Downbelow Station Part 22

The gra.s.s moved beside the road, a serpentine line in the waist-high reeds. Leaves moved among the bushes beside the road hillward. Miliko pointed to one such disturbance, and others had seen it, pointing and murmuring in apprehension.

Emilio's heart lifted. He reached for Miliko's hand and pressed it, left her and strode out into the weeds and under the trees while the trucks and the column kept on. "Hisa!" he called aloud. "Hisa, it's Emilio Konstantin! Do you see us?" They came, a handful, shyly advancing into the lights. One came holding out his hands, and he did. The Downer came to him and embraced him energetically. "Love you," the young male said. "You go walk, Konstantin-man?" "Bounder? Is it Bounder?"

"I Bounder, Konstantin-man." The shadowed face looked up at him, dim light from now-stopped trucks glinting off a sharp-edged grin. "I run, run, run come back again watch you. All we eyes to you, make you safe." "Love you, Bounder, love you."

The hisa bobbed in pleasure, fairly danced with it. "You go walk?"

"We're running away. There's trouble in the Upabove, Bounder, men-with-guns. Maybe they come Downbelow. We run away like the hisa, old, young, some of us not strong, Bounder. We look for a safe place."

Bounder turned to his companions, called something which ran up and down scales and chattered from them back to the trees and into the branches above. And Bounder's strange, strong hand slipped about his as the hisa began to lead him back to the road, where all the column had stopped, those rearmost crowding forward to see.

"Mr. Konstantin," one of the staff called from the pa.s.senger seat of a truck, nervousness in his voice, "they all right coming in with us?" "It's all right," he said. And to the others: "Be glad of them. The hisa are back. The Downers know who's welcome on Downbelow and who isn't, don't they? They've been watching us all this time, waiting to see if we were all right. You people," he called out louder still to the unseen ma.s.ses beyond, "They've come back to us, you understand? The hisa know all the places we could run to, and they're willing to help us, you hear that?"

There was a murmuring of distress.

"No Downer ever hurt a man," he shouted into the dark, over the patient rumble of the engines. He closed his hand the more firmly on Bounder's, walked down among them, and Miliko slipped her hand within his elbow on the other side. The trucks started up again, and they walked, at the same slow pace. Hisa began to join the column, walking along in the weeds beside the road. Some humans shied from them. Others tolerated the shy touch of an offered hand, even Q folk, following the example of old staffers, who were less perturbed by it. "They're all right," he heard one of his workers call out through the ranks.

"Let them go where they like."

"Bounder," he said, "we want a safe place... find all the humans from all the camps, take them to many safe places."

"You want safe, want help; come, come."

The strong hand stayed within his, small, as if they were father and child; but for all of youth and size it was the other way about... that humans went as the children now, down a known human road to a known human place, but they were not coming back, might never-he acknowledged it-might never come back. "Come we place," Bounder said. "You make we safe; we dream bad mans away and they go; and you come now, we go dream. No hisa dream, no human dream; together-dream. Come dream place."

He did not understand the babble. There were places beyond which humans had never gone among hisa. Dream-places... it was already a dream, this mingled flight of humans and hisa, in the dark, in the overturning of all that had been Downbelow.

They had saved the Downers; and in the long years of Union rule, when humans came who cared nothing for the hisa... there would be humans among the hisa who could warn them and protect them. There was that much left to do. "They'll come someday," he said to Miliko, "and want to cut down the trees and build their factories and dam the river and all the rest of it. That's the way of it, isn't it? If we let them get away with it." He swung Bounder's hand, looked down at the small intense face on the other side. "We go warn other camps, want to bring all humans into the trees with us, go for a long, long walk. Need good water, good food."

"Hisa find," Bounder grinned, the suspicion of a great joke shared by hisa and humans. "Not hide good you food."

They could not hold an idea for long... so some insisted. Perhaps the game would pall when humans had no more gifts to give. Perhaps they would lose their awe of humans and drift their own ways. Perhaps not. The hisa were not the same as they had been when humans came.

Neither were humans, on Downbelow.

Chapter Four.

Merchanter Hammer: deep s.p.a.ce; 1900 hrs.

Vittorio poured a drink, his second since s.p.a.ce around them had suddenly become filled with a battle-worn fleet. Things had not gone as they should. A silence had fallen over Hammer, the bitter silence of a crew who felt an enemy among them, a witness to their national humiliation. He met no eyes, offered no opinions... had only the desire to anesthetize himself with all due speed, so that he could not be blamed for any matters of policy. He did not want to give advice or opinions.

