Downbelow Station Part 12

Cyteen Station: Security area: 9/14/52 Ayres awoke, not sure what had wakened him in the quiet of their apartments. Marsh had gotten back... the latest fright they had had, when he failed to rejoin them after recreation. Tension afflicted Ayres. He realized that for some time he had slept tense, for his shoulders hurt and his hands were clenched, and he lay still now with sweat gathered on his face, not sure what had caused it The war of nerves had not ceased. Azov had what he wanted, a message calling Mazian in. They quibbled now over some points of secondary agreements, for the future of Pell, which Jacoby professed to hand to Union. They had their recreation time, that much, but they were detained in conferences, hara.s.sed by petty tactics the same as before. It was as if all his appeal to Azov had only aggravated the situation, for Azov was not accessible for the last five days... gone, the lesser authorities insisted, and the difficulties raised for them now had the taint of malice.

Someone was astir outside. Soft footsteps. The door slid back unannounced. Dias's silhouette leaned into it. "Segust," she said. "Come. You must come. It's Marsh."

He rose and reached for his robe, then followed Dias. Karl Bela was stirring him from his room likewise, next door to him. Marsh's room was across the sitting room, next to Dias's, and the door was open.

Marsh hung, gently turning, by his belt looped from a hook which had held a movable light. The face was horrible. Ayres froze an instant, then dragged back the chair which had slid on its track, climbed up, and tried to get the body down. They had no knife, had nothing with which they might cut the belt. It was imbedded in Marsh's throat and he could not get it free and support the body at once. Bela and Dias tried to help, holding the knees, but that was no good. "We've got to call security," Dias said.

Ayres climbed down from the chair, hard-breathing, stared at them. "I might have stopped him," Dias said. "I was still awake. I heard the moving about, a great deal of noise. Then strange sounds. When they had stopped so suddenly and so long-I finally got up to see."

Ayres shook his head, looked at Bela then stalked out to the sitting room and the com panel by the door, punched through a request to security. "One of us is dead," he said. "Put me through to someone in charge." "Request will be relayed," the answer came back. "Security is on its way." The contact went dead, no more informative than usual. Ayres sat down, head in hands, tried not to think of Marsh's horrible corpse slowly spinning in the next compartment. It had been coming; he had feared worse, that Marsh would break down in his tormentors' hands. A brave man after his own fas.h.i.+on, he had not broken. Ayres tried earnestly to believe that he had not. Or guilt, perhaps? Remorse might have driven him to suicide. Dias and Bela sat down nearby, waited with him, faces stark and somber, hair disordered from sleep. He tried to comb his own with his fingers. Marsh's eyes. He did not want to think of them. A long time pa.s.sed. "What's keeping them?" Bela wondered, and Ayres recovered sense enough to glance up harshly at Bela, reprimand for that show of humanity. It was the old war; it continued even in this, especially after this. "Maybe we should go back to bed," Dias said. At other times, in other places, a mad suggestion. Here it was sanity. They needed their rest. A systematic effort was being made to deprive them of it. A little more and they would all be like Marsh. "Probably they will be late," he agreed aloud. "We might as well." They quietly, as if it were the sanest thing in the world, retired to their separate rooms. Ayres took off his robe and hung it over the chair by his bed, reckoning anew that he was proud of his companions, who held up so well, and that he hated-hated Union. It was not his business to hate, only to get results. Marsh at least was free. He wondered what Union did with their dead. Ground them up, perhaps, for fertilizer. That would be typical of such a society. Economical. Poor Marsh.

It was guaranteed that Union would be perverse. He had no sooner settled into bed, reduced his mind to a level that excluded clear thought, closed his eyes in an attempt at sleep, than the outer door whisked open, the tread of booted feet sounded in the sitting room, his door was rudely pulled back and armed soldiers stood silhoutted against the light.

With studied calm, he rose to his feet "Dress," a soldier said.

