Downbelow Station Part 7

"Is it?"

"That's why you came? That's why you came to see me? Why you asked me to come with you now?"

"What did you suppose?"

The wide-field stare clouded a bit, seemed to focus. "I have no way to know.

It's kind of you to come."

"Did you think it might not be kind?"

"I don't know how much memory I have. I know there are gaps. I could have known you before. I could remember things that aren't so. It's all the same. You did nothing to me, did you?"

"I could have stopped it."

"I asked for Adjustment... didn't I? I thought that I asked."

"You asked, yes."

"Then I remember something right. Or they told me. I don't know. Shall I go on with you? Or is that all you wanted?"

"You'd rather not go?"

A series of blinks. "I thought-when I wasn't so well-that I might have known you. I had no memory at all then. I was glad you came. It was someone... outside the walls. And the books... thank you for the books. I was very glad to have them."

"Look at me."

Talley did so, an instant centering, a touch of apprehension.

"I want you to come. I'd like you to come. That's all."

"To where you said? To meet your wife?"

"To meet Elene. And to see Pell. The better side of it." "All right." Talley's regard stayed with him. The drifting, he thought... that was defense; retreat. The direct gaze trusted. From a man with gaps in his memory, trust was all-encompa.s.sing.

"I know you," Damon said. "I've read the hospital proceedings, I know things about you I don't know about my own brother. I think it's fair to tell you that."

"Everyone's read them."

"Who-everyone?"

"Everyone I know. The doctors... all of them in the center." He thought that over. Hated the thought that anyone should submit to that much intrusion. "The transcripts will be erased."

"Like me." The ghost of a smile quirked Talley's mouth, sadness.

"It wasn't a total restruct," Damon said. "Do you understand that?"

"I know as much as they told me."

The car was coming slowly to rest in green one. The doors opened on one of the busiest corridors in Pell. Other pa.s.sengers wanted in; Damon took Talley's arm, shepherded him through. Some few heads turned at their presence in the crowd, the sight of a stranger of unusual aspect, or the face of a Konstantin... mild curiosity. Voices babbled, undisturbed. Music drifted from the concourse, thin, sweet notes. A few of the Downer workers were in the corridor, tending the plants which grew there. He and Talley walked with the general flow of traffic, anonymous within it The hall opened onto the concourse, a darkness, the only light in it coming from the huge projection screens which were its walls: views of stars, of Downbelow's crescent, of the blaze of the filtered sun, the docks viewed from outside cameras. The music was leisurely, an enchantment of electronics and chimes and sometime quiver of ba.s.s, balanced moment by moment to the soft tenor of conversation at the tables which filled the center of the curving hall. The screens changed with the ceaseless spin of Pell itself, and images switched in time from one to another to the screens which extended from floor to lofty ceiling. The floor and the tiny human figures and the tables alone were dark. "Quen-Konstantin," he said to the young woman at the counter by the entry. A waiter at once moved to guide them to the reserved table. But Talley had stopped. Damon looked back, found him staring about at the screens with a heart-open look on his face. "Josh," Damon said, and when he did not react, gently took his arm. "This way." Balance deserted some newcomers to the concourse, difficulty with the slow spin of the images which dwarfed the tables. He kept the grip all the way to the table, a prime one on the margin, with unimpeded view of the screens.

Elene rose at their arrival. "Josh Talley," Damon said. "Elene Quen, my wife." Elene blinked. Most reacted to Talley. Slowly she extended her hand, which he took. "Josh, is it? Elene." She settled back to her chair and they took theirs. The waiter stood expectantly. "Another," she said.

"Special," Damon said, looked at Talley. "Any preference? Or trust me."

Talley shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

"Two," Damon said, and the waiter vanished. He looked at Elene. "Crowded, this evening."

"Not many residents go to the dockside lately," Elene said. That was so; the beached merchanters had staked out a couple of the bars exclusively, a running problem with security.

"They serve dinner here," Damon said, looking at Talley. "Sandwiches, at least."

"I've eaten," he said in a remote tone, fit to stop any conversation.

"Have you," Elene asked, "spent much time on stations?" Damon reached for her hand under the table, but Talley shook his head quite undisturbed.

"Only Russell's."

"Pell is the best of them." She slid past that pit without looking at it. One shot declined, Damon thought, wondering if Elene meant what she did. "Nothing like this at the others."

"Quen... is a merchanter name."

"Was. They were destroyed at Mariner."

Damon clenched his hand on hers in her lap. Talley stared at her stricken. "I'm sorry."

Elene shook her head. "Not your fault, I'm sure. Merchanters get it from both sides. Bad luck, that's all."