He was plainly a hostage; his father had set things up that way. And it occurred to him inevitably that his father might have double-crossed them all, that he might now be worse than a useless hostage... that he might be one whose card was due to be played.

My father hates me, he had tried to tell them; but they had strugged it off as irrelevant. They did not make the decisions. The man Jessad had done that. And where was Jessad now?

There was supposed to be some visitor on his way to the ship, some person of importance.

Jessad himself, to report failure, and to dispose of a useless bit of human baggage?

He had time to finish the second drink before the activity of the crew and eventual nudge at the hull reported a contact. There was a great deal of machinery slamming and the noise of the lift going into function, a crash as the cage synched with the rotation cylinder. Someone was coming up. He sat still with the gla.s.s before him and wished that he were a degree drunker than he was. The upward curve of the deck curtained the lift exit, beyond the bridge. He could not see what happened, only noted the absence of some of Hammer's crew from their posts. He looked up in sudden dismay as he heard them coming round the other way, from his back, into the main room through crew quarters. Bla.s.s of Hammer. Two crew. A number of military strangers and some not in uniform, behind them. Vittorio gathered himself shakily to his feet and stared at them. A gray-haired officer in rejuv, resplendent with silver and rank. And Dayin. Dayin Jacoby.

"Vittorio Lukas," Bla.s.s identified him. "Captain Seb Azov, over the fleet; Mr.

Jacoby of your own station; and Mr. Segust Ayres of Earth Company."

"Security council," that one corrected.

Azov sat down at the table, and the others found place on the benches round about. Vittorio settled again, his fingers numb on the table surface. He was surrounded by an alcoholic gulf that kept coming and going. He tried to sit naturally. They had come to see him... him... and there was no possible help he could be to them or to anyone.

"The operation has begun, Mr. Lukas," Azov said. "We've eliminated two of Mazian's ships. They won't be easy to get out; they're hanging close to station. We've sent for additional ships; but we've driven the merchanters out, all the long-haulers. The ones left are Pell short-haulers, serving as camouflage." "What do you want with me?" Vittorio asked.

"Mr. Lukas, you're acquainted with the merchanters based out of station-you've run Lukas Company, at least to some extent-and you know the ships." He nodded apprehensively.

"Your ship Hammer, Mr. Lukas, is going back within hail of Pell, and where it regards merchanters, you'll be Hammer's com operator... not under your real name, no, you'll be given a file on the Hammer family, which you'll study very carefully. You'll answer as one of them. But should Hammer be challenged by merchanter militia, or by Mazian, your life will rely on your skill in invention. Hammer will suggest to the merchanters remaining that their best course for survival would be to get to the system fringe and have nothing to do with this matter, to get utterly out of the way and cease trade with Pell. We want those ships out of the way, Mr. Lukas; and it wouldn't at all be politic to have merchanters know we've tampered with Hammer and Swan's Eye. We don't intend to have that known, you understand me?"

The crews of those ships, he thought, would never be set free, not without Adjustment. It occurred to him that his own memory was hazardous to Union, that it would never be politic to have merchanters know Union had violated merchanter neutrality, which they claimed as a sin of Mazian's alone. That they had confiscated not just personnel by impressment, but whole ships, and names... most of all the names, the trust, the selves of those people. He fingered the empty gla.s.s before him, realized what he was doing and stopped at once, trying to seem sober and sensible. "My own interests lie in that direction," he said. "My future on Pell is far from a.s.sured."

"How so, Mr. Lukas?"

"I entertain some hopes of a Union career, captain Azov." He lifted his eyes to Azov's grim face, hoping that he sounded as calm as he tried to be, "Relations between myself and my father... are not warm, so he threw me to you quite willingly. I've had time to think. Plenty of time. I prefer to make my own understandings with Union."

"Pell is running out of friends," Azov observed softly, with a glance at the sad-faced Mr. Ayres. "Now the indifferent desert her. The will of the governed, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

Ayres' eyes turned toward Azov, sidelong. "We have accepted the situation. It was never the intent of my mission to obstruct the will of the people resident in these areas. Only I am anxious for the safety of Pell Station. We are talking about thousands of lives, sir."

