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i
Pell: stationmaster’s office, sector blue one; 9/9/52; 1100 hrs. The daily ton of disasters extended even to regions beyond station. Angelo Konstantin rested his head on his hand and studied the printout in front of him. A seal blown on Centaur Mine, on Pell IV’s third moon… fourteen men killed. Fourteen—he could not help the thought—skilled, cleared workers. They had humanity rotting in its own filth the other side of Q line, and they had to lose the like of these instead. Lack of supply, old parts, things which should have been replaced being rigged to keep working. A quarter credit seal gave way and fourteen men died in vacuum. He typed through a memo to locate workers among Pell techs who could replace the lost ones; their own docks were going idle… jammed with ships on main berths and auxiliaries, but very little moving in or out… and the men were better out there in the mines where their expertise could do some good.
Not all the transferred workers had necessary skills at what they were set to do. A worker had been killed on Downbelow, crushed trying to direct a crawler out of the mud where an inexperienced partner had driven it. Condolences had to be added to those Emillio had already written to the family on-station. There were two more murders known in Q, and a body had been found adrift in the vicinity of the docks. Supposedly the victim had been vented alive. Q was blamed. Security was trying to get id on the victim, but there was considerable mutilation of the body.
There was a case of another kind, a lawsuit involving two longtime resident families sharing quarters in alterday rotation. The original inhabitants accused the newcomers of pilferage and conversion. Damon sent him the case as an example of a growing problem. Some council action was going to have to be taken in legislation to make responsibilities clear in such cases. A docksider newly assigned to his post was in hospital, half killed by the crew of the militarized merchanter Janus. The militarized crews demanded merchanter privileges and access to bars, against some stationer authorities who tried to put them under military discipline. The bones would mend; the relations between station-side officers and the merchanter crews were in worse condition. The next stationer officer who went out with the patrols was looking to get his throat cut. Merchanter families were not used to strangers aboard. No station personnel to be assigned to militia ships without permission of ship’s captain, he sent to the militia office. Militia ships will patrol under their own officers pending resolution of morale difficulties. That would create anguish in some quarters. It would create less than a mutiny would, a merchanter ship against the station authority which tried to direct it. Elene had warned him. He found occasion now to take that advice, an emergency in which stationmaster could override council’s ill-advised desire to keep its thumb on the armed freighters.
There were petty crises in supply. He stamped authorizations where needed, some after the fact, approval on local supervisors’ ingenuity, particularly in the mines. He blessed skilled subordinates who had learned to ferret hidden surpluses out of other departments.
There was need for repair in Q and security asked authorization for armed forces to seal and clear orange three up to the forties, for the duration of the construction, which meant moving out barracksful of residents. It was rated urgent but not life-threatening; taking a repair crew in without sealing the area was. He stamped it Authorized. Shutting down the plumbing in that sector instead threatened them with disease.
“A merchanter captain Ilyko to see you, sir.”
He drew in his breath, stabbed at the button on the console, calling the woman in. The door opened, admitted a huge woman, grayed and seamed with years rejuv had not caught in time. Or perhaps she was in the decline… the drugs would not hold it off forever. He gestured to a chair; the captain took it gratefully. She had sent the interview request an hour ago, while the ship was coming in. She came from Swan’s Eye, a can-hauler out of Mariner. He knew the locals, but not this woman. She was one of their own now, militarized; the blue sleeve cord was the insignia she wore to indicate as much.
“What’s the message,” he asked, “and from whom?” The old woman searched her jacket and extracted an envelope, leaned heavily forward to lay it on his desk. “From the Olvigs’ Hammer,” she said. “Out of Viking. Flashed us out there and gave us this hand-to-hand. They’re going to be out of station scan a while… afraid, sir. They don’t like what they see at all.” “Viking.” Word of that disaster had come in long ago. “And where have they been since then?”
Their message might make it clearer; but they claim to have taken damage clearing Viking. Short-jumped and hung out in nowhere. That’s their story. And they’re scarred up for sure, but they’ve got a load. We should have been so lucky when we ran. Then we wouldn’t be running militia service, would we, sir, for dock charges?“ “You know what’s in this?”
“I know,” she said. “There’s something on the move. Push is coming to shove, Mr. Konstantin. The way I reckon it… Hammer tried a jump Unionside and didn’t find it so good over there after all; Union tried to grab her, it seems, and she ran for it. She’s scared of the same thing here. Wanted me to come in ahead of her and bring the message, so’s she won’t have her hands dirty with it. Consider her position if Union figures she blew the whistle on them. Union’s moving.” Angelo regarded the woman, the round face and deep-sunken dark eyes. Nodded slowly. “You know what happens here if your crew talks on station or elsewhere. Makes it very hard on us.”
“Family,” she said. “We don’t talk to outsiders.” The black eyes fixed steadily on him. “I’m militia, Mr. Konstantin, because we had the bad luck to come in with no load and you laid a charge on us; and because there’s nowhere else. Swan’s Eye isn’t one of the combine haulers; got no reserve and no credit here like some. But what’s credit, eh, Mr. Konstantin, if Pell folds? From here on, never mind the credits in your bank; I want supplies in my hold.” “Blackmail, captain?”
“I’m taking my crew back out there on patrol and we’re going to watch your perimeter for you. If we see any Union ships we’ll flash you word in a hurry and jump fast. A can-hauler isn’t up to seek-and-dodge with a rider ship, and I’m not going to do any heroics. I want the same advantage Pell crews have, that have food and water hoarded up off the manifests.”
“You charge there’s hoarding?”
“Mr. stationmaster, you know there’s hoarding by every ship that’s attached to some station-side concern, and you’re not going to antagonize those combines by investigating, are you? How many of your station-side officers get their uniforms dirty checking the holds and tanks visually, eh? I’m flat and I’m asking the same break for my family the others got by being combine. Supplies. Then I go back out on the line.”
