Downbelow Station Part 3

There was a little silence from the other side. The council shifted in their seats, for approach alarms were flashing, screens flicking and clouding madly in their attempt to reckon with the carrier's accelerating approach. "A last scheduled convoy," the reply came, "is coming in under Kreshov of Atlantic from Pan-Paris. Good luck, Pell Station."

The contact was abruptly broken. Scan flashed, the vast carrier still gathering speed more than anything should in a station's vicinity. Jon had never seen Angelo angrier. The murmur in the council chamber deafened, and finally the microphone established relative silence again. Pacific shot to their zenith, disrupting the screens into breakup. When they cleared, it had pa.s.sed on, to take an unauthorized course, leaving them its flotsam, the freighters moving in at their slow, inexorable pace toward dock. Somewhere there was a muted call for security to Q.

"Reserve forces," Angelo ordered one of the section chiefs over com. "Call up off-duty personnel-I don't care how many times they've had callup. Keep order in there if you have to shoot to do it. Central, scramble crews to the shuttles, herd those merchanters into the right docks. Throw a cordon of short-haulers in the way if that's what it takes."

And after a moment as the collision alarms died and there was only the steady remaining report of the freighters on their slow way toward station: "We have to get more s.p.a.ce for Q," Angelo said, staring around him. "And with regret, we're going to have to take those two levels of red section... part.i.tion them in with Q-immediately." There was a sorrowful murmur from the tiers, and the screens flashed with an immediate registered objection from red-section delegates. It was perfunctory. There were no supporters on the screen to second their objection and bring it to vote. "Absolutely," Angelo continued, without even looking at it, "we can't dislodge any more residents, or lose those upper-level routings for the transport system. Can't. If we can't get support from the Fleet... we have to take other measures. And on a major scale, we have to start shifting population somewhere. Jon Lukas, with apologies for short notice, but we wish you could have made yesterday's meeting. That tabled proposal of yours... Our on-station construction can't handle security-risk workers. At one time you had plans in some detail for widening the base on Downbelow. What's the status of those?"

He blinked, suspicious and hopeful at once, frowned at the barb Angelo had to sling, even now. He gathered himself to his feet, which he did not need to do, but he wanted to see faces. "If I had received notification of the situation, I would have made every effort; as it was, I came with all possible haste. As for the proposal, by no means impossible: housing that number on Downbelow could be done in short order, with no difficulty... except for those housed there. The conditions... after three years, I can tell you... are primitive. Downer labor making pit housing, airtightened to a reasonable extent; enough compressors; and the simplest locally available materials for the bracing. Downer labor is always the most efficient down there; no inconvenience of breathers; but humans in great enough numbers can replace them-field work, manufacture, clearing land, digging their own dome sh.e.l.ls. Just enough Pell staff to supervise and guard them. Confinement is no problem; particularly your more difficult cases would do well down there-you take those breathers away, and they're not going anywhere or doing anything you don't want."

"Mr. Lukas." Anton Eizel stood up, an old man, a friend of Angelo's and a stubborn do-gooder. "Mr. Lukas, I must misunderstand what I'm hearing. These are free citizens. We're not talking about establishing penal colonies. These are refugees. We're not turning Downbelow into a labor camp." "Tour Q!" someone shouted from the tiers. "See what a wreck they've made out of those sections! We had homes there, beautiful homes. Vandalism and destruction. They're tearing up the place. They've attacked our security people with pipes and kitchen knives, and who knows if we got all the guns back after the riot?" "There've been murders over there," someone else shouted. "Gangs of hoodlums." "No," said a third, a strange voice in council. Heads turned to the thin man who had taken a seat, Jon saw, in the place he himself had vacated above. The person stood up, a nervous, sallow-faced individual. "My name is Va.s.sily Kressich. I was invited to come out of Q. I was a councillor on Russell's Station. I represent Q. All that you say did happen, in a panic, but there's order now, and the hoodlums have been removed to your detention." Jon drew a breath. "Welcome to councillor Kressich. But for the sake of Q itself, pressures should be relieved. Population should be transferred. The station has waited a decade on the Downbelow expansion, and now we have the manpower to begin it on a large scale. Those who work become part of the system. They build what they themselves live in. Does the gentleman from Q not agree?" "We need our papers cleared. We refuse to be transferred anywhere without papers. This happened to us once, and look at our situation. Further transfers without clear paper can only add to our predicament, taking us further and further from any hope of establishing ident.i.ty. The people I represent will not let it happen again."