"Siege, Mr. Ayres. We cut them off from supplies and disrupt their operations until they grow uncomfortable." Azov turned his face toward Vittorio, stared at him a moment "Mr. Lukas-we have to prevent their access to the resources of the mines, and of Downbelow itself. A strike there... possible, but militarily costly getting to it, and costly in its effect. So we proceed by disentanglement. Mazian has a death grip on Pell; he'll leave ruin if he loses, blow Downbelow and the station itself, fall back toward the Hinder Stars... toward Earth. Do you want your precious motherworld used for a Mazianni base, Mr. Ayres?" Ayres shot him a troubled look.

"Ah, he is capable of it," Azov said, not ceasing to look at Vittorio, a cold, penetrating stare. "Mr. Lukas, that is as much as your duty involves. To gather information... to dissuade merchanters from trade. Do you understand? Do you think that's within your capacity?"

"Yes, sir."

Azov nodded. "You'll understand, Mr. Lukas, if we excuse you and Mr. Jacoby at this point."

He hesitated, a little dazed, realized it fuzzily as an order and that Azov's gray stare brooked no countersuggestions. He rose from the table. Dayin excused himself past Ayres, and that left Ayres, Bla.s.s, and Azov in council. Hammer's captain prepared to receive orders the nature of which he much wished to know. Ships had been lost. Azov had not told the truth as it was. He had heard the crew talking. There were whole carriers missing. They were to be sent into that. He paused where the curve curtained the meeting area, looked back at Dayin, sank down on a bench at the table in this the crew quarters. "You all right?" he asked Dayin, for whom he had never had great affection; but a face from home was very welcome in this cold place, in these circ.u.mstances. Dayin nodded. "And you?" It was more courtesy than he had generally had from uncle Dayin.

"Fine."

Dayin settled opposite.

"Truth," Vittorio asked him. "How many did they lose out there?" "Took heavy damage," Dayin said. "I reckon that Mazian cost them some. I know there are ships missing... carriers Victory and Endurance gone, I think." "But Union can build more. They're calling others in. How long is this going to go on?"

Dayin shook his head, rolled a meaningful glance at the overhead. The fans hummed, deadening conversation into local areas, but not shielding them from monitoring. "They've got him cornered," Dayin said then. "And they can get supplies indefinitely, but Mazian's bottled. What Azov said, that was the truth. He cost them, cost them badly, but they cost him worse."

"And what about us?"

"I'd rather be here than at Pell, frankly."

Vittorio gave a bitter laugh. His eyes blurred, a sudden pain in his throat, which was never really gone, and he shook his head. "I meant it," he said for those who might chance to be monitoring them. "I'll give Union the best I've got; it's the best thing I ever had going for me."

Dayin regarded him strangely, frowned and perhaps understood his meaning. For the first time in his twenty-five years he felt a kinship with someone. That it should be Dayin, who was three decades older and had had a different experience... that surprised him. But a little time in the Deep might make comrades out of the most unlikely individuals, and perhaps, he thought, perhaps Dayin had already made such choices, and Pell was no longer home for either of them.

Chapter Five.

Pell: Green Dock; 2000 hrs. md.; O8OOa.

Fire hit the wall. Damon flinched tighter into the corner they occupied, resisted half a heartbeat as Josh seized him and sprang up to run, followed them, dodged among the panicked and screaming crowds which back-washed out of green nine onto the docks. Someone did get shot, rolled on the decking at their feet, and they jumped that body and kept going, in the direction the troops meant to drive them.

Station residents, Q escapees... there was no difference made. They ran with fire peppering the supports and the storefronts, silent explosions in the chaos of screams, shots aimed at structures and not the vulnerable station sh.e.l.l itself. Shots went over their heads now that the crowd was moving, and they ran until the weakest faltered. Damon slowed as Josh did, found himself in white dock, the two of them weaving through the scattered number still running in panic, the last few who in their terror seemed to think the shots were still coming. He saw shelter among the shops by the inner wall, went that way and Josh followed him, to the recessed doorway of a bar which had been sealed against rioters, a place to sit quietly, out of the way of chance shots.

Several bodies lay out on the dock before them, new or old was not certain. It had become an ordinary sight in recent hours. There were occasional acts of violence while they sat there against the doorway... fights among stationers and what might be Q residents. Mostly people wandered, sometimes calling out names, parents hunting children, friends or mates hunting each other. Sometimes there were relieved meetings... and once, once, a man identified one of the dead, and screamed and sobbed. Damon bowed his face against his arms. Eventually some men helped the relative away.

And eventually the military sent detachments of armored troops into the area, to round up work crews, ordering them to gather up the dead and vent them. Damon and Josh slunk deeper into the doorway and evaded that duty; it was the active and restless the troops picked.