“You’ll get them.” He turned then and there and keyed it through on priority.
“Be off this station as quickly as possible.”
She nodded when he had done and faced her again. “Fair done, Mr. Konstantin.”
“Where will you jump, captain, if you have to?”
“The cold Deep. Got me a place I know, out in the dark. Lots of freighters do, you know that, Mr. Konstantin? Long, lean years coming if the push breaks through. Union will patronize them that were Union long before. Lie low and hope they need ships bad, if it comes. New territories would stretch them thin and they’d need it. Or slink Earthward. Some would.”
Angelo frowned. “You think it’s really coming.”
She shrugged. “Feel the draft, stationmaster. Wouldn’t be on this station for any bribe if the line don’t hold.”
“A lot of the merchanters hold your opinions?”
“We’ve been ready,” she said in a low voice, “for half a hundred years. Ask Quen, stationmaster. You looking for a place, too?” “No, captain.”
She leaned back and nodded slowly. “My respects to you for it, stationmaster. You can believe we won’t jump without giving an alarm, and that’s more than some of our class will do.”
“I know that it’s a heavy risk for you. And you’ve got your supplies, all you need. Anything more?”
She shook her head, a slight flexing of her bulk. She gathered herself to her wide-braced feet. “Wish you luck,” she said, and offered her hand. “Wish you luck. All the merchanters that are here and not on the other side of the line—picked their side against the odds; them that still meet out in the dark and get you supplies right out of Union—they don’t do it all for profit. No profit here. You know that, Mr. stationmaster? It would have been easier on the other side… in some ways.”
He shook her thick hand. “Thank you, captain.”
“Huh,” she said, and shrugged self-consciously, waddled out. He took the message, opened it. It was a handwritten note, a scrawl. Back from Unionside. Carriers orbiting at Viking, four, maybe more. Rumor says Mazian’s on the run, ships lost: Egypt, France, United States, maybe others. Situation falling apart. It was not signed, had no ship’s name attached. He studied the message a moment, then rose and finger-keyed the safe, put the paper in, and locked it. His stomach was unsettled. Observers could be wrong. Information could be planted, rumors started deliberately. This ship would not come in. Hammer would observe a while, possibly come in, possibly run; any attempt to drag them in for direct questioning would be bad politics with other merchanters. Freighters circled Pell, hoping for food, for water, consuming station supplies, using up combine credit, which they had to honor for fear of riot: old debts, to vanished stations. Using up station supplies rather than the precious hoards which they had conserved aboard… against the day they might have to run. Some brought in supplies, true; but more consumed them. He keyed through to the desk outside. “I’m closing up for the day,” he said, “I can be reached at home. If it can’t wait, I’ll come back.” “Yes, sir,” the murmur came back. He gathered up a few of his less disturbing papers, put them in his case, put on his jacket, and walked out with a nod of courtesy to his secretary, to the several officials who had their offices in the same room, and entered the corridor outside.
He had been working late the last several days; was due at least the chance to work in greater comfort, to read the caseful of documents without interruption. He had had trouble on Downbelow: Emilio had shipped it all station-side last week with a scathing denunciation of the personnel involved and the policies they represented. Damon had urged the troublemakers shipped out to the mining posts—a quick way to fill up the needed number of workers. Counsel for the defense protested prejudice in the Legal Affairs office, and urged clearing of the tainted service records with full reinstatment. It had flared into something bitter. Jon Lukas had made offers, made demands; they finally had that settled. Presently he had fifty files on Q residents being processed out as provisionals. He thought of stopping by the executive lounge for a drink on the way, doing some of the paperwork there, taking his mind off what still had him sweating. He had a pager in his pocket, was never without it, even with com to rely on. He thought about it.
He went home, that little distance down blue one twelve, quietly opened the door.
“Angelo?”
Alicia was awake, then. He shed his case and his jacket on the chair by the door. “I’m home,” he said, smiled dutifully at the old Downer female who came out of Alicia’s room to pat his hand and welcome him. “Good day, Lily?” “Have good day,” Lily affirmed, grinning her gentle smile. She made herself noiseless in gathering up what he had put down, and he walked back into Alicia’s room, leaned down over her bed and kissed her. Alicia smiled, still as she was always still on the immaculate linens, with Lily to tend her, to turn her, to love her with the devotion of many years. The walls were screens. About the bed the view was of stars, as if they hung in mid-space; stars, and sometimes the sun, the docks, the corridors of Pell; or pictures of Downbelow woods, the base, of the family, of all such things as gave her pleasure. Lily changed the sequences for her.
“Damon came by,” Alicia murmured. “He and Elene. For breakfast. It was nice.
Elene’s looking well. So happy.”
Often they stopped by, one or the other of them… especially with Emilio and Miliko out of reach. He remembered a surprise, a tape he had dropped into his jacket pocket for fear of forgetting it “Had a message from Emilio. I’ll play it for you.”
“Angelo, is something wrong?”
He stopped in mid-breath and shook his head ruefully. “You’re sharp, love.”
“I know your face, love. Bad news?”
“Not from Emilio. Things are going very well down there; much better. He reports considerable progress with the new camps. They haven’t had any trouble out of Q personnel, the road is through to two, and there’s a number willing to transfer down the line.”
“I think I get only the better side of the reports. I watch the halls. I get that too, Angelo.”
He gently turned her head for her, so that she could look at him more easily.
“War’s heating up,” he said. “Is that grim enough?” The beautiful eyes… still beautiful, in a thin, pale face… were vital and steady. “How close now?”
“Just merchanters getting nervous. Not at all close; there’s no sign of that.
But I’m concerned about morale.”
She moved her eyes about, a gesture at the walls. “You make all my world beautiful. Is it beautiful… out there?”
“No harm has come to Pell. There’s nothing imminent. You know I can’t lie to you.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, the clean, smooth sheets, took her hand. “We’ve seen the war get hot before and we’re still here.” “How bad is it?”
