Downbelow Station tau-3

by Caroline J. Cherryh

  “Station’s fallen,” he said; and the flow was going on, passing through toward the center, hisa urging at him, at him and Miliko most of all. “We’ve run out of options, Ito. Mazian’s in control… this week. I can’t speak for next.”

  Ito fell behind, and Jones, staying with their own people; and there were other humans, hundreds upon hundreds gathered there, who stood solemnly, as if numb. He met Deacon of the wells crew; and Macdonald of base three; Hebert and Tausch of four; but the hisa swept him on, and he held Miliko’s hand so they should not be separated in the vast throng. Now there were hisa about them, only hisa. The pillar hove up nearer and nearer, and not a pillar, but a cluster of images, like those hisa had given to the station, squat, globular forms and taller ones, bodies with multiple hisa faces, surprised mouths and wide, graven eyes looking forever skyward.

  Hisa had made the like, and it was old. Awe came over him. Miliko slowed at last and simply gazed up, and he did, with hisa all about them, feeling lost and small and alien before this towering, ancient stone.

  “You come,” a hisa voice bade him. It was Bounder who took his hand, who led them through to the very foot of the image.

  Old Ones indeed sat there, the oldest hisa of all, those faces and shoulders were silvered, who sat surrounded by small sticks thrust into the earth, sticks carved with faces and hung with beads. Emilio hesitated, reluctant to intrude within that circle; but Bounder led them through, into the very presence of the Old Ones.

  “Sit,” Bounder urged. Emilio made his bow and Miliko hers, and settled cross-legged before the four elders. Bounder spoke in the chattering hisa tongue, was answered by the frailest of the four.

  And carefully then that Old One reached, leaning on one hand, to touch first Miliko and then him, as if blessing them.

  “You good come here,” Bounder said, perhaps a translation. “You warm come here.”

  “Bounder, thank them. Thank them very many thanks. But tell them that there’s danger from the Upabove. That the eyes of Upabove look down on this place and that men-with-guns may come here and do hurt.”

  Bounder spoke. Four pairs of aged eyes regarded them with no less tranquility. One answered.

  “Ship come upabove we heads here,” Bounder said. “Come, look, go away.”

  “You’re in danger. Please make them understand that.”

  Bounder translated. The Eldest lifted a hand toward the images which towered above them and answered. “Hisa place. Night come. We sleep, dream they go, dream they go.”

  A second of the elders spoke. There was a human name amid it: Bennett; and another: Lukas. “Bennett,” those nearest echoed. “Bennett. Bennett. Bennett.”

  The murmur passed the limits of the circle, moved like wind across the vast gathering.

  “We steal food,” Bounder said with a hisa grin. “We learn steal good. We steal you, make you safe.”

  “Guns,” Miliko protested. “Guns, Bounder.”

  “You safe.” Bounder paused to catch something one of the Old Ones said. “Make you names: call you He-come-again; call you She-hold-out-hands. To-he-me; Mihan-tisar. You spirit good. You safe come here. Love you. Bennett-man, he teach we dream human dreams; now you come we teach you hisa dreams. We love you, love you, To-he-me, Mihan-tisar.”

  He found nothing to say, only looked up at the vast images that stared round-eyed at the heavens, stared about him at the gathering which seemed to stretch to all the horizons, and for a moment he found himself believing that it was possible, that this overawing place might daunt any enemy who came to it.

  A chant began from the Old Ones, spread to the nearest, and to the farther and farther ranks. Bodies began to sway, passing into the rhythm of it

  “Bennett…” it breathed again and again.

  “He teach we dream human dreams… call you He-come-again.”

  Emilio shivered, reached and put his arm about Miliko, in the mind-numbing whisper which was like the brush of a hammer over bronze, the sighing of some vast instrument which filled all the twilit heavens.

  The sun declined to the last. The passing of the light brought chill, and a sigh from uncounted throats, breaking off the song. Then the coming of the stars drew pointing gestures aloft, soft cries of joy.

  “Name she She-come-first,” Bounder told them, and called for them the stars in turn, as keen hisa eyes spied them and hailed them like returning friends. Walk-together; Come-in-spring; She-always-dance…

  The chant whispered to life again, minor key, and bodies swayed.

  Exhaustion told on them. Miliko grew glassy-eyed; he tried to hold her, to stay awake himself, but hisa were nodding too, and Bounder patted them, made them know it was accepted to rest.

