Downbelow Station Read online

  And in final, outraged public demand for results in the deteriorating situation, the Earth Company back on Sol Station gave up the tax, diverted that fund to the building of a great Fleet, all jumpships, engines of destruction, Europe and America and all their deadly kindred.

  So was Union building, developing specialized warships, changing style as it changed technology. Rebel captains who had fought long years for their own reasons were charged with softness at the first excuse; ships were put into the hands of commanders with the right ideology, with more ruthlessness.

  Company successes grew harder. The great Fleet, outnumbered and with an immense territory to cover, did not bring an end to the war in a year or in five years. And Earth grew vexed with what had become an inglorious, exasperating conflict. Cut all the starships, the cry was now in the financing corporations. Pull back our ships and let the bastards starve.

  It was of course the Company Fleet which starved; Union did not, but Earth seemed incapable of understanding that, that it was no longer a question of fragile colonies in rebellion but of a forming power, well-fed, well-armed. The same myopic policies, the same tug-of-war between isolationists and Company which had alienated the colonies in the first place drew harder and harder lines as trade diminished; they lost the war not in the Beyond, but in the senate chambers and the boardrooms on Earth and Sol Station, going for mining within Earth's own system, which was profitable, and devil take the exploratory missions in any direction at all, which were not.

  No matter that they had jump now and that the stars were near. Their minds were geared to the old problems and to their own problems and their own politics. Earth banned further emigration, seeing the flight of its best minds. It weltered in economic chaos, and the drain of Earth's natural resources by the stations was an easy focus of discontent. No more war, they said; peace suddenly became good politics. The Company Fleet, 8

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  deprived of funds in a war in which it was engaged on a wide front, obtained supplies where and as it could.

  At the end, they were patchwork, fifteen carriers out of the once proud fifty, cobbled together at the stations still open to them. Mazian's Fleet, they called it, in the tradition of the Beyond, where ships were so few at first that enemies knew each other by name and reputation ... a recognition less common now, but some names were known. Conrad Mazian of Europe was a name Union knew to its regret; and Tom Edger of Australia was another; and Mika Kreshov of Atlantic, and Signy Mallory of Norway; and all the rest of the Company captains, down to those of the rider-ships. They still served Earth and the Company, with less and less love of either. None of this generation was Earthborn; they received few replacements, none from Earth, none from the stations in their territory either, for the stations feared obsessively for their neutrality in the war.

  Merchanters were their source of skilled crew and of troops, most of them unwilling.

  The Beyond had once begun with the stars nearest Earth; and now it started with Pell, for the oldest stations were all shut down as Earthward trade phased out and the pre-jump style of trade passed forever. The Hinder Stars were all but forgotten, unvisited.

  There were worlds beyond Pell, beyond Cyteen, and Union had them all now, real worlds, of the far-between stars which jump could reach; where Union used the birth labs still to expand populations, giving them workers and soldiers. Union wanted all the Beyond, to direct what would be the course of the future of man. Union had the Beyond, all but the thin arc of stations which Mazian's Fleet still thanklessly held for Earth and the Company, because they had once been set to do that, because they saw nothing they could do but that. At their backs was only Pell ... and the mothballed stations of the Hinder Stars. Remoter still, isolate ... sat Earth, locked in its inner contemplations and its complex, fragmented politics.

  No trade of substance came out of Sol now, or to it. In the insanity which was the War, free merchanters plied Unionside and Company Stars alike, crossed the battle lines at will, although Union discouraged that traffic by subtle harassments, seeking to cut Company supply.

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  Union expanded and the Company Fleet just held on, worldless but for Pell which fed them, and Earth which ignored them. On Unionside, stations were no longer built on the old scale. They were mere depots for worlds now, and probes sought still further stars. They were generations which had never seen Earth ... humans to whom Europe and Atlantic were creatures of metal and terror, generations whose way of life was stars, infinities, unlimited growth, and time which looked to forever. Earth did not understand them.

  But neither did the stations which remained with the Company or the free merchanters who carried on that strange crosslines trade.

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  2

  i

  In Approach to Pell: 5/2/52

  The convoy winked in, the carrier Norway first, and then the ten freighters— more, as Norway loosed her four riders and the protective formation spread itself wide in its approach to Pell's Star.

  Here was refuge, one secure place the war had never yet reached, but it was the lapping of the tide. The worlds of the far Beyond were winning, and certainties were changing, on both sides of the line.

  On the bridge of the ECS 5, the jump-carrier Norway, there was rapid activity, the four auxiliary command boards monitoring the riders, the long aisle of com operations and that of scan and that of their own command.

  Norway was in constant com link with the ten freighters, and the reports passed back and forth on those channels were terse, ships' operations only.

  Norway was too busy for human disasters.