“I talked to a merchanter a few moments ago, who talked about merchanter attitudes; spoke about places out in the Deep, good for sitting and waiting. Thought comes to me, do you know, that there are other stations of a kind, more than Pell left; chunks of rock in unlikely places… things merchanters know about. Maybe Mazian; surely Mazian. Just places where ships know to go. So if there are storms… there are havens, aren’t there? If it comes down to any bad situation, we do have some choices.”
“You’d leave?”
He shook his head. “Never. Never. But there’s still a chance of talking the boys into it, isn’t there? We persuaded one to Downbelow; work on your youngest; work on Elene… she’s your best hope. She has friends out there; she knows, and she could persuade Damon.” He pressed her hand. Alicia Lukas-Konstantin needed Pell, needed the machinery, equipment a ship could not easily maintain. She was wedded to Pell and the machines. Any transfer of her entourage of metal and experts would be public, doomsday headlined on vid. She had reminded him of that. I am Pell she had laughed, not laughing. She had been, once, beside him. He was not leaving. In no wise did he consider that, without her, abandoning what his family had built over the years, what they had built, together. “It’s not close,” he said again. But he feared it was. ii Pell: White Dock: Lukas Company offices; 1100 hrs. Jon Lukas gathered the pertinent papers together, glared up at the men who crowded his dock-front office. Glared for a long moment to make the point. He laid the papers down on the front of the desk and Bran Hale gathered them up and passed them to the rest of the men.
“We appreciate it,” Hale said.
“Lukas Company has no need of employees. You understand that. Make yourselves useful. This is a personal favor, a debt, if you like. I appreciate loyalty.” “There’ll be no trouble,” Hale said.
“Just stay low. Temper cost you your security clearance. You won’t exercise that temper working for me. I warned you. I warned you when we worked together on Down-below…” “I remember,” Hale said. “But we were run off, Mr, Lukas, for personal reasons. Konstantin was looking for an excuse. He’s changing your policies, tearing up things, disarranging everything you’ve done. And we tried, sir.” “Can’t help that,” Jon said. “I’m not down there. I’m not running things. And now you’re not. I’d rather Jacoby could have gotten you off with something lighter, but there you are. You’re in private employ now.” He leaned back at the desk. “I could need you,” he said soberly. “Figure on that too. So it could have turned out worse for you… station life now, no more mud, no more headaches from bad air. You work for the company at whatever comes up and you use your heads.
You’ll do all right”
“Yes, sir,” Hale said.
“And, Lee…” Jon looked at Lee Quale, a level, sober stare. “You may be standing guard on Lukas property from time to time. You just may have a gun on your person. And you don’t fire it. You know how close you came to Adjustment on that account?”
“Bastard hit the barrel,” Quale muttered.
“Damon Konstantin runs Legal Affairs. Emilio’s brother, man. Angelo’s got it all in his pocket. If he’d had a better case he’d have sent you through the mill. Think about the odds the next time you cross the Konstantins on your own.” The door opened. Vittorio slipped in, ignoring his instant frown of discouragement. Vittorio came up beside his chair, leaned close to his ear. “Man came in,” Vittorio whispered. “Off a ship named Swan’s Eye.”
“I don’t know any Swan’s Eye,” he hissed back. “He can wait.” “No,” Vittorio persisted, leaned close a second time. “Listen to me. I’m not sure he’s authorized.”
“How, not authorized?”
“Papers. I’m not sure he’s supposed to be on station at all He’s out there. I don’t know what to do with him.”
Jon drew a quick breath, suddenly cold. An office full of witnesses. A dock full of them. “Send him in,” he said. And to Hale and the others: “Go on outside. Fill out the papers and hand them to personnel. Take whatever they give you for today. Go on.”
There were dark looks from them, suspicion of offense. “Come on,” Hale said, shepherding the others out. Vittorio hastened out after them, vanished, leaving the door open.
A moment later a man merchanter-clad slipped through and closed it. Like that, closed it. No fear, no furtiveness in that move. As if he commanded. An ordinary face, a thirtyish man of no distinction at all. His manner was cold and quiet. “Mr. Jon Lukas,” the newcomer said.
“I’m Jon Lukas.”
Eyes lifted meaningfully to the overhead, about the walls. “No monitoring,” Jon said, short of breath. “You walk in here in public and you’re afraid of monitoring?”
“I need a cover.”
“What’s your name. Who are you?”
The man walked forward and wrenched a gold ring from his finger, took a station id card from his pocket, laid both on the desk in front of him. Dayin’s.
“You made a proposal,” the man said.
Jon sat frozen.
“Get me cover, Mr. Lukas.”
“Who are you?”
“I came on Swan’s Eye. Time’s limited. They’ll take on supplies and head out.”
“Name, man. I don’t deal with nonentities.”
“Give me a name. A man of your own to walk onto Swan’s Eye. A hostage, one who can deal in your name if need be. You have a son.”
“Vittorio.”
“Send him.”
“He’d be missed.”
The newcomer stared at him, coldly adament. Jon pocketed card and ring, reached a numb hand for the intercom. “Vittorio.”
The door opened. Vittorio slipped in, eyes quick with apprehension, let the door close again.
“The ship that brought me,” the man said, “will take you, Vittorio Lukas, to a ship called Hammer, out on the peripheries; and you needn’t have apprehensions of the crew of either. They’re trusted, all of them. Even the captain of Swan’s Eye has a powerful interest in your safety… wanting her own family back. You’ll be safe enough.”
“Do as he says,” Jon said. Vittorio’s face was the color of paste.
“Go? Like that?”
“You’re safe,” Jon said. “You’re precious well safe… safer than you’d be here, not when it comes to what it’s coming to. Your papers, your card, your key. Give them to him. Go on Swan’s Eye with one of the deliveries. Just don’t look guilty and don’t get off. It’s easy enough.”
