Downbelow Station Page 9

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  end to his mental hell. 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.

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  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 passenger?

  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 reassurance."

  "With Hansford?"

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

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  "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 passage 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 assure 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 circumstances. 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?"

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  "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 passage to more frightened people? Our life-support won't take much more." He gestured loosely toward a stack of documents.

  "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."

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  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?"
>
  "No," Damon said. "Pull out and run? You think that's what it's coming to?"

  "Figure the odds, Damon. We didn't get help from Earth, just observers.

  They're figuring on cutting their losses, not sending us reinforcements or ships. No. We're just settling lower and lower. Mazian can't hold forever.

  The shipyards at Mariner ... were vital. It's Viking soon; and whatever else Union reaches out to take. Union's cutting the Fleet off from supply; Earth already has. We're out of everything but room to run."

  "The Hinder Stars— you know there's some talk about reopening one of those stations—"

  "A dream. We'd never have the chance. If the Fleet goes ... Union would make it a target, same as us, just as quickly. And selfishly, completely selfishly, I'd like to see my children out of here."

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  Damon's face was very white. "No. Absolutely no."

  "Don't be noble. I'd rather your safety than your help. Konstantins won't fare well in years to come. It's mindwipe if they take us. You worry about your criminals; consider yourself and Elene. That's Union's solution ...

  puppets in the offices; lab-born populations to fill up the world ... they'll plow up Downbelow and build. Heaven help the Downers. I'd cooperate with them ... so would you ... to keep Pell safe from the worst excesses; but they won't have things that easy way. And I don't want to see you in their hands. We're targets. I've lived all my life in that condition. Surely it's not asking too much that I do one selfish thing— that I save my sons."

  "What did Emilio say?"

  "Emilio and I are still discussing it."

  "He told you no. Well, so do I."

  "Your mother will have a word with you."

  "Are you sending her?"

  Angelo frowned. "You know that's not possible."

  "So. I know that. And I'm not going, and I don't think Emilio will choose to either. My blessing to him if he does, but I'm not."

  "Then you don't know anything," Angelo said shortly. "We'll talk about it later."

  "We won't," Damon said. "If we pulled out, panic would set in here. You know that. You know how it would look, besides that I won't do it in the first place."

  It was true; he knew that it was."No," Damon said again, and laid his hand atop his father's, rose and left.

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  Angelo sat, looked toward the wall, toward the portraits which stood on the shelf, a succession of tridee figures ... Alicia before her accident; young Alicia and himself; a succession of Damons and Emilios from infancy to manhood, to wives and hopes of grandchildren. He looked at all the figures assembled there, at all the gathered ages of them, and reckoned that the good days hereafter would be fewer.

  After a fashion he was angry with his boys; and after another ... proud. He had brought them up what they were.

  Emilio, he wrote to the succession of images, and the son on Downbelow, your brother sends his love. Send me what skilled Downers you can spare.

  I'm sending you a thousand volunteers from the station; go ahead with the new base if they have to backpack equipment in. Appeal to the Downers for help, trade for native foodstuffs. All love.

  And to security: Process out the assuredly nonviolent. We're going to shift them to Downbelow as volunteers.

  He reckoned, even as he did it, where that led; the worst would stay on station, next the heart and brain of Pell. Transfer the outlaws down and keep the heel on them; some kept urging it. But fragile agreements with the natives, fragile self-respect for the techs who had been persuaded to go down there in the mud and the primitive conditions ... it could not be turned into a penal colony. It was life. It was the body of Pell, and he refused to violate it, to ruin all the dreams they had had for its future.

  There were dark hours when he thought of arranging an accident in which all of Q might decompress. It was an unspeakable idea, a madman's solution, to kill thousands of innocent along with the undesirables ... to take in these shiploads one after the other, and have accident after accident, keeping Pell free of the burden, keeping Pell what it was. Damon lost sleep over five men. He had begun to meditate on utter horror.