He did so. There was no arguing with the mannequins. "Ayres," the soldier said, motioning with his rifle. They had been moved out of the apartment to one of the offices, he and Bela and Dias, made to sit for at least an hour on hard benches, waiting for someone of authority, who was promised them. Presumably security needed to examine the apartment in detail. "Ayres," the soldier said a second time, this time harshly, indicating that he should rise and follow.

He did so, leaving Dias and Bela with a touch of apprehension in the parting. They would be bullied, he thought, perhaps even accused of Marsh's murder. He was about to be, perhaps.

Another means of breaking their resistance, only, he thought. He might be in Marsh's place; he was the one separated from the others. He was taken out of the office, brought among a squad of soldiers in the outer corridor, hastened farther and farther from the offices, from all the ordinary places, taken down in a lift, marched along another hall. He did not protest. If he stopped, they would carry him; there was no arguing with these mentalities, and he was too old to submit to being dragged down a hall. It was the docks... the docks, crowded with military, squad upon squad of armed troops, and s.h.i.+ps loading. "No," he said, forgetting all his policy, but a rifle barrel slammed against his shoulders, and moved him on, across the ugly utilitarian decking, up to the ramp and umbilical which linked some s.h.i.+p to the dock. Inside, then; the air was, if anything, colder than it was on the docks. They pa.s.sed three corridors, a lift, numerous doors. The door at the end was open and lighted, and they brought him in, into the steel and plastic of s.h.i.+pboard furnis.h.i.+ngs, sloping shapes, chairs of ambiguous design, fixed benches, decks of far more obvious curve than those of the station, everything cramped and angles strange. He staggered, unused to the footing, looked in surprise at the man seated at the table.

Dayin Jacoby rose from a chair to welcome him.

"What's going on?" he asked of Jacoby.

"I really don't know," Jacoby told him, and it seemed the truth. "I was roused out last night and brought aboard. I've been waiting in this place half an hour."

"Who's in charge here?" Ayres demanded of the mannequins. "Inform him I want to speak with him."

They did nothing, only stood, rifles braced all at the same drill angle. Ayres slowly sat down, as Jacoby did. He was frightened. Perhaps Jacoby himself was. He lapsed into his long habit of silence, finding nothing to say to a traitor at any event. There was no polite conversation possible. The s.h.i.+p moved, a crash echoing through the hull and the corridors and disturbing them from their calm. Soldiers reached for handholds as the moment of queasy null came on them. Freed of station's grav, they had a moment yet to acquire their own, as s.h.i.+p's systems took over. Clothes crawled unpleasantly, stomachs churned; they were convinced of imminent falling, and the falling when it came was a slow settling.

"We've left," Jacoby muttered. "It's come, then."

Ayres said nothing, thinking in panic of Bela and Dias, left behind. Left.

A black-clad officer appeared in the doorway, and another behind him.

Azov.

"Dismissed," Azov said to the mannequins, and they went out in silent order.

Ayres and Jacoby rose at once.

"What's going on?" Ayres asked directly. "What is this?"

"Citizen Ayres," said Azov, "we are on defensive maneuvers."

"My companions-what about them?"

"They are in a most secure place, Mr. Ayres. You've provided us the message we desired; it may prove of use, and therefore you're with us. Your quarters are adjoining, just down that corridor. Kindly confine yourself there." "What's happening?" he demanded, but the aide took him by the arm and escorted him to the door. He seized the frame and resisted, casting a look back at Azov. "What's happening?"

"We are preparing," Azov said, "to deliver Mazian your message. And it seems fit for you to be at hand... if further questions are raised. The attack is coming; I make my guess where, and that it will be a major one. Mazian doesn't give up stations for nothing; and we're going, Mr. Ayres, to put ourselves where he has obliged us to stand... up the wager, as it were. He's left us no choice, and he knows it; but of course, it's earnestly to be hoped that he will regard the authority you have to recall him. Should you wish to prepare a second, even more forceful message, facilities will be provided you."

"To be edited by your experts."