Vittorio simply stared at him.
“You’re safe, I assure you,” the stranger said. “You go out there, sit, wait.
Act as liaison with our operations.”
“Our.”
“I’m told you understand me.”
Vittorio reached to his pocket, handed over all his papers. There was a numb terror on his face. “Comp number,” the other prompted; Vittorio wrote it down for him on the desk-pad.
“You’re all right,” Jon said. “I’m telling you you’re better off there than here.”
“That’s what you told Dayin.”
“Dayin Jacoby is quite well,” the stranger said.
“Don’t foul it up,” Jon said. “Get your wits together. You foul it up out there and we’ll all be in for Adjustment You read me clear?” “Yes, sir,” Vittorio said faintly. Jon gave him a nod toward the door, dismissal. Vittorio tentatively held out a hand toward him. He took it perfunctorily—could not, even now, like this son of his. Came closest in this moment, perhaps, that Vittorio proved of some real service to him. “I appreciate it,” he muttered, feeling some courtesy would salve wounds.
Vittorio nodded.
“This dock,” the stranger said, sorting through Vittorio’s papers. “Berth two.
And hurry about it.”
Vittorio left. The stranger slipped the papers and the comp number into his own pocket.
“Use of the number periodically should satisfy comp,” the man said.
“Who are you?”
“Jessad will do,” the man replied. “Vittorio Lukas, I suppose, when it comes to comp. What’s his residence?”
“Lives with me,” Jon said, wishing otherwise.
“Anyone else? Any woman, close friends who’ll not be sympathetic…?
“The two of us.”
“Jacoby indicated as much. Residence with you… very convenient. Will it excite comment if I walk there in this clothing?”
Jon sat down on the edge of his desk, mopped his face with his hand.
“No need to be distressed, Mr. Lukas.”
“They—the Union Fleet—they’re moving in?”
“I’m to arrange certain things. I’m a consultant, Mr. Lukas. That would be an apt term. Expendable. A man, a ship or two… small risk against the gain. But I do want to live, you understand, and I propose not to be expended… without satisfaction for it. Just so you don’t suffer a change of heart, Mr. Lukas.”
“They’ve sent you in here… with no backing—”
“Backing in plenty when it comes. We’ll talk tonight, in residence. I’m quite in your hands. I understand there’s no strong bond between yourself and your son.” Heat flushed his face. “No business of yours, Mr. Jessad.” “No?” Jessad looked him slowly up and down. “It’s coming, you can be sure of that. You’ve bid to be on the winning side. To do certain services… in return for position. I’ll be evaluating you. Very businesslike. You take my meaning. But you’ll do well to take my orders, to do nothing without my advice. I have a certain expertise in this situation. I’m advised that you don’t permit domestic monitoring; that Pell is very adamant on this point; that there’s no apparatus.” “There isn’t,” Jon said, swallowing heavily. “It’s very much against the law.”
“Convenient. I’d hate to walk in under camera. The clothes, Mr. Lukas.
Acceptable in your corridors?”
Jon turned, searched his desk, found the appropriate form, his heart pounding all the while. If the man should be stopped, if there were suspicion, his signature on the document… but it was already too late. If Swan’s Eye were boarded and searched, if someone noticed that Vittorio failed to leave it before it undocked… “Here,” he said, tearing off the pass. “This isn’t to show anyone unless you’re stopped by security.” He pushed the com buttom and leaned over the mike. “Bran Hale still out there? Get him in here. Alone.” “Mr. Lukas,” Jessad said, “we don’t need other parties to this.” “You asked advice about the corridors. Take it. If you’re stopped, your story is that you’re a merchanter whose papers were stolen. You’re on your way to talk to administration about it, and Kale’s your escort. Give me Vittorio’s papers. I can carry them. You daren’t be caught with them, with that story. I’ll straighten it all out when I get to the apartment this evening.” Jessad handed them over in return for the pass. “And what do they do with merchanters whose papers get stolen?”
“They call in their whole ship’s family and it’s a very great deal of commotion.
You could end up in detention and Adjustment if things go that far, Mr. Jessad. But stolen papers are known here, and it’s a better cover than your plan. If it happens, go along with everything and trust my judgment. I have ships. I can arrange something. Claim you’re off Sheba. I know the family.” The door opened. Bran Hale stood there, and Jessad shut his mouth on whatever he would have said.
“Trust me,” Jon repeated, relishing his discomfiture. “Bran, you’re useful already. Walk this man to my apartment.” He fished in his pocket after the manual guest key.
“See him there and inside and sit with my guest until I come, will you? Could be a long while. Make yourself free in the place. And if you get stopped, he has a different story. You just follow his cue, all right?”
Hale’s eyes took in Jessad, flicked back to him. Intelligent man, Hale. He nodded, without asking questions.
“Mr. Jessad,” Jon murmured, “you can trust this man to see you there.” Jessad smiled tautly, offered his hand. Jon took it, a dry grip of a man of no normal nerves. Hale showed him out and Jon stood by his desk, watching both of them depart. The staff in the outer office were all like Hale, Lukas people, administrative level and trustworthy. Men and women he had chosen… and not one of them was likely to be doubling on the Konstantin payroll: he had always seen to that. He was still anxious. He turned from the view of the door to the sideboard, poured himself a drink, for however unruffled Jessad was, his own hands were shaking from the encounter and the possibilities in it. A Unionist agent. It was farce, a too elaborate result of his intrigue with Jacoby. He had sent out a tentative feeler and someone had raised the stakes in the game to a ridiculous level.
Union ships were coming. Were very close, that they would take the enormous chance of sending in someone like Jessad. He resumed his seat at his desk, holding the drink, sipped at it, trying to pull his thoughts into coherency. The proposed deception of comp could not go on. He reckoned the life of the Jessad/Vittorio charade in days, and if something went wrong he would be the one quickest caught, not Jessad, who was not in comp. Jessad was expendable in Union plans, perhaps, but he was more so.
