Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  Someone grabbed him from the back, pulled him as fire came through. He got the edge of one and jerked in pain, scrambling for balance in the rout, running now — it was Josh with him, pulling him along in their retreat. A man’s back exploded an arm’s length ahead of them, and the man fell under the others.

  “This way!” Josh yelled, jerked him left, down a side corridor where part of the rout was going. He went, that direction as good as the other… saw a way to double back through, redoubled his effort, to get to the docks, running through the maze of secondary corridors back again to nine.

  They made it as far as three intersections, frantic people scattering everywhere, at every intersection of the corridors, staggering in the flux of G. And then screams broke out in the halls ahead.

  “Look out!” Josh yelled, catching at him. He gasped air and turned, ran where the curving inner hall rose up and up into what was going to turn into a blank wall, the sector division.

  Not blank. There was a way. Josh yelled and tried to drag him back when he saw the cul de sac; “Come on,” he snapped and caught Josh’s sleeve, kept running as the wall came down off the horizon at them, became level, a blank wall with a painted mural, and at the right, the heavy door of a Downer hatchway.

  He leaned up against the wall, fumbled his card out, jammed it in the slot. The hatch opened with a gust of tainted air, and he dragged Josh into it, into virtual dark, numbing cold.

  The door sealed. Air exchange started and Josh looked about in panic; Damon reached for the masks in the recess, thrust one at Josh, got one over his own face and sucked a restricted breath, trembling so that he could hardly get the band adjusted.

  “Where are we going?” Josh asked, voice changed by the mask. “Now what?”

  There was a lamp in the recess. He took it, thumbed the light on. He reached for the inner-door switch, opened it, a sound that echoed up and up. A slant of the beam picked out catwalks. They were on a grid, and a ladder went down farther still, into a round tube. G diminished, dizzyingly. He caught at the rail.

  Elene… Elene would be in the worst of it; she would go to cover, get those office doors locked — had to. He was not able to get through out there; had to get to help, reach a point where he could get security forces moving in a front that could stop it. Up. Get up to the high levels; that was white sector on the other side of that partition. He tried to find an access to it, but the beam showed no way. There was no direct connection, section to section, except the docks, except on number one level, he remembered that — complicated lock systems… Downers knew where — he did not. Get to central, he thought; get to an upper hall and get to com. Everything was amiss, G out of balance — the Fleet had gone; maybe merchanters too, throwing them out of stability, and central was not correcting it. Something was massively wrong up there.

  He turned, staggered as G surged sickeningly, grabbed an upslanted rail, and started climbing.

  Josh followed.

  vi

  Green dock

  There was no response from central; the handcom kept giving back the standby, interspersed with static. Elene thumbed it off and cast a frantic look back at the lines of troops that held green nine entry. “Runner,” she called. A youth came up to her on the double. They were reduced to this, with com blacked out. “Get to all the ships round the rim, one to the next as far as you can run, and tell them to pass the word on their own com if they can. Hold where you are, tell them. Tell them… you know what to say. Tell them there’s trouble out there and they’ll run headon into it if they bolt. Go!”

  Scan might be out. She had reckoned the blackout the Fleet’s doing; but India and Africa had gone, leaving troops to hold the dock, troops they had no room to take; and the signal was still being interrupted. No knowing what information the merchanters were getting, or what messages the troops might have gotten over their own com. No knowing who was in charge of the deserted troops, whether some high officer or some desperate and confused noncom. There was a wall of them at the niner entries of blue and green docks — a wall of troops facing up the curving horizons sealing off those same docks from either side, rifles braced and ready, the sealing of their square. She feared them no less than the enemy incoming. They had fired, turned one mob, killed people; there were still sporadic shots. She had twelve staff members and six of them were missing… cut off by the com blackout. The others were directing dock crew efforts to check the dumped umbilicals against a fatal seal breach; the whole section should be under precautionary seal — if her people up in blue control could get it straightened out: they had dead switches, the whole system jammed by an override. G flux still hit them at intervals; fluid mass in the tanks had to be shunted as fast as the lines could jet it their way, everything in tanks anywhere, to compensate; station had attitude controls; they might be using them. It was terrifying in a huge space like the docks, the up and down of weight, unsettling premonition that at any moment they might get a flux of more than a kilo or two.

  “Ms. Quen!”

