Downbelow Station

Elene was afraid. It was clear behind the brittle, busy calm. They were all afraid. He slipped his arm about her; hers fitted his waist and she leaned there, saying nothing. Merchanter, Elene Quen, off the freighter Estelle, which had gone its way to Russell’s, and to Mariner. She had missed that run for him, to consider tying herself to a station for good, for his sake; and now she ended up trying to reason with angry crews who were probably right and sensible in her eyes, with the military in their laps. He viewed matters in a cold, quiet panic, stationer’s fashion. Things which went wrong onstation went wrong sitting still, by quadrants and by sections, and there was a certain fatalism bred of it: if one was in a safe zone, one stayed there; if one had a job which could help, one did it; and if it was one’s own area in trouble, one still sat fixed — it was the only heroism possible. A station could not shoot, could not run, could only suffer damage and repair it if there was time. Merchanters had other philosophies and different reflexes in time of trouble.

“It’s all right,” he said, tightening his arm briefly. He felt her answering pressure. “It’s not coming here. They’re just putting civilians far behind the lines. They’ll stay here till the crisis is over and then go back. If not, we’ve had big influxes before, when they shut down the last of the Hinder Stars. We added sections. We’ll do it again. We just get larger.”

Elene said nothing. There were dire rumors drifting through com and down the corridors regarding the extent of the disaster at Mariner, and Estelle was not one of the incoming freighters. They knew that now for certain. She had hoped, when they had gotten the first news of the arrival; and feared, because there was damage reported on those ships out there, moving at freighters’ slow pace, jammed with passengers they were never designed to handle, in the series of small jumps a freighter’s limited range made necessary. It added up to days and days in realspace as far as they had come in, and living hell on those vessels. There was some rumor they had not had sufficient drugs to get them through jump, that some had made it without. He tried to imagine it — reckoned Elene’s worry. Estelle’s absence from that convoy was good news and bad. Likely she had shied off her declared course, catching wind of trouble, and gone elsewhere in a hurry… still cause for anxiety, with the war heating up out on the edge. A station… gone, blown. Russell’s, evacuating perso

“It’s likely,” he said, wishing that he could save the news for another day, but she had to know, “that we’ll be moved to blue, into maybe cramped quarters. The clean-clearance perso

She shrugged. “That’s all right. It’s arranged?”

“It will be.”

A second time she shrugged; they lost their home and she shrugged, staring at the windows onto the docks below, and the crowds, and the merchanter ships.

“It’s not coming here,” he insisted, trying to believe it, for Pell was his home, in a way no merchanter was likely to understand. Konstantins had built this place, from the days of its begi

And a moment later, moved by conscience if not by courage: “I’ve got to get over there, onto the quarantine docks.”

iii

Norway eased in ahead of the others, with the hubbed, unsightly torus of Pell a gleaming sprawl in her vid screens. The riders were fa

They entered final approach, lost gee gently as Norway ’s rotating i

“I’m getting an all-quiet on dockside,” Graff said. “The stationmaster’s police are all over the place.”

“Message,” com said. “Pell stationmaster to Norway : request military cooperation with desks set up to facilitate processing as per your instructions. All procedures are as you requested, with the stationmaster’s compliments, captain.”

“Reply: Hansford coming in immediately with crisis in lifesupport and possible riot conditions. Stay back of our lines. Endit. — Graff, take over operations. Di, get me those troops out on that dock doubletime.”

She left matters there, rose and strode back through the narrow bowed aisles of the bridge to the small compartment which served her as office and oftentimes sleeping quarters. She opened the locker there and slipped on a jacket, slipped a pistol into her pocket. It was not a uniform. No one in the Fleet, perhaps, possessed a full-regulation uniform. Supply had been that bad, that long. Her captain’s circle on her collar was her only distinction from a merchanter. The troops were no better uniformed, but armored: that, they kept in condition, at all costs. She hastened down via the lift into the lower corridor, proceeding amid the rush of troops Di Janz had ordered to the dock, combat-rigged, through the access tube and out into the chill wide spaces.

The whole dock was theirs, vast, upward-curving perspective, section arches curtained by ceiling as the station rim curve swept leftward toward gradual horizon; on the right a section seal was in use, stopping the eye there. The place was vacant of all but the dock crews and their gantries; and station security and the processing desks, and those were well back of Norway ’s area. There were no native workers, not here, not in this situation. Debris lay scattered across the wide dock, papers, bits of clothing, evidencing a hasty withdrawal. The dockside shops and offices were empty; the niner corridor midway of the dock showed likewise vacant and littered. Di Janz’s deep bellow echoed in the metal girders overhead as he ordered troops deployed about the area where Hansford was coming in.

Pell dockers moved up. Signy watched and gnawed her lip nervously, glanced aside as a civ came up to her, youngish, darkly aquiline, bearing a tablet and looking like business in his neat blue suit. The plug she had in one ear kept advising her of Hansford’s status, a constant clamor of bad news. “What are you?” she asked

“Damon Konstantin, captain, from Legal Affairs.”

She spared a second look. A Konstantin. He could be that. Angelo had had two boys before his wife’s accident. “Legal Affairs,” she said with distaste.

“I’m here if you need anything… or if they do. I’ve got a com link with central.”

There was a crash. Hansford made a bad dock, grated down the guidance cone and shuddered into place.

“Get her hooked up and get out!” Di roared at the dock crews: no com for him.

Graff was ordering matters from Norway ’s command. Hansford’s crew would stay sealed on their bridge, working debarcation by remote. “Tell them walk out,” she heard relayed from Graff. “Any rush at troops will be met with fire.”