"He can't remember," Damon said.

"Can you?" Elene asked.

Talley shook his head slightly.

"So," Elene said, "It's neither here nor there. I'm glad you could come. The Deep spat you out; only a stationer'd dice with you?" Damon remained perplexed, but Talley smiled wanly, some remote joke he seemed to comprehend.

"I suppose so."

"Luck and luck," Elene said, glanced aside at him and tightened her hand. "You can dice and win on dockside, but old Deep loads his. Carry a man like that for luck. Touch him for it. Here's to survivors, Josh Talley." Bitter irony? Or an effort at welcome? It was merchanters' humor, impenetrable as another language. Talley seemed relaxed by it. Damon drew back his hand, and settled back. "Did they discuss the matter of a job, Josh?" "No."

"You are discharged. If you can't work, station will carry you for a while. But I did arrange something tentatively, that you can go to of mornings, work as long as you feel able, go back home by noon, maindays. Would that appeal to you?"

Talley said nothing, but the look on his face, half-lit in the image of the sun... it was nearest now, in the slow rotation... wanted it, hung on it. Damon leaned his arms on the table, embarra.s.sed now to give the little that he had arranged. "A disappointment, perhaps. You have higher qualifications. Small machine salvage, a job, at least... on your way to something else. And I've found a room for you, in the old merchanter's central hospice, bath but no kitchen... things are incredibly tight. Your job credit is guaranteed by station law to cover basic food and lodging. Since you don't have a kitchen, your card's good in any restaurant up to a certain limit There are things you have to pay for above that... but there's always a schedule in comp to list volunteer service jobs, that you can apply for to get extras. Eventually station will demand a full day's work for board and room, but not till you're certified able. Is that all right with you?"

"I'm free?"

"For all reasonable purposes, yes." The drinks arrived. Damon picked up his frothy concoction of summer fruit and alcohol, watched with interest as Talley sampled one of the delicacies of Pell and reacted with pleasure. He sipped at his own.

"You're no stationer," Elene observed after some silence. Talley was gazing beyond them, to the walls, the slow ballet of stars. You don't get much view on a ship, Elene had said once, trying to explain to him. Not what you'd think. It's the being there; the working of it; the feel of moving through what could surprise you at any moment. It's being a dust speck in that scale and pushing your way through all that Empty on your own terms, that no world can do and nothing spinning around one. It's doing that, and knowing all the time old goblin Deep is just the other side of the metal you're leaning on. You stationers like your illusions. And world folk, blue-skyers, don't even know what real is.

He felt a chill suddenly, felt apart, with Elene and a stranger across the table making a set of two. His wife and the G.o.d-image that was Talley. It was not jealousy. It was a sense of panic. He drank slowly. Watched Talley, who looked at the screens as no stationer did. Like a man remembering breathing. Forget station, he had heard in Elene's voice. You'll never be content here. As if she and Talley spoke a language he did not, even using the same words. As if a merchanter who had lost her ship to Union could pity a Unioner who had lost his, beached, like her. Damon reached out beneath the table, sought Elene's hand, closed it in his. "Maybe I can't give you what you most want," he said to Talley, resisting hurt, deliberately courteous. "Pell won't hold you forever now, and if you can find some merchanter to take you on after your papers are entirely clear... that's open too someday in the future. But take my advice, plan for a long stay here. Things aren't settled and the merchanters are moving nowhere but to the mines and back."

"The long-haulers are drinking themselves blind on dock-side," Elene muttered. "We'll run out of liquor before we run out of bread on Pell. No, not for a while. Things will get better. G.o.d help us, we can't contain what we've swallowed forever."

"Elene."

"Isn't he on Pell, too?" she asked. "And aren't we all? His living is tied up with it."

"I would not," Talley said, "harm Pell." His hand moved on the table, a slight tic. It was one of the few implants, that aversion. Damon kept his mouth shut on the knowledge of the psych block; it was no less real for being deep-taught Talley was intelligent; possibly even he could figure eventually what had been done to him.

"I-" Talley made another random motion of his hand, "don't know this place. I need help. Sometimes I'm not sure how I got into this. Do you know? Did I know?" Bizarre connection of data. Damon stared at him disquietedly, for a moment afraid that Talley was lapsing into some embarra.s.sing sort of hysteria, not sure what he was going to do with him in this public place. "I have the records," he answered Talley's question, "That's all the knowledge I have of it."

"Am I your enemy?"

"I don't think so."

"I remember Cyteen."

"You're making connections I'm not following, Josh."

Lips trembled. "I don't follow them either."

"You said you needed help. In what, Josh?"