Azov smiled tautly. "Do you want the Fleet intact? Frankly I doubt you can recover it. I don't think Mazian will regard your message; but as he finds himself deprived of bases, you may yet have a humanitarian role to fill." Ayres said nothing. He reckoned silence even now the wisest course. The aide took him by the arm and drew him back down the corridor, showed him into a barren compartment of plastic furniture, and locked the door. He paced a time, what few paces the compartment allowed. In time he yielded to the weariness in his knees and sat down. He had managed badly, he thought Dias and Bela were... wherever they were-on a s.h.i.+p or still on the station, and what station they had been on he still did not know. Anything might happen. He sat s.h.i.+vering, suddenly realizing that they were lost, that soldiers and s.h.i.+ps were aimed at Pell and Mazian... for Jacoby was brought along too. Another-humanitarian-function. In his own stupidity he had played to stay alive, to get home. It looked less and less likely. They were about to lose it all. "A peace has been concluded," he had said in the simple statement he had permitted to be recorded, lacking essential codes. "Security council representative Segust Ayres by authority of the Earth Company and the security council requests the Fleet make contact for negotiation." It was the worst of all times for major battle to be joined. Earth needed Mazian where he was, with all his s.h.i.+ps, striking at random at Union, a nuisance, making it difficult for Union to extend its arm Earthward. Mazian had gone mad... against Union's vast extent, to launch the few s.h.i.+ps he had, and to engage on a ma.s.sive scale and lose. If the Fleet was wiped out, then Earth was suddenly out of the time he had come here to win. No Mazian, no Pell, and everything fell apart And might not a message of the sort he had framed provoke some rash action, or confound maneuvers already in progress, lessening the chance of Mazian's success even further?

He rose, paced again the bowed floor of what looked to be his final prison. A second message then. An outrageous demand. If Union was as self-convinced as the mannequins, as humorlessly convinced of their purpose, they might let it pa.s.s if it fit their demands.

"Considering merger of Company interest with Union in trade agreements," he composed in his head. "Negotiations far advanced; as earnest of good faith in negotiations, cease all military operations; cease fire and accept truce. Stand by for further instructions."

Treachery... to drive Mazian into retreat, into the kind of scattered resistance Earth needed at this stage. It was the only hope.

BOOK THREE.

Chapter One.

In approach to Pell: 10/4/52; 1145 hrs.

Pell.

Norway moved as the Fleet moved, hurling their ma.s.s into reals.p.a.ce in synch. Com and scan flurried into action, searching for the mote which was giant Tibet, which had jumped in before them, advance guard, in this rout. "Affirmative," com sent to command with comforting swiftness. Tibet was where she was supposed to be, intact, probe untouched by any hostile activity. s.h.i.+ps were scattered about the system, commerce, quickly evaporating bl.u.s.ter from some self-claimed militia. Tibet had had one merchanter skip out in panic, and that was bad news. They needed no tale-bearers running to Union; but possibly that was the last place a merchanter wanted to head at the moment And a moment later confirmation snapped out from Europe, from the flags.h.i.+p's operations: they were in safe s.p.a.ce with no action probable. "Getting com out of Pell itself now," Graff relayed to her post at controls, still listening. "Sounds good."

Signy reached across the board and keyed signal to the rider-captains, advising them. Fast to Norway's hull, so many parasites, they did not kick loose. Com was receiving direct and frantic id's from the militia s.h.i.+ps scrambling out of their projected course as they came insystem dangerously fast, out of system plane. The Fleet itself was more than nervous, running as they were in one body, probing their way into the last secure area they hoped to have left. They were nine now. Chenel's Libya was debris and vapor, and Keu's India had lost two of its four riders.

They were in full retreat, had run from the debacle at Viking, seeking a place to draw breath. They all had scars; Norway had a vane trailing a cloud of metallic viscera, if they still had the vane at all after jump. There were dead aboard, three techs who had been in that section. They had not had time to vent them, not even to clean up the area, had run, saved the s.h.i.+p, the Fleet, such as remained of Company power. Signy's boards still flashed with red lights. She pa.s.sed the order to damage control to dispose of the corpses, whatever of them they could find.