He drank, trying to think.
Seized up paper with sudden inspiration, more forms, started the call-up procedure for a short-hauler. There were crews in Lukas employ who would not talk, like Sheba, men who would take a ship out and carry a ghost aboard, falsify manifests, falsify crew or passenger listings… the tracing of the black market routes had turned up all manner of interesting data that some captains did not want known. So this afternoon another ship would go out to the mines, and Vittorio’s comp number could be changed into the station log. A little ripple, a ship moving; no one paid attention to short-haulers. Out to the mines and back again, a ship incapable of threatening security because it lacked speed and star capacity and weapons. He might still have some questions to answer from Angelo, but he knew all the right answers to give. He transmitted the order to comp, watched in satisfaction as comp swallowed the order and sent out notification to Lukas Company that any ship moving had to carry some station items to the mines free-freighted. Ordinarily he would have kicked hard at the size of the assessment for free transport; it was outrageous. He keyed back at it: Accepted ¼ station lading; will depart 1700md.
Comp took it. He leaned back with a great sigh of relief, his heart settling down to a more reasonable rhythm. Personnel was an easy matter; he knew his better men.
He set to work again, pulling names from comp, choosing the crew, a merchanter family long in Lukas’s pay. “Send the Kulins in the moment they hit the office,” he told his secretary over the com. “There’s a commission waiting for them. Make it out and hurry about it. Scramble together anything we’ve meant to freight out, and get it going; then get an extra dock crew to make a pickup from station lading for free-freighting, no quarrels, take whatever they’re given and get back here. You make sure those papers are flawless and that there’s no snag… absolutely no snag… in comp entries. You understand me?” “Yes, sir,” the answer came back. And a moment later: “Contact made with the Kulins. They’re on their way and thank you for the commission, sir.” Annie was convenient, a ship comfortable enough for a prolonged tour of Lukas mine interests. Small enough for obscurity. He had taken such tours in his youth, learning the business. So Vittorio might. He sipped at his drink and thumbed the papers on his desk, fretting.
iii
Pell: Central Cylinder; 9/9/52; 1200 hrs.
Josh sank down to the matting, sat, collapsed backward, in the gym’s reduced G. Damon leaned over him, hands on bare knees, the suspicion of amusement on his face.
“I’m done,” Josh said when he had a breath; his sides hurt. I’d exercised, but not this much.“ Damon sank to his knees by him on the mat, hunched and himself hard-breathing. “Doing all right, anyhow. I’m ready to call it.” He sucked air and let out a slower breath, grinned at him. “Need help?”
Josh grunted and rolled over, heaved himself up on one arm, gathered himself gracelessly to his feet, shaking in every muscle and conscious of the men and women in better form who passed them on the steep track which belted all Pell’s inner core. It was a crowded place, echoing with shouted conversation. It was freedom, and the worst there was to fear here was a little laughter. He would have kept going if he could… had already run longer than he should, but he hated to have the time end.
His knees shook, and his belly ached. “Come on,” Damon said, rising with more ease. Damon caught his arm and guided him toward the dressing rooms. “Take a steam bath, a chance to get the knots out at least. I’ve got a little while before I have to get back to the office.”
They went into the chaotic locker room, stripped and tossed the clothing into the common laundry. Towels were stacked there for the taking. Damon tossed a couple at him and showed him into the door marked steam, through a quick shower into a series of cubbyholes obscured by vapor, down a long aisle. Most places were occupied. They found a few vacant toward the end of the row, took one in the middle and sat down on the wooden benches. So much water to waste… Josh watched Damon dip up water and pour it on his head, cast the rest on a plate of hot metal until the steam boiled up and obscured him in a white cloud. Josh doused himself after similar fashion, mopped with the towel, short of breath and dizzy in the heat “You all right?” Damon asked him.
He nodded, anxious not to spoil the time, anxious all the while he was with Damon. He desperately tried to maintain his balance, walking the line of too much trust on the one side and on the other—a terror of trusting anyone. He hated being alone… had never… sometimes certainties flashed out of his tattered memory, firm as truth… had never liked being alone. Damon would tire of him. The novelty would wear off. Such company as his had to pall after a while. And then he would be alone, with half his mind and a token freedom, in this prison that was Pell.
“Something bothering you?”
“No.” And desperately, to change the subject, for Damon had complained he lacked company coming to the gym: “I’d thought Elene would meet us here.” “Pregnancy is beginning to slow her down a little. She’s not feeling up to it.” “Oh.” He blinked, looked away. It was an intimacy, such a question; he felt like an intruder—naive in such things. Women, he thought he had known, but not pregnant ones, not a relationship—as it was between Damon and Elene—full of permanencies. He remembered someone he had loved. Older. Dryer. Past such things. A boy’s love. He had been the child. He tried to follow the threads where they led, but they tangled. He did not want to think of Elene in that regard. Could not. He recalled warnings… psychological impairment, they had called it. Impairment… “Josh… are you all right?”
He blinked again, which could become a nervous tic if he let it.
“Something’s eating at you.”
He made a helpless gesture in reply, not wanting to be trapped into discussion.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re worried about something.”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t trust me?”
The blink obscured his vision. Sweat was dripping into his eyes. He mopped his face.
“All right,” Damon said, as if it were.
He got up, walked to the door of the wooden cubicle, anything to put distance between them. His stomach was heaving.
“Josh.”
A dark place, a close place… he could run, clear this closeness, these demands on him. That would get him arrested, sent back to hospital, into the white walls.
“Are you scared?” Damon asked him plainly.
It hit as close to the mark as any other word. He made a helpless gesture, uncomfortable. Elsewhere the noise of other voices became like silence, a roar in which their own cell was remote.