  He slept, wakened after a time, and food and drink were set beside them. He moved the mask to eat and drink, ate and breathed in alternation. Elsewhere the few awake stirred about among the sleeping multitudes, and for all the dream-bound peace of the hour, attended normal needs. He felt his own, and slipped far away through the vast, vast crowd to the edges, where other humans slept and beyond, where hisa had made neat trenches for sanitation. He stood there a time on the edges of the camp, until others came and he regained his sense of time, staring back at the images and the starry sky and the sleeping throng.

  Hisa answer. Being here, sitting here beneath the heavens, saying to the sky and their gods… see us… We have hope. He knew himself mad; and stopped being afraid for himself, even for Miliko. They waited for a dream, all of them; and if men would turn guns on the gentle dreamers of Downbelow, then there was no more hope at all. So the hisa had disarmed them at the beginning… with empty hands.

  He walked back, toward Miliko, toward Bounder, and the Old Ones, believing in a curious way that they were safe, in ways that had nothing to do with life and death, that this place had been here for ages, and had waited long before men had come, looking to the heavens.

  He settled beside Miliko, lay and looked at the stars, and thought of his choices.

  And in the morning a ship came down.

  There was no panic among the tens of thousands of hisa. There was none among humans, who sat among them. Emilio rose with Miliko’s hand in his and watched the ship settle, landing probe, far across the valley, where it could find clear ground.

  “I should go speak to them,” he said through Bounder to the Old Ones.

  “No talk,” The Eldest answered through him. “Wait: Dream.”

  “I wonder,” Miliko observed placidly, “if they really want to take on all Downbelow in their situation up on station.”

  Other humans had stood up. Emilio sat down with Miliko, and all across the gathering they began to settle back again, to sit, and to wait.

  And after a long time there was the distant hail of a loudspeaker.

  “There are humans here,” the metallic voice thundered across the plain. “We are from the carrier Africa. Will the one in charge please come forward and identify himself.”

  “Don’t,” Miliko begged him when he shifted to get up. “They could shoot.”

  “They could shoot if I don’t go talk to them. Right into this crowd. They’ve got us.”

  “Emilio Konstantin there? I have news for him.”

  “We know your news,” he muttered, and when Miliko started to get up he held her arms. “Miliko — I’m going to ask something of you.”

  “No.”

  “Stay here. I’m going to go; that’s what they’ll want — the base working again. I’m going to leave those that won’t fare well under Porey; most of us. I need you here, in charge of them.”

  “An excuse.”

  “No. And yes. To run this. To fight a war if it comes to that. To stay with the hisa and warn them and keep foreigners off this world. Who else could I trust to do that? Who else will the hisa understand as they do you and me? The other staff?” He shook his head, stared into her dark eyes. “There’s a way to fight. As the hisa do. And I’m going back, if that’s what they ask. Do you think I want
to leave you? But who else is there to do it? Do it for me.”

  “I understand you,” she said hoarsely. He stood up. She did, and hugged and kissed him for such a long moment that he found it harder than it had been before to leave. But she let go then. He took his gun from his pocket, gave it to her. He could hear the noise of the loudspeaker again. They were being hailed, message repeated. “Staff!” he shouted out across the gathering. “Shout it across. I want some volunteers.”

  The cry went out. They came, wading through from the farthest edge of the gathering, from one base command and the next, and main base. It took time. The troops who had advanced within hail on the other side waited, for surely they could see the movement, and time and force were on their side.

  He had his staffers turn their backs to that direction and crowd close, reckoning that they might have scopes on them. Hisa in the vicinity looked up, round-eyed and interested.

  “They want bodies,” he said softly. “And the sabotage fixed. That’s all they can be here for. Strong backs. Supply list taken care of. Perhaps all that interests them is main base, because they can’t use the others. I don’t think we can ask Q to go back and take more of what we took from Porey before we walked out. It’s a question of time, of holding out, of having men enough so we can stop some move against Downbelow — or maybe just of living. You understand me. It’s my guess they want their ships provisioned and they want station supplied; and while they get that — we save something. We wait for things to sort themselves out on-station, and we save what we can. I want the biggest men from each unit, the strongest constitutions, those who can do most and take most and hold their tempers… field labor, not knowing what else. Maybe impressment. We don’t know. Need about sixty men from each base, about all they can take with them, I’ll reckon.”