Here too there might have been an ambush-was not, would not be. She stared at the lights in front of her, looked at the board, with the drugs still weighting her senses, numbing her fingers as she manipulated controls to take back Norway's governance from comp synch. They had scarcely engaged at Viking, had turned tail and run-Mazian's decision. She had never questioned, had respected the man for strategic genius-for years. They had lost a s.h.i.+p, and he had pulled them, after months of planning, after maneuvers that had taken four months and unreckoned lives to set up.

Had pulled them from a fight from which their nerves were still jangled, from a fight which they could have won.

She had not the heart to look beside her to meet Graff's eyes, or Di's, or the faces of the others on the bridge; and no answer for them. Had none for herself. Mazian had another idea... something. She was desperate to believe that there was sane reason for the abort.

Get out quickly, redo it. Replan it. Only this time they had been pushed out of all their supply lines, had given up all the stations from which they had drawn goods.

It was possible Mazian's nerve had broken. She insisted otherwise to herself, but reckoned inwardly what moves she would have called, what she would have done, in command of the Fleet. What any of them could have done better than had been done. Everything had worked according to plan. And Mazian had aborted. Mazian, that they wors.h.i.+pped.

Blood was in her mouth. She had bitten her lip through.

"Receiving approach instructions from Pell via Europe," com told her. "Graff," she said, "take it over." She reserved her own attention to the screens and the emergency com link she had plugged into her ear, direct link with Mazian when he should decide finally to use it, when he should decide to communicate with the Fleet, which he had not, silent since the orders which had hurled them out of a battle they had not lost.

It was a routine approach, all routine. She received clearance through Mazian's com, keyed the order to her rider captains, scattering Norway's fighters as other s.h.i.+ps of the Fleet were shedding their own, backup crews manning them this time. The riders would keep an eye on the militia, blast any that threatened to bolt, then come and dock to them after the great carriers were safely berthed at station.

Com chatter continued out of Pell; go slow, station pleaded with them, Pell was a crowded vicinity. There was nothing from Mazian himself.

iPell: Blue Dock; 1200 hrs.

Mazian-Mazian himself, and not Union, not another convoy. The whole Fleet was coming in.

Word ran through the station corridors with the speed of every uncontrolled channel, through the station offices and the smallest gathering on the docks, through Q as well, for there were leaks at the barriers, and screens showed the situation there. Emotion ran from outright panic while there had been the possibility of Union s.h.i.+ps... to panic of a different flavor when they knew it for what it was.

Damon studied the monitors and intermittently paced the floors of dock command blue. Elene was there, seated at the com console, holding the plug to her ear and frowning in concentrated dispute with someone. Merchanters were in a state of panic; the militarized ones were an impulse away from bolting entirely, in dread of being swept up by the Fleet, crews and s.h.i.+ps as well impressed to service. Others dreaded confiscations, of supplies, of arms, of equipment and personnel. Such fears and complaints were his concern; he talked to some of them, when he could offer any a.s.surance. Legal Affairs was supposed to prevent such confiscations by injunction, by writs and decrees. Decrees... against Mazian. Merchanters knew what that was worth. He paced and fretted, finally went to com and took another channel, contacting security.

"Dean," he hailed the man in charge, "call me alterday s.h.i.+ft. If we can't pull them off Q, we still can't leave those freighter docks open to easy intrusion. Put some live bodies in the way. Uniform some of the supervisory staff if you haven't enough. General call-up; get those docks secure and make sure you keep the Downers out of there."

"Your office authorizes it."