Last of all Downers came out of hiding, timidly, with soft steps and fearful looks about. They took it on themselves to clean the docks, scrubbing away the signs of death, faithful to their ordinary duties of cleanliness and order. Damon looked at them with a slight stirring of hope, the first good thing he had seen in all these hours, that the gentle Downers returned to the service of Pell.

He slept a little, as others did who sat over in the docking areas, as Josh did beside him, curled up against the door frame. From time to time he roused to general com announcements of restored schedules, or the promise that food would be forthcoming in all areas.

Food. The thought began to obsess him. He said nothing of it, his knees tucked up within his arms and his limbs feeling weak with hunger; weakness, he thought it, regretting a neglected breakfast, no lunch, no supper... he was not accustomed to hunger. It was, as he had ever felt it, a missed meal on a day of heavy work. An inconvenience. A discomfort. It began to be something else. It put a whole new complexion on resistance to anything; played games with his mind; forecast whole new dimensions of misery. If they were to be caught and recognized it was likely to be in some food line; but they had to come out for that, or starve. Their very remaining still grew obvious as the aroma of food swept the docks and others moved, as carts trundled along, pushed by Downers. People mobbed the carts, started s.n.a.t.c.hing and shouting; but the troops escorted each then, and it calmed down quickly. The food carts, stores diminished, came closer. They stood up, leaned there in the recess.

"I'm going out there," Josh said finally. "Stay back. I'll say you're hurt. I'll get enough for both of us."

Damon shook his head. It was perverse courage, to test his survival, sweaty, uncombed, in dirty, b.l.o.o.d.y coveralls. If he could not cross the dock for fear of an a.s.sa.s.sin's gun or a trooper recognizing him, he was going to go mad. At least they did not look to be asking for id cards for the meals. He had three of them, and his own, which he dared not use; Josh had two and his own, but they did not match the pictures.

A simple act, to walk out with a guard watching, to take a cold sandwich and a carton of lukewarm fruit drink, and to retreat; but he retired to the sheltering storefront with a sense of triumph in his prize, crouched there to eat as Josh joined him... ate and drank, feeling in that mundane act as though a great deal of the nightmare were past, and he was caught in some strange new reality, where human feelings were not required, only an animal wariness. And then a shrill ripple of Downer language, the one with the food cart speaking out across the dock to others of his kind. Damon was startled; Downers were generally shy when things were quiet around them; it startled the escorting trooper, who lowered his rifle and looked all about. But there was nothing, only quiet, frightened people and solemn round-eyed Downers, who had stopped and now went about their business. Damon finished his sandwich as the cart pa.s.sed on along the upward curve of the dock toward green.

A Downer came near them, dragging a box into which he was collecting the plastic containers. Josh looked anxious as the Downer held out his hand, surrendered the wrappers; Damon tossed his in the box, looked up in fright as the Downer rested a gentle hand on his arm. "You Konstantin-man."

"Go away," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Downer, don't say my name. They'll kill me if they see me. Be quiet and go away quick."

"I Bluetooth. Bluetooth, Konstantin-man."

"Bluetooth." He remembered. The tunnels, the Downer who had been shot. The strong Downer fingers closed tighter.

"Downer name Lily send from Sun-she-friend, you name 'Licia. She send we, make Lukases quiet, not come in she place. Love you, Konstantin-man. 'Licia she safe, Downers all round she, keep she safe. We bring you, you want?" He could not breathe for the moment "Alive? She's alive?"

"'Licia she safe. Send you come, make you safe with she." He tried to think, clung to the furred hand and stared into the round brown eyes, wanting far more than Downer patois could say. He shook his head. "No. No. It's danger to her if I come there. Men-with-guns, you understand, Bluetooth? Men hunt me. Tell her-tell her I'm safe. Tell her I hide all right, tell her Elene got away with the ships. We're all right. Does she need me, Bluetooth? She needs?"

"Safe in she place. Downers sit with she, all Downers in Upabove. Lily with she.

Satin with she. All. All."

"Tell her-tell her I love her. Tell her I'm all right and Elene is. Love you, Bluetooth."

Brown arms hugged him. He embraced the Downer fervently and the Downer left him and slipped away like a shadow, quickly occupied himself with picking up debris not far away, wandered off. Damon looked about him, fearful that they might have been observed, met nothing but Josh's curious gaze. He glanced away, wiped his eyes on the arm which rested across his knee. The numbness diminished; he began to be afraid again, had something to be afraid for, someone who could still be hurt.

