The City Who Fought Part 12

"Come on in," Simeon invited. Channa looked up from her notescreen and reinforced the welcome.

"Uh, hi," the kid said nervously. Simeon noted that he walked with a cane. "I'm Seld Chaundra? I'm in Joat's cla.s.s?"

"Oh, really?" Simeon said helpfully.

"Yeah." Seld's free hand bunched the material of his trouser leg. "Um, is she here?"

"Not at the moment," Channa told him, resting her chin on her fist "We'll give her a message," and Channa added a mental/tkmk. MIs there a problem?"

"Oh, no," he shook his head in wide-eyed denial. "It's just... Well, she wasn't in cla.s.s today and I was worried that she might of got hurt or something yesterday.** "That's very kind of you," Channa said approvingly "But she came through.., okay!" ''

"We'll tell her that you were asking about her, Seld," Simeon told him.

"Will she be in school tomorrow?"

"Quite possibly," Simeon said mendaciously. "I'll let her know you were asking for her and tell her to contact you. Does she have your call code?"

"Yes, sir, she does, sir." Like all station-born youngsters, Seld was not unaccustomed to Simeon speaking from the nearest sound cube, but he had the good manners to bow to the column. "Sorry to have bothered you." He waved at Channa and stepped back through the door.

"Welir Channa said, pleased. "She has a peer who cares enough about her well-being to beard you in your lair."

"You think that's enough to entice her back out?"

Channa deliberated. "I think it will certainly alter her thinking. When you're sure no one cares about you, it's easy to be depressed and feel hopeless. Go on," she said with an encouraging smile at his column, "tell her Seld was here, worried she might have been hurt, and looking for her in cla.s.s."

"Yeah, he's okay-Seld is, sort of," Joat said. "Bit of a kid,y'know?"

"Chronologically speaking," Simeon remarked blandly, "you're a kid yourself."

Joat laughed with more than a trace of bitterness; it was a sound like a yelping coyote. "Never had the time or chance to be one. So it's a little late, like, to expect me to act like one."

Silence fell in the improvised nest at the intersection of the ducts, b.u.t.the girl heard just the softest sigh of regret issue from Simeon.

Softie, sbe thought,>fith a rueful affection. Even if he was ... what was tike jingle? Spam-in-a-can? Nice guy, she decided. He need&someone to look after him. Besides Channa Hap, that was. Channa might be his brawn, but she seemed to have looked after everyone else yesterday instead of him.

"Yeah, Seld's not a bad osco. Sorta knows his way around a keyboard, in a kid sorta way. Can't fight worth s.h.i.t, though."

"He says they miss you at school," Simeon replied noncommittally.

Joat gave a second bark of sour laughter. "Not that b.i.t.c.hite Louise Koprekni, she doesn't"

"Pushing her face in the toilet bowl was a bit extreme, wasn't it, Joat?"

"She said I smelled."

"You did smell. Then! That's about the time you considered regular washing wasn't such a bizarre notion."

Joat's lower lip stuck out, and she turned back to her keyboard and the collection of miscellaneous electronic junk which Simeon had been trying to identify.

"What's that you're contrapting?" Simeon asked.

"Riffler."

"Dare I ask what a riffler is?" Do 7 want to know?

"Ultrasonic. Pops the caps." M Simeon's interrogative sound, she explained. "Bursts the capillaries, like, you know, instant really, really bad sunburn?"

"It what?" Then he modified his tone to a more conversational level. "We hadn't planned on dragging you out, you know."

"I didn't figure you would.*1 "You haven't... ah... tried it out, have you?"

"Not yet."

"How will you know it works?"

"It will!" Hie confidence in that reply was unnerving.

"Wouldn't kill anyone, but it'll sure make 'em think twice about following me." ** "Ah, I see."

His visual picked up just the hint of a grin as Joat bent her head to continue her handiwork.

"Some things," she said cryptically.

Silence fell again. Conversations with Joat reminded Simeon of doc.u.mentaries he had seen of catching trout by hand. You had to be very patient to succeed.

"Looks like trouble coming," she said neutrally.

"Trouble's over," Simeon said. "Look, Joat, I do apologize for not checking on you during the alert, but ..."

"No need. You gave me a suit, remember. That was all I needed," Joat pointed out reasonably. "Something threatens you, the station, we're all in deep kimchee. Right? Much better you spent your time keeping us from getting in so deep we have to shovel our way out."

"You've an extremely realistic att.i.tude, Joat," Simeon said, with a certain tone of admiration for the independence in her that also worried him.

"I'm no sap," Joat announced with satisfaction. "Troubles don't come by ones and twos, either - you get 'em by kilobyte loads, fll be ready. " She patted the riffler.

*Tm sure you will," Simeon replied soothingly.