“You figure what?” Damon asked. “That I’m not honest with you?”
“No.”
“That you can’t trust me?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
He was close to being sick. He hit that barrier when he crossed his conditioning… knew what it was.
“I wish,” Damon said, “that you’d talk.”
He looked back, his back to the wooden partition. “You’ll stop,” he said numbly, “when you get tired of the project.”
“Stop what? Are you back on that desertion theme again?”
“Then what do you want?”
“You think you’re a curiosity.” Damon asked him, “or what?”
He swallowed the bile risen in his throat
“You get that impression, do you,” Damon asked, “from Elene and me?” “Don’t want to think that,” he managed to say finally. “But I am a curiosity, whatever else.”
“No,” Damon said.
A muscle in his face began to jerk. He reached for the bench, sat down, tried to stop the tic. There were pills; he was no longer on them. He wished he were, to be still and not to think. To get out of here, break off this probing at him. “We like you,” Damon said. “Is something wrong with that?”
He sat there, paralyzed, his heart hammering.
“Come on,” Damon said, gathering himself up. “You’ve had enough heat.” Josh pulled himself to his feet, finding his knees weak, his sight blurring from the sweat and the temperature and the reduced G. Damon offered a hand. He flinched from it, walked after Damon down the aisle and into the showers at the end of the room.
The cooler mist cleared his head somewhat; he stayed in the stall a few moments longer than need be, inhaled the cooling air, came out again somewhat calmed, walked towel-wrapped into the locker room again. Damon was behind him. “I’m sorry,” he told Damon, for things in general.
“Reflexes,” Damon said. He frowned intensely, caught his arm before he could turn aside. Josh flinched back against the locker so hard it echoed. A dark place. A chaos of bodies. Hands on him. He jerked his mind away from it, leaned shivering against the metal, staring into Damon’s anxious face. “Josh?”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”
“You look like you’re going to pass out. Was it the heat?” “Don’t know,” he murmured. “Don’t know.” He reached toward the bench, sat down to catch his breath. It was better after a moment The dark receded. “I am sorry.” He was depressed, convinced Damon would not long tolerate him. The depression spread. “Maybe I’d better check back into the facility.” “That bad?”
He did not want to think of his own room, the barren apartment in hospice, blank-walled, cheerless. There were people he knew in the hospital, doctors who knew him, who could deal with these things, and whose motives he knew were limited to duty.
“I’ll call the office,” Damon said, “and tell them I’m going to be late. ”I’ll take you to the hospital if you feel you need it.“ He rested his head on his hands. “I don’t know why I do this,” he said. “I’m remembering something. I don’t know what. It hits me in the stomach.” Damon sat down astride the bench, just sat, and waited on him. “I can figure,” Damon said finally, and he looked up, recalling uneasily that Damon had had access to all his records. “What do you figure?” “Maybe it was a little close in there. A lot of the refugees panic at crowding.
It’s scarred into them.”
“But I didn’t come in with the refugees,” he said. “I remember that.”
“And what else?”
A tic jerked at his face. He rose, began to dress, and after a moment Damon did likewise. Other men came and went about them. Shouts from outside reached into the room when the door opened, the ordinary noise of the gym. “Do you really want me to take you to the hospital?” Damon asked finally. He shrugged into his jacket “No. I’ll be all right.” He judged that such was the case, although his skin was still drawn in chill the clothes should have warmed away. Damon frowned, gestured toward the door. They walked out into the cold outer chamber, entered the lift with half a dozen others, rode it the dizzying straight drop into outer-shell G. Josh drew a deep breath, staggered a little in walking off, stopped as the flow of traffic swirled about him. Damon’s hand closed on his elbow, moved him gently in the direction of a seat along the corridor wall. He was glad to sit down, to rest a moment and watch the people pass them. They were not on Damon’s office level, but on a green one. The strains of music from the concourse floated out to them from the far end. They should have ridden it on down… had stopped, Damon’s idea. Near the track around to the hospital, he reasoned. Or just a place to rest He sat, taking his breath.
“A little dizzy,” he confessed.
“Maybe it would be better if you went back at least for a checkup. I should never have encouraged you to this.”
“It’s not the exercise.” He bent, rested his head in his hands, drew several quiet breaths, straightened finally. “Damon, the names… you know the names in my records. Where was I born?”
“Cyteen.”
“My mother’s name… do you know it?” Damon frowned. “No. You didn’t say; mostly you talked about an aunt. Her name was Maevis.”
The older woman’s face came to him again, a warm rush of familiarity. “I remember.”
“Had you forgotten even that?”
The tic came back to his face. He tried not to acknowledge it, desperate for normalcy. “I have no way to know, you understand, what’s memory and what’s imagination, or dreams. Try dealing with things when you don’t know the difference and can’t tell.”
“The name was Maevis.”
“Yes. You lived on a farm.”
He nodded, treasuring a sudden glimpse of sunlit road, a weathered fence—he was often on that road in his dreams, bare feet in slick dust, a house, a prefab and peeling dome… many such, field upon field, ripe gold in the sun. “Plantation. A lot larger than a farm. I lived there… I lived there until I went into the service school. That was the last time I was ever on a world—wasn’t it?” “You never mentioned any other.”
He sat still a moment, holding onto the image, excited by it, by something beautiful and warm and real. He tried to recover details. The size of the sun in the sky, the color of sunsets, the dusty road that led to and from the small settlement. A large, soft, comfortable woman and a thin, worried man who spent a lot of time cursing the weather. The pieces fit, settled into place. Home. That was home. He ached after it. “Damon,” he said, gathering courage—for there was more than the pleasant dream. “You don’t have any reason to lie to me, do you? But you did—when I asked you for the truth a while ago—about the nightmare.
Why?”
Damon looked uncomfortable.
