Downbelow Station Part 21

"With Q loose?" Josh asked hoa.r.s.ely.

Another flux hit them, stomach-wrenching. Damon swallowed, beginning to experience nausea. "While that goes on we don't have Q to worry about. We've got to chance it, try to get out of this pocket."

"Go where? Do what?"

He made a sound deep in his throat, numb, simply numb. He waited for the next G flux; it failed to strike with its former force. They had begun to get it in balance again. The abused pumps had held, the engines worked. He caught his breath. "One comfort. We're out of ships to do it to us again. I don't know how many of those we can take."

"They could be waiting out there," Josh said.

He reckoned that. He reached a hand up, pushed the switch. Nothing happened. Closed, the door had locked itself. He took his card from his pocket, hesitated, pushed it in the slot and the b.u.t.tons stayed dead. If anyone in central had any desire to know where he was, he had just given the information to them. He knew that.

"Looks like we're staying," Josh said.

The sirens had stopped. Damon edged over, chanced a look out the scarred window, trying to see through the opaque slashes and the light diffraction. Something stirred, far across the docks, one furtive figure, another. The com overhead gave out a burst of static as if it were trying to come on and went silent again.

vNorway Militia freighters scattered, stationary nightmare. One of them blew like a tiny sun, flared on vid and died while com pickup sputtered static. The hail of particles incandesced in Norway's path and some of the bigger ones rang against the hull, a scream of pa.s.sing matter.

No fancy turns: dead-on targets and armscomp lacing into them. A Union rider went out the way the merchanter had, and Norway's four riders rolled, whipped out on a vector concerted with Norway and pulled fire, a steady barrage that pocked a Union carrier paralleling them for one visible instant. "Get him!" Signy yelled at her armscomper when the fire paused; it erupted over her words and pasted into the spot the running carrier turned out to occupy. They forced Union to maneuver, to dump G to survive it. A howl of delight went up and sirens drowned it as helm jerked control away and sent their own ma.s.s into a sudden turn, comp reacting to comp faster than human brains could at such speeds... she hauled it back and paralleled the quarry. Armscomp ripped off another barrage right down the belly array and whatever came of it, scan started to show a field peppered with haze.

"Good!" the belly spotter shouted into com general. "Solid hit..." There were wails as Norway half-rolled and swung into a new zig. Merchanters leaked past them, headed out as if they were a tableau frozen in s.p.a.ce: They were doing the moving, whipped through the interstices of that still-standing race and went after the Union ships, keeping them zigging, keeping them from gathering room for a run.

Feint and strike: like their entry... a ship to draw them, attack from another vector. Tibet and North Pole were headed in to intercept, had been coming from the first moment scan image had reached them: longscan had just revised their position, set them as much closer, reckoning they would go at max. Union moved. That scan had reached them in the same instant; shifted vector right into the fire they were laying down, Norway, Atlantic, Australia... Union lost riders, took damage, going rimward in spite of fire, going at Tibet and North Pole. There was a ringing oath over com, Mazian's voice pouring out a stream of obscenity. Twelve carriers left of the fourteen that had come in, a cloud of riderships and dart-ships, bore away from station and into their two outrunners that were distance-blind and alone out there. "Hit their heels!" Porey's deep voice came through. "Negative, negative," Mazian snapped back. "Hold your positions." Comp still had them in synch; Europe's command signal drew them unwillingly with Mazian. They watched the Union fleet pa.s.s their zone of fire, heading for Tibet and North Pole. Behind them, a flare of energy reached them: static that cleared... "Got him!" com echoed. Pacific must have taken out that crippled Union carrier some minutes back. There were other things possible across the system, that they could lose track of. Could lose Pell. One strike could take it out, if that was Union's intent.

Signy flexed a hand, wiped her face, keyed to Graff, and he took up controls on the instant-they were dumping velocity again, pulling maneuvers in concert with Mazian. Protests garbled over com. "Negative," Mazian repeated. There was a hush throughout Norway.

"They haven't a chance," Graff muttered too audibly. "They should have come in sooner... should have come in-" "Hindsight, Mr. Graff. Take it as it falls." Signy dialed up general com. "Can't move out of here. If it's a feint, one ship could come in and wipe Pell. We can't help them... can't risk any more of us than we're already about to lose. They've got an option... they've still got room to run." Might, she was thinking, might, the instant their scan narrowed on them, and longscan started showing what they were into... veer off and jump. If scan techs on Tibet and North Pole fed the right data into longscan, if the picture on their scopes did not show Mazian and help coming right on Union's tail, misinterpreting their maneuver as one of following... The Fleet slowed further. Scan showed a fade-out among the merchanters, that slow-motion flight having reached jump limit. They bled away, Pell's life, drifting off into the deep.