  No ambushes. The station at Pell's World received signal and gave reluctant welcome. Relief whispered from post to post of the carrier, private, not carried on intership com. Signy Mallory, Norway's captain, relaxed muscles she had not known were tense and ordered armscomp downgraded to standby.

  She held command over this flock, third captain in seniority of the fifteen of Mazian's Fleet. She was forty-nine. The Beyonder Rebellion was far older than that; and she had been freighter pilot, rider captain, the whole gamut, all in the Earth Company's service. Her face was still young. Her hair was silver gray. The rejuv treatments which caused the gray kept the rest of her at somewhere near biological thirty-six; and considering what she shepherded in and what it portended, she felt aged beyond the forty-nine.

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  She leaned back in her cushion which looked over the upcurving, narrow aisles of the bridge, punched in on her arm console to check operations, stared out over the active stations and the screens which showed what vid picked up and what scan had. Safe. She lived by never quite believing such estimations.

  And by adapting. They all did, all of them who fought this war. Norway was like her crew, varied salvage: of Brazil and Italia and Wasp and jinxed Miriam B, parts of her dating all the way back to the days of the freighter war. They took what they could, gave up as little as possible ... as from the refugee ships she guided, under her protection. There had been in decades before, a time of chivalry in the war, of quixotic gestures, of enemy rescuing enemy and parting under truce. They were human and the Deep was wide, and they all had known it. No more. From among these civilians, neutrals, she had extracted the useful ones for herself, a handful who might adapt. There would be protests at Pell. It would do them no good. No protests would, on this or other matters. The war had taken another turn, and they were out of painless choices.

  They moved slowly, at the crawl which was the best the freighters could manage in realspace, distance Norway or the riders, unemcumbered, could cross pushing light. They had come in dangerously close to the mass of Pell's Star, out of plane with the system, risking jump accident and collisions. It was the only way these freighters could make haste ... and lives rode on making time.

  "Receiving approach instructions from Pell," com told her.

 
"Graff," she said to her lieutenant, "take her in." And punching in another channel: "Di, put all troops on standby, full arms and gear." She switched back to com: "Advise Pell it had better evacuate a section and seal it. Tell the convoy if anyone breaks formation during approach we'll blow them.

  Make them believe it."

  "Got it," com senior said; and in due time: "Stationmaster's on in person."

  The stationmaster protested. She had expected so.

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  "You do it," she told him— Angelo Konstantin, of the Konstantins of Pell.

  "You clear that section or we do. You start now, strip out everything of value or hazard, down to the walls; and you put those doors on lock and weld the access panels shut. You don't know what we're bringing you.

  And if you delay us, I may have a shipload dead: Hansford's life support is going. You do it, Mr. Konstantin, or I send the troops in. And you don't do it right, Mr. Konstantin, and you have refugees scattered like vermin all over your station, with no ID's and ugly-desperate. Forgive my bluntness.

  I have people dying in their own filth. We number seven thousand frightened civs on these ships, what left Mariner and Russell's Star.

  They're out of choices and out of time. You're not going to tell me no, sir."

  There was a pause, distance, and more than enough delay for distance.

  "We've sounded the evacuation for sections of yellow and orange dock, Captain Mallory. Medical services will be available, all that we can spare.

  Emergency crews are moving. We copy regarding sealing of the affected areas. Security plans will be set in motion at once. We hope that your concern is as great for our citizens. This station will not permit the military to interfere in our internal-security operations or to jeopardize our neutrality, but assistance under our command will be appreciated. Over."

  Signy relaxed slowly, wiped sweat from her face, drew an easier breath.

  "Assistance will be given, sir. Estimated docking ... four hours, if I delay this convoy all I can. I can give you that much time to get ready. Has news about Mariner gotten to you yet? It was blown, sir, sabotage. Over."

  "We copy four hours. We appreciate the measures you urge us to take and we are taking them in earnest. We are distressed to hear about the Mariner disaster. Request detailed briefing. Further advise you we have a Company team here at the moment. It's highly distressed at these proceedings."

  She breathed an obscenity into the com.

  "... and they're demanding to have all of you turned down for some other station. My staff is attempting to explain to them the condition of the ships and the hazard to life aboard them, but they're putting pressure on us. They consider Pell's neutrality threatened. Kindly appreciate that in your approach and bear in mind that the Company agents have requested contact with you in person. Over."

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  She repeated the obscenity, expelled a breath. The Fleet avoided such meetings when possible, rare as they were in the last decade. "Tell them I'll be busy. Keep them off the docks and out of our area. Do they need pictures of starving colonists to take back with them? Bad press, Mr.

  Konstantin. Keep them out of our way. Over."

  "They're armed with government papers. Security Council. That kind of Company team. They have rank to use and they're demanding transport deeper Beyond. Over."

  She chose a second obscenity and swallowed it. "Thank you, Mr.

