Devil to the Belt (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  After which Tanzer hung up, glowered at him and said, “Get yourself and your crew up onto the carrier. Right now.”

  “Incoming?” A strike at Sol? Union missiles?

  Tanzer’s fist slammed the desk. “Get your ass out of this office, lieutenant, and get it the hell up to the carrier where you’re supposed to be competent!”

  Incoming was no time to stand arguing, and arguing with Tanzer was no way to get information through the carrier’s systems; but if it was Union action there was no way he was going to make the carrier’s deck before criticality. “Phone,” he said, and reached for the one on the desk. The colonel made to stop him, and he held on to it with: “Dammit, they need a go-order. —Carrier-com,” he told Tanzer’s secretary. “Fast,” —after which the secretary muttered something and he heard the lighter, fainter sound of Fleet relays. “This is Graff,” he said the instant he had a click-in. “Status.”

  “J-G,” Saito’s voice came back faintly. “You’re on a UDC line.”

  “Yes.” Short and fast. “Colonel’s office.” It wasn’t an incoming—he knew that in the first heartbeat of Saito’s remark about his whereabouts and he knew in that same second that UDC was a codeword on its own. Saito said, calmly: “Stand by,” and the phone popped and went to com-noise.

  “This is FleetCom Command. ECS4 ETA at Sol Two 2 hours 3 minutes. Command of Sol Two facilities has passed to Fleet Command. UDC personnel are being—”

  The message went offline. Went on again. Somebody in the outer office had a nervous finger.

  “—with Fleet personnel. This message will repeat on demand. Key FleetCom 48. Endit.”

  He looked at Tanzer, who didn’t know. Who was worried, clearly. And mad. Tanzer’s secretary said, in his ear. “Lt. Graff, this is Lt. Andrews. The colonel has an urgent message. Would you turn over the phone?”

  “For you,” he said, and passed the handset to Tanzer. Stood there watching Tanzer’s face go from red to white.

  Number 4 carrier was incoming from Sol One, not at cap, but as much as they meant anyone’s optics to see at this stage. The captain?

  “Get a confirm on that,” Tanzer said to whoever was on the line.

  Tanzer wasn’t looking at him. He could ease things or complicate matters—here in this office. He could end up with what had happened in the messhall played out on dockside—at gunpoint, if he and Tanzer both wanted to be fools. He put on his blankest, most proper expression—was very quiet when Tanzer finally hung up and looked at him.

  “I trust our messages were similar,” he said, with—he hoped—not a flicker of offense. “May I suggest, sir, we present this to personnel in a quiet, positive manner. I’d suggest a joint communiqué.”

  Tanzer didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, with a palpable effort: “I’d suggest we keep this quiet until we can sort it out.”

  “Colonel, I appreciate the difficulties involved. FleetCom is handling approach and docking. In the meanwhile my command has its own set of procedures, primarily involving dock access at this point. I’d suggest we move your security into a secondary position and move ours into supervision of debarkation facilities.”

  “I’ve no authorization to do that. You’ll wait, you’ll bloody wait!”

  “I’ll wait,” he said, trying to add up in his head what all the Alpha and Beta Points on this station were, and what he could do to secure records without creating an incident he was virtually certain FleetCommand didn’t want. “On the other hand, that carrier will dock in a little less than two hours, by which time I have to have a secure perimeter, colonel, that’s mandatory under our procedures.”

  They’d done it at Mariner, they’d done it at Pell, and he had no doubt, now, that it was his mandate to secure that area here, as quietly and peacefully as possible. It was only now sinking in that a transfer of command had happened, but how it had happened, he had no idea. The thought even occurred to him that it might be a lie—a final, extravagant lie—that maybe things had gone critical—on Earth or at the front, and they were pulling what they had, while they had it. That was what the whisper had been, always, that mere might not be the time they needed to build the riderships or the full number of carriers; and then they could take their choice—let the Fleet the, let Earth fall, and lose themselves hi space or in the motherwell, anonymous and helpless; or run with what they had, and gather the marines and the trainees they knew would be targets...

