Downbelow Station

“Tried to escape,” Hale said. “Mask fell off in the fight Tried to get a gun.”

“That’s a lie,” the Q folk shouted in a babble of variants, and tried to drown Hale’s voice.

“Truth,” Hale said. “They don’t want more refugees in their dome. A fight started and this troublemaker tried to bolt. We caught him.”

There was a chorus of protest from the Q folk. A woman in the fore was crying.

Emilio looked about him, having difficulty with his own breathing. At his feet the boy had seemed to come to, writhing and coughing. The Downers clustered together, dark eyes solemn.

“Bluetooth,” he said, “what happened?”

Bluetooth’s eyes shifted to Bran Hale’s man. No more than that

“Me eyes see,” said another voice. Satin strode through, braced herself with several bobs of distress. Her voice was high-pitched, brittle. “Hale push he friend, hard with gun, Bad push she.”

There were shouts from Hale’s side, derision; shouts from the Q side. He yelled for quiet. It was not a lie. He knew Downers and he knew Hale. It was not a lie. “They took his breather?”

“Take.” Satin said, and clamped her mouth firmly shut. Her eyes showed fear.

“All right.” Emilio sucked in a deep breath, looked directly at Bran Kale’s hard face. “We’d better continue this discussion in my office.”

“We talk right here,” Hale said. He had his crowd about him. His advantage. Emilio matched him stare for stare; it was all he could do, with no weapons and no force to back him. “Downer’s word,” Hale said, “isn’t testimony. You don’t insult me on any Downer’s word, Mr. Konstantin, no sir.”

He could walk away, back down. Surely Operations and the regular workers could see what was going on. Maybe they had looked out from their domes and preferred not to see. Accidents could happen, in this place, even to a Konstantin. For a long time the authority on Downbelow had been Jon Lukas and his hand-picked men. He could walk away, maybe reach Operations, call help for himself from the shuttle, if Hale let him; and it would be told for the rest of his life how Emilio Konstantin handled threats, “You pack,” he said softly, “and you be on that shuttle when it leaves. All of you.”

“On a Downer bitch’s word?” Hale lost his dignity, chose to shout. He could afford to. Some of the rifles had turned his way.

“Get out,” Emilio said, “on my word. Be on that shuttle. Your tour here is over.”

He saw Hale’s tension, the shift of eyes. Someone did move. A rifle went off, sizzled into the mud. One of the Q men had struck it down. There was a second when it looked like riot.

“Out!” Emilio repeated. Suddenly the balance of power was shifted, Young workers were to the fore of Q, and their own gang boss, Wei. Hale shifted eyes left and right, remeasured things, finally gave a curt nod to his companions. They moved out. Emilio stood watching them in their swaggering retreat to the common barracks, even yet not believing that trouble was over. Beside him, Bluetooth let out a long hiss, and Satin made a spitting sound. His own muscles were quivering with the fight that had not happened. He heard a sough of air, the dome sagging as the rest of Q surged out, all three hundred of them, breaching their lock wide open. He looked at them, alone with them. “You take those new transfers into your dome and you take them in without bickering and without argument. We’ll make new diggings; you will and they will, quick as possible. You want them to sleep in the open? Don’t you give me any nonsense about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Wei answered after a moment. The woman who had been crying edged forward. Emilio stepped back and she bent down to help the stricken boy, who was struggling to sit up: mother, he reckoned. Others came and helped the boy up. There was a good deal of commotion about it.

Emilio grasped the youth’s arm. “Want you in for a medical,” he said. “Two of you take him over to Operations.”

They hesitated. Guards were supposed to escort them. There were no guards, he realized in that instant. He had just ordered all the security forces in main base offworld.

“Go on inside,” he said to the rest. “Get that dome normalized; I’ll talk to you about it later.” And while he had their attention: “Look around you. There’s all of a world here, blast you all. Give us help. Talk to me if there’s some complaint. I’ll see you get access. We’re all crowded here. All of us. Come look at my quarters if you think otherwise; I’ll give some of you the tour if you don’t believe me. We live like this because we’re building. Help us build, and it can be good here, for all of us.”

Frightened eyes stared at him… no belief. They had come in on overcrowded, dying ships; had been in Q on-station; lived here, in mud and close quarters, moved about under guns. He let go his breath and his anger.

“Go on,” he said. “Break it up. Get about your business. Make room for those people.”

They moved, the boy and a couple of the young men toward Operations, the rest back into their dome. The flimsy doors closed in sequence this time, locking them through, group after group, until all were gone, and the deflated dome crest began to lose some of its wrinkles as the compressor thumped away.

There was a soft chattering, a bobbing of bodies. The Downers were still with him. He put out his hand and touched Bluetooth. The Downer touched his hand in turn, a calloused brush of flesh, bobbed several times in the residue of excitement. At his other side stood Satin, arms clenched about her, her dark eyes darker still, and wide.

All about him, Downers, with that same disturbed look. Human quarrel, violence, alien to them. Downers would strike in a moment’s anger, but only to sting. He had never seen them quarrel in groups, had never seen weapons… their knives were only tools and hunting implements. They killed only game. What did they think, he wondered; what did they imagine at such a sight, humans turning guns on each other?

“We go Upabove,” Satin said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You still go. It was good, Satin, Bluetooth, all of you, it was good you came to tell me.”

There was a general bobbing, expressions of relief among all the hisa, as if they had not been sure. The thought occurred to him that he had ordered Hale and his men off on that same shuttle… that human spite might still make things uncomfortable.

“I’ll talk to the man in charge of the ship,” he told them. “You and Hale will be in different parts of the ship. No trouble for you. I promise.”

“Good-good-good,” Satin breathed, and hugged him. He stroked her shoulder, turned and received an embrace from Bluetooth as well, patted his rougher pelt. He left them and started toward the crest of the hill, on the track to the landing site, and stopped at the sight of several figures standing there.

Miliko. Two others. All had rifles. He felt a sudden surge of relief to think he had had someone at his back after all. He waved his hand that it was all right, hastened toward them. Miliko came quickest, and he hugged her. Miliko’s two companions caught up, two guards off the shuttle. “I’m sending some perso

“Yes, sir.” The two guards were blank of comment, objected to nothing.

“You can go back,” he said. “Start moving the assignees this way; it’s all right”

They went about their orders. Miliko kept the rifle she had borrowed of someone, stood against his side, her arm tight about him, his about her.

“Hale’s lot,” he said. “I’m packing them all off.”

“That leaves us no guards.”

“Q wasn’t the trouble. I’m calling station about this one.” His stomach tightened, reaction begi