“I’m scared, Damon. I’m scared of lies. Do you understand that? Scared of other things.” He stammered uncontrollably, impatient with himself, with muscles that jerked and a tongue that would not frame things and a mind like a sieve. “Give me names, Damon. You’ve read the record. I know you have. Tell me how I got to Pell.”
“When Russell’s collapsed. Like everyone else.”
“No. Starting with Cyteen. Give me names.”
Damon laid an arm along the back of the bench, faced him, frowning. “The first service you mentioned was a ship named Kite. I don’t know how many years; maybe it was the only ship. You’d been taken off the farm, I take it, into the service school, whatever you call the place, and you were trained in armscomp. I take it that the ship was a very small one.”
“Scout and recon,” he murmured, and saw in his mind the exact boards, the cramped interior of Kite, where the crew had to hand-over-hand their way in zero G. A lot of time at Fargone Station; a lot of time there—and out on patrol; out on missions just looking for what they could see. Kitha… Kitha and Lee… childlike Kitha—he had had particular affection for her. And Ulf. He recovered faces, glad to remember them. They had worked close—in more than one sense, for the dartships had no cabins, no privacy. They had been together… years. Years. Dead now. It was like losing them again.
Watch it! Kitha had yelled; he had yelled something too, realizing they were blind-spotted; Ulf’s mistake. He sat helpless at his board, no guns that would bear on the threat. He flinched from it.
“They picked me up,” he said. “Someone did.”
“A ship named Tigris hit you,” Damon said. “Ridership. But it was a freighter in the area that homed in on your capsule signal.”
“Go on.”
Damon stayed silent a moment as if he were thinking on it, as if he would not. He grew more and more anxious, his stomach taut. “You were brought onto station,” Damon said finally, “aboard a merchanter—a stretcher case, but no injuries. Shock, cold, I suppose… your life-support had started to fade, and they nearly lost you.”
He shook his head. That much was blank, remote and cold. He recalled docks, doctors; interrogation, endless questions.
Mobs. Shouting mobs. Docks and a guard falling. Someone had coldly shot the man in the face, while he lay on the ground stunned. Dead everywhere, trampled, a surge of bodies before him and men about him—armored troops. They’ve got guns! someone had shouted. And panic broke out. “You were picked up at Mariner,” Damon said. “After it blew, when they were hunting Mariner survivors.”
“Elene—”
“They questioned you at Russell’s,” Damon said softly, doggedly. “They were facing—I don’t know what. They were frightened, in a hurry. They used illegal techniques… like Adjustment. They wanted information out of you, timetables, ship movements, the whole thing. But you couldn’t give it to them. You were on Russell’s when the evacuation began, and you were moved to this station. That’s what happened.”
A dark umbilical from station to ship. Troops and guns.
“On a warship,” he said.
“Norway.”
His stomach knotted. Mallory. Mallory and Norway. Graff. He remembered. Pride… died there. He became a nothing. Who he was, what he was… they had not cared, among the troops, the crew. It was not even hate, but bitterness and boredom, cruelty in which he did not matter, a living thing that felt pain, felt shame… screamed when the horror became overwhelming, and realizing that there was no one at all who cared—stopped screaming, or feeling, or fighting. Want to go back to them? He could hear even the tone of Mallory’s voice. Want to go back? He had not wanted that. Had wanted nothing, then, but to feel nothing. This was the source of the nightmares, the dark, confused figures, the thing that wakened him in the night He nodded slowly, accepting that.
“You entered detention here,” Damon said. “You were picked up; Russell’s;
Norway; here. If you think we’ve thrown anything false into your Adjustment… no.
Believe me. Josh?”
He was sweating. Felt it. “I’m all right,” he said, although it was hard, for a moment, to draw breath. His stomach kept heaving. Closeness—emotional or physical—was going to do this to him; he identified it now. Tried to control it. “Sit there,” Damon said, rose before he could object, and went into one of the shops along the hall. He rested there obediently, head against the wall behind him, his pulse easing finally. It occurred to him that it was the first time he had been loose alone, save for the track between his job and his room in the old hospice. Being so gave him a peculiarly naked feeling. He wondered if those who passed knew who he was. The idea frightened him.
You will remember some things, the doctor had told him, when they stopped the pills. But you can get distance from them. Remember some things. Damon came back, bringing two cups of something, sat down, and offered one to him. It was fruit juice and something else, iced and sugared, which soothed his stomach. “You’re going to be late getting back,” he recalled. Damon shrugged and said nothing.
“I’d like—” To his intense shame, he stammered. “—to take you and Elene to dinner. I have my job now. I have some credit above my hours.” Damon studied him a moment. “All right. I’ll ask Elene.” It made him feel a great deal better. “I’d like,” he said further, “to walk back home from here. Alone.”
“All right.”
“I needed to know… what I remember. I apologize.”
“I’m worried for you,” Damon said, and that profoundly touched him.
“But I walk by myself.”
“What night for dinner?”
“You and Elene decide. My schedule is rather open.” It was poor humor. Damon dutifully smiled at it, finished his drink. Josh sipped the last of his and stood up. “Thank you.”
“I’ll talk to Elene. Let you know the date tomorrow. Take it easy. And call me if you need.”
Josh nodded, turned, walked away, among the crowds who… might… know his face. Like those on the docks, in his memory: crowds. It was not the same. It was a different world and he walked in it, down his own portion of hall as the newfound owner of it… walked to the lift along with those born to Pell, stood with them waiting on the lift car as if he were ordinary. It came. “Green seven.” He spoke up for himself when the press inside cut him off from the controls and someone kindly pressed it for him. Shoulder to shoulder in the car. He was all right. It whisked him down to his own level. He excused his way past passengers who gave him not a second glance, stood in his own corridor, near the hospice.
“Talley,” someone said, startling him. He glanced to his right, at uniformed security guards. One nodded pleasantly to him. His pulse raced and settled. The face was distantly familiar. “You live here now?” the guard asked him. “Yes,” he said, and in apology: “I don’t remember well… from before. Maybe you were there when I came in.”