"Is this a threat, Mr. Kressich?" Angelo asked.

The man looked close to collapse. "No," he said quickly. "No, sir. Only I-am speaking the opinion of the people I represent. Their desperation. They have to have their papers cleared. Anything else, any other solution is what the gentleman says-a labor camp for the benefit of Pell. Is that what you intend?" "Mr. Kressich, Mr. Kressich," said Angelo. "Will everyone please settle themselves to take things in order. You'll be heard in your turn, Mr. Kressich. Jon Lukas, will you continue?"

"I'll have the precise figures as soon as I can have access to central comp. I need to be brought current with the keys. Every facility on Downbelow can be expanded, yes. I still have the detailed plans. I'll have a cost and labor a.n.a.lysis available within a matter of days."

Angelo nodded, looked at him, frowning. It could not be a pleasant moment for him.

"We're fighting for our survival." Angelo said. "Plainly, there's a point where we seriously have to worry about our life-support systems. Some of the load has to be moved. Nor can we allow the ratio of Pell citizens to refugees to become unbalanced. We have to be concerned about riot... there and here. Apologies, Mr. Kressich. These are the realities under which we live, not of our choosing, nor, I'm sure, of yours. We can't risk the station or the base on Downbelow; or we find ourselves all on freighters bound for Earth, stripped of everything. That is the third choice."

"No," the murmur went around the room.

Jon sat down, silent, staring at Angelo, reckoning Pell's present fragile balance and odds as they existed. You've lost already, he thought of saying, of standing up in council and laying things out as they were. He did not. He sat with his mouth tightly closed. It was a matter of time. Peace... might afford a chance. But that was far from what was shaping out there with this influx of refugees from all these stations. They had all the Beyond flowing in two directions like a watershed, toward themselves and toward Union; and they were not equipped to handle it under Angelo's kind of rules. Year upon year of Konstantin rule, Konstantin social theory, the vaunted "community of law" which disdained security and monitoring and now refused to use the clenched fist on Q, hoping that vocal appeals were going to win a mob over to order. He could bring that matter up too. He sat still. There was a bad taste in his mouth, reckoning that what chaos Konstantin leniency had wrought on the station it would manage to wreak on Downbelow too. He foresaw no success for the plans he was asked for: Emilio Konstantin and his wife would be in charge of the work, two of a kind, who would let the Downers take their own time about schedules and protect their superst.i.tions and let them do things their own leisurely, lackadaisical way, which ended with equipment damaged and construction delayed. And what that pair would do with what was over in Q offered worse prospects.

He sat still, estimating their chances, and drawing unhappy conclusions. ii "It can't survive," he said to Vittorio that night, to his son Vittorio and to Dayin Jacoby, the only relative he favored. He leaned back in his chair and drank bitter Downer wine, in his apartment which was piled with the stacked expensive furniture which had been in the other, severed, rooms. "Pell's falling apart under us. Angelo's soft-handed policies are going to lose it for us, and maybe get our throats cut in riot into the bargain. It's going, you understand me? And do we sit and take what comes?"

Vittorio looked suddenly whey-faced as his habit was when talk turned serious.

Dayin was of another sort. He sat grim and thoughtful.

"A contact," Jon said yet more plainly, "has to exist." Dayin nodded. "In times like these, two doors might be a sensible necessity. And I'm sure doors exist all over this station... with the right keys." "How compromised... do you reckon those doors are? And where? Your cousin's handled cases of some of our transients. You have any ideas?" "Black market in rejuv drugs and others. That's in full flower here, don't you know? Konstantin himself gets it; you got it on Downbelow." "It's legal."

"Of course it's legal; it's necessary. But how does it get here? Ultimately it comes from Unionside; merchanters deal; it comes through. Someone, somewhere, is into the pipeline... merchanters... maybe even station-side contacts." "So how do we get one to get a contact back up the pipeline?"

"I can learn."

"I know one," Vittorio said, startling them both. He licked his lips, swallowed heavily. "Roseen."

"That wh.o.r.e of yours?"