  “You going?”

  He nodded. There were reluctant nods in turn from Jones and other staffers. “I’ll go,” Ito said; all the other base officers had volunteered. He shook his head at her. “Not in this,” he said. “Women all stay here under Miliko’s command. All. No argument. Fan out and pass the word. About sixty volunteers from each base. Hurry about it. They won’t wait forever out there.”

  They dispersed, running.

  “Konstantin,” the metallic voice said again. He looked that way, made out the armored figures far across the seated gathering. Reckoned that they did have a scope and saw him plainly. “We’re running out of patience.”

  He delayed kissing Miliko yet again, heard Bounder nearby translating a steady flow to the Old Ones. He started through the camp in the direction of the troops. Others began to walk through the seated hisa, coming to join with him.

  And not alone staffers and resident workers. Men from Q came, as many as the residents. He reached the edge of the gathering and found that Bounder was behind him, with a number of the biggest hisa males.

  “You don’t have to go,” he told them.

  “Friend,” Bounder said. The men from Q said nothing, but they showed no inclination to turn back.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  They were within clear sight of the troops now, at the very edge of the gathering. Africa troops indeed; he could make out the lettering. “Konstantin” the officer said over the loudspeaker. “Who sabotaged the base?”

  “I ordered it,” he shouted back. “How was I to know we’d have Union down here? It’s fixable. Got the parts. I take it you want us back.”

  “What do you have going on here, Konstantin?”

  “Holy place. Sanctuary. You’ll find it marked Restricted on the charts. I’ve got a crew together. We’re ready to go back, repair the machinery. We leave our sick with the hisa. Open up main base only until we know the attack alert is firmly off up there. Those other bases are experimental and agricultural and produce nothing useful to you. This crew is sufficient to handle main base.”

  “You making conditions again, Konstantin?”

  “You get us back to main base and have your supply lists ready; we’ll see you get what you need, quickly and without fuss. That way both our interests are protected. Hisa workers will be cooperating with us. You’ll get everything you want.”

  There was silence from the other side. No one moved for a moment.

  “You get those missing machine parts, Mr. Konstantin.”

  He turned, made a move of his hand. One of his own staff, Haynes, went treading back, gathering up four of the men.

  “If you’re missing anything, don’t look for patience, Mr. Konstantin.”

  He did not move. His staff had heard. It was enough. He stood facing the detail — ten of them, with rifles — and beyond them sat the landing probe, bristling with weapons, some aimed this way; with other troops standing by the open hatch. Silence persisted. Perhaps he was supposed now to ask news, to succumb to shock, learning of murder, of the death of his family. He ached to know, and would not ask. He made no move.

  “Mr. Konstantin, your father is dead; your brother presumed dead; your mother remains alive in a security-sealed area under protective custody. Captain Mazian sends his regrets.”

  Anger heated his face, rage at the tormenting. He had asked for self-control from those who would go with him. He stood rock-still, waiting for the return of Haynes and the others.

  “Did you understand me, Mr. Konstantin?”

  “My compliments,” he said, “to captain Mazian and to captain Porey.”

  There was silence then. They waited. Eventually Haynes and the others came back, carrying a great deal of equipment. “Bounder,” he said quietly, looking at the hisa who stood near with his fellows. “Better you walk to the base if you come. Men go on the ship, hear. Men-with-guns are there. Hisa can walk.”

  “Go quick,” Bounder agreed.

  “Come ahead, Mr. Konstantin.”

  He walked forward, quietly, ahead of the others. The troops moved to one side, to guard their progress with lowered rifles. And softly, at first, like a breeze, a murmur, a chant rose from the multitude about the pillar.

  It swelled until it shook the air. Emilio glanced back, fearful of the reaction of the troops. They stood by, unmoving, rifles in hand. They could not but feel suddenly very few, for all their armor and their weapons.

  The chant kept up, a hysteria, an element in which they moved. Thousands of hisa bodies swayed to that song, as they had swayed beneath the night sky.

  He-come-again. He-come-again.

  They heard it as they approached the ship, with the hold gaping open and more troops to surround them. It was a sound to shake even the Upabove, when messages passed.

  … something the new owners could not enjoy hearing. He was swept along in the power of it, thinking of Miliko, of his family murdered… What he had lost he had lost, and he went empty-handed, as the hisa went, to the invaders.

