Downbelow Station Part 11

"There's a s.h.i.+p holding far out... one we've taken, registered to the Olvig merchanter family, but in fact military. The Olvigs are all in detention... as are most of the people of Swan's Eye. The Olvig s.h.i.+p, Hammer, will give us advance warning. And there's not that much time, Mr. Lukas. First... will you show me a sketch of the station itself?"

Mine is the expertise. An expert in such affairs, a man trained for this. A terrible and chilling thought came on him, that Viking had fallen from the inside; that Mariner on the other hand... had been blown. Sabotage. From the inside. Someone mad enough to kill the station he was on... or leaving. He stared into Jessad's nondescript face, into eyes quite, quite implacable, and reckoned that on Mariner there had been such a person as this. Then the Fleet had shown up, and the station had been deliberately destroyed.

v Pell: Q zone: orange nine; 1900 hrs.

There were still people standing in line outside, a queue stretching down the niner hall out onto the dock. Va.s.sily Kressich rested his head against the heels of his hands as the most recent went out in the ungentle care of one of Coledy's men, a woman who had shouted at him, who had complained of theft and named one of Coledy's gang. His head ached; his back ached. He abhorred these sessions, which he held, nevertheless, every five days. It was at least a pressure valve, this illusion that the councillor of Q listened to the problems, took down complaints, tried to get something done. About the woman's complaint... little remedy. He knew the man she had named. Likely it was true. He would ask Nino Coledy to put the lid on him, perhaps save her from worse. The woman was mad to have complained. A bizarre hysteria, perhaps, that point which many reached here, when anger was all that mattered. It led to self-destruction. A man was shown in. Redding, next in line. Kressich braced himself inwardly, leaned back in his chair, prepared for the weekly encounter. "We're still trying," he told the big man.

"I paid," Redding said. "I paid plenty for my pa.s.s."

"There are no guarantees in Downbelow applications, Mr. Redding. The station simply takes those it has current need of. Please put your new application on my desk and I'll keep running it through the process. Sooner or later there'll be an opening-"

"I want out!"

"James!" Kressich shouted in panic.

Security was there instantly. Redding looked about wildly, and to Kressich's dismay, reached for his waistband. A short blade flashed into his hand, not for security... Redding turned from James-for him.

Kressich flung himself backward on the chair's track. Des James hurled himself on Redding's back. Redding sprawled face down on the desk, sending papers everywhere, slas.h.i.+ng wildly as Kressich scrambled from the chair and against the wall. Shouting erupted outside, panic, and more people poured into the room. Kressich edged over as the struggle came near him. Redding hit the wall. Nino Coledy was there with the others. Some wrestled Redding to the ground, some pushed back the torrent of curious and desperate pet.i.tioners. The mob waved forms they hoped to turn in. "My turn!" some woman was shrieking, brandis.h.i.+ng a paper and trying to reach the desk. They herded her out with the others. Redding was down, pinned by three of them. A fourth kicked him in the head and he grew quieter.

Coledy had the knife, examined it thoughtfully and pocketed it, a smile on his scarred young face.

"No station police for him," James said.

"You hurt, Mr. Kressich?" Coledy asked.

"No." He discounted bruises, felt his way to his desk. There was still shouting outside. He pulled the chair up to the desk again and sat down, his legs shaking. "He talked about having paid money," he said, knowing full well what was going on, that the forms came from Coledy and cost whatever the traffic would bear. "He's got a bad record with station and I can't get him a pa.s.s. What do you mean selling him an a.s.surance?"

Coledy turned a slow look from him to the man on the floor and back again.

"Well, now he's got a bad mark with us, and that's worse. Get him out of here.

Take him out down the hall, the other way."

"I can't see any more people," Kressich moaned, resting his head against his hands. "Get them out of here."

Coledy walked into the outer corridor. "Clear it out!"

Kressich could hear him shouting above the cries of protest and the sobbing. Some of Coledy's men began to make them move... armed, some of them, with metal bars. The crowd gave back, and Coledy returned to the office. They were taking Redding out the other door, shaking him to make him walk, for he was beginning to recover, bleeding from the temple in a red wash which obscured his face. They'll kill him, Kressich thought. Somewhere in the less trafficked hours, a body would find its way somewhere to be found by station. Redding surely knew it. He was trying to fight again, but they got him out and the door closed. "Mop that up," Coledy told one of those who remained, and the man searched for something to clean the floor. Coledy sat down again on the edge of the desk. Kressich reached under it, brought out one of the bottles of wine with which Coledy supplied him. Gla.s.ses. He poured two, sipped at the Downer wine and tried to warm the tremors from his limbs, the twinges of pain from his chest. "I'm too old for this," he complained.