She dead-reckoned time factors, Union's speed, proliferation of their image, Tibet's and North Pole's velocity incoming. About now, about now, Tibet should be figuring it out, realizing Union was on them. If their scan was telling them truth... Their own scan kept showing history for a moment, then locked up, stationary, longscan having run out of speculations. Head to head, yellow haze, while red lines tracked through that haze, the real scan they were getting. Closer. The red line reached decision-critical-kept going. Head on. Signy sat and watched, as all of them had to watch. Her fist was clenched and she restrained herself from hitting something, the board, the cushion, something. It happened; they watched it happen, what had happened already, the futile defense, the overwhelming a.s.sault. Two carriers. Seven riders, to a man. In forty and more years the Fleet had never lost ships so wretchedly. Tibet rammed... Kant hurled his carrier into jump near the ma.s.s of his enemies and took his own riders and a Union carrier into oblivion... there was a sudden gap in scan... a grim cheer at that; and again when North Pole and her riders hurtled through the midst of the Unioners... They almost made it through Kant's hole. Then that image became a scatter of images. North Pole's comp signal that had begun a sending... ceased abruptly. Signy had not cheered, only nodded slowly each time to no one in particular, remembering the men and women aboard, names known... despising the situation they were handed. Longscan resolved itself, question answered. The surviving images that were Union kept on running, hit jump, vanished from the screens. The Unioners would be back, reinforced, eventually, simply calling in more ships. The Fleet had won, had held on, but now they were seven; seven ships.

And the next time and the next it would happen. Union could sacrifice ships. Union ships prowled the fringes of the system and they dared not go out hunting them. We've lost, she addressed Mazian silently. Do you know that? We've lost. "Pell," Mazian's voice came quietly over com, "is under riot conditions. We do not know the situation there. We are faced with disorder. Hold pattern. We cannot rule out another strike."

But suddenly lights flashed on Norway's boards; a whole sector sprang to renewed independence. Norway was loosed from comp synch. Orders flashed to the screen, comp-sent.

... secure base.

She was loosed. Africa was. Two ships, to go back and take a disordered station while the rest kept to their perimeter and room to maneuver. She punched general com. "Di, arm and suit. We've got to take ourselves a berth, every trooper we've got on the line. Suit alterday crew to guard the docks. We're going in after the troops we had to leave."

A shout erupted from that link, many-voiced, angry, frustrated troops suddenly needed again, in something they were hot to do.

"Graff," she said.

They red-lighted despite the troops in prep below, pulled stress in coming about and headed deadon for the station. Porey's Africa pulled out of pattern in her wake.

viPell Central "... Give us docking access," Mallory's voice came over com, "and open doors to central, or we start taking out sections of this station." Collision, the screens flashed. White-faced techs sat at their posts, and Jon gripped the back of the chair at com, paralyzed in the realization of carriers hurtling dead at Pell's midline.

"Sir!" someone screamed.

Vid had them, shining ma.s.ses filling all the screen, monsters bearing down on them, a wall of dark finally that split apart and pa.s.sed the cameras above and below station. Boards erupted in static and sirens wailed as the carriers skimmed their surface. One vid went out, and a damage alarm went off, a wail of depressurization alert.

Jon spun about, sought Jessad, who had been near the door. There was only Kressich, mouth agape in the wail of sirens.

"We're waiting for an answer," another, deeper voice said out of com.

Jessad, gone. Jessad or someone had failed at Mariner and the station had died.

"Find Jessad!" Jon shouted at one of Hale's men. "Get him! Take him out!"

"They're coming in again!" a tech cried.

Jon whirled, stared at the screens, tried to talk and gestured wildly. "Com link," he shouted, and the tech pa.s.sed him a mike. He swallowed, staring at the oncoming behemoths on vid. "You have access," he shouted into the mike, as he tried to control his voice. "Repeat: this is Pell station-master Lukas. You have access."

"Say again," Mallory's voice returned to him. "Who are you?"