"Yuh. See you at dinner."

"At dinner?" He sounded surprised but that pleased her. "Umm, yes, see you then," he added, doing a good job of sounding casual.

Joat whistled soundlessly to herself as she felt Simeon's attention withdraw - most of it, at least She also switched on the white-noise maker and the scrambler she'd rigged up . She was no longer complete^ sure they worked, Simeon having had enough of a look at her contrivances to perhaps neutralize them. Not that he'd have had time to bother about her with so much else on his'mind these days. Even a brain had some limitations.

She didn't want an ai^Iience while she reran the stuff she'd recorded dfiring Channa's exploits on the intruder ship. First she screened something that had come in on the Central datablip just today. The watchman program Joat set up had cut it out and routed it^to her system automatically.

Stretching luxuriously, she popped the tab on a can of near-beer. She stayed away from the real thing because it made her feel loggy and squiff. She bit a big hunk off a chocolate nut bar, grinning around the mouthful with vindictive delight as the scene played on.

A crowd surrounded the obviously official building and their chant ran shrill and menacing as they waved their placards which bore the same message they chanted.

"Dorgan the bigot! Dorgan out! Dorgan the bigot! Dargan out!"

The ground-floor windows have been shattered and a line of riot-armed police were holding the SPRIM demonstrators at bay The visual shifted to an interior room where Ms. Dorgan of the Child Welfare department, looking rumpled and alarmed, was gesticulating wildly.

"And I categorically deny saying that sh.e.l.lpeople are unnatural abominations with no right to live!" she wailed. "Or that they make me want to puke!"

Joat grinned. She wanted to be a systems engineer when she grew up - or maybe even a brawn - but editing was a nice hobby. Editing transmissions of recorded conversations sent to SPRIM and MM, for example. Channa had the right idea, but adults had no enthusiasm for taking an idea and running with it "Like the teacher said," she muttered, taking another mouthful. "I gotta lot of buried hostility I got to learn to express."

"I felt a good deal like screaming myself" Joseph said.

Amos sighed and lowered himself fnto a chair. Once Joseph insisted, the doctor here - a man, oddly enough - had moved him into a small suite, with a private sitting room.

Apparently private, he reminded himself, though there might well be listening devices. Otherwise, it had the common strangeness of everything here, like soft synthetics for the walls which could alter shade or suddenly turn themselves into view screens. He had commanded that the s.p.a.ce-scene transform itself into something more restful, and the holograph had turned to a neutral brown solidity. In its way, that made him uneasy too. What appeared to be plain bare plastic was obviously anything but.

"It is difficult to beUeve that we are safe," he said, rubbing a hand over his face, which had grown enough beard to rasp. He resolved to ask for a some, or the local equivalent "To be frank, my brother, I never expected to wake again."

"Neither did I," Joseph said, prowling with slow restlessness. The gravity was slightly higher than Bethel, just enough to be noticeable. "But we do not know that we are safe - even from the Kolnari."

Amos looked up sharply. "We do not?"

"The sh.e.l.l - Guiyon," Joseph amended, at Amos' frown "- said that it -"

"He." Amos compressed his lips firmly after that correction; the more so since he himself had never felt entirely easy with Guiyon.

Guiyon saved us, he remembered. More than that. Guiyon had been the first to listen to his youthful doubts without recoiling in horror and ordering him to do penance. Only families descended from the prophet were allowed speech with the Planetary Manager. Most Bethelites thought that ent.i.ty was at best legend, at worst an abomination of the infidel. lam too old to befeve in nursery tales, Amos thought. He was a nian now, with many dejpending on him.

"He," Joseph sai4, making a soothing gesture with both hands, "He intended to take us to Rigel base. This is not Rigel."

"No," Amos conceded. "SSS-900-C. Although they seem reluctant to tell us more."

"Understandable, sir. Would you immediately trust fugitives who came so close to destroying them, though we knew it not? However, there are things they cannot help but tell us."

"Yes," Amos said slowly. "For one, that this is no military base."

"Just so, my brother. These are a peaceful people." At Amos' dubious look, he went on. "I was raised dockside, you will remember. I know more of traders and trading than most. These are respectable merchants and s.p.a.cefarers, by their own ethics, if not by Bethel customs. Dockside, we would have called them easy marks."

They looked at each other, haunted by what neither would mention first. Amos took hold of himself. A respectable, an ethical people deserved the truth.

"And we cannot know if the Kolnari still pursue," Amos whispered. Sickness tugged at the pit of his stomach. To achieve safety, even for so few, and jeopardize m turn their saviors. "We must talk to them!"

"All things considered, we didn't come out of the day too badly at all," Chief Administrator Ciaren said, once more running his stylus down his notescreen to be sure he'd missed nothing.

