Downbelow Station

“Understood,” the policeman said crisply. He seized Josh’s arm, led him down the corridor. The troops walked behind, and finally, at an intersection of corridors, their path and that of the troops diverged.

But there were Mazia

“Please call Damon Konstantin,” he asked of them. “Or Elene Quen. Or anyone in their offices. I know the numbers.”

There was silence for most of the ride.

“We’ll report it through cha

The lift stopped, red one. Security zone. He walked out between them, through the transparent partition and to the desk at the entry. Troops were inside this office too, armored and armed, and that sent a wave of panic through him, for he had hoped that in this place at least he was under station authority.

“Please,” he said at the desk, while they were checking him in. He knew the young officer in charge; he had been here when he was a prisoner. He remembered. He leaned forward toward him and lowered his voice, desperately. “Please call the Konstantins. Let them know I’m here.”

Here too there was no answer, only an uncomfortable shift of the eyes away from him. They were afraid, all the stationers — terrified of the armed troops. Soldiers drew him away from the desk, led him down the corridor to the detention cells, put him into one, barren and white and furnished only with sanitary facilities and a white bench extruded from the walls. They delayed to search him again, strip search this time, and left him his clothing on the floor.

He dressed, sank down finally onto the bench, tucked his feet up and rested his head against his knees, tired from his long working and knotted up with fear.

ii

Vittorio Lukas rose from his seat and walked the curve of Hammer’s dingy bridge, hesitated at the twitch of the stick in the hand of the Unioner who continually kept an eye on him. They would not let him come within reach of controls; in this tiny, steeply curved rotation cylinder — most of Hammer’s unlovely mass was a null-G belly, aft — there was a line on the tiles, marked in tape, which circumscribed his prison. He had not discovered yet what would happen if he crossed it without being called; he never meant to find out. He was allowed most of the circuit of the cylinder, the crew quarters where he slept; the tiny main-room section… and this far into the operations area. From here he could make out one of the screens and see scan past the tech’s shoulder; he lingered, staring at it, at the backs of men and women in merchanter dress who were not merchanters, his belly still queasy from drugs and his nerves crawling from jump. He had spent most of the day throwing up his insides.

The captain was standing watching the screens, saw him, beckoned him. Vittorio hesitated; at a second signal came walking ahead into that forbidden operations zone, not without a backward glance at the man with the stick. He accepted the captain’s friendly hand on his shoulder as he took a closer look at scan; prosperous looking sort, this man… might have been a Pell businessman, urged his crew rather than snapping orders. They all treated him well enough, even with politeness. It was his situation and the potentials in it which had him terrified. Coward, his father would say in disgust. It was true. He was. This was no place and no company for him.

“We’re moving back soon now,” the man said… Blass, his name was, Abe Blass. “Didn’t jump far, just enough to stay out of Mazian’s way. Relax, Mr. Lukas. Your stomach treating you better now?”

He said nothing. The mention of his malaise brought a spasm to his gut.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Blass said softly, hand still on his shoulder. “Absolutely nothing, Mr. Lukas. Mazian’s arrival doesn’t trouble us.”

He looked at the man. “And what if the Fleet spots us when we come in again?”

“We can always jump,” Blass said. “Swan’s Eye won’t have strayed from her post; and Ilyko won’t talk; she knows where her interests lie. Just rest easy, Mr. Lukas. You still seem to have some apprehensions of us.”

“If my father on Pell is compromised…”

“That won’t be likely to happen. Jessad knows what he’s doing. Believe me. It’s all pla

“Sir,” he murmured, and did as he was told, wandering past the guard back up the curving deck to the deserted main room. He took a seat at the molded table/bench arrangement, leaned his arm on the table, swallowed heavily.

It was not all nausea from jump. He was terrified. Make a man of you, he could hear his father saying. He seethed with misery. He was what he was, and he did not belong here, with the likes of Abe Blass and these grim very-same people. His father had made him expendable. If he were ambitious he would try to make points for himself in these circumstances, ingratiate himself with Union. He did not. He knew his abilities and his limits, and he wanted Roseen, wanted his comforts, wanted a good drink he could not have with the drugs filling his system.

It was not going to work, none of it; and they would snatch him Unionside where everyone walked in step, and that would be the end of everything he knew. He feared changes. What he had at Pell was good enough. He had never asked much of life or of anyone, and the thought of being out here in the center of nothing at all… gave him nightmares.

But he had no choices. His father had seen to that.

Blass came finally, sat down and solemnly spread charts on the table and explained things to him as if he were someone of consequence to the mission. He looked at the diagram and tried to understand the premises of this shifting about through nothing, when he could not in fact understand where they were, which was essentially nowhere.

“You should feel very confident,” Blass said. “I assure you you’re in a far safer place than the station is right now.”

“You’re a very high officer in Union,” he said, “aren’t you? They wouldn’t send you like this… otherwise.”

Blass shrugged.

“Hammer and Swan’s Eye … all the ships you’ve got near Pell?”

Blass shrugged again. That was his answer.

Chapter Six

i

The men had come and gone for a long time, men-in-shells, carrying guns. Satin shivered and tucked further back into the shadows by the cargo lift. They were many who had run when the Lukas directed, who had run again when the stranger men came, by the ways that the hisa could use, the narrow ways, the dark tu

There was no hope here. Satin pursed her lips and sidled backward in a crouch, waited while the air changed, scampered back into safe darkness. Hands touched her. There was male-scent. She hissed in reproof and smelt after the one who was hers. Arms folded her about. She laid her head wearily against a hard shoulder, comforting as she was comforted. Bluetooth offered her no questions. He knew that there was no better news, for he had said as much when she had insisted on going out to see.