  And run and spend their lives running—

  Danger-sense had cut in, for whatever reason: his brain was suddenly doing what it did when hyperfocus was coming up, no reason, except Saito’s evasion yesterday, and the colonel’s being caught completely by surprise. If negotiations had been underway—it was a shock to Tanzer, or Tanzer acted in a way that didn’t make sense.

  So he took a quiet leave, out through the anxious secretary’s office—he stopped to say, “Andrews, for your own sake, don’t spread anything you may have heard,”—and saw nervousness pass to estimation and fear.

  Into the corridors, then—feeling the air currents, sampling the ambient. No panic in the clericals, nothing evident. The carrier had left Sol, presumably with notice to insystem defenses—then word had flashed via FleetCom, and presumably a UDC message from some quarter had chased that transmission to the colonel. Maybe Saito and Demas hadn’t known what was about to happen.

  Or maybe they had. Maybe they always had.

  He walked quietly to his office, he checked in on FleetCom and asked Saito again: “Snowball, this is 7-All, status.”

  “7-Att, that’s LongJohn, we’ve got a Code Six.”

  Stand down but stand by. And LongJohn wasn’t any of their crew. LongJohn was Jean-Baptiste Baudree, Carina. Mazian’s Com Two. “That’s a copy,” he said; thinking: Damn. What’s he doing here? It’s not the captain, then. What aren’t they saying? “Status,” he insisted; and got the information he next most wanted:

  “7-All, that’s Jack.”

  Edmund Porey?

  Lieutenant Edmund Porey?

  He hung up and, with a pang of real regret, stopped trusting Saito and Demas.

  CHAPTER 9

  LT. J-G Jurgen Albrecht Graff SB/Admin 2152h JUN24/23; FGO-5-9 Command of Sol B has been transferred to FleetOps. You ore hereby ordered to render all appropriate assistance, including securing of files and records, under direction of Comdr. Edmund Porey....

  Commander. The hell!

  And Jean-Baptiste? Mazian’s second-senior?

  Thoughts ran down very scattered tracks since that message. Thoughts needed to, on an operational level: Tanzer was only marginally cooperative, communicating through his secretary, BaseCom was a steady stream of query and scant reply from the UDC at Sol One—one assumed: a great deal of it was going in code one assumed FleetCom couldn’t breach.

  Tanzer had been blindsided, that seemed evident. And maybe FleetOps had had to keep the junior officer in the far dark to carry it off, but it was evident, at least as best he could put matters together, that the business with the committee and the general had been a flanking action—try to stir up some chaff, maybe throw a rock into the Sol One hearings. Who knew?

  Certainly not the junior lieutenant. Possibly the Number Ones had. Certainly the captain had—and kept silent in spite of his repeated queries, which Saito of course had sent, the way he’d ordered Saito to do...

  Damn and damn.

  The deception shook him. You relied on a crew, you dumped all your personal chaff and trusted, that was what it came down to. You assumed, in throwing open everything you had, that you had some kind of reciprocity. Never mind the gray hair he didn’t have. The Fleet could decide he was expendable. The Fleet could use him any way it had to. But they put you in charge, you made what you thought were rational decisions and if the people who were supposed to be carrying out your orders weren’t doing that, you trusted they’d at least trust you enough to tell you—before you assumed you had a power you didn’t, and put yourself and them into a no-win.


  You did the best you could in a touchy situation and they promoted Edmund Porey two ranks in the last year?

  God, what did the man do? The Captains had to know Porey. Had to. Were they blind?

  But Nav Two on Carina had a good head for Strategic Operations—Porey was back and forth to the Belt, Porey was ferry-captain on the carriers as they moved in for finish, which made him currently one of the most experienced with the ships, and Porey was probably working tight-in with Outsystem and Insystem Surveillance: that had to be where he got the merits. Clever man. Clever man, Edmund Porey was, and, clearly now, command-track, which he himself would never be: hyperfocus and macrofocus weren’t the same thing—not by a system diameter they weren’t.

  So Porey had the stuff. Clear now how desperately they needed a mind of Porey’s essential qualities.