"It authorizes it." There was hesitation on the other end; there were supposed to be papers, counter-signatures from the main office. Stationmaster could do it; stationmaster's office had its hands full trying to make sense out of this situation. His father was on com trying to stall off the Fleet with argument. "Get me a signed paper when you can," Dean Gihan said "I'll get them there." Damon breathed a soft hiss, shut down the contact, paced more, paused again behind Elene's chair, leaning on the back of it. She leaned back in a moment's lull, half-turned to touch his hand. Her face had been white when he had come into the room. She had recovered her color and her composure. Techs kept busy, dispensing the finer details of orders to the dock crews below, preparations for station central to start s.h.i.+fting freighters out of berth to accommodate the Fleet. Chaos-there were not only freighters in dock, there were a hundred merchanters a.s.signed permanent orbit with the station about Downbelow, a drifting cloud of freighters for which there had been no room. Nine s.h.i.+ps of vast size were moving in on that, sending s.h.i.+ps off dock out into it. Mazian's com was firing a steady catechism of questions and authorizations at Pell, as yet refusing to specify what he wanted or where he meant to dock, if he meant to dock at all.

Us next? The nightmare was with them. Evacuation. Pregnancy was no state in which to contemplate a refugee journey to G.o.d knew where, through jump-to some long-abandoned Hinder Star station; to Sol, to Earth... He thought of Hansford. Thought of Elene... in that. Of what had been civilized men when they started. "Maybe we won," a tech said. He blinked, realized that too for a possibility, but not possible... they had always known at heart that it was impossible, that Union had grown too big, that the Fleet could give them years, as it had until now, but not victory, never that. The carriers would not have come in in this number, not for any other reason than retreat.

He reckoned their chances if Pell refused evacuation; reckoned what awaited any Konstantin in Union hands. The military would never let him stay behind. He set his hand on Elene's shoulder, his heart beating fit to break, realizing the possiblity of being separated, losing her and the baby. He would be put aboard under arrest if there were an evacuation, the same way as it had happened on other stations, to get vital personnel out of Union hands, people put on whatever s.h.i.+p they could reach. His father... his mother... Pell was their lives; was life itself to his mother-and Emilio and Miliko. He felt sick inside, stationer, out of generations of stationers, who had never asked for war. For Elene, for Pell, for all the dreams they had had, he would have fought.

But he did not know where to begin.

iiNorway: 1300 hrs.

Signy had it visual now, the hubbed ring of Pell's Station, the distant moon, the bright jewel of Downbelow, cloud-swirled. They had long since dumped velocity, moved in with dreamlike slowness compared to their former speed, as the station's smooth shape resolved itself into the chaos of angles its surface was.

Freighters were jammed into every berth of the visible side, docking and standby. There was incredible clutter on scan, and they were moving slowly because it took that long for these sluggish s.h.i.+ps to clear an approach for them. Every merchanter which had not been swept into Union hands had to be hereabouts, at station, in pattern, or farther out, or hovering off in the deep just out of system. Graff still had controls, a tedious business now. Unprecedented crowding and traffic. Chaos indeed. She was afraid, when she a.n.a.lyzed the growing tautness at her gut. Anger had cooled and she was afraid with a helplessness she was not accustomed to feel... a wish that by someone very wise and at some time long ago, other choices had been made, which would have saved them all from this moment, and this place, and the choices they had left. "Carriers North Pole and Tibet will stand off from station," the notification came from Europe. "a.s.sume patrol."

That was mortally necessary; and on this particular approach, Signy wished herself and her crew on that a.s.signment. There was bitter choice ahead. She did not look forward to another operation like Russell's Station, where civ panic had antic.i.p.ated the military action for the station's dismantling, mobs at the docks... her crew had had enough of that. She had, and disliked the thought of letting troops loose on a station when they were in the mood hers were in now. Another message came through. Pell Station advised that it had s.h.i.+fted a number of freighters out of berths to accommodate the wars.h.i.+ps in one sequence and without immediate neighbors on the docks. The dislodged freighters would be moving through the pattern of the orbiting s.h.i.+ps in a direction opposite to their entry of that pattern. Mazian's voice cut in, deep and harsh, a repeated advis.e.m.e.nt that, whatever disruption in the patterns of s.h.i.+ps about Pell, if any freighter tried to jump system they would be blown without warning. Station acknowledged; it was all they could do.

iv Pell: Q; 1300 hrs.