  For that reason too he wanted his sons gone from Pell. He thought sometimes that he might actually be capable of applying the measures some urged, that it was weakness that prevented him, that he was endangering what was good and whole to save a polluted rabble, out of which reports of rape and murder came daily.

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  Then he considered where it led, and what kind of life they all faced when they had made a police state of Pell, and recoiled from it with all the convictions Pell had ever had.

  "Sir," a voice cut in, with the sharper tone of transmissions from central.

  "Sir, we have inbound traffic."

  "Give it here," he said, and swallowed heavily as the schematic reached his screen. Nine of them. "Who are they?"

  "The carrier Atlantic, " the voice of central returned. "Sir, they have eight freighters in convoy. They ask to dock. They advise of dangerous conditions aboard."

  "Denied," Angelo said. "Not till we get an understanding." They could not take so many; could not; not another lot like Mallory's. His heart sped, hurting him. "Get me Kreshov on Atlantic. Get me contact."

  Contact was refused from the other end. The warship would do as it pleased. There was nothing they could do to prevent it.

  The convoy moved in, silent, ominous with the load it bore, and he reached for the alert for security.

  iii

  Downbelow: main base: 5/28/52

  The rain still came down, the thunder dying. Tam-utsa-pitan watched the humans come and go, arms locked about her knees, her bare feet sunk in mire, the water trickling slowly off her fur. Much that humans did made no sense; much that humans made was of no visible use, perhaps for the gods, perhaps that they were mad; but graves ... this sad thing the hisa understood. Tears, shed behind masks, the hisa understood. She watched, rocking slightly, until the last humans had gone, leaving only the mud and the rain in this place where humans laid their dead.

  And in due time she gathered herself to her feet and walked to the place of cylinders and graves, her bare toes squelching in the mud. They had put the earth over Bennett Jacint and the two others. The rain made of the 82

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  place one large lake, but she had watched; she knew nothing of the marks humans made for signs to themselves, but she knew the one.

  She carried a tall stick with her, which Old One had made. She came naked in the rain, but for the beads and the skins which she bore on a string about her shoulder. She stopped above the grave, took the stick in both her hands and drove it hard into the soft mud; the spirit-face she slanted so that it looked up as much as possible, and about its projections she hung the beads and the skins, arranging them with care, despite the rain which sheeted down.

  Steps sounded near her in the puddles, the hiss of human breath. She spun and leapt aside, appalled that a human had surprised her ears, and stared into a breather-masked face.

  "What are you doing?" the man demanded.

  She straightened, wiped her muddy hands on her thighs. To be naked thus embarrassed her, for it upset humans. She had no answer for a human. He looked at the spirit-stick, at the grave offerings ... at her. What she could see of his face seemed less angry than his voice had promised.

  "Bennett?" the man asked of her.

  She bobbed a yes, distressed still. Tears filled her eyes, to hear the name, but the rain washed them away. Anger ... that too she felt, that Bennett should die and not others.

  "I'm Emilio Konstantin," he said, and she stood straight at once, relaxed out of her fight-flight tenseness. "Thank you for Bennett Jacint; he would thank you."

  "Konstantin-man." She amended all her manner and touched him, this very tall one of a tall kind. "Love Bennettman, all love Bennett-man. Good man. Say he friend. All Downers are sad."
He put a hand on her shoulder, this tall Konstantin-man, and she turned and put her arm about him and her head against his chest, hugged him solemnly, about the wet, awful-

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  feeling yellow clothes. "Good Bennett make Lukas mad. Good friend for Downers. Too bad he gone. Too, too bad, Konstantin-man."

  "I've heard," he said. "I've heard how it was here."

  "Konstantin-man good friend." She lifted her face at his touch, looked fearlessly into the strange mask which made him very horrible to see.

  "Love good mans. Downers work hard, work hard, hard for Konstantin.

  Give you gifts. Go no more away."

  She meant it. They had learned how Lukases were. It was said in all the camp that they should do good for the Konstantins, who had always been the best humans, gift-bringers more than the hisa could give.

  "What's your name?" he asked, stroking her cheek. "What do we call you?"