"You don't have to worry about Redding," Coledy told him, picking up his gla.s.s. "You can't create situations like that," Kressich snapped. "I know what you're up to. But don't sell the pa.s.ses where there's no chance I'll be able to get them."

Coledy grinned, an exceedingly unpleasant expression. "Redding would ask for it sooner or later. This way he paid for the privilege."

"I don't want to know," Kressich said sourly. He drank a large mouthful of the wine. "Don't give me the details."

"We'd better get you to your apartment, Mr. Kressich. Keep a little watch on you. Just till this matter is straightened out."

He finished the wine at his own rate. One of the youths in Coledy's group had gathered up the stack of papers the struggle had scattered about the floor, and laid it on his desk. Kressich stood up then, his knees still weak, averted his eyes from the blood which had tracked on the matting. Coledy and four of his men escorted him, through that same back door which had received Redding and his guards. They walked down the corridor into the sector in which he maintained his small apartment, and he used his manual key... comp had cut them off and nothing worked here but manual controls. "I don't need your company," he said shortly. Coledy gave him a wry and mocking smile, parodied a bow.

"Talk with you later," Coledy said.

Kressich went inside, closed the door again by manual, stood there with nausea threatening him. He sat down finally, in the chair by the door, tried to stay still a moment.

Madness accelerated in Q. The pa.s.ses which were hope for some to get out of Q only increased the despair of those left behind. The roughest were left, so that the temperature of the whole was rising. The gangs ruled. No one was safe who did not belong to one of the organizations... man or woman, no one could walk the halls safely unless it was known he had protection; and protection was sold... for food or favors or bodies, whatever the currency available. Drugs... medical and otherwise... made it in; wine did; precious metals, anything of value... made it out of Q and into station. Guards at the barriers made profits. And Coledy sold applications for pa.s.ses out of Q, for Downbelow residency. Sold even the right to stand in the lines for justice. And anything else that Coledy and his police found profitable. The protections gang reported to Coledy for license.

There was only the diminis.h.i.+ng hope of Downbelow, and those rejected or deferred became hysterical with the suspicion that there were lies recorded about them in station files, black marks which would keep them forever in Q. There were a rising number of suicides; some gave themselves to excesses in the barracks halls which became sinks of every vice. Some committed the crimes, perhaps, of which they feared they were accused; and some became the victims. "They kill them down there," one young man had cried, rejected. "They don't go to Downbelow at all; they take them out of here and kin them, that's where they go. They don't take workers, they don't take young men, they take old people and children out, and they get rid of them."

"Shut up!" others had cried, and the youth had been beaten b.l.o.o.d.y by three others in the line before Coledy's police could pull him out; but others wept, and still stood in line with their applications for pa.s.ses clutched in their hands.

He could not apply to go. He feared some leak getting back to Coledy if he put in an application for himself. The guards were trading with Coledy, and he feared too much. He had his black market wine, had his present safety, had Coledy's guards about him so that if anyone was harmed in Q, it would not be Va.s.sily Kressich, not until Coledy suspected he might be trying to break from him.

Good came of what he did, he persuaded himself. While he stayed in Q, while he held the fifth-day sessions, while he at least remained in a position to object to the worst excesses. Some things Coledy would stop. Some things Coledy's men would think twice about rather than have an issue made of them. He saved something of order in Q. Saved some lives. Saved a little bit from the thing Q would become without his influence.

And he had access to the outside... had that hope, always, if the situation here became truly unbearable, when the inevitable crisis came... he could plead for asylum. Might get out. They would not put him back to die. Would not. He rose finally, hunted out the bottle of wine he had in the kitchen, poured himself a quarter of it, trying not to think of what had happened, did happen, would happen.

Redding would be dead by morning. He could not pity him, saw only the mad eyes of the man staring at him as he lunged across the desk, scattering papers, slas.h.i.+ng at him with the knife... at him, and not at Coledy's guards. As if he were the enemy.

He shuddered, and drank his wine.

vPell: Downer residence; 2300 hrs.