"She knows the market. There's a security officer... high up. Clean paper all the way, but he's bought by the market. You want something unloaded or loaded, want a blind eye turned-he can arrange it."

Jon stared at his son, this product of a year's contract, his desperation to have an heir. It was not, after all, surprising that Vittorio knew such things. "Excellent," he said dryly. "You can tell me about it. Maybe we can trace something. Dayin, our holdings at Viking-we should look into them." "You aren't serious."

"I'm very serious. I've engaged Hansford. Her crew is still in hospital. Her interior's a shambles, but she'll go. They need the money desperately. And you can find a crew...through those contacts of Vittorio's. Don't have to tell them everything, just sufficient to motivate them."

"Viking's the next likely trouble spot. The next certain trouble spot."

"A risk, isn't it? A lot of freighters have accidents with things as they are. Some vanish. I'll hear from Konstantin over it; but I'll have the out... an act of faith in Viking's future. A confirmation, a vote of confidence." He drank the wine with a twist of his mouth. "You'd better go fast, before some flood of refugees. .h.i.ts us from Viking itself. You make contact with the pipeline there, follow it as far as you can. What chance has Pell got now but with Union? The Company's no help. The Fleet's adding to our problem. We can't stand forever. Konstantin's policies are going to see riot here before all's done, and it's time for a changing of the guard. You'll make that clear to Union. You understand... they get an ally; we get... as much as we can get out of the a.s.sociation. That second door to jump through, at worst. If Pell holds, we just sit still, safe; if not, we're better off than others, aren't we?" "And I'm the one risking my neck," Dayin said.

"So, would you rather be here when a riot finally breaks through those barriers? Or would you rather have a chance to make some personal gain with a grateful opposition... line your own pockets? I'm sure you will; and I'm sure you'll have deserved it."

"Generous," Dayin said sourly.

"Life here," Jon said, "isn't going to be any better. It could be very uncomfortable. It's a gamble. What isn't?"

Dayin nodded slowly. "I'll run down some prospects for a crew."

"Thought you would."

"You trust too much, Jon."

"Only this side of the family. Never Konstantins. Angelo should have left me there on Downbelow. He probably wishes he could have. But council voted otherwise; and maybe that was lucky for them. Maybe it was."

Chapter Eight.

Pell: 5/23/52 They offered a chair. They were always courteous, always called him Mr. Talley and never by his rank-civ habit; or maybe they made the point that here Unioners were still counted rebels and had no rank. Perhaps they hated him, but they were unfailingly gentle with him and unfailingly kind. It frightened him all the same, because he suspected it false.

They gave him more papers to fill out. A doctor sat down opposite him at the table and tried to explain the procedures in detail. "I don't want to hear that," he said. "I just want to sign the papers. I've had days of this. Isn't that enough?"

"Your tests weren't honestly taken," the doctor said. "You lied and gave false answers in the interview. Instruments indicated you were lying. Or under stress. I asked was there constraint on you and the instruments said you lied when you said there wasn't."

"Give me the pen."

"Is someone forcing you? Your answers are being recorded."

"No one's forcing me."

"This is also a lie, Mr. Talley."

"No." He tried and failed to keep his voice from shaking. "We normally deal with criminals, who also tend to lie." The doctor held up the pen, out of easy reach. "Sometimes with the self-committed, very rarely. It's a form of suicide. You have a medical right to it, within certain legal restrictions; and so long as you've been counseled and understand what's involved. If you continue your therapy on schedule, you should begin to function again in about a month. Legal independence within six more. Full function-you understand that there may be permanent impairment to your ability to function socially; there could be other psychological or physical impairments..." He s.n.a.t.c.hed the pen and signed the papers. The doctor took them and looked at them. Finally the doctor drew a paper from his pocket, pushed it across the table, a rumpled and much-folded sc.r.a.p of paper.

He smoothed it out, saw a note with half a dozen signatures. Your account in station comp has 50 credits. For anything you want on the side. Six of the detention guards had signed it; the men and women he played cards with. Given out of their own pockets. Tears blurred his eyes.

"Want to change your mind?" the doctor asked, He shook his head, folded the paper. "Can I keep it?" "It will be kept along with your other effects. You'll get everything back on your release."

"It won't matter then, will it?"