  BOOK FIVE

  Chapter One

  Pell: Blue Dock: Aboard ECS 1 Europe; 11/29/52

  Signy leaned back in her chair at Europe’s council table, shut her eyes a moment, propped her feet in the seat of the chair next to her. The peace was short-lived. Tom Edger showed up, with Edo Porey, and they took their places at the table. She opened one eye and then the other, arms still folded across her middle. Edger had sat down at her back, Porey in the seat one removed from her feet. She yielded wearily to courtesies, swung her feet to the floor and leaned against the table, staring dully at the far wall, out of sorts for conversation. Keu came in and sat down, and Mika Kreshov came at his heels, took the seat between her and Porey. Sung’s Pacific was still out on patrol, with the unfortunate rider-captains of all the ships deployed under his command in perpetual duty, docking in shifts to change crews. They would not let down their guard, however long the siege became. There had been no word of the Union ships they knew were out there. There was one ship, a mote called Hammer, a merchanter they were sure was no merchanter at all, which hung at the edge of the system broadcasting propaganda… and longhauler that it was, it could jump faster than they could
get a ship within striking range of it. A spotter. They knew it. There might be another, a ship named Swan’s Eye, a merchanter like Hammer which did no merchanting at all, and another whose name they did not know, a ghost that kept showing up on longscan and drifting out again, that might well be a Union warship — or more than one of them. The short-haulers who remained in the system kept the mines going, stayed far from Pell and far from what was going on about the rim, desperate merchanters pursuing their own concerns without acknowledging the whole grim business, the absence of the longhaulers, the fleet ghosting about the system rim, the spotter ships that kept an eye on them, the whole situation.

  So did the station, attempting normalcy in some of its sections, with on-duty troopers and libertied troops moving among them. Fleet command had had to give the liberties. There was no keeping troops or crews pent up for months at dock, within arm’s reach of the luxuries of Pell, when the living space on the carriers was spartan and crowded during prolonged dock.

  And that had its peculiar difficulties.

  Mazian came in, immaculate as usual. Sat down. Spread papers before him on the table… looked about him. Lingered last and longest on Signy. “Captain Mallory. I think your report had best come first.”

  She reached unhurriedly for the papers in front of her, stood up at her place, that being her option. “On 11/28/52 at 2314 hours I entered number 0878 blue of this station, a residential number in a restricted section, acting on a rumor which had reached my desk, having in company my troop commander, Maj. Dison Janz, and twenty armed troops from my command. I there discovered Trooper Lt. Benjamin Goforth, Trooper Sgt. Bila Mysos, both of Europe, and fourteen other individuals of the troops in occupancy of this four-room apartment. There were drugs in evidence, and liquor. The troops and officers in the apartment verbally protested our entry and our intervention, but privates Mila Erton and Tomas Centia were intoxicated to such an extent that they were incapable of recognizing authority. I ordered a search of the premises, during which were discovered four other individuals, male aged twenty-four; male aged thirty-one; male aged twenty-nine; female aged nineteen, civilians; in a state of undress and showing marks of burns and other abuses, locked in a room. In a second room were crates which contained liquor and medicines taken from the station pharmacy and so labeled; along with a box containing a hundred thirteen items of jewelry, and another containing one hundred fifty-eight sets of Pell civilian ids and credit cards. There was also a written record which I have appended to the report listing items of value and fifty-two crew and troops of the Fleet other than those present on the premises with certain items of value by the names. I confronted Lt. Benjamin Goforth with these findings and asked for his explanation of the circumstances. His words were: If you want a cut, there’s no need for this commotion. What share will it take to satisfy you? Myself: Mr. Goforth, you’re under arrest; you and your associates will be turned over to your captains for punishment; a tape is being made and will be used in prosecution. Lt. Goforth: Bloody bitch. Bloody bastard bitch. Name your share. At this point I ceased argument with Lt. Goforth and shot him in the belly. The tape will show that complaint from his companions ceased at the same moment. My troops arrested them without further incident and returned them to the carrier Europe, where they remain in custody. Lt. Goforth died on the premises after giving a detailed confession, which is appended. I ordered items in the apartment delivered to Europe, which has been done. I ordered the Pell civilians released after intensive identification procedures, with a strong warning that they would be arrested if any details of this matter became public knowledge. I returned the apartment to station files after it was completely cleared. End of report. Appendices follow.”