Change of workers. Satin stretched aching muscles as she entered the dimly lit habitat, stripped off the mask and washed fastidiously in the cool water of the basin provided for them. Bluetooth (never far from her, day or night) followed and squatted down on her mat, rested his hand on her shoulder, his head against her. They were tired, very tired, for there had been a great load to move this day, and although the big machines did most of the work, it was Downer muscle which set the loads on the machines and humans who did the shouting. She took his other hand and turned it palm up, mouthed the sore spots, leaned close and gave a lick to his cheek where the mask had roughed the fur. "Lukas-men," Bluetooth snarled. His eyes were fixed straight forward and his face was angry. They had worked for Lukas-men this day, some who had given the trouble Downbelow, at the base. Satin's own hands hurt and shoulders ached, but it was Bluetooth she worried for, with this look in his eye. It took much to stir Bluetooth to real temper. He tended to think a great deal, and while he was thinking, found no chance to be angry, but this time, she reckoned he was doing both, and when he did lose his temper, it would be bad for him, among humans, with Lukas-men about. She stroked his coa.r.s.e coat and groomed him until he seemed calmer.

"Eat," she said. "Come eat."

He turned his head to her, lipped her cheek, licked the fur straight and put his arm about her. "Come," he agreed, and they got up and walked through the metal runnel to the big room, where there was always food ready. The young ones in charge here gave them each a generous bowlful, and they retreated to a quiet corner to eat. Bluetooth managed good humor at last, with his belly full, sucked the porridge off his fingers in contentment. Another male came trailing in, got his bowl and sat down by them, young Bigfellow, who grinned companionably at them, consumed one bowl of porridge and went back after his second. They liked Bigfellow, who was not too long ago from Downbelow himself, from their own riverside, although from another camp and other hills. Others gathered when Bigfellow came back, more and more of them, a bow of warmth facing the corner they sat in. Most among them were seasonal workers, who came to the Upabove and returned to Downbelow again, working with their hands and not knowing much of the machines: these were warm toward them. There were other hisa, beyond this gathering of friends, the permanent workers, who did not much speak to them, who sat to themselves in the far corner, who sat much and stared, as if their long sojourning among humans had made them into something other than hisa. Most were old. They knew the mystery of the machines, wandered the deep runnels and knew the secrets of the dark places. They always stayed apart. "Speak of Bennett," Bigfellow asked, for he, like the others who came and went, whatever the camp which had sent them on Downeblow, had pa.s.sed through the human camp, had known Bennett Jacint; and there had been great mourning in the Upabove when the news of Bennett's death had come to them. "I speak," Satin said, for she, newest here, had the telling of this tale, among tales that the hisa told in this place, and she warmed quickly to the story. Every evening since their coming, the talk had not been of the small doings of the hisa, whose lives were always the same, but of the doings of the Konstantins, and how Emilio and his friend Miliko had made the hisa smile again... and of Bennett who had died the hisa's friend. Of all who had come to the Upabove to tell this tale, there was none to tell it who had seen, and they made her tell it again and again.

"He went down to the mill," she said, when she came to that sad time in the story, "and he tells the hisa there no, no, please run, humans will do, humans will work so river takes no hisa. And he works with his own hands, always, always, Bennett-man would work with his own hands, never shout, no, loves the hisa. We gave him a name-I gave, because he gave me my human name and my good spirit. I call him Comes-from-bright."

There was a murmuring at this, appreciation and not censure, although it was a spirit-word for Sun himself. Hisa wrapped their arms about themselves in a s.h.i.+ver, as they did each time she told this.

"And the hisa do not leave Bennett-man, no, no. They work with him to save the mill. Then old river, she is angry with humans and with hisa, always angry, but most angry because Lukas-mans make bare her banks and take her water. And we warn Bennett-man he must not trust old river, and he hears us and come back; but we hisa, we work, so the mill will not be lost and Bennett not be sad. Old river, she come higher, and takes the posts away; and we shout quick, quick, come back! for the hisa who work. I-Satin, I work there, I see." She thumped her chest and touched Bluetooth, embellis.h.i.+ng her tale. "Bluetooth and Satin, we see, we run to help the hisa, and Bennett and good mans his friends, all, all run to help them. But old river, she drinks them down, and we come too late in running, all too late. The mill breaks, ssst! And Bennett he reaches for hisa in arms of old river. She takes him too, with mans who help. We shout, we cry, we beg old river give Bennett back; but she takes him all the same. All hisa she gives back, but she takes Bennett-man and his friends. Our eyes are filled with this. He dies. He dies when he holds out arms for the hisa, his good heart makes him die, and old river, bad old river she drink him down. Humans find him and bury him. I set the spirit-sticks above him and gave him gifts. I come here, and my friend Bluetooth comes, because it is a Time. I come here on pilgrimage, where is Bennett's home."