"Jon Lukas, acting stationmaster. Angelo Konstantin is dead. Please help us." There was silence from the other side. Scan began to alter, the big ships diverting from near-collision course, dumping velocity perceptibly. "Our riders will dock first," Mallory's voice declared. "Do you copy, Pell station? Riders will dock in advance to serve as carrier dock crews. You give them an a.s.sist in and then clear out of their way or face fire. For every trouble we meet, we blow a hole in you."

"We have riot conditions aboard," Jon pleaded. "Q has broken confinement."

"Do you copy my instructions, Mr. Lukas?"

"Pell copies clearly. Do you understand our problem? We can't guarantee there'll be no trouble. Some of our docks are sealed off. We accept your troops in a.s.sistance. We are devastated by riot. You will have our cooperation." There was long hesitation. Other blips had come into scan, the riders which attended the carriers. "We copy," Mallory said. "We will board with troops. Get my number-one rider safely docked with your cooperation or we will blow ourselves an access for troops and blow section by section, no survivors. That is your clear choice."

"We copy." Jon wiped at his face. The sirens had died. There was a deathly hush in the command center. "Give me time to get what security I can muster to the most secure docks. Over."

"You have half an hour, Mr. Lukas."

He turned from com, waved a summons to one of his security guards, by the door.

"Pell copies. Half an hour. We'll get you a dock clear."

"Blue and green, Mr. Lukas. You see to it."

"Blue and green docks," he repeated hoa.r.s.ely. "We'll do our best." Mallory signed off. He pushed past com to key in the main com center. "Hale," he exclaimed. "Hale."

Hale's face appeared.

"General broadcast. All security to docks. Get blue and green docks clear for operation."

"Got it," Hale said, and keyed out.

Jon strode across the room to the doorway where Kressich still stood. "Get back on com. Get on and tell those people you claim to control to stay quiet. Hear?" Kressich nodded. There was a distractedness in his eyes, a not quite sanity. Jon seized him by the arm and dragged him to the com board, as the tech scrambled out of the way. He set Kressich down, gave him the mike, stood listening as Kressich addressed his lieutenants by name, calling on them to clear the affected docks. Panic persisted in the corridors where they still had cameras to see. Green nine showed milling throngs and smoke; and whatever they cleared panicked mobs would pour into like air into vacuum. "General alert," Jon said to the chief at station one. "Sound the null G warning."

The woman turned, opened the security casing, punched the b.u.t.ton beneath. A buzzer began to sound, different and more urgent than all other warnings which had wailed through Pell's corridors. "Seek a secure place," a voice interrupted it at intervals. "Avoid large open areas. Go to the nearest compartment and seek an emergency hold. Should extreme gravity loss occur, remember the orientation arrows and observe them as station stabilizes... Seek a secure place..." Panic in the halls became headlong flight, battering at doors, screaming. "Throw G off," Jon sent to the op coordinator. "Give us a variation they can feel out there."

Orders flashed. A third time the station destabilized. Green nine corridor began to show clear as people raced for smaller s.p.a.ces, even smaller corridors. Jon punched through to Hale again. "Get forces out there. Get those docks clear; I've given you your chance, confound you."

"Sir," Hale said, and winked out again. Jon turned full circle, looked distractedly at the techs, at Lee Quale, who clung to a handhold by the door. He signaled Quale, caught his sleeve and hauled him close when he came. "The unfinished business," he said, "down on green dock. Get down there and finish it, understand? Finish it."

"Yes, sir," Quale breathed, and fled... with sense enough to know, surely, that their lives rested on it.

Union might win. Until then they claimed station neutrality, held onto what they could. Jon paced the aisle, catching at chairs and counters in the occasional strong flux, trying to keep the whole center from panic. He had Pell. He had already what Union had promised him, and would have it under Mazian and under Union too, if he was careful; and he had been, far more than Jessad had ordered him to be. There were no witnesses left alive in Angelo's office, none in Legal Affairs, abortive as that raid had been. Only Alicia... who knew nothing, who harmed no one, who had no voice, and her sons... Damon was the danger. Damon and his wife. Over Quen he had no control... but if young Damon started making charges- He cast a look over his shoulder, suddenly missed Kressich, Kressich and two who were supposed to be watching him.

The desertion of his own enraged him, of Kressich-he was relieved. Kressich would vanish back into the hordes of Q, frightened and unreachable. Only Jessad... if they had not gotten him, if he was loose, near something vital- On scan the riders were moving closer. Pell had yet a little time, before Mazian's troops. .h.i.t. A tech handed him positive id on the ships that waited out there; Mallory and Porey, Mazian's two executioners. They had a name, the one for ruthlessness and the other for enjoying it. Porey was the other one, then. That was no good news.

