Downbelow Station Part 29

Heat flushed her face. She set the gla.s.s down.

"Temper, old friend," Mazian said softly. "I have one too. I know my faults. But I can't have you split from me. Can't afford it. We're getting ready to move. Within the week. Loading's nearly finished. And we move before Union expects it... take the initiative, give them a problem."

"Pell."

"Just so." He finished his brandy. "You have Konstantin. He can't go back; we have to take out Lukas too. All those techs working and in detention. Anyone who could possibly manage comp and central and get Pell back into order. You rig it to collapse and you don't leave anyone alive who could correct it. And particularly Konstantin; he's dangerous in two regards, comp and publicity. Vent him."

She smiled tautly. "When?"

"He's already a liability. Nothing public. No display. Porey will see to the other one-to Emilio Konstantin. Clean wipe, Signy. Nothing left of help to Union. No refugees from this place."

"I understand you. I'll do the disposal."

"You and Tom, for all your bickering, have done a good job. I was very worried about having Konstantin unaccounted for. You've done an excellent job. I mean that."

"I knew what you were up to," she said levelly. "So the comp is already set up that way; a key signal can scramble it completely. A couple more of the comp operators are still missing. I'm fixing to shut down green tomorrow. They'll surrender or I vent the section and that fixes it anyway. I've got prints on the missing operators. I'll pull in the informer Ngo and his lot. Ask questions and pinpoint what I can before we move. If agents can pull the comp people out so we're absolutely sure, so much the better."

"My men will cooperate," Edger said.

She nodded.

"That's the way," Mazian said cheerfully. "That's the kind of thing I expect from you, Signy; no more of this quarreling over prerogatives. Now will the two of you get about it?"

Signy finished her gla.s.s, rose. Edger did. She smiled and nodded at Mazian, but not at Edger, and walked out with a deliberate lightness. b.a.s.t.a.r.d, she thought. She did not hear Edger's steps behind her. When she entered the lift and started down to meet her escort, Edger was not with her. He had stayed behind to talk to Mazian. Wh.o.r.e.

The lift whisked her down to exit level. Her troops were where she had left them, ramrod stiff and carefully avoiding any altercation with Europe troops who came and went in the suiting room. A trio of Europers were there with smiles which wiped themselves at once when she walked out among them. She gathered up her escort and stalked out the lock, down the access to the dock, to the waiting lines of her own troops. vi Pell; Norway; blue dock; 1/8/53; 2300 hrs. md.; 1100 hrs. a. It was better when she had had a chance to relax, to bathe, to get the dock mess straightened out and the reports written.

She cherished no illusions that there would be anything done to the Australia trooper who had fired on Di and lived... not, at least, officially: but that woman would do well not to walk alone where Norway troops were docked, as long as she lived.

Di was all right, out of surgery and burning mad. That was healthy. He had a splice in a rib and a good deal of the blood in him was borrowed, but he was able to face vid and curse with coherency. It helped her spirits. Graff was with him, and there was a list of officers and crew willing to sit and keep Di quiet, a show of concern which would greatly disturb Di if he realized the extent of it.

Peace. A few hours' worth, until tomorrow, and operations in green. She propped her feet on her bed, sitting sideways at the desk in her own quarters, cross-handedly poured herself a second drink. She rarely had a second. When she did it went to thirds and fourths and fifths, and she wished Di or Graff were here, to sit and talk. She would go sit with them, but Di had a head of steam he was willing to let off, which would have his blood pressure up telling her the tale. No good for Di.

There were other diversions. She sat and thought a while, and, hesitating between the two, finally punched up the guard station. "Get Konstantin in here." They acknowledged. She sat back and sipped the drink, keyed in on this station and that to be sure that operations were going as they should and that the anger below decks stayed smothered. The drink failed to tranquilize; she still felt the urge to pace the floor, and there was not, even here, much floor to pace.

Tomorrow...

She dragged her mind back from that. One hundred twenty-eight dead civs in stabilizing white sector. It was going to be far worse in green, where all who had real reason to fear identification had taken cover. They could vent it if the two comp-skilled techs could not be turned up in time; indeed they could. It was the sensible solution; a quick death, if indiscriminate; a means to be sure they had all the fugitives... and more merciful to those individuals than to be left on a deteriorating station. Hansford on a grand scale, that was the gift they would leave Union, rotting bodies and the stench, the incredible stench of it... The door opened. She looked up at three troopers and at Konstantin-cleaned up, wearing brown fatigues, bearing a few patches on his face the meds had done. Not bad, she thought remotely, leaned forward on one arm. "Want to talk?" she asked him. "Or otherwise?"

He did not answer, but he showed no disposition to quarrel. She waved the troopers out. The door closed and Konstantin still stood there staring at something other than her.

"Where's Josh Talley?" he asked finally.

"Somewhere aboard. There's a gla.s.s in the cabinet over there. Want a drink?" "I want," he said, "to be set out of here. To have this station handed over to its own lawful government. To have an accounting of the citizens you've murdered."