There was a murmured approval, a general swaying of the bodies which ringed them. Eyes glistened with tears.

And a strange and fearful thing had happened, for some of the strange Upabove hisa had moved into the back fringes of the crowd, themselves swaying and watching.

"He loves," one of them said, startling others. "He loves the hisa." "So," she agreed. A knot swelled into her throat at this admission from one of the terrible strange ones, that they listened to the burden of her heart. She felt among her pouches, her spirit-gifts. She brought out the bright cloth, and held it in gentle fingers. "This is my spirit-gift, my name he gives me." Another swaying and a murmur of approval.

"What is your name, storyteller?"

She hugged her spirit-gift close to her breast and stared at the strange one who had asked, drew in a great breath. Storyteller. Her skin p.r.i.c.kled at such an honor from the strange Old One. "I am Sky-sees-her. Humans call me Satin." She reached a caressing hand to Bluetooth.

"I am Sun-s.h.i.+ning-through-clouds," Bluetooth said, "friend of Sky-sees-her." The strange one rocked on his haunches, and by now all the strange hisa had gathered, to a muttering of awe among the others, who gave way to leave an open s.p.a.ce between them and her.

"We hear you speak of this Comes-from-bright, this Bennett-man. Good, good, was this human, and good you gave him gifts. We make your journey welcome, and honor your pilgrimage, Sky-sees-her. Your words make us warm, make warm our eyes. Long time we wait."

She rocked forward, respecting the age of the speaker, and his great courtesy. There were increasing murmurs among the others. "This is the Old One," Bigfellow whispered at her shoulder. "He does not speak to us." The Old One spat, brushed his coat disdainfully. "The storyteller speaks sense. She marks a Time with her journey. She walks with her eyes open, not only her hands."

"Ah," the others murmured, taken aback, and Satin sat dismayed. "We praise Bennett Jacint," the Old One said. "He makes us warm to hear these things."

"Bennett-man is our human," Bigfellow said staunchly. "Downbelow human: he sent me here."

"Loved us," another said, and another: "All loved him." "He defended us from Lukases," Satin said. "And Konstantin-man is his friend, sends me here for my spring, for pilgrimage; we meet by Bennett's grave. I come for great Sun, to see his face, to see the Upabove. But, Old One, we see only machines, no great brightness. We work hard, hard. We do not have the blossoms or the hills, my friend and I, no, but we still hope. Bennett says here is good, here is beautiful; he says great Sun is near this place. We wait to see, Old One. We asked for the images of the Upabove, and no one here has seen them. They say that humans hide them away from us. But we still wait, Old One." There was long silence, while Old One rocked to and fro. Finally he ceased, and held up a bony hand. "Sky-sees-her, the things you seek are here. We visit there. The images stand in the place where human Old Ones meet, and we have seen them. Sun watches over this place, yes, that is true. Your Bennett-man did not deceive you. But there are things here that will make your bones cold, storyteller. We do not speak these secret things. How will hisa Downbelow understand them? How will they bear them? Their eyes do not see. But this Bennett-man made warm your eyes and called you. Ah! long we wait, long, long, and you make warm our hearts to welcome you.

"Ssst! Upabove is not what it seems. The images of the plain we remember. I have seen them. I have slept by them and dreamed dreams. But the images of Upabove... they are not for our dreaming. You tell us of Bennett Jacint, and we tell you, storyteller, of one of us you do not see: Lily, humans call her. Her name is Sun-smiles-on-her, and she is the Great Old One, many more than my seasons. The images we gave humans have become human images, and near them a human dreams in the secret places of the Upabove, in a place all bright. Great Sun comes to visit her... never moves she, no, for the dream is good. She lies all in bright, her eyes are warm with Sun; the stars dance for her; she watches all the Upabove on her walls, perhaps watches us in this moment. She is the image which watches us. The Great Old One cares for her, loves her, this holy one. Good, good is her love, and she dreams us all, all the Upabove, and her face smiles forever upon great Sun. She is ours. We call her Sun-her-friend."