"Not at that point," the doctor said, "Not for some time."

He handed the paper back.

"I'll get you a tranquilizer," the doctor said, and called for an attendant, who brought it in, a cup of blue liquid. He accepted it and drank it and felt no different for it.

The doctor pushed blank paper in front of him, and laid the pen down. "Write down your impressions of Pell. Will you do that?"

He began. He had had stranger requests in the days that they had tested him. He wrote a paragraph, how he had been questioned by the guards and finally how he felt he had been treated. The words began to grow sideways. He was not writing on the paper. He had run off the edge onto the table and couldn't find his way back. The letters wrapped around each other, tied in knots. The doctor reached and lifted the pen from his hand, robbing him of purpose.

Chapter Nine.

Pell: 5/28/52 Damon looked over the report on his desk. It was not the procedure he was used to, the martial law which existed in Q. It was rough and quick, and came across his desk with a trio of film ca.s.settes and a stack of forms condemning five men to Adjustment.

He viewed the film, jaw clenched, the scenes of riot leaping across the large wall-screen, flinched at recorded murder. There was no question of the crime or the identification. There was, in the stack of cases which had flooded the LA office, no time for reconsiderations or niceties. They were dealing with a situation which could bring the whole station down, turn it all into the manner of thing that had come in with Hansford. Once life-support was threatened, once men were crazy enough to build bonfires on a station dock... or go for station police with kitchen knives... He pulled the files in question, keyed up printout on the authorization. There was no fairness in it, for they were the five the security police had been able to pull across the line, five out of many more as guilty. But they were five who would not kill again, nor threaten the frail stability of a station containing many thousands of lives. Total Adjustment, he wrote, which meant personality restruct. Processing would turn up injustice if he had done one. Questioning would determine innocence if any existed at this point. He felt foul in doing what he did, and frightened. Martial law was far too sudden. His father had agonized the night long in making one such decision after a board had pa.s.sed on it.

A copy went to the public defender's office. They would interview in person, lodge appeals if warranted. That procedure too was curtailed under present circ.u.mstance. It could be done only by producing evidence of error; and evidence was in Q, unreachable. Injustices were possible. They were condemning on the word of police under attack and the viewing of film which did not show what had gone before. There were five hundred reports of theft and major crimes on his desk when before there had been a Q, they might have dealt with two or three such complaints a year. Comp was flooded with data requests. There had been days of work done on id's and papers for Q, and all of that was sc.r.a.pped. Papers had been stolen and destroyed to such an extent in Q that no paper could be trusted to be accurate. Most of the claims to paper were probably fradulent, and loudest from the dishonest. Affidavits were worthless where threat ruled. People would swear to anything for safety. Even the ones who had come in good order were carrying paper they had no confirmation on: security confiscated cards and papers to save those from theft, and they were pa.s.sing some few out where they were able to establish absolute id and find a station-side sponsor for them-but it was slow, compared to the rate of influx; and main station had no place to put them when they did. It was madness. They tried with all their resources to eliminate red tape and hurry; and it just got worse.

"Tom," he keyed, a private note to Tom Ushant, in the defender's office, "if you get a gut feeling that something's wrong in any of these cases, appeal it back to me regardless of procedures. We're putting through too many condemnations too fast; mistakes are possible. I don't want to find one out after processing starts."

He had not expected reply. It came through. "Damon, look at the Talley file if you want something to disturb your sleep. Russell's used Adjustment." "You mean he's been through it?"

"Not therapy. I mean they used it questioning him." "I'll look at it." He keyed out, hunted the access number, pulled the file in comp display. Page after page of their own interrogation data flicked past on the screen, most of it uninformative: ship name and number, duties... an armscomper might know the board in front of him and what he shot at, but little more. Memories of home then... family killed in a Fleet raid on Cyteen system mines; a brother, killed in service-reason enough to carry grudges if a man wanted to. Reared by his mother's sister on Cyteen proper, a plantation of sorts... then a government school, deep-teaching for tech skills. Claimed no knowledge of higher politics, no resentments of the situation. The pages pa.s.sed into actual transcript, uncondensed, disjointed ramblings... turned to excruciatingly personal things, the kind of intimate detail which surfaced in Adjustment, while a good deal of self was being laid bare, examined, sorted. Fear of abandonment, that deepest; fear of being a burden on his relatives, of deserving to be abandoned: he had a tangled kind of guilt about the loss of his family, had a pervading fear of it happening again, in any involvement with anyone. Loved the aunt. Took care of me, the thread of it ran at one point. Held me sometimes. Held me ... loved me. He had not wanted to leave her home. But Union had its demands; he was supported by the state, and they took him, when he came of age. After that, it was state-run deep-teach, taped education, military training and no pa.s.ses home. He had had letters from the aunt for a while; the uncle had never written. He believed the aunt was dead now, because the letters had stopped some years ago.