He stood and sweated, waiting.

viiGreen dock Something was going on outside. Damon walked over the littered floor of the dark shop and leaned there, trying again to see out the scarred window, jerked as the red explosion of a shot distorted in the scratches. There was screaming mingled with the grinding of machinery in operation.

"Whoever's out there now, they're moving this way and they've got guns." He edged back from the door, moving carefully in the lessened G. Josh stooped, gathered up one of the rods that had been part of a ruined display, offered it. Damon took it and Josh got another for himself. He moved up near the doorway, and Josh went to the other side of it, back to the wall. There was no sound near them outside, a lot of shouting far away. Damon risked a look, the light coming from the other way, jerked back again at the sight of human shadows near the scarred window.

The door whipped open, carded from outside, someone with priority. Two men dashed in, guns drawn. Damon slammed the steel rod down on a head, eyes unfocusing for horror of it, and Josh hit from the other side. The men fell strangely in the low G, and a gun skittered loose. Josh scooped it up, fired twice to be sure, and one jerked, dying. "Get the gun," Josh snapped, and Damon bent and pushed fastidiously at the body, found the unfamiliar plastic of the gun b.u.t.t in a dead hand. Josh was on his knees, rolled the other body, began to strip it. "Clothes," Josh said. "Cards. id's that work." Damon laid the gun aside and swallowed his distaste, stripped the limp body, took off his own suit, struggled into the b.l.o.o.d.y coveralls... there would be men aplenty in the corridors with bloodstains on them. He searched the pockets for a card, found the papers there, found the card lying where the body's left hand had dropped it. He canted the id folder to the light. Lee Anton Quale... Lukas Company... Quale. Quale, from the Downbelow mutiny... and Jon Lukas's employ; in Jon's employ, and Jon had comp in his control-when Q happened to get the doors open, when Konstantins happened to have been murdered in Pell's tightest security... when his card stopped working and murderers knew how to locate him-it was Jon up there.

A hand closed on his shoulder. "Come on, Damon." He rose, flinched as Josh used his gun to burn Quale's face beyond recognition, the other corpse afterward. Josh's own face was sweat-slicked in the light from the door, rigid with horror, but the reactions were right, a man whose instincts knew what they were doing. He headed for the dock and Damon ran with him, out into the light, slowed at once, for the docks were virtually bare. White dock seal was in place; the seal of green dock was hidden up the horizon. They walked gingerly across the front of the huge seal of white, got in among the gantries across the dock, walked along within that cover, while the horizon unfolded downward, showing them a group of men working at the docking machinery, moving slowly and carefully in reduced G. Corpses and papers and debris lay scattered all across the docks, out in open s.p.a.ces which would be difficult to reach without being seen. "Enough cards lying out there," Josh said, "to give us plenty of names."

"For any lock not voice-keyed," Damon murmured. He kept his eye to the men at work and those standing guard down by the green niner entry, visible at this range-walked out carefully to the nearest corpse, hoping it was a corpse, and not someone dazed or shamming. He knelt, still watching the workers, felt through the pockets and came up with a card and additional papers. He pocketed them and went to the next, while Josh plundered others. Then nerves sent him scurrying back to cover, and Josh joined him at once. They moved further up the dock.

"Blue seal is open," he said, as that arch came down off horizon. He entertained a wild, momentary hope of hiding, getting to blue sector when the traffic in the corridors returned to normal, getting up to blue one and asking questions at gunpoint. It was fantasy. They were not going to live that long. He did not reckon they would.

"Damon."

He looked, followed the direction Josh indicated, up through the gantry lines to the first berth in green: green light. A ship was in approach, whether Mazian's or Union's there was no telling. Com thundered out, echoing instructions in the emptiness. The ship was closing with the docking cone, coming in fast. "Come on," Josh hissed at him, pulling at his arm, insisting on a break for green nine.

"The G isn't going," he murmured, resisting Josh's urging. "Don't you see it's a trick? Central's got the corridors cleared for their own forces to move in them. Those ships wouldn't dock with G completely unstable; no way they'd risk that with a big ship. Just a little flux to quell the riot. And it won't stay cleared. If we run into those corridors we'll be in the middle of it. No. Stay put."