"Ah," the gathering murmured, stunned at such a thing, one mated to great Sun himself. "Ah," Satin murmured with the others, hugged herself and s.h.i.+vering, leaned forward. "Shall we see this good human?"

"No," said Old One shortly. "Only Lily goes there. And myself. Once. Once I saw."

Satin sank back, profoundly disappointed.

"Perhaps there is no such human," Bluetooth said.

Now Old One's ears lay back, and there was an intake of breath all about them. "It is a Time," said Satin, "and my journey. We come very far, Old One, and we cannot see the images and we cannot see the dreamer; we have not yet found the face of Sun."

Old One's lips pursed and relaxed several times. "You come. We show you. This night you come; next night others... if you are not afraid. We show you a place. It has no humans in it for a short time. One hour. Human counting. I know how to reckon. You come?"

From Bluetooth there was not a sound. "Come," Satin said, and felt his reluctance as she tugged at his arm. Others would not. There were none so daring... or so trusting of the strange Old One.

Old One stood up, and two of his company with him. Satin did, and Bluetooth stood up more slowly.

"I go too," Bigfellow said, but none of his companions came with him to join them.

Old One surveyed them with a curious mockery, and motioned them to come, down the tunnels, into the further ways, tunnels where hisa could move without masks, dark places where one must climb far on thin metal and where even hisa must bend to walk.

"He is mad," Bluetooth hissed finally into her ear, panting. "And we are mad to follow this deranged Old One. They are all strange who have been here long." Satin said nothing, not knowing any argument but her desire. She feared, but she followed, and Bluetooth followed her. Bigfellow trailed along after all of them. They panted when they must go a long way bent or climb far. It was a mad strength that the Old One and his two fellows had, as if they were used to such things and knew where they were going.

Or perhaps-the thought chilled her bones-it was some bizarre humor of the Old One to strand them deep in the dark ways, where they might wander and die lost, to teach the others a lesson.

And just as she was becoming convinced of that fear, the Old One and his companions reached a stopping place and drew up their masks, indicating that they were at a place which would break into human air. Satin swept hers up to her face and Bluetooth and Bigfellow did so only just in time, for the door behind them closed and the door before them opened on a bright hall, white floors and the green of growing things, and here and there scattered humans coming and going in the lonely large s.p.a.ce... nothing like the docks. Here was cleanliness and light, and vast dark beyond them, where Old One wished to lead them.

Satin felt Bluetooth slip his hand into hers, and Bigfellow hovered close to both of them as they followed, into a darkness even vaster than the bright place they had left, where there were no walls, only sky.

Stars s.h.i.+fted about them, dazzling them with the motion, magical stars which changed from place to place, burning clear and more steadily than ever Downbelow saw them. Satin let go the hand which held hers and walked forward in awe, gazing about her.

And suddenly light blazed forth, a great burning disc spotted with dark, flaring with fires.

"Sun," Old One intoned.

There was no brightness, no blue, only dark and stars and the terrible close fire. Satin trembled.

"There is dark," Bluetooth objected. "How can there be night where Sun is?" "All stars are kindred of great Sun," said Old One. "This is a truth. The brightness is illusion. This is a truth. Great Sun s.h.i.+nes in darkness and he is large, so large we are dust. He is terrible, and his fires frighten the dark. This is truth. Sky-sees-her, this is the true sky: this is your name. The stars are like great Sun, but far, far from us. This we have learned. See! The walls show us the Upabove itself, and the great s.h.i.+ps, the outside of the docks. And there is Downbelow. We are looking on it now."

"Where is the human camp?" Bigfellow asked. "Where is old river?" "The world is round like an egg, and some of it faces away from Sun; this makes night on that side. Perhaps if you looked closely you might see old river; I have thought so. But never the human camp. It is too small on the face of Down-below."

Bigfellow hugged himself and s.h.i.+vered.

But Satin walked among the tables, walked into the clear place, where great Sun shone in his truth, overcoming the dark... terrible he was, orange like fire, and filling all with his terror.

She thought of the dreaming human called Sun-her-friend, whose eyes were forever warmed with that sight, and the hair lifted on her nape. And she stretched wide her arms and turned, embracing all the Sun, and his far kindred, lost in them, for she had come to the Place which she had journeyed to find. She filled her eyes with the sight, as Sun looked at her, and she could never be the same again, forever.

Chapter Four.