Nothing worked. In Q nothing ever seemed to. Va.s.sily Kressich punched b.u.t.tons totally dead and punched them again, hit the com unit with the heel of his hand and still had no response from station com central. He paced the limits of his small apartment. The breakdowns infuriated him, drove him almost to tears. They happened daily; the water, the fans, the com, vid, supplies, shortages driving home over and over again the misery of his living, the decay, the pressure of bodies, the senseless violence of people driven mad by crowding and uncertainty. He had the apartment. He had his possessions; he kept these things meticulously in order, scrubbed often and obsessively. The smell of Q clung to him, no matter how he washed and how diligently he scrubbed the floors and sealed the closet against the pervading smell. It was an antiseptic reek, of cheap astringents and whatever chemicals the station used to combat disease and crowding and keep the life-support in balance.

He paced the floor, tried the com again, hoping, and it did not work. He could hear commotion outside in the corridor, trusted that Nino Coledy and his boys would have things under some control... hoped so. There were times when he could not get out of Q, in the occasional disturbances, when the gates sealed and even his council pa.s.s did not suffice to make an exception. He knew where he ought to be-outside, restoring order, managing Coledy, trying to restrain the Q police from some of their excesses.

And he could not go. His flesh cringed at the mere thought of confronting the mobs and the shouting and the hate and the uglinesses of Q... of more blood, and more things to disturb his sleep. He dreamed of Redding. Of others. Of people he had known who turned up dead in the corridors, or vented. He knew that this cowardice was ultimately fatal. He fought it, knowing where it led, that when once he appeared to come apart, he was lost... and knowing that, there were days when it was difficult to walk those halls, when he felt his courage inadequate. He was one of them, no different from the rest; and given shelter, he did not want to come out of it, did not want to cross even that brief s.p.a.ce necessary to reach the security post and the doors.

They would kill him, Coledy or one of the rival powers. Or someone with no motive at all. Someday in the madness of rumor which swept Q, they would kill him, someone disappointed in an application, someone who hated and found him a symbol of authority. His stomach knotted now every time he opened the door of his apartment. There were questions, outside and he had no answers; there were demands, and he could not meet them; eyes, and he could not face them. If he went out this day, he had to come back, when the disorder might be worse; he was never permitted out of Q more than one s.h.i.+ft at a time. He had tried, tested his credit with them-finally gathered the courage to ask for papers, to ask for release, days after the last disturbance-asked, knowing it might get back to Coledy; asked knowing it might cost him his life. And they had denied him. The great, the powerful council of which he was a member... would not hear him. He had, Angelo Konstantin said, too great a value where he was, privately made a show of pleading with him to stay where he was. He said nothing more of it, fearing it would go more public, and he would not live long after that. He had been a good man, a brave man once. He had reckoned himself so, at least, before the voyage; before the war; while there was Jen, and Romy. He had twice been mobbed in Q, once beaten senseless. Redding had tried to kill him and would not be the last. He was tired and sick, and rejuv was not working for him; he suspected the quality of what he had gotten, suspected the strain was killing him. He had watched his face acquire new lines, a hollowed hopelessness; he no longer recognized the man he had been a year ago. He feared obsessively for his health, knowing the quality of medical care they had in Q, where any medicines were stolen and might be adulterated, where he was dependent on Coledy's largesse for drugs as well as wine and decent food. He no longer thought of home, no longer mourned, no longer thought of the future. There was only today, as horrible as yesterday; and if there was one desire he had left, it was to have some a.s.surance it would not be worse.

Again he tried com, and this time not even the red light came on. Vandals dismantled things in Q as fast as their own repair crews could get them working... their own crews. It took days to get Pell workmen in here, and some things stayed broken. He had nightmares of such an end for them all, sabotage of something vital by a maniac who did not consider personal suicide enough, the whole section voided. It could be done. In crisis.

Or at any moment.

He paced the floor, faster and faster, clenched his arms across his stomach, which hurt constantly when he was under stress. The pain grew, wiping out other fears.