  Konstantin. I'll capsule you my recommendations on procedures with the refugees; they've been worked out in detail. You can, of course, ignore them, but I'd advise against it. We can't even guarantee you that what we're disembarking on Pell isn't armed. We can't get among them to find out. Armed troops can't get in there, you understand? That's what we're giving you. I'd advise you keep the Company boys out of our docking area entirely before we have hostages to deal with. Copy? End transmission."

  "We copy. Thank you, captain. End transmission."

  She slumped in place, glared at the screens and shot an order to com to capsule the instructions to station command.

  Company men. And refugees from lost stations. Information kept coming steadily from stricken Hansford, with a calm on the part of its crew she admired. Strictly procedures. They were dying over there. Crew was sealed into command and armed, refusing to abandon ship, refusing to let a rider take Hansford in tow. It was their ship. They stayed by it and did what they could for those aboard, by remote. They had no thanks from the passengers, who were tearing the ship apart— or had been doing so, until the air fouled and the systems began to break down.

  Four hours.

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  ii

  Norway. Russell's had met disaster, and Mariner. Rumor ran through the station corridors, aboil with the confusion and anger of residents and companies that had been turned out with all their property. Volunteers and native workers aided in the evacuation; dock crews used the loading machinery to move personal belongings out of the area selected for quarantine, tagging items and trying not to confuse them or allow pilferage. Com echoed with announcements.

  "Residents of yellow one through one nineteen are asked to send a representative to the emergency housing desk. There is a lost child at the aid station, May Terner. Will a relative please come at once to the aid station?... Latest estimates from station central indicate housing available in guest residency, one thousand units. All nonresidents are being removed in favor of permanent station residents, priority to be determined by lottery. Apartments available by condensation of occupied units: ninety-two. Compartments available for emergency conversion to residential space, two thousand, including public meeting areas and some mainday/alterday rotation of occupancy. The station council urges any person with personal arrangements possible through lodging with relatives or friends to secure same and to key this information to comp at the earliest possible; housing on private initiative will be compensated to the home resident at a rate equivalent to per capita expense for other housing.

  We are five hundred units deficient and this will require barracks-style housing for on-station residency, or transfer on a temporary basis for Downbelow residency, unless this deficiency can be made up by volunteering of housing or willingness of individuals to share assigned living space. Plans are to be considered immediately for residential use of section blue, which should free five hundred units within the next one hundred eighty days ... Thank you ... Will a security team please report to eight yellow?..."

  It was a nightmare. Damon Konstantin stared at the flow of printout and intermittently paced the matted floors of dock command blue sector, above the area of the docks where techs tried to cope with the logistics of evacuation. Two hours left. He could see from the series of windows the chaos all along the docks where personal belongings had been piled under 15

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  police guard. Everyone and every installation in yellow and orange sectors' ninth through fifth levels had been displaced: dockside shops, homes, four thousand people crowded elsewhere. The influx spilled past blue, around the rim to green and white, the big main-residence sectors.

  Crowds milled about, bewildered and distraught. They understood the need: they moved— everyone on station was subject to such transfers of residence, for repairs, for reorganizations ... but never on this kind of notice and never on this scale, and never without knowing where they were to be assigned. Plans were cancelled, four thousand lives upset.

  Merchanters of the two score freighters which happened to be in dock had been rudely ousted from sleepover accommodations and security did not want them on the docks or near the ships. His wife, Elene, was down there in a knot of them, a slim figure in pale green. Liaison with the merchanters

  ... that was Elene's job, and he was at her office fretting about it. He nervously watched the manner of the merchanters, which was angry, and meditated sending station police down there for Elene's protection; but
Elene seemed to be matching them shout for shout, all lost in the soundproofing and the general buzz of voices and machine noise which faintly penetrated the elevated command post. Suddenly there were shrugs, and hands offered all round, as if there had been no quarrel at all.

  Some matter was either settled or postponed, and Elene walked away and the merchanters strode off through the dispossessed crowds, though with shakes of their heads and no happiness evident. Elene had disappeared beneath the slanted windows ... to the lift, to come up here, Damon hoped.

  Off in green section his own office was dealing with an angry-resident protest; and there was the Company delegation fretting in station central making demands of its own on his father.

  "Will a medical team please report to section eight yellow?" com asked silkily. Someone was in trouble, off in the evacuated sections.

  The lift doors opened into the command center. Elene joined him, her face still flushed from argument.

  "Central's gone stark mad," she said. "The merchanters were moved out of hospice and told they had to lodge on their ships; and now they've got station police between them and their ships. They're wanting to cast off from station. They don't want their ships mobbed in some sudden 16

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  evacuation. Read it that they'd just as soon be out of Pell's vicinity entirely at the moment. Mallory's been known to recruit merchanters at gunpoint."

  "What did you tell them?"

  "To stand fast and figure there are going to be some contracts handed out for supplies to take care of this influx; but they won't go to any ship that bolts the dock, or that tangles with our police. And that has the lid on them, at least for a while."