  Clear now whose command he just might end up serving Helm for. The captain hadn’t trusted him. So they brought Porey in over his head?

  He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he arranged his priorities and issued his orders, trusting they were getting through. It gave him the same surreal feeling he’d had writing his will, for the handful of personal possessions he did own—that past the time those instructions were carried out, his personal existence was going to be very much different.

  He had ordered the records secured. That first. There were a lot of extremely upset UDC security personnel on the loose. There had very nearly been an armed stand-off. The UDC ordered erasure on certain files, he was quite certain. He was equally certain he had been too late to prevent that, during the time of the stand-off and queries flying back and forth between his office and Tanzer’s—he was sure UDC security had done exactly what they should have done, and that he had not been able to prevent it (although outside of going hand to hand with UDC personnel and cutting through a lock he didn’t know what he could have done) would be written down for a failure on his part.

  He had not let them throw the database into confusion. That was a plus. He had not lost the library tapes. That also. He had ordered personnel in detention transferred; he had taken hospital and testing records under Fleet protection. He might order the release of detainees, but the disposition of those cases as a policy issue was not within his administrative discretion. He did not like the new commander. He, however, did not personally approve of creating administrative messes, which, counting his administrative style and Porey’s, might be the worse for the difference. He advised the UDC officers that all facilities were passing under Fleet administrative command, and personally phoned the UDC provost marshal and UDC Legal Affairs to be certain that all legal proceedings were frozen exactly where they were: no sense letting anything pass into record that need not.

  Demas called, to say that the carrier was braking, directly after ceasing acceleration. Demas said that there was a contingent of marines aboard needing gravitied accommodations.

  “I copy that. What’s the head count?”

  “Two thousand.”

  That was a carrier’s full troop complement. They wanted miracles. He called Tanzer, he listened to the shouting, he calmly requested invention, and ordered an emergency galley set up in an idle SoICorp module, ordered its power-up, ordered an Intellitron communications center linked in as FleetCom relay for the marine officers, ordered the Fleet gym given over to troop exercise, the Fleet exercise schedule combined with the UDC, on alternate days; located every class-4 storage can in Sol-2, shifted all class-4 storage to low-g and ordered station ops to consolidate the remainder and clear section D-2 for set-up as habitation. Sol-2 civil Ops bitched and moaned about access-critical supplies.

  “I assure you,” he said coldly and courteously, “I appreciate the difficulty. But human beings have priority over galley supplies... That is a problem. I suggest than you move your dispenser equipment to 3-deck to handle it. There are bottles and carts available... —Then get them from maintenance, or we’ll order them. I’m sure you can solve that....”

  Meanwhile, the thin nervous voice of approach control tracked the carrier’s braking, in a tone that said approach control wasn’t used to these velocities. Inner system wasn’t a place merchanters ever moved at anything like that v. Merchanters drifted into the mothersystem at a sedate, mind-numbing leisure, sir, while bored techs and mechanics did whatever repair they’d had on backlist— days and days of it, because the mothersystem with all its traffic had regulations, and a starship, which necessarily violated standard lanes, made mothersystem lawyers very anxious. The mothersystem was a dirty system. The mothersystem had a lot of critical real estate, the mothersystem had never accurately figured the astronomical chances of collision, and the Earth Company had made astronomically irritating regulations. Which they now saw Exceptioned. That was the word for it. Exceptioned, for military ships under courier or combat conditions.

  The ECS4 wasn’t even at hard stretch. But station was anxious. If braking utterly failed (astronomically unlikely) that carrier would pass, probably, fifty meters in the clear. But tell them that in the corridors, where the rumor was, Security informed him, dial the carrier was aimed straight at them.

  Porey, the bastard, might shave that to 25 meters, only because he hated Earth system. But Porey never said that in outside hearing.

  Porey had other traits. But leave those aside. Porey was a strategist and a good one, and that, apparently, was the priority here. Not whether Edmund Porey gave a damn about the command he’d been given. Not whether he had any business commanding here, over these particular mindsets.

