Downbelow Station

Chapter Nine

A trooper was on guard at the corner. Jon Lukas hesitated, but that was guaranteed to attract attention. The trooper made a move of his hand to the vicinity of the pistol. Jon came ahead nervously, card in hand, offered it, and the trooper — heavyset, dark-ski

“Yes, sir,” the trooper said. Jon took the card back, started down the crosshall, with the feeling that the trooper was still watching his back. “Sir.”

He turned.

“Mr. Konstantin’s at his office, sir.”

“His wife’s my sister.”

There was a moment of silence. “Yes, sir,” the trooper said mildly, and made himself a statue again. Jon turned and walked on.

Angelo did well for himself, he thought bitterly, no crowding here, no giving up of his living space. The whole end of crosshall four was Angelo’s.

And Alicia’s.

He stopped at the door, hesitated, his stomach tightening. He had gotten this far. There was a trooper back there who would ask questions, make an issue of unusual behavior. There was no going back. He pressed com. Waited.

“Who?” a reedy voice asked, startling him. “Who you?”

“Lukas,” he said. “Jon Lukas.”

The door opened. A thin, grayed Downer frowned up at him from eyes surrounded with wrinkles. “I Lily,” she said.

He brushed past her, stepped in and looked about the dim living room, the costly furniture, the luxury, the space of it. The Downer Lily hovered there, anxious, let the door close. He turned, his eyes drawn to light, saw a room beyond, a white floor, with the illusion of windows open on space.

“You come see she?” Lily asked.

“Tell her I’m here.”

“I tell.” The old Downer bowed, walked away with a stooped, brittle step. The place was quiet, deathly hushed. He waited in the dark living room, found nothing to do with his hands, his stomach more and more upset.

There were voices from the room. “Jon,” he heard in the midst of it. Alicia’s voice. At least it was the human one. He shivered, feeling physically ill. He had never come to these rooms. Never. Had seen Alicia by remote, tiny, withered, a shell the machines sustained. He came now. He did not know why he came — and did know. To find out what was truth — to know — if he could face dealing with Alicia; if it was life worth living. All these years — the pictures, the transmitted, cold pictures he could somehow deal with, but to be there in the same room, to look into her face and have to talk with her…

Lily came back, hands folded, bowed. “You come. You come now.”

He moved. Got as far as halfway to the white-tiled room, the sterile, hushed room, and his stomach knotted.

Suddenly he turned and started for the outside door. “You come?” The Downer’s puzzled voice pursued him. “You come, sir?”

He touched the switch and left, let the door close behind him, drew a breath of the cooler, freer air of the hall outside.

He walked away from it, the place, the Konstantins.

“Mr. Lukas,” the trooper on guard said as he reached the corner, his eyes asking curious questions through the courtesy.

“She was asleep,” he said, swallowed, kept walking, trying with every step to put that apartment and that white room out of his mind. He remembered a child, a girl, someone else. He kept it that way.

Chapter Ten

i

Council was breaking up early, having passed what measures were set before it to pass, with Keu of India sitting in grim witness of what they said and what they did, his stone-still countenance casting a pall on debate. On this third day of the crisis, Mazian made his demands, and obtained.

Kressich gathered up his notes and came down from the uppermost tier into the sunken center of the chambers, by the seats about the table, delayed there, resisting the outflow of traffic, looking anxiously toward Angelo Konstantin, who conferred with Nguyen and Landgraf and some of the other representatives. Keu still sat at the table, listening, his bronze face like a mask. He feared Keu… feared to raise his business in front of him.

But he went nevertheless, edged insistently as close as he could get to the head of it, into that private company about Konstantin where he knew he was not wanted, Q’s representative, reminder of problems no one had time to solve. He waited, while Konstantin finished his discussion with the others, stared at Konstantin intently so that Konstantin should be aware that his particular attention was wanted.

At last Konstantin took note of him, stayed a moment from his evident intention to leave in Keu’s company, for Keu had risen. “Sir,” Kressich said. “Mr. Konstantin.” He drew from his folder of papers one which he had prepared, proffered it to Konstantin’s hand. “I have limited facilities, Mr. Konstantin. Comp and print isn’t accessible to me where I live. You know that. The situation there…” He moistened his lips, conscious of Konstantin’s frown. “My office was nearly mobbed last night. Please, sir. Can we assure my constituents… that the Downbelow appointments will continue?”

“That’s under negotiation, Mr. Kressich. The station is making every effort to get procedures back to normal; but programs are being reviewed; policy and directions are being reviewed.”

“It’s the only hope.” He avoided Keu’s stare, kept his eyes fixed on Konstantin. “Without that… we’ve got no hope. Our people will go to Downbelow. To the Fleet. To any place that will take them. Only the applications have to be accepted. They have to see there’s hope of getting out. Please, sir.”

“The nature of this?” Konstantin asked, lifting the paper to view.

“A bill I haven’t the facilities to reproduce for the council to consider. I hoped your staff…”

“Regarding the applications.”

“Regarding that, sir.”

“The program remains,” Keu interrupted coldly, “under discussion.”

“We’ll try,” Konstantin said, placing the paper among the others he held “I can’t bring this up on the floor, Mr. Kressich. You understand that. Not until the basic issues in question are resolved at other levels. I’ll have to hold it, and I earnestly beg that you don’t bring up the question tomorrow, although of course you can do that. Public debate might upset negotiations. You’re a man experienced in government; you understand me. But in courtesy, if we can bring this up at some future meeting… I’ll of course have my staff prepare this or other bills for distribution. You understand my position, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, sick at heart. “Thank you.”

He turned away. He had hoped, dimly. He had hoped also for a chance to appeal for station help, security, protection. He did not want Keu’s sort of protection. Dared not ask. They had seen the Fleet’s mercy, in the persons of Mallory and Sung and Kreshov. The troops would come in; take Coledy’s organization apart as a begi

He walked out into the council chambers foyer, past the mocking, amazed stares of Downbelow statues, out the glass doors into the hall, and, unmolested by the guards, walked toward the lift which would take him down to the blue niner level, to go home, back to Q.

There was something like normal traffic in the corridors of main station now, thi

Someone jostled him in meeting. A hand met his, pressed a card into it. He stopped, with a confused impression of a man, a face he had not bothered to see. In terror he resisted the impulse to look about. He pretended to adjust the papers in his folder, walked on, and farther down the hall examined the card: an access card, a bit of tape on its surface: green nine 0434. An address. He kept walking, dropped the hand with the card to his side, his heart hammering against his ribs.