Ducking her head, Channa managed to hide a yawn. Meetings were meat and drink to Ciaren. When he had the opportunity to trot out his careful graphs and statistics for an audience, he positively glowed and inflated. Uke a plain giri mho's just been asked to dance by a high-school hero, she thought mordandy.

"We're down about three million credits," she pointed out, reaching for the water carafe.

Two section chiefs sprang to fill the gla.s.s for her: feme was already a bit wearing. The meeting was supposed to have started as a working breakfast. Plates and crumbs were scattered around the table. Gusky was there too, looking a little pale - either from the medications, or from the party. Not only was he prominent in his own business, he was a section representative and, with the recent favorable publicity, looked likely to be re-elected.

Patsy was filing a fingernail. "Somebody has ta pony up the expenses," she pointed out. "Per example, we commandeered equipment from Namakuri-Singh - who arh not known to be a charitable organization."

Gusky grunted, "/commandeered the equipment which will have to be replaced, which you, Simeon, authorized me to use."

"Not me personally. The station!" Simeon said sharply. Brains tended to be sensitive about personal debt, having had to pay off such a whacking great amount for their early care and education. "No one could say that I didn't do everything possible to minimize damage.

Loss of the tngs-wa$unavoidable and the station is morally obligated tfc compensate their owners for the loss. Which; Ciaren,' we will recoup from Lloyd's, invoking the force majeur clause."

"Yes, yes, of course, it will," Ciaren muttered, making a quick notation.

"The other unavoidable losses and damages which we've discussed today are going to wipe out the contingency fund."

"It will?" Gus asked unhappy.

"Yes, it will," Ciaren agreed in a lugubrious tone of voice.

"In a good cause," Simeon said briskly.

"On this Lloyd's claim," Gus went on, "well be dealing with bureaucrats, bureaucratic accountants at that Government bureaucratic accountants, with lawyers in tow."

"The withered hand on the controls," Simeon intoned.

"We could just rely on their decency, good nature and inherent generosity," Gus suggested. Even Ciaren laughed at that Channa shuddered. "So we should be prepared for accusations of mismanagement and hand-wringing over the cost of every rivet, bolt and coupling." She affected a nasal tone. "Didn't you realize that seventeen point three seconds boost would have done just as well as seventeen-point-seven?"

Chief Administrator Ciaren a.s.sured them that his entries would be meticulously checked, all forms would be properly made out, filed on time and to the proper bureaus.

"I won't go so for as to guarantee prompt or even early payment," he said, allowing himself a very small smile, "given that we'll be dealing with departments over which I have no control. But, I can promise you that I will do my best, and that is very good indeed."

There was a rumble of agreement "At least we," Channa said firmly, "can authorize immediate release of the contingency fund to private persons who suffered damage and loss, or have to make repairs germane to station functions. Claren, just get the claims into the insurance companies as soon as you can."

"Good luck," said the owner of a minerals company in a wry tone. "I've noticed they're always more enthusiastic about collecting premiums than paying claims."

That brought another chuckle. Channa turned to the pillar and Simeon's image. "As far as the station exterior damage is concerned, isn't there a relevant clause in the station's charter that guarantees immediate repairs?"

"Hmmm." The holo turned static for a moment before Simeon smiled, "Yes, as a matter of feet-emergency expenses for maintaining station integrity and saving life and limb are covered under the general station contract with Lloyd's. We ought to be able to cover everything."

"Excellent," Claren said, tapping at his keyboard. "'Nuther li'l thing. Fo' all them drills, Simeon, when we was supposed to know what to do iffen thar was a real one, thar was a mighty lot of folks ended up runnin* around like scalded roosters. Ought to be fined, to remind 'em to pay attention."

"Fined? Yes, fined! Fine. Good notion, Patsy," Simeon said, "And the longer they've been on station and should know better, the heavier the fine. Pinch a pocket, mark the memory. What bothers me is why didn't they know where they were supposed to be. I call these drills - even if you're always complaining about them - often enough for everyone to know exactly where to go and what to do. Their names are always checked off on the roster, so why the h.e.l.l were they running around b.u.mping into walls?"

"Aw, thar's allus some >lk who panic, Simeon," Patsy said. "Mos' of us was*whar we shoulda been. And Lord knows, we got-it all done, din we?" Patsy said.

"I'm inclined to think that perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt here," Channa put in. "But perhaps you should keep an eye on the group leaders, in the event that they just automatically check off every name on their list without verifying that everyone is in position and accounted for."

"a.s.sign them a buddy," Gus said. "If they're too helpless to know where to go and how to get there, make it a joint responsibility."

"Should be the group leaders," Chaundra said in a disgusted tone.

"Joint responsibility! Excellent," Simeon said, "just like B & B teams."

The resolution was pa.s.sed unanimously.