Downbelow Station

“Haste — will save lives.”

“Haste indeed. These troops will conduct you to a safe lodging. Your companions will join you.”

“Arrest?”

“Absolutely the contrary. The station is newly taken and insecure as yet. We want to be sure no hazard confronts you. Cotton wool, Mr. Ambassador. Walk where you will, but with a security escort at all times; and by my earnest advice, rest. You’ll be shipping out as soon as a vessel can be cleared. It’s even uncertain whether you’ll have a night’s sleep before that departure, You agree, sir?”

“Agreed,” he said, and Andilin called the young officer over and spoke to him. The officer gestured, with his hand this time; he took his leave with nods of courtesy from all the table, walked out, with a cold feeling at his back.

Practicalities, he reckoned. He did not like the look of what he saw, the too-alike guards, the coldness everywhere. Security Council on Earth had not seen such things when it gave its orders and laid its plans. The lack of intermediate Earthward stations, since the dismantling of the Hinder Star bases, made the spread of the war logistically unlikely, but Mazian had failed to prevent it from spreading all across the Beyond… had aggravated the situation, escalated hostilities to dangerous levels. The sudden prospect of having Mazian’s forces reactivate those Hinder Star stations in a retrenching action behind Pell turned him sick with the mere contemplation of the possibilities.

The Isolationists had had their way… too long. Now there were bitter decisions to be taken… rapprochment to this thing called Union; agreements, borders, barriers… containment.

If the line were not held, disaster loomed… the possibility of having Union itself activating those abandoned Earthward stations, convenient bases. There was a fleet building at Sol Station; it had to have time. Mazian was fodder for Union guns until then. Sol itself had to be in command of the next resistance, Sol, and not the headless thing the Company Fleet had become, refusing Company orders, doing as they would.

Most of all they had to keep Pell, had to keep that one base.

Ayres walked where he was led, settled into the apartment they gave him several levels down, which was excellent in comforts, and the comfort reassured him. He forced himself to sit and appear relaxed to await his companions, that they assured him would come… and they did come finally, in a group and u

Someone on Viking Station, a freighter crew, was in great difficulty, he had no doubt. Supposedly merchanters were able to pass the battle lines, with no worse than occasional shepherding to different ports than they had pla

He did not sleep well that night, and before morning of mainday, as Andilin had warned him, they were roused out of bed to take ship further into Union territory. They were promised their destination was Cyteen, the center of the rebel command. It was begun. There was no retreat

Chapter Eleven

He was back. Josh Talley looked at the window of his room and met the face which was so often there… remembered, after the vague fashion in which he remembered anything recent, that he had known this man, and that this man was part of all that had happened to him. He met the eyes this time and, feeling more of definite curiosity than he was wont, moved from his cot, walking with difficulty, for the general weakness of his limbs — advanced to the window and confronted the young man at closer range. He put out his hand to the window, wishing, for others kept far from him, and he lived entirely in white limbo, where all things were suspended, where touch was not keen and tastes all bland, where words came at distance. He drifted in this whiteness, detached and isolated.

Come out, his doctors told him. Come out whenever you feel inclined. The world is out here. You can come when you’re ready.

It was a womblike safety. He grew stronger in it. Once he had lain on his cot, disinclined even to move, leaden-limbed and weary. He was much, much stronger; he could feel moved to rise and investigate this stranger. He grew brave again. For the first time he knew that he was getting well, and that made him braver still.

The man behind the pane moved, reached out his hand, matched it to his on the window, and his numbed nerves tingled with excitement, expecting touch, expecting the numb sensation of another hand. The universe existed beyond a sheet of plastic, all there to touch, unfelt, insulated, cut off. He was hypnotized by this revelation. He stared into dark eyes and a lean young face, of a man in a brown suit; and wondered was it he, himself, as he was outside the womb, that hands matched so perfectly, touching and not touched.

But he wore white, and it was no mirror.

Nor was it his face. He dimly remembered his own face, but it was a boy his memory saw, an old picture of himself: he could not recover the man. It was not a boy’s hand that he reached out; not a boy’s hand that reached back to him, independent of his willing it A great deal had happened to him and he could not put it all together. Did not want to. He remembered fear.

The face behind the window smiled at him, a faint, kindly smile. He gave it back, reached with his other hand to touch the face as well, barriered by cold plastic.

“Come out,” a voice said from the wall. He remembered that he could. He hesitated, but the stranger kept inviting him. He saw the lips move with the sound which came from elsewhere.

And cautiously he moved to the door which was always, they said, open when he wanted it.

It did open to him. Of a sudden he must face the universe without safety. He saw the man standing there, staring back at him; and if he touched, it would be cold plastic; and if the man should frown there was no hiding.

“Josh Talley,” the young man said, “I’m Damon Konstantin. Do you remember me at all?”

Konstantin. The name was a powerful one. It meant Pell, and power. What else it had meant would not come to him, save that once they had been enemies, and were no longer. It was all wiped clean, all forgiven. Josh Talley. The man knew him. He felt personally obligated to remember this Damon and could not. It embarrassed him.

“How are you feeling?” Damon asked.

That was complicated. He tried to summarize and could not; it required associating his thoughts, and his strayed in all directions at once.

“Do you want anything?” Damon asked.

“Pudding,” he said. “With fruit.” That was his favorite. He had it every meal but breakfast; they gave him what he asked for.

“What about books? Would you like some books?”

He had not been offered that. “Yes,” he said, brightening with the memory that he had loved books. “Thank you.”

“Do you remember me?” Damon asked.

Josh shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “We’ve probably met, but, you see, I don’t remember things clearly. I think we must have met after I came here.”

“It’s natural you’d forget. They tell me you’re doing very well. I’ve been here several times to see about you.”