  The Shepherds were his crews, dammit, down to the last two women the captain or someone had finagled in here.

  Fingers hesitated over a keypad.

  The captain. Or someone. Anyone in Sol System must have known more than he had. What in hell was going on?

  He had a call from Mitch Mitchell on the wait list. He returned it only to ask, “Where are you?”

  “Sir?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on? What’s—”

  He said, “Where are you?”

  Mitch said, “Your office in two minutes.”

  “You don’t read, Mitch. Where?”

  “Coffee machine in one.”

  Not that long to work a carrier into dock, not the way they’d learned it in the Beyond, especially when it was a tube link and a straight grapple to a mast. The carrier used its own docking crew—marines, who simply moved the regular staff aside. More and more of them. A familiar face or two: Graff recognized them, if he couldn’t place them. Carina dockers. Mazian’s own crew. A lot of these must be.

  Lynch, the sergeant-major identified himself, close-clipped, gray-haired, with no ship patch on his khaki and gray uniform, but Graff recalled the face. He returned the salute, took the report and signed it for transmission of station Secure condition.

  More of them were coming off the lift. “Sgt,-major,” he said, with a misgiving nod in that direction. “We’ve had a delicate situation. Kindly don’t antagonize the UDC personnel. We’ve got a cooperation going that should make your job easier.”

  “The commander said take the posts. We take ‘em, sir.”

  He frowned at the sergeant-major. Darkly. Kept his hands locked behind him, so the white knuckles didn’t show. “You also have to live here, Sgt.-major. Possibly for a long while. Kindly don’t disturb the transition we have in progress. That also is an order.”

  A colder face. A moment of silence. Estimation, maybe. “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. Carina man for certain. Dangerous man. Close to Mazian. Lynch moved off, shouted orders to a corporal.

  Steps rang in unison. Breath steamed in the air in front of the lift. Marines were headed for the communications offices, the administrative offices, the lifesupport facilities, simultaneously.

  The lift let out again. Armored Security and a scowling, close-clipped black man in a blue dress jacket.

  Graff stood his ground and made his own bet whether Porey would salute or put out a hand.

  It was the hand
. Graff took it and said, “Commander.”

  “Lieutenant. Good to see you.” He might have been remarking on the ambient temperature. “I take it the report is in our banks.”

  “It should be. I take it you heard about the interservice incident. We have personnel in the brig...”

  “The colonel’s office,” Porey said, shortly, and motioned him curtly to come along.

  Quiet in the cell block, deathly quiet for a while. Then someone yelled: “Hey, Pauli.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know that five you owe me?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Cancel it. You got that sumbitch.”

  “That sumbitch is in here!” another voice yelled. “That sumbitch is going to whip you good, Basrami!”

  “Yeah, you got a big chance of doing that, Charlie-boy. How was dessert?”

  “Your guy can’t navigate an aisle! What’s he good for, him and his fe-male pi-luts? Couple of Belter whores, what I hear—”

  Dekker stood at the bars, white-knuckled, Ben could see it from where he sat. From down the aisle Meg’s high, clear voice. “You a pi-lut, cher, or a mouth?”

  “You come in here to save Dekker’s ass? Bed’s what you’re for, honey. It’s where you better stay.”

  Ben winced. Meg’s voice:

  “Fuck yourself, Charlie-boy, but don’t fuck with me. What are you, a tech or a pilot?”

  “Pilot, baby, and you better stay to rock-picking. You’re out of your league.”

  Chorus of derision from one side of the cell-block. Shouts from the other. Dekker hit the cross-bar with his fist, muscle standing hard in his jaw, and from down the row, Meg shouted:

  “You got a bet, Charlie-boy.”

  Wasn’t any way she wouldn’t take a challenge like that. Her and Sal. Ben felt his gut in a knot, saw Dekker lean his head against the bars, not saying anything, that was the danger signal in Dekker. And somebody down the row yelled, “Hey, Dekker! You hearing this?”

  Shouting over the top of it. Dekker had to answer, had to, way the rules worked, and Ben held his breath and crawled off the bunk, not sure what he was going to do if Dekker blew.