"ECS501," he heard over the loudspeaker then, and his heart lifted. "One of Mallory's riders," Josh muttered at his side. "Mallory. Union's retreated."

He looked at Josh, at the hate which burned in the angel's haggard face... hope cancelled.

The minutes pa.s.sed. The ship snugged in. The dock crew ran to secure the umbilicals, thrust the connections in. The access slammed into seal with a hiss audible across the empty distance. Machinery whined and slammed beyond it, the lock in function, and the dock-side crew started running. A handful of men poured out of the obscuring periphery of the gantries, unarmored... two running across to the far side, to take up position with rifles leveled. There was the sound of others running, and com was on again, warning of Norway itself inbound.

"Get your head down," Josh hissed, and Damon moved slowly, knelt by the brace of one of the movable tanks where Josh had taken closer cover, tried to see what was happening farther up, but there was a skein of umbilicals in the way. Mallory was using her own men for dock crews; but Jon Lukas must still be in command up in central, cooperating with Mazian, and in the pressure of Union attack, Mazian would choose efficiency over justice. Go out there, approach armed and nervous Company troops, raise a charge of murder and conspiracy while Jon Lukas physically held central and station, and Mazian had Union on his mind? "I could go out there," he said, unsure of his conclusions.

"They'd swallow you alive," Josh said. "You've nothing to offer them." He looked at Josh's face. Of the gentle man Adjustment had turned out... there was nothing left, but perhaps the pain. Set him at a comp board, Josh had said once, and he might remember comp; set him into war and he had other instincts. Josh's thin hands clutched the gun between his knees, and his eyes were set on the arch of the dock, where Norway was moving in to dock. Hate. His face was pale and intense. He might do anything. Damon felt the b.u.t.t of the pistol in his own right hand, shifted his grip on it, moved his forefinger onto the trigger. An Adjusted Unioner... whose Adjustment was coming undone, who hated, who might go on coming apart. It was a day for murders, when the dead out there were too many to count, when there were no rules left, no kinships, no friendships. War had come to Pell, and he had lived naive all his life. Josh was dangerous-had been trained to be dangerous-and nothing they had done to his mind had changed that. Com announced arrival; there was the boom of contact. Josh swallowed visibly, eyes fixed. Damon reached with his left hand, caught Josh's arm. "Don't. Don't do anything, hear me? You can't reach her."

"Don't intend to," Josh said without looking at him. "Only so you have as good sense."

He let the gun to his side, finger slowly removed from the trigger, the taste of bile in his mouth. Norway was in solidly now, a second crashing of locks and joinings, a seal hissing into union.

Troops boiled out onto the dock, formed up, with shouts of orders, took up positions relieving the rifle-bearing crewmen, armored figures, alike and implacable. And of a sudden there was another figure from high up the curve, a shout, and other troops came from the recess of the shops and offices along that stretch, from the bars and sleepovers, troops left behind, rejoining their comrades of the Fleet, carrying their wounded or dead with them. There was reunion, a wavering in the disciplined lines that took them in, embracings and cheers raised. Damon pressed as close to the concealing machinery as he could, and Josh shrank down beside him.

An officer bellowed orders and the troops started to move in order, from the docks toward the green nine entry, and while some held it with leveled rifles, some advanced within it.

Damon shifted back, farther and farther within the shadows, and Josh moved with him. Shouts reached them, the echoing bellow of a loudspeaker: Clear the corridor. Suddenly there were shouts and screams and firing. Damon leaned his head against the machinery and listened, eyes shut, once and twice felt Josh flinch at the now-familiar sounds and did not know whether he did also. It's dying, he thought with exhausted calm, felt tears leak from his eyes. He shivered finally. Call it what they would, Mazian had not won; there was no possibility that the outnumbered Company ships had beaten off Union for good. It was only a skirmish, decision postponed. There would be more such, until there was no more Fleet and no more Company, and what became of Pell would be in other hands. Jump had outmoded the great star stations. There were worlds now, and the order and priority of things had changed. The military had seen it. Only the Konstantins had not. His father had not, who had believed in a way neither Company nor Union, but Pell's-that kept the world it circled in trust, that disdained precautions within itself, that valued trust above security, that tried to lie to itself and believe that Pell's values could survive in such times.