Aboard Norway: null point, Union s.p.a.ce; 9/10/52 Omicron Point Norway was not the first to come flas.h.i.+ng into the vicinity of that dark, planet-sized piece of rock and ice, visible only as it occluded stars. Others had preceded her to this sunless rendezvous. Omicron was a wanderer, a bit of debris between stars, but its location was predictable and it provided ma.s.s enough to home in on out of jump... a place as nowhere as it was possible to be, a chance finding by Sung of Pacific long ago, used by the Fleet since then. It was one of those bits that the sublight freighters had dreaded, which jumps.h.i.+ps with private business to conduct... cherished and kept secret Sensors were picking up activity, multiple s.h.i.+p presence, transmissions out of this forever-night. Computer talked to computer as they came in; and Signy Mallory kept her eyes flickering from one to the other bit of telemetry, fighting the hypnotism that so easily set in from jump and the necessary drugs. She hurled Norway into reals.p.a.ce max, heading for those signals and out of the jump range with the sense of something on her tail, trusted her crew's accuracy and aimed with the s.h.i.+p underway, the flickering few minutes of heart-in-throat transit near C, where all they had was approximation. She cut it back quickly, started dumping velocity, no comfortable process, and the slightly speed-mad telemetry and slightly drug-mad human brain fought for precise location; overestimate that dump and she could take Norway right into that rock or into another s.h.i.+p.

"Clear, clear, all in now but Europe and Libya," com reported. No mean feat of navigation, to find Omicron so accurately, to come in within middle scan, right in the jump range, after a start from near Russell's, far away. Fail their time, and they would have been in the jump range when something else came in, and that was disaster. "Good job," she sent to all stations, looking at the reckoning Graff flashed to her center screen: "Two minutes off mark but dead on distance; can't cut it much closer at our starting range. Good signals being received. Stand by."

She took her pattern in relation to Omicron, checked through data; within the half hour there was a signal from Libya, which had just come in. Europe came in a quarter hour after that, from another plane.

That was the tale of them, then. They were in one place, at one time, which they had not been since their earliest operations. Unlikely as it was Union would come on them in strength here, they were still nervous. Computer signal came in from Europe. They were given breathing s.p.a.ce, to rest. Signy leaned back, took the com plug from her ear, unharnessed and got up finally while Graff moved to the post she had vacated. They were not at the disadvantage of some: Norway was one of the mainday s.h.i.+ps... her main command staff on the schedule they were following now. Others, Atlantic, Africa, and Libya, were alter-day, so that strike hours were never remotely predictable, so that there were s.h.i.+ps with their main crews available on either schedule. But they were all mainday now, a synchronization they had never undergone, and the alterday captains did the suffering, jump and reversed hours combined. "Take over," she bade Graff, wandered back through the aisle, touched a shoulder here and there, walked back to her own nook in the corridor... pa.s.sed it by. She walked on back instead to crew quarters, looked in on them, alterday crew, most drugged senseless, to get their rest despite jump. A few, having an aversion to that procedure, were awake, sat in the crew mainroom looking better than they probably felt. "All stable." she told them. "Everyone all right?" They avowed so. They would drag out now, safe and peacefully. She left them to do that, took the lift down to the outersh.e.l.l and the troop quarters, walked the main corridor behind the suiting area, stopped in one barracks after another, where she interrupted knot after knot of men and women sitting and trading speculations on their prospects... guilty looks and startled ones, troopers springing to their feet in dismay to find themselves under her scrutiny, a frantic groping after bits of clothing, a hiding of this and that which might be disapproved; she did not, but the crew and troops had some quaint reticences. Some here too slept drugged, unconscious in their bunks; most did not... gambled, in many a compartment, while the s.h.i.+p shot her own dice with the Deep, while flesh and s.h.i.+p seemed to dissolve and the game continued on the other side of a far-stretched moment.

"Going to be a bit slow down here," she would say in each case. "We're in pattern and we're all stable; at your ease down here, but keep yourselves within a minute's prep for moving. No reason to think there's a problem, but we take no chances."