"Here. The station. You won't stop coming by-"

"You mean visiting you. You won't be in the hospital anymore." Suddenly the sense of it dawned on him, that Talley knew that. "You mean do I set you up with a job and cut you loose on your own? No. I'll call you next week, depend on it." "I was going to suggest," Elene said smoothly, "that you give Josh comp clearance to get a call through to the apartment. Troubles don't keep office hours and one or the other of us would be able to untangle situations. We are, legally, your sponsors. If you can't get hold of Damon, call my office." Talley accepted that with a nod of his head. The shifting screens kept their dizzying course. They did not say much for a long time, listened to the music and nursed that round of drinks into a second.

"It would be nice," Elene said finally, "if you'd come to dinner at the end of the week... chance my cooking. Have a game of cards. You play cards, surely." Talley's eyes shifted subtly in his direction, as if to ask approval. "It's a long-standing card night," Damon said. "Once a month my brother and his wife would cross shifts with ours. They were on alterday... transferred to Downbelow since the crisis. Josh does play," he said to Elene.

"Good."

"Not superst.i.tious," Talley said.

"We won't bet," Elene said.

"I'll come."

"Fine," she said; and a moment later Josh's eyes half-lidded. He was fighting it, came around in an instant. All the tension was out of him. "Josh," Damon said, "you think you can walk out of here?"

"I'm not sure," he said, distressed.

Damon rose, and Elene did; very carefully Talley pushed back from the table and navigated between them... not the two drinks, Damon thought, which had been mild, but the screens and exhaustion. Talley steadied once in the corridor and seemed to catch his breath in the light and stability out there. A trio of Downers stared at them round-eyed above the masks.

They both walked him to the lift and rode with him back to the facility in red, returned him through the gla.s.s doors and into the custody of the security desk. They were into alterday now and the guard on duty was one of the Mullers. "See he gets settled all right," Damon said. Beyond the desk, Talley paused, looked back at them with curious intensity, until the guard came back and drew him down the corridor.

Damon put his arm about Elene and they started their own walk home. "It was a good thought to ask him," he said.

"He's awkward," Elene said, "but who wouldn't be?" She followed him through the doors into the corridor, walked hand in hand with him down the hall. "The war has nasty casualties," she said. "If any Quens could have come through Mariner... it would be that, just the other side of the mirror, wouldn't it?-for one of my own. So, G.o.d help us, help him. He could as well be one of ours." She had drunk rather more than he... grew morose whenever she did so. He thought of the baby; but it was not the moment to say anything hard with her. He gave her hand a squeeze, ruffled her hair, and they headed home.

Chapter Two.

Cyteen Station: security area; 9/8/52 Marsh had not yet arrived, not baggage or man. Ayres settled in with the others, chose his room of the four which opened by sliding part.i.tions onto a central area, the whole thing an affair of movable panels, white, on silver tracks. The furniture was on tracks, spare, efficient, not comfortable. It was the fourth such change of lodging they had suffered in the last ten days, lodging not far removed from the last, not visibly different from the last, no less guarded by the young mannequins, ubiquitous, and armed, in the corridors... the same for the months they had been at this place before the shifting about started. They did not, in effect, know where they were, whether on some station near the first or orbiting Cyteen itself. Questions obtained only evasions. Security, they said of the moves, and: Patience. Ayres maintained calm before his companion delegates, the same as he did before the various dignitaries and agencies, both military and civilian-if that had any distinction in Union-which questioned them, interrogations and discussions both singly and in a group. He had stated the reasons and the conditions of their appeal for peace until the inflections of his voice became automatic, until he had memorized the responses of his companions to the same questions; until the performance became just that, performance, an end in itself, something which they might do endlessly, to the limit of the patience of their hosts/interrogators. Had they been negotiating on Earth, they would have long since given up, declared disgust, applied other tactics; that was not an option here. They were vulnerable; they did as they could. His companions had borne themselves well in this distressing circ.u.mstance... save Marsh. Marsh grew nervous, restless, tense. And it was of course Marsh the Unionists singled out for particular attention. When they were in single session, Marsh was gone from their midst longest; in the four times they had been shifted lately, Marsh was the last to move in. Bela and Dias had not commented on this; they did not discuss or speculate on anything. Ayres did not remark on it, settling in one of the several chairs in the living area of their suite and picking up from the inevitable vid set the latest propaganda the Unionists provided for their entertainment: either closed-circuit, or if it were station vid, it indicated mentalities incredibly tolerant of boredom-histories years old, accounts cataloging the alleged atrocities committed by the Company and the Company Fleet. He had seen it all before. They had requested access to the transcripts of their own interviews with the local authorities, but these were denied them. Their own facilities for making such records, even writing materials, had been stolen from their luggage, and their protests were deferred and ignored. These folk had an utter lack of respect for diplomatic conventions... typical, Ayres thought, of the situation, of authority upheld by rifle-bearing juveniles with mad eyes and ready recitations of regulations. They most frightened him, the young, the mad-eyed, the too-same young ones. Fanatic, because they knew only what was poured into their heads. Put in on tape, likely, beyond reason. Don't talk with them, he had warned his companions. Do whatever they ask and make your arguments only to their superiors.