There were those who could shift from side to side, play any politics going. Jon Lukas could do so; evidently had. If Mazian had sense to judge men, he would surely see what Jon Lukas was and reward him as he deserved. But Mazian did not need honest men, only men who would obey him, and impose Mazian's kind of law. And Jon would come out a survivor, on either side. It was his own mother's stubbornness, that refusal to die; his own, maybe, that did not seek approach to his uncle, whatever he had done. Maybe Pell needed a governor in these latter days who could shift and survive, trading what had to be traded. Only he could not. If he had Jon in front of him now-hate... hate of this measure was a new experience. A helpless hate... like Josh's... but there was revenge, if he lived. Not to harm Pell. But to make Jon Lukas's sleep less than easy. While a single Konstantin was loose, any holder of Pell had to feel less secure. Mazian, Union, Jon Lukas-none of them would own Pell until they had gotten him; and that he could make difficult for them, for as long as possible.

Chapter Three.

Downbelow main base; 1300 hrs; local night There was still no answer. Emilio pressed Miliko's hand against his shoulder and kept leaning over Ernst, at com, while other staff cl.u.s.tered about. No word out of station; no word from the Fleet; Porey and his entire force had gone hurtling offworld into a silence that persisted into yet another hour.

"Give it up," he told Ernst, and when there was a murmuring among other staff: "We don't even know who's in control up there. No panic, hear me? I don't want any of that nonsense. If you want to stand around main base and wait for Union to land, fine. I won't object. But we don't know. If Mazian loses he might take out this facility, you understand? Might just want to destroy it beyond use. Sit here if you like. I've other ideas."

"We can't run far enough," a woman said. "We can't live out there."

"Our chances aren't good here either," Miliko said.

The murmuring swelled into panic.

"Listen to me," Emilio said. "Listen. I don't think their landing in the bush is that easy, unless they've got equipment we haven't heard of. And maybe they'll try blowing up this place; but maybe they'd do that anyway, and I'd rather have cover. Miliko and I are taking a trip down the road. We're not going to work for Union, if that's what it comes to up there. Or stand here and deal with Porey when he comes back."

The murmuring was lower this time, more frightened than panicked. "Sir," said Jim Ernst, "you want me to stay by com?"

"You want to stay here?"

"No," Ernst said.

Emilio nodded slowly, looked about at all of them. "We can take the portable compressors, the field dome... dig in when we get somewhere secure. We can survive out there. Our new bases do it. We can."

Heads nodded dazedly. It was too hard to realize what they were facing. He himself did not, and knew it.

"Flash it down the road too," he said. "Roll up the operation or stay on as they choose. I'm not forcing anyone to head into the bush if he doesn't think he can make it. One thing we've already seen to, that Union won't get their hands on the Downers. So now we make sure they don't get their hands on us. We get food from the emergency stores we didn't mention to Porey; we take the portable com; take some essential units out of the machines we can't take with us... and we just take a walk down the road and into the trees, by truck as far as we can take the trucks, dump the heavy stuff in hiding, carry it to our new dig bit by bit. They might blast the road and the trucks, but any other answer is going to take them time to mount. If anyone wants to stay here and work for the new management... or Porey, if he shows up again, then do it. I can't fight you and I'm not interested in trying."

There was near silence. Then some pushed out of the group and started gathering up personal belongings. More and more did. His heart was beating very hard. He pushed Miliko toward their quarters, to gather up the few of their belongings they could take. It could go the other way. Something could start among them. They could deliver him and Miliko to the new owners, if that was what it came to, gain points with the opposition. They could do that. There were far and away enough of them... and Q, and the workers out there... Of his family... no word. His father would have sent some message if he could. If he could.

"Make it quick," he told Miliko. "Word of this is going every which way out there." He slipped one of the base's only handguns into his pocket as he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his heaviest jacket; he gathered up a boxful of cylinders for the breathers, took up a canteen and the short-handled axe. Miliko took the knife and a couple of blankets rolled up, and they went out again, into the confusion of staff packing up blanketrolls in the middle of the floor. They stepped over it. "Get the pump shut down," he told a man. "Get the connector out of it." He gave other instructions, and men and women moved, some for the trucks and some for acts of sabotage. "Move it," he yelled after them. "We're moving in fifteen minutes."

"Q," Miliko said. "What do we do with them?"