She would write, he believed. She loved me. But there were deeper fears that she had not; that she had really wanted the state money; and there was guilt, that he had not come home; that he had deserved this parting too. He had written to the uncle and gotten no answer. That had hurt him, though he and the uncle had never loved each other. Att.i.tudes, beliefs... another wound, a broken friendship; an immature love affair, another case in which letters stopped coming, and that wound involved itself with the old ones. A later attachment, to a companion in service... uncomfortably broken off. He tended to commit himself to a desperate extent. Held me, he repeated, pathetic and secret loneliness. And more things. He began to find it. Terror of the dark. A vague, recurring nightmare: a white place. Interrogation. Drugs. Russell's had used drugs, against all Company policy, against all human rights-had wanted badly something Talley simply did not have. They had gotten him from Mariner zone-from Mariner-transferred to Russell's at the height of the panic. They had wanted information at that threatened station; had used Adjustment techniques in interrogation. Damon rested his mouth against his hand, watched the fragmentary record roll past, sick at his stomach. He felt ashamed at the discovery, naive. He had not questioned Russell's reports, had not investigated them himself; had had other things on his hands, and staff to take care of that matter; had not-he admitted it-wanted to deal with the case any more than he absolutely had to. Talley had never called him. Had conned him. Had held himself together, already unstrung from previous treatment, to con Pell into doing the only thing that might put an end to his mental h.e.l.l. Talley had looked him straight in the eye and arranged his own suicide.

The record rambled on... from interrogation under drugs to chaotic evacuation, with stationer mobs on one side and the military threatening him on the other. And what it had been, what had happened during that long voyage, a prisoner on one of Mazian's ships... Norway ... and Mallory.

He killed the screen, sat staring at the stack of papers, the unfinished condemnations. After a time he set himself to work again, his fingers numb as he signed the authorizations.

Men and women had boarded at Russell's Star, folk who, like Talley, might have been sane before it all started. What had gotten off those ships, what existed over in Q... had been made, of folk no different than themselves. He simply pushed the destruct on lives like Talley's, which were already gone. On men like himself, he thought, who had gone over civilized limits, in a place where civilization had stopped meaning anything.

Mazian's Fleet-even they, even the likes of Mallory-had surely started differently.

"I'm not going to challenge," Tom told him, over a lunch they both drank more than ate.

And after lunch he went to the small Adjustment facility over in red, and back into the treatment area. He saw Josh Talley. Talley did not see him, although perhaps it would not have mattered. Talley was resting at that hour, having eaten. The tray was still on the table, and he had eaten well. He sat on the bed with a curiously washed expression on his face, all the lines of strain erased. ii Angelo looked up at the aide, took the report of the ship outbound and scanned the manifest, looked up. "Why Hansford?"

The aide shifted his weight, distressed. "Sir?"

"Two dozen ships idle and Hansford has a commission to launch? Unfitted? And with what crew?"

"I think crew was hired off the inactive list, sir."

Angelo leafed through the report. "Lukas Company. Viking-bound with a stripped ship and a dock-bound crew and Dayin Jacoby for a pa.s.senger? Get Jon Lukas on the com."

"Sir," the aide said, "the ship has already left dock."

"I can see the time. Get me Jon Lukas."

"Yes, sir."

The aide went out. In moments the screen on the desk went bright and Jon Lukas came on. Angelo took a deep breath, calmed himself, angled the report toward the pickup. "See that?"

"You have a question?"

"What's going on here?"

"We have holdings at Viking. Business to carry on. Shall we let our interest there sink into panic and disorder? They're due some rea.s.surance." "With Hansford?"

"We had an opportunity to engage a ship at below standard. Economics, Angelo."