He gathered his nerve at last, put on his jacket, weaponless as most of Q was not, for he had to pa.s.s checkpoint scan. He fought nausea, setting his hand on the door release, finally nerved himself to step out into the dark, graffiti-marred corridor. He locked the door after him. He had not yet been robbed, but he expected to be, despite Coledy's protection; everyone was robbed. Safest to have little; he was known to have much. If he was safe it was that what he had belonged to Coledy in his men's eyes, that he did-if word of his application to leave had not gotten to their ears.

Through the hall and past the guards... Coledy's men. He walked onto the dock, among crowds which stank of sweat and unchanged clothes and antiseptic sprays. People recognized him and s.n.a.t.c.hed at him with grimy hands, asking news of what was happening over in the main station.

"I don't know, I don't know yet; com's dead in my quarters. I'm on my way to learn. Yes, I'll ask. I'll ask, sir." He repeated it over and over, tearing from one pair of clutching hands to the next, one questioner to the other, some wild-eyed and far gone in the madness of drugs. He did not run; running was panic, panic was mobs, mobs were death; and there were the section doors ahead, the promise of safety, a place beyond which Q could not reach, where no one could go without the precious pa.s.s he carried. "It's Mazian," the rumor was running Q dockside. And with it: "They're pulling out. All Pell's pulling out and leaving us behind."

"Councillor Kressich." A hand caught his arm and meant business. The grip pulled him abruptly about. He stared into the face of Sax Chambers, one of Coledy's men, felt threat in the grip which hurt his arm. "Going where, councillor?" "Other side," he said, breathless. They knew. His stomach hurt the more. "Council will be meeting in the crisis. Tell Coledy. I'd better be there. No telling what council will hand us otherwise."

Sax said nothing-did nothing for a moment. Intimidation was a skill of his. He simply stared, long enough to remind Kressich that he had other skills. He let go, and Kressich pulled away.

Not running. He must not run. Must not look back. Must not make his terror evident. He was composed on the outside, though his belly was tied in knots. A crowd was gathered about the doors. He worked his way through them, ordered them back. They moved, sullenly, and he used his pa.s.s to open their side of the access, stepped through quickly and used the card to seal the door before any could gather the nerve to follow. For a moment then he was alone on the upward ramp, the narrow access, in bright light and a lingering smell of Q. He leaned against the wall, trembling, his stomach heaving. After a moment he walked on down the ramp on the other side and pressed the b.u.t.ton which should attract the guards on the other side of Q line.

This b.u.t.ton worked. The guards opened, accepted his card, and noted his presence in Pell proper. He pa.s.sed decontamination, and one of the guards left his post to walk with him, routine, whenever the councillor from Q was admitted to station, until he had pa.s.sed the limits of the border zone; then he was allowed to walk alone.

He straightened his clothes as he went, trying to shed the smell and the memory and the thoughts of Q. But there was alarm sounding, red lights blinking in all the corridors, and security personnel and police were everywhere evident There was no peace this side either.

v Pell: station central, com central office; 1300 hrs.

The boards in central com were lit from end to end, jammed with calls from every region of the station at once. Residential use had shut itself down in crisis; situation red was flas.h.i.+ng in all zones, advising all residents to stay put. They were not all regarding that instruction. Some halls of the halls on monitor were vacant; others were full of panicked residents. What showed now on Q monitor was worse.

"Security call," Jon Lukas ordered, watching the screens. "Blue three." The division chief leaned over the board and gave directions to the dispatcher. Jon walked over to the main board, behind the harried com chiefs post. The whole of council had been called to take whatever emergency posts they could reach, to provide policy, not specifics. He had been closest, had run, reaching this post, through the chaos outside. Hale... Hale, he fervently hoped, had done what he was told, was sitting in his apartment, with Jessad. He watched the confusion in the center, paced from board to board, watched one and another hall in confusion. The com chief kept trying to call through to the stationmaster's office, but even he could not get through; tried to route it through station command com, and kept getting a channel unavailable blinking on the screen. The chief swore, accepted the protests of his subordinates, a harried man in the eye of a crisis.