Di Janz intercepted her in the main corridor after the third such visit, nodded courtesy, walked with her through this private domain of his, seeming pleased in her presence among his command. Troops braced when Di walked with her, came to blank attention. Best, she thought, to pull the pretended inspection, just to let them know command had not forgotten them down here. What was coming was the kind of operation the troops dreaded, a multiple-s.h.i.+p strike, which raised the hazard of getting hit. And the troops had to ride it out blind, useless, jammed in the small safety the inner structure of the s.h.i.+p could afford them. There were no braver when it came to walking into possible fire, boarding a stopped merchanter, landing in some ground raid; and they took in stride the usual strike, Norway sweeping in alone, hit and run. But they were nervous now... she had heard it in the muttered comments which filtered over open com-always open: Norway tradition, that they all knew what was going on, down to the newest trooper. They obeyed, would obey, but their pride was hurt in this new phase of the war, in which they had no use. Important to be down here now, to make the gesture. Queasy as they were with jump and drugs, they were at their lowest, and she saw eyes brighten at a word, a touch on the shoulder in pa.s.sing. She knew them by name, every one, called them by name, one and another of them. There was Mahler, whom she had taken from Russell's refugees, looking particularly sober and no little frightened; Kee, from a merchanter; Di had come years ago, the same way. Many, many more. Some of them were rejuved, like her, had known her for years... knew the score as well, too, she reckoned, as well as any of them knew it. Bitter to them that this critical phase was not theirs, could not be. She walked the dark limbo of the forward hold, round the cylinder rim, into the eitherway world of the riders.h.i.+p crews, a place like home, a memory of other days, when she had had her quarters in such a place, this bizarre section where the crews of the insystem fighters, their mechanics, prep crews, lived in their own private world. A whole other command existed here, right way up at the moment, under rotation, ceiling down the rare times they were docked. Two of the eight crews were here, Quevedo's and Almarshad's, of Odin and Thor; four were off duty; two were riding null up in the frame... or inside their s.h.i.+ps, because locking crews through the special lift out of the rotation cylinder took one rotation of the hull, and they could not spare that time if they jumped into trouble. Riding null through jump-she recalled that experience well enough. Not the pleasantest way to travel, but it was always someone's job. They had no intent to deploy the riders here at Omicron, or two more sets of them would have been up there in the can, as they called it, in that exile. "All's as it should be," she said to those in demi-prep. "Rest, relax, keep off the liquor; we're still on standby and will be while we're here. Don't know when we'll be ordered out or with how much warning. Could have to scramble, but far from likely. My guess is we don't make mission jump without some time for rest. This operation is on our timetable, not Union's."

There was no quibble. She took the lift up to main level, walked the shorter distance around to number one corridor, her legs still rubbery, but the drugs were losing their numbing effect. She went to her own office/quarters, paced the floor a time, finally lay down on the cot and rested, just to shut her eyes and let the tension ebb, the nervous energy that jump always threw into her, because usually it meant coming out into combat, snapping decisions rapidly, kill or die.

Not this time; this was the planned one, the thing to which they had been moving for months of small strikes, raids that had taken out vital installations, that had harried and destroyed where possible.

Rest a while; sleep if they could. She could not. She was glad when the summons came.

It was a strange feeling, to stand again in the corridors of Europe, stranger still to find herself in the company of all the others seated in the flags.h.i.+p's council room... an eerie and panicky feeling, this meeting of all of them who had been working together unmet these many years, who had so zealously avoided each other's vicinities except for brief rendezvous for the pa.s.sing of orders s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p. In recent years it was unlikely that Mazian himself had known where all his fleet was, whether particular s.h.i.+ps survived the missions on which they were sent... or what mad operations they might be undertaking solo. They had been less a fleet than a guerrilla operation, skulking and striking and running. Now they were here, the last ten, the survivors of the maneuvers-herself; Tom Edger of Australia, lean and grim-faced; big Mika Kreshov of Atlantic, perpetually scowling; Carlo Mendez of North Pole, a small, dark man of quiet manner. There was Chenel of Libya, who had gone on rejuv-his hair had turned entirely silver since she had seen him a year ago; there was dark-skinned Porey of Africa, an incredibly grim man... cosmetic surgery after wounds was not available in the Fleet. Keu of India, silk-soft and confident; Sung of Pacific, all efficiency; Kant of Tibet, another of Sung's stamp. And Conrad Mazian. Silver-haired with rejuv, a tall, handsome man in dark blue, who leaned his arms on the table and swept a slow glance over them. It was intended for effect; possibly it was sincere affection, that open look. Dramatic sense and Mazian were inseparable; the man lived by it. Knowing him, knowing the manner of him, Signy still found herself drawn in by the old excitement. No preliminaries, no statement of welcome, just that look and a nod. "Folders are in front of you," Mazian said. "Closest security: codes and coordinates are in those. Carry them back with you and familiarize your key personnel with the details, but don't discuss anything s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p. Key your comps for alternatives A, B, C, and so on, and go to them by that according to the situation. But we don't reckon to be using those alternatives. Things are set up as they should be. Schematic-" He called an image to the screen before them, showed them the familiar area of their recent operations, which by stripping away vital personnel and leaving chaos on the stations left one lone untampered station like the narrowing of a funnel toward Pell, toward the wide straggle of Hinder Stars. One station. Viking. Signy had figured the pattern long since, the tactic old as Earth, old as war, impossible for Union to resist, for they could not allow vacuum in power, could not allow the stations they had struggled to gain to fall into disorder, plundered of technicians and directors and security forces, deliberately allowed to collapse. Union had started this game of station-taking. So they had rammed stations down Union's throat; Union had then to move in or have stations lost, had to supply techs and other skilled personnel, to replace the ones evacuated. And s.h.i.+ps to guard them, quickly, one after the other. Union had had to stretch even its monster capacity to hold what it had been given to digest.