"Give them the same choice. Get down the line, put it to the regular workers, if they haven't heard yet." They pa.s.sed the lock door, through the second and up the wooden steps into night-bound chaos, with people moving as fast as the limited air would let them. There was the sound of a crawler starting up. "Be careful," he yelled at Miliko as their paths diverged. He headed down over the crushed rock path, down and up again onto the shoulder of Q's hill, where the patched, irregular dome showed wan yellow light through its plastic, where Q folk were outside, dressed, looking as if they had had no more sleep than others this night.

"Konstantin," one yelled, alerting the others, and word went into the dome with the speed of a slammed door. He kept walking, went into the midst of them, his heart in his throat "Come on, get everyone out here," he yelled, and they began to pour out with a swelling murmur of numbers, fastening jackets, adjusting masks. In a moment the dome began to collapse, and the lock sighed the air out, a gust of warmth and a flood of bodies that began to surround him. They were all but quiet, a murmur, nothing more; the silence did not comfort him. "We're pulling out of here," he said. "We don't get any word out of station and it's possible Union's in control up there; we don't know." There were outcries of distress, and some of their own number ordered silence. "We don't know, I say. We're luckier than station; we've got a world under us, food to eat; and if we're careful... air to breathe. Those of us who've lived here know how to manage that... even in the open. You have the same choice we do. Stay here and work for Union, or take a walk with us. It's not going to be easy out there, and I wouldn't recommend it for the older ones and the youngest, but I'm not so sure it's going to be safe here either. We've got a chance out there, that they'll think we're too much bother to come after. That's it. We're not sabotaging any machine you need for life. The base here is yours if you want it; but you're welcome with us. We're going... never mind where we're going; unless you're coming with us. And if you come, it's on equal terms. Now. Immediately." There was dead silence. He was terrified. He was crazy to have come among them alone. The whole camp could not stop them if they panicked. Someone at the back of the crowd opened the door to the dome, and of a sudden there was a murmur of voices, a backflow into the dome, someone shouting that they would need blankets, that they would need all the cylinders, a woman wailing that she could not walk. He stood there while all of Q deserted him into the dome, turned on the slope and looked across to the other domes, where men and women were coming from the residents' domes in businesslike haste, carrying blankets and other items, a general flow down to the trough of the hills, where motors whined and headlamps showed. They had the trucks ready. He started down there, faster and faster, walked into the chaos that swirled about the vehicles. They were putting on the field dome and some spare plastic; a staffer showed him a checklist as businesslike as if they were loading for a supply trip. Some people were trying to put their personal loads on the trucks and staff was arguing with them, and Q was arriving, some of them carrying more than they ought on Downbelow.

"Trucks are for essential materials," Emilio shouted. "All able-bodied walk; anyone too old or too sick can perch on the baggage, and any room left, you can put heavy items on... but you share loads, hear? No one walks light. Who can't walk?"

There were shouts from some of the Q folk who had caught up, and they put forward some of the frailer children, some of the old ones. They yelled that there were some still coming, shouts with a tone of panic. "Easy! We'll get them all on. We'll not be going fast. A kilometer down the road, forest starts, and there're no armored troops likely to hike into it after us."

Miliko reached him. He felt her hand on his arm and put his arm about her, hugged her to him. He remained slightly numb; a man had a right to be when his world ended. They were prisoners up there on station. Or dead. He began to think of that possibility too, forcing himself to deal with it. He felt sick at the stomach, shaking with an anger which he kept in that numb place, away from his thinking process. He wanted to strike out at someone... and there was no one at hand.

They got the com unit on. Ernst supervised the loading of it onto the truckbed, and between emergency power and portable generator they had that for information... if any came.

Last of all, the people who would ride, and room enough for bedrolls and sacks, a protective nest. People moved at a run, panting, but there seemed less panic; two hours yet till dawn. The lights were still on, on stored power, the domes still glowing yellow. But there was a sound missing, in all the noise of the crawler engines. The compressors were silent. The pulse was gone. "Move them out," he shouted when there seemed order, and the vehicles started up, began to grind their patient way along the road.

They fell in behind, a column shaping itself to the road as it began to parallel the river. They pa.s.sed the mill and entered the forest, where hills and trees closed on the right hand of the night-bound landscape. The whole progress had a feeling of unreality, the trucks' headlamps shining on the reeds and the gra.s.s tops and the hillside and the trunks of trees, with the silhouettes of humans trudging along, the hiss and pop of breathers in curious unison, amid the grinding of the engines. There were no complaints, that was the thing most strange, no objections, as if a madness had seized them all and they agreed on this. They had had a taste of Mazian's governance.