvenience. “I can’t move in on you.”

  “You stay here until it’s safe,” Damon said. “If we have to make further arrangements, we will. In the meantime I’m going to do some review on your papers or whatever excuse I can contrive that will excuse your spending the next few working days in my office.”

  “I don’t go back to the shop?”

  “When this is settled. Meanwhile we’re not going to let you out of our sight. We make it clear they’ll have to create a major incident to touch you. I’ll put my father onto it too, so that no one in either office gets caught by a surprise request. Just, please, don’t provoke anything.”

  “No,” he agreed. Damon gave a jerk of his head back toward the hall. He rose and went with Damon, and Damon searched an armload of clothing out of the lockers outside the bath. He went into the bath, bathed and felt better, clean of the memory of the detention cell, wrapped himself in the soft robe Damon had lent him, and came out to the aroma of supper cooking.

  They ate, crowded at the table, exchanged what they had seen in their separate sections. He could talk without anxiousness finally, now that the nightmare was on him
, and he was no longer alone in it.

  He chose the far corner of the kitchen, made himself a pallet on the floor, out of the amazing abundance of bedding Elene urged on him. We’ll get a cot by tomorrow, she promised him. At the least, a hammock. He settled down in it, heard them settle in the living room, and felt safe, believing finally what Damon had told him… that he was in a refuge even Mazian’s Fleet could not breach.

  Chapter Eight

  Downbelow: Africa landing probe, main base 2400 hrs. md.; 1200 hrs. a; local daylight

  Emilio leaned back in the chair and stared resolutely at Porey’s scowl, waited, while the scarred captain made several notes on the printout before him, and pushed it back across the table at him. Emilio gathered it up, leafed through the supply request, nodded slowly.

  “It may take a little time,” he said.

  “At the moment,” said Porey, “I am simply relaying reports and acting on instructions. You and your staff are not cooperating. Go on with that as long as you please.”

  They sat in the small personnel area of Porey’s ship, flat-decked, never meant for prolonged space flight. Porey had had his taste of Downbelow air, and of their domes and the dust and the mud, and retreated to his ship in disgust, calling him in instead of visiting the main dome. And that would have suited him well, if it had only taken the troops away as well; it had not. They were still outside, masked and armed. Q and the residents as well worked the fields under guns.

  “I also am receiving instructions,” Emilio said, “and acting on them. The best that we can do, captain, is to acknowledge that both sides are aware of the situation, and your reasonable request will be honored. We are both under orders.”

  A reasonable man might have been placated. Porey was not. He simply scowled. Perhaps he resented the order which had put him on Downbelow; perhaps it was his natural expression. Likely he was short of sleep; the short intervals at which the troops outside were being relieved indicated they had not come in fresh, and Porey’s crew had been in evidence, not Porey — alterday crew, perhaps. “Take your time,” Porey repeated, and it was evident that he would remember the time taken — the day that he had the chance to do things his own way.

  “By your leave,” Emilio said, received no courtesy, and stood up and walked out. The guards let him go, down the short corridor and via lift to the ship’s big belly, where lift functioned as lock, into Downbelow atmosphere. He drew up his mask and walked down the lowered ramp into the cool wind.

  They had not yet sent occupation forces to the other camps. He reckoned that they would like to, but that their forces were limited, and there were no landing areas at those sites. As for Percy’s demand for supplies, he reckoned he could come up with the requested amount; it scanted them, certainly scanted station, but their balking and the stripped domes, he reckoned, had at least gotten the Fleet’s demand down to something tolerable.

  Situation improved, his father’s most recent message had been. No evacuation planned. Fleet contemplating permanent base at Pell.

  That was not the best news. It was not the worst. All his life he had figured on the war as a debt which had to come due someday, in some generation. That Pell could not keep its neutrality forever. While the Company agents had been with them, he had hoped, forlornly, that some outside force might be prepared to intervene. It was not. They had Mazian, instead, who was losing the war Earth would not finance, who could not protect a station that might decide to finance him, who knew nothing of Pell, and cared nothing for Downbelow’s delicate balances.

  Where are the Downers? the troops had asked. Frightened by strangers, he had answered. There was no sign of them. He did not plan that there should be. He tucked Porey’s supply request into his jacket pocket and walked the path up and over the hill. He could see the troops standing here and there among the domes, rifles evident; could see the workers far off among the fields, all of them, turned out to work regardless of schedules or age or health. Troops were down at the mill, at the pumping station. They were asking questions among the workers about production rates. So far it had not shaken the basic story, that station had simply absorbed what they produced. There were all those ships up there, all those merchanters orbiting station. It was not likely that even Mazian would start singling out merchanters and taking supply from them… not when they were that numerous.