It had had to take Viking whole, with all the internal complications of a station never evacuated... take it latest, because by ramming stations down Union's gullet in their own rapid sequence, they had dictated the sequence and direction of Union's moves of s.h.i.+ps and personnel.

Viking had been last.

Central to the others, with desolation about it, stations struggling to survive. "All indication is," Mazian said softly, "that they have decided to fortify Viking; logical choice: Viking's the only one with its comp files complete, the only one where they've had a chance to round up all the dissidents, all the resistance, where they could apply their police tactics and card everyone, instantly. Now it's all clean, all sanitary for their base of operations; we've let them throw a lot into it; we take out Viking, and hit at the others, that are hanging by a thread in terms of viability... and then there's nothing but far waste between us and Fargone; between Pell and Union. We make expansion inconvenient, costly; we herd the beast to its wider pastures in the other direction... while we can. You have your specific instructions in the folders. The fine details may have to be improvised within certain limits, according to what might turn up in your sectors. Norway, Libya, India, unit one; Europe, Tibet, Pacific, two; North Pole, Atlantic, Africa, three; Australia has its own business. If we're lucky we won't face anything at our rear, but every contingency is covered. This is going to be a long session; that's why I let you rest. We'll simulate until there are no more questions." Signy drew a slow breath and released it, opened the folder and in the silence Mazian afforded them to do so, scanned the operation as it was set up, her lips pressed to a thinner and thinner line. No need for drill: they knew what they were about, variations on old themes they had all run separately. But this was navigation that would try all their skill, a ma.s.s strike, a precision of arrival not synched, but separate, disaster if jumps.h.i.+ps came near each other, if an object of ma.s.s like the enemy just happened to be in the vicinity. They were going to flash in close enough to Viking to give the opposition no options, skin the hair off disaster. The presence of any enemy s.h.i.+p where it statistically ought not to be, the deployment of s.h.i.+ps out from station in unusual configurations... all manner of contingencies. They took into account too the positions of worlds and satellites in the system on their arrival date, to screen themselves where possible. To flash out of jump s.p.a.ce with nerves still sluggish, to haul dazed minds into action and try to plot instantly the location of friend and enemy, to coordinate an attack so precisely that some of them were going to overjump Viking and some underjump it, come in from all sides at once, from the same start- They had one advantage over Union's sleek, new s.h.i.+ps, the fine equipment, the unscarred young crews, tape-trained, deeptaught with all the answers. The Fleet had experience, could move their patched s.h.i.+ps with a precision Union's fine equipment had not yet matched, with nerve Union conservatism and adherence to the book discouraged in its captains.

They might lose a carrier in this kind of operation, maybe more than one, come jolting in too close, take each other out The odds were in favor of its happening. They rode Mazian's Luck... that it would not. That was their edge, that they would do what no one sane could do, and shock aided them. The schematics appeared, one after the other. They argued, for the most part listened and accepted, for there was little to which they wished to object. They shared a meal, returned to the briefing room, argued the last round. "One day for rest," Mazian said. "We go at maindawn, day after tomorrow. Set it up in comp; check and doublecheck."

They nodded, parted company, each to his own s.h.i.+p, and there was a peculiar flavor to the parting as well... that when next they met, they would be fewer. "See you in h.e.l.l," Chenel muttered, and Porey grinned.

A day to get it all into comp; and the appointment was waiting.

Chapter Five.