"What's happening?" Jon asked. When the man ignored the question for a moment to handle a subordinate's query, he waited. "What are you doing?" "Councillor Lukas," the chief said in a thin voice, "we have our hands full.

There's no time."

"You can't get through."

"No, sir, I can't get through. They're tied up with command transmission. Excuse me."

"Let it foul," he said, when the supervisor started to turn back to the board, and when the man looked at him, startled: "Give me general broadcast." "I need the authorization," the com chief said. Behind him, red lights began to flash and multiply. "It's the authorization I need, councillor. Stationmaster has to give it."

"Do it!"

The man hesitated, looked about him as if there were advice to be had from some other quarter. Jon seized him by the shoulder and faced him to the board while more and more lights flashed on the jammed boards. "Hurry it," Jon ordered him, and the chief reached for an internal channel and punched in a mike.

"General override to number one," he ordered, and had the acknowledgment back in an instant. "Override on vid and com." The com center main screen lit, camera active.

Jon drew a deep breath and leaned into the field. The image was going everywhere, not least to his own apartment, to the man named Jessad. "This is Councillor Jon Lukas," he said to all Pell, breaking into every channel, operations and residential, from the stations busy directing incoming s.h.i.+ps to the barracks of Q to the least and greatest residence in the station. "I have a general announcement. The fleet presently in our vicinity is confirmed to be that of Mazian, proceeding in under normal operations for docking. This station is secure, but will remain under condition red until the all-clear is given. Operations in the com center and elsewhere will proceed more smoothly if each citizen will refrain from the use of communications except in the most extreme necessity. All points of the station are secure and there has been no damage or crisis. Records will be made of calls, and failure to regard this official request will be noted. All Downer work crews, report to your section habitats at once and wait for someone to direct you. Stay off the docks. All other workers continue about your a.s.signed business. If you can solve problems without calling central, do so. As yet we have nothing but operations contact with the Fleet; as soon as information becomes available, we will make it public. Please stay by your receivers; this will be the quickest and most accurate source of news." He leaned out of the field. The warning lights went off the console camera. He looked about him to find the chaos on the boards much less, as the whole station had been otherwise occupied for a moment. Some calls returned at once, presumably necessary and urgent; most did not. He drew a deep breath, thinking in one part of his mind of what might be happening in his apartment, or worse, away from it-hoping that Jessad was there, and fearing that he would be discovered there. Mazian. Military presence, which might start checking records, asking close questions. And to be found harboring Jessad- "Sir." It was the com chief. The third screen from the left was alight. Angelo Konstantin, angry and flushed. Jon punched the call through. "Use procedures," Angelo spat, and broke off. The screen went dark, as Jon stood clenching his hands and trying to reckon whether that was because he had caught Angelo with no good answer or because Angelo was occupied. Let it come, he thought in an excess of hate, the pulse pounding in his veins. Let Mazian evacuate all who would go. Union would come in after... would have need of those who knew the station. Understandings could be reached; his understanding with Jessad paved the way for that. It was no time to be timid. He was in it and there was no retreat now.

The first step... to become visible, a rea.s.suring voice, and let Jessad see him doing it. Become known, have his face familiar all over the station. That was the advantage the Konstantins had always had, monopoly of public visibility, handsomeness. Angelo looked the vital patriarch; he did not. He had not the manner, the lifelong habit of authority. But ability-that he had; and once his heart had begun to settle out of the initial dread of the disorder out there, he found advantage in the disorder; in any events that went against the Konstantins.

Only Jessad... he remembered Mariner, which had died when Mazian had crowded in on the situation there. Only one thing protected them now... that Jessad had to rely on him and on Hale as his arms and legs, having no network yet of his own; and at the moment Jessad was neatly imprisoned, having to trust him, because he dared not try the halls without papers-dared not be out there with Mazian coming in.

He drew in a breath, expanded with the thought of the power he actually had. He was in the best of positions. Jessad could provide insurance... or what was another body vented, another paperless body, as they sometimes ended up vented out of Q? He had never killed before, but he had known from the time he accepted Jessad's presence that it was a possibility.