  But Mazian, the thought kept nagging at him, had not out-maneuvered Union this long to be taken in by Emilio Konstantin. Not likely.

  He walked the path down over the bridge in the gully, up again, toward operations. He saw its door open, saw Miliko come outside, stand waiting for him, her black hair blowing, her arms clenched against the day’s chill. She had wanted to come to the ship with him, fearing his going alone into Porey’s hands, without witnesses. He had argued her out of it. She started toward him now, coming down the hill, and he waved, to let her know it was at least as all right as it was likely to be.

  They were still in command of Downbelow.

  Chapter Nine

  Blue one: 10/5/52; 0900

  A trooper was on guard at the corner. Jon Lukas hesitated, but that was guaranteed to attract attention. The trooper made a move of his hand to the vicinity of the pistol. Jon came ahead nervously, card in hand, offered it, and the trooper — heavyset, dark-skinned — took it and frowned while looking at it. “That’s a council clearance,” Jon said. “Top council clearance.”

  “Yes, sir,” the trooper said. Jon took the card back, started down the crosshall, with the feeling that the trooper was still watching his back. “Sir.”

  He turned.

  “Mr. Konstantin’s at his office, sir.”

  “His wife’s my sister.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Yes, sir,” the trooper said mildly, and made himself a statue again. Jon turned and walked on.

  Angelo did well for himself, he thought bitterly, no crowding here, no giving up of his living space. The whole end of crosshall four was Angelo’s.

  And Alicia’s.

  He stopped at the door, hesitated, his stomach tightening. He had gotten this far. There was a trooper back there who would ask questions, make an issue of unusual behavior. There was no going back. He pressed com. Waited.

  “Who?” a reedy voice asked, startling him. “Who you?”

  “Lukas,” he said. “Jon Lukas.”

  The door opened. A thin, grayed Downer frowned up at him from eyes surrounded with wrinkles. “I Lily,” she said.

  He brushed past her, stepped in and looked about the dim living room, the costly furniture, the luxury, the space of it. The Downer Lily hovered there, anxious, let the door close. He turned, his eyes drawn to light, saw a room beyond, a white floor, with the illusion of windows open on space.

  “You come see she?” Lily asked.

  “Tell her I’m here.”

  “I tell.” The old Downer bowed, walked away with a stooped, brittle step. The place was quiet, deathly hushed. He waited in the dark living room, found nothing to do with his hands, his stomach more and more upset.

  There were voices from the room. “Jon,” he heard in the midst of it. Alicia’s voice. At least it was the human one. He shivered, feeling physically ill. He had never come to these rooms. Never. Had seen Alicia by remote, tiny, withered, a shell the machines sustained. He came now. He did not know why he came — and did know. To find out what was truth — to know — if he could face dealing with Alicia; if it was life worth living. All these years — the pictures, the transmitted, cold pictures he could somehow deal with, but to be there in the same room, to look into her face and have to talk with her…

  Lily came back, hands folded, bowed. “You come. You come now.”

  He moved. Got as far as halfway to the white-tiled room, the sterile, hushed room, and his stomach knotted.

  Suddenly he turned and started for the outside door. “You come?” The Downer’s puzzled voice pursued him. “You come, sir?”

  He touched the switch and left, let the
door close behind him, drew a breath of the cooler, freer air of the hall outside.

  He walked away from it, the place, the Konstantins.

  “Mr. Lukas,” the trooper on guard said as he reached the corner, his eyes asking curious questions through the courtesy.

  “She was asleep,” he said, swallowed, kept walking, trying with every step to put that apartment and that white room out of his mind. He remembered a child, a girl, someone else. He kept it that way.

  Chapter Ten

  i

  Pell: sector blue one; council chambers; 10/6/52; 1400 hrs.

  Council was breaking up early, having passed what measures were set before it to pass, with Keu of India sitting in grim witness of what they said and what they did, his stone-still countenance casting a pall on debate. On this third day of the crisis, Mazian made his demands, and obtained.

  Kressich gathered up his notes and came down from the uppermost tier into the sunken center of the chambers, by the seats about the table, delayed there, resisting the outflow of traffic, looking anxiously toward Angelo Konstantin, who conferred with Nguyen and Landgraf and some of the other representatives. Keu still sat at the table, listening, his bronze face like a mask. He feared Keu… feared to raise his business in front of him.

  But he went nevertheless, edged insistently as close as he could get to the head of it, into that private company about Konstantin where he knew he was not wanted, Q’s representative, reminder of problems no one had time to solve. He waited, while Konstantin finished his discussion with the others, stared at Konstantin intently so that Konstantin should be aware that his particular attention was wanted.