Downbelow Station

“They’re all right,” he heard one of his workers call out through the ranks. “Let them go where they like.”

“Bounder,” he said, “we want a safe place… find all the humans from all the camps, take them to many safe places.”

“You want safe, want help; come, come.”

The strong hand stayed within his, small, as if they were father and child; but for all of youth and size it was the other way about… that humans went as the children now, down a known human road to a known human place, but they were not coming back, might never — he acknowledged it — might never come back.

“Come we place,” Bounder said. “You make we safe; we dream bad mans away and they go; and you come now, we go dream. No hisa dream, no human dream; together-dream. Come dream place.”

He did not understand the babble. There were places beyond which humans had never gone among hisa. Dream-places… it was already a dream, this mingled flight of humans and hisa, in the dark, in the overturning of all that had been Downbelow.

They had saved the Downers; and in the long years of Union rule, when humans came who cared nothing for the hisa… there would be humans among the hisa who could warn them and protect them. There was that much left to do.

“They’ll come someday,” he said to Miliko, “and want to cut down the trees and build their factories and dam the river and all the rest of it. That’s the way of it, isn’t it? If we let them get away with it.” He swung Bounder’s hand, looked down at the small intense face on the other side. “We go warn other camps, want to bring all humans into the trees with us, go for a long, long walk. Need good water, good food.”

“Hisa find,” Bounder gri

They could not hold an idea for long… so some insisted. Perhaps the game would pall when humans had no more gifts to give. Perhaps they would lose their awe of humans and drift their own ways. Perhaps not. The hisa were not the same as they had been when humans came.

Neither were humans, on Downbelow.

Chapter Four

Vittorio poured a drink, his second since space around them had suddenly become filled with a battle-worn fleet. Things had not gone as they should. A silence had fallen over Hammer, the bitter silence of a crew who felt an enemy among them, a witness to their national humiliation. He met no eyes, offered no opinions… had only the desire to anesthetize himself with all due speed, so that he could not be blamed for any matters of policy. He did not want to give advice or opinions.

He was plainly a hostage; his father had set things up that way. And it occurred to him inevitably that his father might have double-crossed them all, that he might now be worse than a useless hostage… that he might be one whose card was due to be played.

My father hates me, he had tried to tell them; but they had strugged it off as irrelevant. They did not make the decisions. The man Jessad had done that. And where was Jessad now?

There was supposed to be some visitor on his way to the ship, some person of importance.

Jessad himself, to report failure, and to dispose of a useless bit of human baggage?

He had time to finish the second drink before the activity of the crew and eventual nudge at the hull reported a contact. There was a great deal of machinery slamming and the noise of the lift going into function, a crash as the cage synched with the rotation cylinder. Someone was coming up. He sat still with the glass before him and wished that he were a degree drunker than he was. The upward curve of the deck curtained the lift exit, beyond the bridge. He could not see what happened, only noted the absence of some of Hammer’s crew from their posts. He looked up in sudden dismay as he heard them coming round the other way, from his back, into the main room through crew quarters.

Blass of Hammer. Two crew. A number of military strangers and some not in uniform, behind them. Vittorio gathered himself shakily to his feet and stared at them. A gray-haired officer in rejuv, resplendent with silver and rank. And Dayin. Dayin Jacoby.

“Vittorio Lukas,” Blass identified him. “Captain Seb Azov, over the fleet; Mr. Jacoby of your own station; and Mr. Segust Ayres of Earth Company.”

“Security council,” that one corrected.

Azov sat down at the table, and the others found place on the benches round about. Vittorio settled again, his fingers numb on the table surface. He was surrounded by an alcoholic gulf that kept coming and going. He tried to sit naturally. They had come to see him… him… and there was no possible help he could be to them or to anyone.

“The operation has begun, Mr. Lukas,” Azov said. “We’ve eliminated two of Mazian’s ships. They won’t be easy to get out; they’re hanging close to station. We’ve sent for additional ships; but we’ve driven the merchanters out, all the long-haulers. The ones left are Pell short-haulers, serving as camouflage.”

“What do you want with me?” Vittorio asked.

“Mr. Lukas, you’re acquainted with the merchanters based out of station — you’ve run Lukas Company, at least to some extent — and you know the ships.”

He nodded apprehensively.

“Your ship Hammer, Mr. Lukas, is going back within hail of Pell, and where it regards merchanters, you’ll be Hammer’s com operator… not under your real name, no, you’ll be given a file on the Hammer family, which you’ll study very carefully. You’ll answer as one of them. But should Hammer be challenged by merchanter militia, or by Mazian, your life will rely on your skill in invention. Hammer will suggest to the merchanters remaining that their best course for survival would be to get to the system fringe and have nothing to do with this matter, to get utterly out of the way and cease trade with Pell. We want those ships out of the way, Mr. Lukas; and it wouldn’t at all be politic to have merchanters know we’ve tampered with Hammer and Swan’s Eye. We don’t intend to have that known, you understand me?”

The crews of those ships, he thought, would never be set free, not without Adjustment. It occurred to him that his own memory was hazardous to Union, that it would never be politic to have merchanters know Union had violated merchanter neutrality, which they claimed as a sin of Mazian’s alone. That they had confiscated not just perso

“How so, Mr. Lukas?”

“I entertain some hopes of a Union career, captain Azov.” He lifted his eyes to Azov’s grim face, hoping that he sounded as calm as he tried to be, “Relations between myself and my father… are not warm, so he threw me to you quite willingly. I’ve had time to think. Plenty of time. I prefer to make my own understandings with Union.”

“Pell is ru

Ayres’ eyes turned toward Azov, sidelong. “We have accepted the situation. It was never the intent of my mission to obstruct the will of the people resident in these areas. Only I am anxious for the safety of Pell Station. We are talking about thousands of lives, sir.”

“Siege, Mr. Ayres. We cut them off from supplies and disrupt their operations until they grow uncomfortable.” Azov turned his face toward Vittorio, stared at him a moment “Mr. Lukas — we have to prevent their access to the resources of the mines, and of Downbelow itself. A strike there… possible, but militarily costly getting to it, and costly in its effect. So we proceed by disentanglement. Mazian has a death grip on Pell; he’ll leave ruin if he loses, blow Downbelow and the station itself, fall back toward the Hinder Stars… toward Earth. Do you want your precious motherworld used for a Mazia