“I was,” the guard said. “Good to see you came out all right.” He seemed to mean it. “Thank you,” Josh said, walked on his way and the guards on theirs. The dark which had advanced retreated.
He had thought them all dreams. But I don’t dream it, he thought. It happened. He walked past the desk at the entry to the hospice, down the corridor inside to number 18. He used his card. The door slid aside and he walked into his own refuge, a plain, windowless place… a rare privilege, from what he had heard of vid about the overcrowding everywhere. More of Damon’s arranging. Ordinarily he would turn on the vid, using its noise to fill the place with voices, for dreams filled the silences.
He sat down now on the bed, simply sat there a time in the silence, probing the dreams and the memories like half-healed wounds. Norway. Signy Mallory.
Mallory. iv Pell: White Dock: Lukas Company offices; 1830 hrs; 0630 hrs. alterday:alterdawn There were no disasters. Jon stayed in the office, rearmost of all the offices, took normal calls, worked his routine of warehousing reports and records, trying in one harried corner of his mind to map out what to do if the worst happened. He stayed later than usual, after the lights had dimmed slightly on the docks, after a good deal of the first shift staff had left for the day and the mainday activity had settled down… just a few clerks out in the other offices to answer com and tend things till the alterday staff came in. Swan’s Eye went out unchallenged at 1446; Annie and the Kulins left with Vittorio’s papers at 1703, without question or commotion more than the usual close inquiries about schedules and routing, for the militia. He breathed easier then. And when Annie had long since cleared the vicinity of the station, beyond any reasonable chance of protest, he took his jacket, locked up, and headed home. He used his card at the door, to have every minutest record in comp as it should be… found Jessad and Hale sitting opposite one another in silence, in his living room. There was coffee, soothing aroma after the afternoon tension. He sank into a third chair and leaned back, taking possession of his own home. “I’ll have some coffee,” he told Bran Hale. Hale frowned and rose to go fetch it. And to Jessad: “A tedious afternoon?”
“Gratefully tedious,” Jessad said softly. “But Mr. Hale has done his best to entertain.”
“Any trouble getting here?”
“None,” Hale said from the kitchen. He brought back the coffee, and Jon sipped at it, realized Hale was waiting.
Dismiss him… and sit alone with Jessad. He was not eager for that. Neither was he eager to have Hale talking too freely, here or elsewhere. “I appreciate your discretion,” he told Hale. And with a careful consideration: “You know there’s something up. You’ll find it worth your while more than monetarily. Only see you keep Lee Quale from indiscretions. I’ll fill you in on it as soon as I find out more. Vittorio’s gone. Dayin’s… lost. I’ve need of some reliable, intelligent assistance. You read me, Bran?”
Hale nodded.
“I’ll talk with you about this tomorrow,” he said then very quietly. “Thank you.”
“You all right here?” Hale asked.
“If I’m not,” he said, “you take care of it. Hear?”
Hale nodded, discreetly left. Jon settled back with somewhat more assurance, looked at his guest, who sat easily in front of him.
“I take it you trust this person,” Jessad said, “and that you want to promote him in your affairs. Choose your allies wisely, Mr. Lukas.” “I know my own.” He drank a sip of the scalding coffee. “I don’t know you, Mr.
Jessad or whatever your name is, Your plan to use my son’s id I can’t permit. I’ve arranged a different cover… for him. A tour of Lukas interests: a ship’s outbound for the mines and his papers are on it.”
He expected outrage. There was only a polite lift of the brows. “I have no objection. But I shall need papers, and I don’t think it wise to expose myself to interrogation obtaining them.”
“Papers can be gotten. That’s the least of our problems.”
“And the greatest, Mr. Lukas?”
“I want some answers. Where’s Dayin?”
“Safe behind the lines. No cause for worry. I’m sent as a contingency… an assumption that this offer is valid. If not, I shall die… and I hope that’s not the case.”
“What can you offer me?”
“Pell,” Jessad said softly. “Pell, Mr. Lukas.”
“And you’re prepared to hand it to me.”
Jessad shook his head. “You’re going to hand it to us, Mr. Lukas. That’s the proposal. I’ll direct you. Mine is the expertise… yours the precise knowledge of this place. You’ll brief me on the situation here.”
“And what protection have I?”
“My approval.”
“Your rank?”
Jessad shrugged. “Unofficial. I want details. Everything from your shipping schedules to the deployment of your ships to the proceedings of your council… to the least detail of the management of your own offices.” “You plan to live in my apartment the whole time?” “I find little reason to stir forth. Your social schedule may suffer for it. But is there a safer place to be? This Bran Hale—a discreet man?” “Worked for me on Downbelow. He was fired down there for upholding my policies against the Konstantins. Loyal.”
“Reliable?”
“Hale is. Of some of his crew I have some small doubt… at least regarding
judgment”
“You must take care, then.”
“I am.”
Jessad nodded slowly. “But find me papers, Mr. Lukas. I feel much more secure with them than without.”
“And what happens to my son?”
“Concerned? I’d thought there was little love lost there.”
“I asked the question.”
“There’s a ship 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 ship, 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. Vassily 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 pass.”
“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, slashing 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 petitioners. The mob waved forms they hoped to turn in. “My turn!” some woman was shrieking, brandishing 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 pass. What do you mean selling him an assurance?”
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. Glasses. 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 glass. “You can’t create situations like that,” Kressich snapped. “I know what you’re up to. But don’t sell the passes 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 passes 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 passes 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 diminishing 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 bloody 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 passes 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 Vassily 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, slashing 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.
vi
Pell: 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 coarse 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 passed 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 shiver, 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, embellishing 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 prickled 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-shining-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 space 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 shivering, 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 space… 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 shifted 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 shines 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 ships, 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 shivered.
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.