"Oh," she said, laughed a breath and rea.s.sessed young Konstantin. Smiled sourly and pushed her foot against the bed, sending her chair back a bit. She gestured to the bed, a place for him to sit. "You want," she said. "Sit down. Sit down, Mr. Konstantin."

He did so. He stared at her with his father's mad dark stare.

"You don't really have any such illusions," she asked him, "Do you?"

"None."

She nodded, regretting him. Fine face. Young. Well-spoken; well-made. He and Josh were much alike. There were wastes in this war that sickened her. Young men like this turned into corpses. If he were anyone else... but his name happened to be Konstantin, and that doomed him. Pell would react to that name; and he had to go. "Want the drink?"

He did not refuse it. She pa.s.sed him her own gla.s.s, kept the bottle for herself.

"Jon Lukas stays as your puppet," he said. "Does he?"

There was no need to torment him with the truth. She nodded. "He takes orders."

"You're moving against green next?"

She nodded.

"Let me talk to them on com. Let me try to reason with them."

"To save your life? Or to replace Lukas? It won't work."

"To save theirs."

She stared at him a long, bleak moment.

"You're not going to surface, Mr. Konstantin. You're to vanish very quietly. I think you know that." There was a gun at her hip; she rested her hand on it as she sat, reckoning that he would not, but in case. "Let's say if I can find two individuals, I won't vent the section. Names are James Muller and Judith Crowell. Where are they? If I could locate them right off... it would save lives." "I don't know."

"Don't know them?"

"Don't know where they are. I don't think they're still alive, if they're supposed to be in green. I know the section too well; had means to have found them if they were there."

"I'm sorry for that," she said. "I'll do what I can as reasonably as I can. Promise you that. You're a civilized man, Mr. Konstantin. A vanished breed. If I could find a way to get you out of this I'd do it, but I'm hemmed in on all sides."

He said nothing. She kept an eye to him, sipped a mouthful from the bottle. He drank from the gla.s.s.

"What about the rest of my family?" he asked at last Her mouth twisted. "Quite safe. Quite safe, Mr. Konstantin. Your mother does everything we ask and your brother is harmless where he is. The supplies arrive on schedule and we have no reason to object to his presence down there. He's another civilized man, one-fortunately-without access to large crowds and sophisticated systems where our ships are docked."

His lips trembled. He drank the last remaining in the gla.s.s. She leaned forward and poured him more of the liquor. Took a deliberate chance in leaning close to him. It was gambling; it evened scales. It was time to call it quits. If he outlived tomorrow he would learn too much of what would happen and that was cruelty. There was a sour taste in her mouth the brandy would not cure. She pushed the bottle at him. "Take it with you," she said, "I'll let you go back to your quarters now. My regards to you, Mr. Konstantin." Some men would have protested, cried and pleaded; some would have gone for her throat, a way of hastening matters. He rose and went to the door without the bottle, looked back when it would not open.

She keyed the duty officer. "Pick up the prisoner." The acknowledgment came back. And on a second thought: "Bring Josh Talley while you're at it." That brought a flicker of panic to Konstantin's eyes. "I know," she said. "He's minded to kill me. But then he's undergone some changes, hasn't he?" "He remembers you."

She pursed her lips, smiled then without smiling. "He's alive to remember. Isn't he?"

"Let me talk to Mazian."

"Hardly practical. And he won't agree to hear you. Don't you know, Damon Konstantin, he's the source of your troubles? My orders come from him." "The Fleet belonged to the Company once. It was ours. We believed in you. The stations-all of us-believed in you, if not in the Company. What happened?" She glanced down without intending to, found it difficult to look up again and meet his ignorant eyes.

"Someone's insane," Konstantin said.

Quite possibly, she thought. She leaned back in the chair and found nothing to say.

"There's more than the other stations involved at Pell," he said. "Pell was always different. Take my advice, at least. Leave my brother in permanent charge on Downbelow. You'll get more out of the Downers if you do things the slow way. Let him manage them. They're not easy to understand, but they don't understand us easily either. They'll work for him. Let them do things their own way and they'll do ten times the work. They don't fight. They'll give you anything you ask for, if you ask and don't take."

"Your brother will be left there," she said.

The light by the door flashed. She keyed it open. They had brought Josh Talley. She sat watching... a quiet exchange of glances, an attempt to question without asking questions... "Are you all right?" Josh asked. Konstantin nodded. "Mr. Konstantin is leaving," she said. "Come in, Josh. Come on in." He did so, with a backward anxious look at Konstantin. The door closed between them. Signy reached again for the bottle, added to the gla.s.s which Konstantin had left on the side of the desk.

Josh too was cleaner, and the better for it. Thin. His cheeks had gone very hollow. The eyes-were alive.

"Want to sit down?" she asked. From him she did not know what to expect. He had always been acquiescent, in everything. Now she watched, antic.i.p.ating some act of craziness, remembering the time he had come to find her on the station, his shouting at her from the doorway. He sat down, quiet as he had ever been. "Old times," she said, and drank. "He's a decent man, is Damon Konstantin." "Yes," Josh said.