  She turned. The runner had not gotten through: some ass in the line of troops must have turned him back. She started toward him in haste, toward the line that suddenly, inexplicably, was wavering, facing about toward them, rifles leveled.

  A shout roared out at her back. She looked, to the upcurving horizon, saw an indistinct wavefront of runners coming down that apparent wall toward them, beyond the curtaining section arch. Riot.

  “The seal!” she shouted into the useless handcom, dead as it had been. The troops were moving; she was between them and targets. She ran for the far side, the tangle of gantries, heart pounding, looked back again as the line of troops advanced, narrowing their perimeter, passing her by, some of them taking positions in the cover of the gantries. She thumbed the handcom and desperately tried her office: “Shut it down!” — but the mob was past blue control, might be in it. The noise of the mob swelled, a tide pouring toward them while others were still coming down off the horizon, an endless mass. She realized suddenly the aspect of the distant faces, behavior not panic, but hate; and weapons — pipes, clubs -

  The troops fired. There were screams as the first rank went down. She stood paralyzed, not twenty meters from the troops’ rear, seeing more and more of the mob pouring toward them over their own dead.

  Q. Q was loose. They came waving weapons and shrieking, a sound which grew from distant roar to deafening, with no end to their numbers.

  She turned, ran, staggering in the flux, in the wake of her own fleeing dock crews, of scattered Downers who saw man-trouble and sought shelter.

  The noise grew behind her.

  She doubled her pace, a hand to her belly, trying to cushion the shock in her stride. There were screams behind her, almost drowned in the roar. They would overrun these troops too, gain the rifles… coming on by the sheer weight of numbers. She looked back… saw green nine vomiting forth scattered runners, getting past the troops. Panic showed in their faces. She gasped for air and kept going, despite the dull ache in her pelvic arch, dog-trotting when she must, reeling in the G surges. Runners began to pass her, a scattered few at first, then others, a buffeting flood as she passed white section arch; and on the horizon ahead a tide breaking crossways from niner entries, thousands upon thousands up the sweep of the horizon, running for the merchanter ships at dock, screaming that merged with the cries behind, men and women screaming and pushing each other.

  Men passed her in greater and greater numbers… bloody, reeking, waving weapons, shrieking. A shock hit her back, threw her to a knee and the man kept running. Another hit her… stumbled, kept going. She staggered up, arm numb, tried for the gantries, the shelter of supports and lines… shots burst out ahead of her from a ship’s access.

  “Quen!” someone yelled. She could not tell the source, looked about, tried to fight the human tide, and stumbled in the press.

  “Quen!” She looked about; a hand caught her arm and pulled her, and a gun fired past her head. Two others grabbed her, haule
d her through the press… a blow grazed her head and she staggered, flung her weight then with the men who were trying to pull her through, amid the web of lines and gantries. There were screams and shots; others reached out to seize them and she tensed to fight, thinking them the mob, but a wall of bodies absorbed her and the men with her, merchanter types. “Fall back,” someone was yelling. “Fall back. They’re through!” They were headed up a ramp, to an open hatchway, a cold ribbed tube, glowing yellow white, a ship’s access.

  “I’m not boarding!” she cried in protest, but she had no wind left to protest anything, and there was nowhere but the mobs. They dragged her up the tube and those who had held the entry came crowding after as they hit the lock, hurtling in. They jammed up in a crushing press as the last desperate runners surged in. The door hissed and clanged shut, and she flinched… by some miracle the door had taken no limbs.

  The inner hatch spilled them into a lift corridor. A pair of big men pushed the others through and steadied her on her feet while a voice thundered orders over com. Her belly hurt; her thighs ached; she sank against the wall and rested there until one of them touched her shoulder, a huge man, gentle-handed.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m all right.”

  It was easing, the strain of the run… she pushed her hair back, looked at the men, these two who had been out there with her, heaved through the crowd, shoving rioters out of the way; knew them, and the patch they wore, black, without device: Finity’s End. The ship that had lost a son on the station; the men she had dealt with that morning. Going for their ship, perhaps… and they had gone aside after one of their own, to pull a Quen out of that mob. “Thank you,” she breathed. “The captain — please, I’ve got to talk to him… fast.”

  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 dock. Request that all docked merchanters 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 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.

  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 an
d 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 Kale’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 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.