He had long since lost the thread of the broadcast. He cast a look up and about, where Dias sat with her eyes fixed on the screen, where Bela played a game of logic with makeshift pieces. Surrept.i.tiously Ayres looked at his watch, which he had tried to synch with the hours of the Unionists, which were not Earth's hours, nor Pell's, nor the standard kept by the Company. An hour late now. An hour since they had arrived here.

He bit at his lips, doggedly turned his mind to the material on the screen, which was no more than anesthetic, and not even effective at that: the slanders, they had gotten used to. If this was supposed to annoy them, it did not. There was, eventually, a touch at the door. It opened. Ted Marsh slipped in, carrying his two bags; there was a glimpse of two young guards in the corridor, armed. The door closed.

Marsh walked through with his eyes downcast, but all the bedroom doors were slid closed. "Which?" he asked, compelled to stop and ask of them. "Other side, other way," Ayres said. Marsh slung back across the room and set his bags down at that door. His brown hair fell in disorder, thin strands about his ears; his collar was rumpled. He would not look at them. All his movements were small and nervous.

"Where have you been?" Ayres asked sharply, before he could escape. Marsh darted a look back. "Foulup in my a.s.signment here. Their computer had me listed somewhere else."

The others had looked up, listened. Marsh stared at him and sweated. Challenge the lie? Show distress? The rooms were all monitored; they were sure of it. He could call Marsh a liar, and make clear that the game was reaching another level. They could... his instincts shrank from it... take the man into the bathroom and drown the truth out of him as efficiently as Union could question him. Marsh's nerves could hardly stand up to them if they did so. The gain was questionable on all fronts.

Perhaps... pity urged at him... Marsh was keeping his ordered silence. Perhaps Marsh wanted to confide in them and obeyed his orders for silence instead, suffering in loyalty. He doubted it. Of course the Unionists had settled on him... not a weak man, but the weakest of their four. Marsh glanced aside, carried his bags into his room, slid the door shut Ayres refused even to exchange glances with the others. The monitoring was probably visual as well, and continuous. He faced the screen and watched the vid.

Time was what they wanted, time gained by this means or gained by negotiations. The stress was thus far bearable. They daily argued with Union, a changing parade of officials. Union agreed to their proposals in principle, professed interest, talked and discussed, sent them to this and that committee, quibbled on points of protocol. On protocol, when materials were stolen from their luggage! It was all stalling, on both sides, and he wished he knew why, on theirs.

Military action was surely proceeding, something which might not benefit their side in negotiation. They would get the outcome dropped in their laps at some properly critical phase, would be expected to cede something further. Pell, of course. Pell was the most likely cession to ask; and that could not be allowed. The surrender of Company officers to Union's revolutionary justice was another likely item. Not feasible in fact, although some meaningless doc.u.ment could be arranged in compromise: outlawry, perhaps. He had no intention of signing Fleet personnel lives away if he could help it, but a yielding of objection on prosection of some station officials cla.s.sed as state enemies... that might have to be. Union would do as it wished anyway. And what happened this far remote would have little political impact on Earth. What the visual media could not carry into living rooms, the general public could not long remain exercised about. Statistically, a majority of the electorate could not or did not read complicated issues; no pictures, no news; no news, no event; no great sympathy on the part of the public nor sustained interest from the media: safe politics for the Company. Above all they could not jeopardize the majority they had won on other issues, the half century of careful maneuvering, the discrediting of Isolationist leaders... the sacrifices already made. Others were inevitable. He listened to the idiot vid, searched the propaganda for evidence to clarify the situation, listened to the reports of Union's alleged benefits to its citizens, its vast programs of internal improvement. Of other things he would wish to know, the extent of Union territory in directions other than Earthward, the number of bases in their possession, what had happened at the fallen stations, whether they were actively developing further territories or whether the war had effectively engaged their resources to the utmost... these pieces of information were not available. Nor was there information to indicate just how extensive the rumored birth-labs were, what proportion of the citizenry they produced, or what treatment those individuals received. A thousand times he cursed the recalcitrance of the Fleet, of Signy Mallory in particular. No knowing ultimately whether his course had been the right one, to exclude the Fleet from his operation. No knowing what would have happened had the Fleet fallen in line. They were now where they must be, even if it was this white set of rooms like all the other white sets of rooms they had experienced; they were doing what they had to-without the Fleet, which could have given them negotiating strength (minor), or proven a frighteningly random third side in the negotiations. The stubbornness of Pell had not helped; Pell, which chose to placate the Fleet. With support from the station they might have had some impact on the mentality of such as Mallory.