"Still interested in killing me?"

"There's worse than you."

She smiled grimly and the smile faded. "Know a pair named Muller and Crowell?

Know anyone by those names?"

"The names mean nothing to me."

"Have any contacts on Pell who could handle station comp?"

"No."

"That's the sole official question. I'm sorry you don't know." She sipped at the gla.s.s. "Considering Konstantin's welfare has you on good behavior. That it?" No answer. But it was truth. She watched his eyes and reckoned well that it was.

"I wanted to ask you the question," she said. "That's all."

"Who are they... the people you want? Why? What have they done?"

Questions. Josh had never questioned. "Adjustment agreed with you," she said.

"What were you up to when Australia's men waded in on you?"

Silence.

"They're dead, Josh. Does it matter now?"

His eyes went unfocused, the old absent look... back again. Beautiful, she thought of him, as she had thought a thousand times. And he was another one there was no sparing. She had thought she might, had reckoned without his sanity. When Konstantin went, he would become very dangerous. Tomorrow, she thought. It should be done tomorrow, at least.

"I'm Union," he said. "Not a regular... not what the records showed. Special services. You brought me here yourself. And there was another one of us who found his own way on... the way he did at Mariner. His name was Gabriel. And he ruined Pell. He acted against you, never the Konstantins. He and his operation a.s.sa.s.sinated Damon's family, lost him his wife... how it all went, I don't know. I didn't do it to him. But whatever the a.s.sumptions you've made, the power you've set in control of the station now... was bribed to murder by Gabriel. I know because I know the tactics. You've got the wrong man under arrest, Mallory. Your man Lukas was Gabriel's before he was yours."

The alcohol left her brain with cold suddenness. She sat with the gla.s.s in hand and stared into Josh's pale eyes and found her breath short. "This Gabriel... where is he?"

"Dead. You got the head of it. Him. A man named Coledy; another named Kressich; Gabriel. Station knew him as Jessad. They were killed by the troops that took us. Damon didn't know... didn't know a thing about it. You think he'd have been there meeting with them if he'd known they killed his father?" "But you got him there."

"I got him there."

"He knew about you?"

"No."

She drew a deep breath, let it go. "You think it makes a difference to us, how Lukas got there? He's ours."

"I tell you so you know it's finished. That there's nothing more to go after.

You've won. There's no need for any more killing."

"I should take a Unioner's word there's nothing more to hunt?" No answer. He was not slipping off into nowhere. The eyes were very much alive, full of pain.

"It was quite an act, Josh, that you put on with me." "No act. I'm born for what I do. My whole past is tapes. I had nothing when they got through with me on Russell's. I'm one of the hollow men, Mallory. Nothing real. Nothing inside. I belong to Union because my brain was programmed that way. I have no loyalties."

"But one, maybe."

"Damon," he said.

She considered the matter. Drained the gla.s.s until her eyes stung. "So why did you get him involved with this Gabriel?"

"I thought I saw a way to get us off Pell. To get a shuttle for Downbelow. I have a proposition for you."

"I think I know."

"You're in a position to get a man on a downbound shuttle... easily. Get him out of here if nothing else."

"What, not back in control of Pell?"

"You said it yourself. Lukas's mouth moves when you supply the words. That's all you want. All you ever wanted. Get him out of here. Safe. What does it cost you?"

He knew what was ahead, at least where it regarded Konstantin's chances. She looked up at him and down at the gla.s.s again. "For your grat.i.tude? You imply a certain soft-headedness on my part, don't you? Quite a trade. Does any deep-teach work with you?"

"Eventually, I imagine. What did you have in mind?"

She pushed the b.u.t.ton. "Take him back."

"Mallory-" Josh said.

"I'll think on your deal," she said. "I'll think about it."

"Can I talk to him?"

She thought about that. Nodded finally. "That's cheap. You going to tell him how things were?"

"No," he said in a thin voice. "I don't want him to know any of it. In small things, Mallory, I trust you."

"And hate my guts."

He stood up, shook his head, looking down at her. The door light flashed. "Out," she said. And to the trooper who appeared in the doorway: "Put him with his friend. Give them any reasonable comfort they ask for." Josh left with the guard. The door closed and locked. She sat still, moved finally to prop her feet on the bed.

The thought had occurred to her that a Konstantin could be useful at a later stage of the war; if Union took the bait; if Union seized Pell and restored it. Then it might be useful to produce a Konstantin, in their hands-if he were like Lukas; but he was not. There was no use for him. Mazian would never go for it. The shuttle was one way out of the dilemma. And the thing would not be known-if the Fleet moved out soon. A long time before Union could ferret young Konstantin out of the bush. Long enough for the rest of the plan to work, Pell to die, depriving Union of a base, or live, causing Union organizational trouble. Josh's idea might work. Might. She reached and poured yet another drink, sat with her hand white-knuckled round the gla.s.s.