"Your mother," Josh said. "Is that what he was talking about?"

He nodded, without comment.

"I'm glad," Josh offered earnestly.

He nodded a second time. Blinked, tried to think, feeling his brain subjected to jolt after jolt until there was no sense in it "Damon."

He looked up, followed the direction of Josh's stare. Squads of troops were coming off the horizon, out of green dock, formed up and meaning business. Quietly, nonchalantly, he rose, dusted his clothing, turned his back to the dock to give Josh cover while he got up. Very casually they began to move along in the other direction.

"Sounds like they're about to get organized out there," Josh said. "We're all right," he insisted. They were not the only ones moving. The niner hall of white was not that far. They drifted with others who seemed to have the same motive, found a public restroom next to one of the bars that sat at the corner of white nine; Josh turned in there and he walked in after. They both made use of it and walked out again, taking a normal pace. Guards had been posted at the intersections of the corridor with the dock, but they were not doing anything, only watching. He walked further down nine, stopped at a public call unit.

"Screen me," he said, and Josh obligingly leaned against the wall between them and the opening of nine where the guards stood. "Going to see what cards we have, how many credits, where the original owners belonged. I don't need my own priority to do that, just a records number."

"I know one thing," Josh said in a low voice. "I don't look like a Pell citizen.

And your face..."

"No one wants to be noticed; no one can turn us in without being noticed himself. That's the best hope we've got; no one wants to be conspicuous." He thrust in the first card and keyed the override. Altener, Leslie: 789.90 credits in comp; married, a child. Clerk, clothing concession. He put that one in his left pocket, not to use, not wanting to steal from the survivors. Lee Anton Quale, single man, staff card with Lukas Company, restricted clearance, 8967.89 credits... an amazing amount for such a man. William Teal, married man, no children, loading boss, 4567.67 credits, warehouse clearances. "Let's see yours," he said to Josh. Josh handed his over together, and he shoved the first in, hastening feverishly, wondering whether so many inquiries in a row off a public terminal might not set comp central off. Cecil Sazony, single man, 456.78 credits, machinist and sometime loader, barracks privileges; Louis Diban, five-year marriage terminated, no dependents, 3421.56, dock crew foreman. He pocketed the cards and started walking as Josh followed and caught up with him, around the corner into a crosshall, and around the next corner to the right. There was a storeroom there; all the docks were mirror image one of the other when it came to the central corridors, and there was inevitably a storage room for maintenance hereabouts. He found the appropriate, unmarked door, used the foreman's card to open it, and turned on the lights. There was ventilation, a store of paper and cleaning supplies and tools. He stepped in with Josh behind him and punched the door closed. "A hole to hide in," he said, and pocketed the card he had used, reckoning it the best key they had. "We sit it out, go on alterday shift a day or so. Two of our cards were alterday people, single, with dock clearance. Sit down. Lights will go out in here in a moment. Can't keep them on... comp will find a storeroom light on and turn it out on us, very economical."

"Are we safe here?"

He laughed bitterly, sank down against the wall, legs tucked up in the cramped s.p.a.ce to afford Josh room to sit down opposite him. He felt of the gun still in his pocket, to be sure it was there. Drew a breath. "Nowhere is safe." Tired, the angel's face, grease-smudged, hair stringy. Josh looked terrified, though it had been Josh's instincts that had saved them under fire. Between the two of them, one knowing the accesses and one with the right reflexes, they made a tough problem for Mazian. "You've been shot at before," he said. "Not just in a ship... close up. You know that?"

"I don't remember."

"Don't you?"

"I said I don't."

"I know the station. Every hole, every pa.s.sage; and if shuttles start moving again, if any ships start going and coming from the mines, we just use the cards to get close enough to the docks, join a loading crew, walk onto a ship..." "Go where, then?"

"Downbelow. Or outworld mines. No questions asked in either place." It was a dream. He fabricated it to comfort them both. "Or maybe Mazian will decide he can't go on holding here. Maybe he'll just pull out." "He'll blow it if he does. Blow the station, the installations on Downbelow with it. Would he want to leave Union a base to use against him when he falls back?" Damon frowned at truth he already knew. "You have a better suggestion what we should do?"

"No."

"I could turn myself in, negotiate to get back in control, evacuate the station..." "You believe that?"

"No," he said. That account too he had already added up. "No."

The lights went out. Comp had shut them down. Only the ventilation continued.