"Is that all?"

"I'm not sure I take your meaning."

"She carried nothing like full cargo. What kind of commodity do you plan to pick up at Viking?"

"We carry as much as we can with Hansford in her present condition. She'll refit there, where facilities are less crowded. Refitting is the hire for which we got her use, if you must know. What she carries will pay the bill; she'll lade full on return, critical supplies. I'd think you'd be pleased. Dayin is aboard to supervise and to administer some business at our Viking office." "You're not minded, are you, that this full lading include Lukas Company personnel... or others? You're not going to sell pa.s.sage off Viking. You're not going to pull that office out."

"Ah. That's your concern."

"That has to be my concern when ships go out of here with no sufficient cargo to justify their moving, headed for a population we can't handle if it panics. I'm telling you, Jon, we can't take chances on some loose talk or some single company pulling its favored employees out and starting a panic on another station. You hear me?"

"I did discuss the matter with Dayin. I a.s.sure you our mission is supportive.

Commerce has to continue, doesn't it, or we strangle. And before us, Viking. Stations they rely on have collapsed. Let Viking start running into shortages and they may be here in our laps with no invitation. We're taking them foodstuffs and chemicals; nothing Pell may run short of... and we have the only two usable holds on the ship fully loaded. Is every ship launched subject to this inquisition? I can provide you with the company books if you want to see them. I take this amiss. Whatever our private feelings, Angelo, I think Dayin deserves commendation for being willing to go out there under the circ.u.mstances. It doesn't deserve a fanfare-we asked for none-but we would have expected something other than accusations. Do you want the books, Angelo?" "Hardly. Thank you, Jon, and my apologies. So long as Dayin and your ship's master appreciate the hazards. Every ship that launches is going to be scrutinized, yes. Nothing personal."

"Any questions you have, Angelo, so long as they're equally applied. Thank you." "Thank you, Jon." Jon keyed out. Angelo did so, sat staring at the report, riffled through it, finally signed the authorization after the fact and dumped it into the Record tray; all the offices were running behind. Everyone. They were using too many man-hours and too much comp time on the Q processing. "Sir." It was his secretary, Mills. "Your son, sir."

He keyed acceptance of a call, looked up in some surprise as the door opened instead and Damon walked in. "I brought the processing reports myself," Damon said. He sat down, leaned on the desk with both arms. Damon's eyes looked as tired as he himself felt, which was considerable. "I've processed five men into Adjustment this morning."

"Five men isn't a tragedy," Angelo said wearily. "I've got a lottery process set up for comp to pick who goes and stays on station. I've got another storm on Downbelow that's flooded the mill again, and they've just found the victims from the last washout. I've got ships pulling at the tether now that the panic's worn down, one that's just slipped, two more to go tomorrow. If rumor has it that Mazian's chosen Pell for a refuge, where does that leave the remaining stations? What when they panic and head here by the shipload? And how do we know that someone isn't out there right now, selling pa.s.sage to more frightened people? Our life-support won't take much more." He gestured loosely toward a stack of doc.u.ments. "We're going to militarize what freighters we can, by some pretty strong financial coercion."

"To fire on refugee ships?"

"If ships come in that we can't handle-yes. I'd like to talk to Elene sometime today; she'd be the one to make the initial approach to the merchanters. I can't muster sympathy for five rioters today. Forgive me." His voice cracked. Damon reached across the desk, caught his wrist and pressed it, let it go again. "Emilio needs help down there?"

"He says not. The mill's a shambles. Mud everywhere."

They find all of them dead?"

He nodded. "Last night. Bennett Jacint and Ty Brown; Wes Kyle yesterday noon... this long, to hunt the banks and the reeds. Emilio and Miliko say morale is all right, considering. The Downers are building dikes. More of them have been anxious for human trade; I've ordered more let into base and I've authorized some of the trained ones into maintenance up here: their life-support is in good shape, and it frees up some techs we can upgrade. I'm shuttling down every human volunteer who'll go, and that means even trained dock hands; they can handle construction equipment. Or they can learn. It's a new age. A tighter one." He pressed his lips together, sucked in a long breath. "Have you and Elene thought of Earth?"

"Sir?"

"You, your brother, Elene and Miliko-think about it, will you?"