Which still returned to the question whether a Fleet which considered its own interests paramount could be persuaded to anything. Mazian and his like could never be controlled for the length of time it would take Earth to prepare defense. They were not, he reminded himself, not Earthborn; not regulation-followers, to judge by his sight of them. Like the scientific personnel who had reacted to Earth's emigration bans and summons homeward back in the old days... by deserting further Beyond. To Union, ultimately. Or to be like the Konstantins, who had been tyrants so long in their own little empire that they felt precious little responsibility toward Earth. And... this terrified him, when he let himself think about it... he had not expected the difference out there, had not expected the Union mentality, which seemed to slant off toward some angle of behavior neither parallel nor quite opposite to their own. Union tried to break them down... this bizarre game with Marsh, which was surely a case of divide and conquer. Therefore he refused to engage Marsh. Marsh, Bela, and Dias did not have detailed information in them; they were simply Company officers, and what they knew was not that dangerous. He had sent back to Earth the two delegates who, like himself, knew too much; sent them back to say that the Fleet could not be managed, and that stations were collapsing. That much was done. He and his companions here played the game they were given, maintained monastic silence at all times, suffered without comment the shifts in lodging and the disarrangements which were meant to unbalance them-a tactic merely aimed at weakening them in negotiation, Ayres hoped, and not that more dire possibility, that it presaged a seizure of their own persons for interrogation. They went through the motions, hoped that they were closer to success on the treaty than they had been.

And Marsh moved through their midst, sat in their sessions, regarded them in private with a bruised, disheveled look, without their moral support... because to ask reasons or offer comfort was to breach the silence which was their defensive wall. Why? Ayres had written once on a plastic tabletop by Marsh's arm. In the oil of his fingertip, something he trusted no lens could pick up. And when that had gained no reaction: What? Marsh had erased both, and written nothing, turned his face away, his lips trembling in imminent breakdown. Ayres had not repeated the question.

Now at length he rose, walked to Marsh's door, slid it open without knocking. Marsh sat on his bed, fully clothed, arms locked across his ribs, staring at the wall, or beyond it Ayres walked over to him, bent down by his ear. "Concisely," he said in the faintest of whispers, not sure even that would fail to be heard, "what do you think is going on? Have they been questioning you? Answer me." A moment pa.s.sed. Marsh shook his head slowly.

"Answer," Ayres said.

"I am singled out for delays," Marsh said, a whisper that stammered. "My a.s.signments are never in order. There's always some mixup. They keep me sitting and waiting for hours. That's all, sir."

"I believe you," Ayres said. He was not sure he did, but he offered it all the same, and patted Marsh's shoulder. Marsh broke down and cried, tears pouring down a face which struggled to be composed. The supposed cameras... they were eternally conscious of the cameras they believed to be present Ayres was shaken by this, the suspicion that they themselves were Marsh's tormentors, as much as Union. He left the room and walked back into the other. And swelling with anger he stopped amid the room, turned his face up to the complicated crystal light fixture which was his chiefest suspicion of monitoring. "I protest," he said sharply, "this deliberate and unwarranted hara.s.sment."

Then he turned and sat down, watched the vid again. His companions had reacted no more than to look up. The silence resumed.

There was no acknowledgment of the incident the next morning, in the arrival of the day's schedule, carried by a gun-wearing mannequin. Meeting 0800, it informed them. The day was starting early. There was no other information, not topic nor with whom nor where, not even mention for arrangements of lunch, which were usually included. Marsh came out of his room, shadow-eyed as if he had not slept "We don't have much time for breakfast," Ayres said; it was usually delivered to their quarters at 0730, and it was within a few minutes of that time.

The light at the door flashed a second time. It opened from the outside, no breakfast, rather a trio of the mannequin-guards.

"Ayres," one said. Just that, without courtesies. "Come."

He bit back a reply. There was no arguing with them; he had told his people so. He looked at the others, went back and got his jacket, playing the same game, taking time and deliberately irritating those waiting on him. When he reckoned that he had delayed as long as made the point he came alone to the door and into the custody of the young guards.