Downbelow Station

ii

“But there’s no need,” Porey said softly, his dark, scarred face implacable, “there’s no further need for your presence, Mr. Lukas. You’ve done your civic duty. Now go back to your quarters. One of my people will be sure you get there safely.”

Jon looked about at the control center, at the several troopers who stood there, with the safeties off the rifles, with eyes constantly on the fresh shift of techs who managed the controls, the others under guard for the night. He gathered himself to pass orders to the comp chief, stopped cold as a trooper made a precise move, a hollow scrape of armor, a lowered rifle. “Mr. Lukas,” Porey said, “people are shot for ignoring orders.”

“I’m tired,” he said nervously. “I’m glad to go, sir. I don’t need the escort.”

Porey motioned. One of the troopers by the door stood smartly aside, waiting for him. Jon walked out, the trooper treading behind him at first and then beside him, an unwanted companion. They passed other troops back on guard in quiet, riot-scarred blue one.

More of the Fleet was docking. They had drawn in to a tighter perimeter, decided finally to dock, which seemed to him military insanity, a risk he did not understand. Mazian’s risk. His now. Pell’s, because Mazian was back.

Perhaps — he found it hard to think — Union had been beaten badly. Perhaps there were things kept secret. Perhaps there would be delay in the Union takeover. It worried him, the thought that Mazian’s rule might be long.

Suddenly troops exited the lift ahead into blue one, troops bearing a different insigna. They intercepted him, presented his escort with a slip of paper.

“Come with us,” one ordered.

“I was instructed by captain Porey — ” he objected, but another nudged him with a gun barrel and moved him toward the lift. Europe, their badges said. Europe troops. Mazian had come in.

“Where are we going?” he asked in panic. They had left the Africa trooper behind. “Where are we going?”

There was no answer. It was deliberate bullying. He knew where they were going… had his suspicions confirmed when, after descent in the lift, he was walked down the blue niner corridor, out onto the docks, toward the glowing access tube of a docked ship.

He had never been aboard a warship. It was cramped as a freighter for all its exterior size. It made him claustrophobic. The rifles in the hands of the troopers at his back gave him no more comfort, and whenever he would hesitate, turning left, entering the lift, they would push him with the rifle barrels. He was sick with fear.

They knew, he kept thinking. He kept trying to persuade himself it was military courtesy, that Mazian chose to meet him as new stationmaster, that Mazian wished to bluff or bully. But from this place they could do what they pleased. Could vent him out a waste chute and he would be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other bodies which now drifted, frozen, a nuisance in the station’s vicinity for the skimmers to freeze together and boost off. No difference at all. He tried to pull his wits together, reckoning that he survived by them now or not at all.

They showed him off the lift into a corridor with troops standing guard in it, into a room wider than most, with a vacant round table. Made him sit down in one of the chairs there. Stood waiting with the rifles over their arms.

Mazian came in, in plain and somber blue, haggard of face. Jon rose to his feet in respect; Conrad Mazian gestured him to sit down again. Others filed in to take their places at the table, Europe officers, none of the captains. Jon darted glances from one to the next

“Acting stationmaster,” Mazian said quietly. “Mr. Lukas, what happened to Angelo Konstantin?”

“Dead,” Jon said, trying to suppress all but i

Mazian only stared at him, utterly unmoved. He sweated.

“We think,” Jon said further, guessing at the captain’s thoughts, “that there may have been conspiracy — the strike at other offices, the opening of the door into Q, the timing of it all. We are investigating.”

“What have you found?”

“Nothing as yet. We suspect the presence of Union agents passed somehow into station during the processing of refugees. Some were let through, may have had friends or relatives left back in Q. We’re puzzled as yet how contacts were passed. We suspect co

“But you haven’t found anything.”

“Not yet.”

“And won’t very quickly, will you, Mr. Lukas?”

His heart began beating very fast. He kept panic from his face; he hoped he succeeded at it. “I apologize for the situation, captain, but we’ve been kept rather busy, coping with riot, with the damage to station… lately working at the orders of your captains Mallory and…”

“Yes. Bright move, the means you used to clear the halls of riot; but then it had quieted a little by then, hadn’t it? I understand there were Q residents let into central.”

Jon found breathing difficult. There was a prolonged silence. He could not think of words. Mazian passed a signal to one of the guards at the door.

“We were in crisis,” Jon said, anything to fill that terrible silence. “I may have acted high-handedly, but we were presented a chance to get control of a dangerous situation. Yes, I dealt with the councillor from that area, not, I think, involved in the situation, but a calming voice… there was no one else at the — ”

“Where is your son, Mr. Lukas?”

He stared.

“Where is your son?”

“Out at the mines. I sent him out on a shorthauler on a tour of the mines. Is he all right? Have you had word of him?”

“Why did you send him, Mr. Lukas?”

“Frankly, to get him off the station.”

“Why?”

“Because he had lately been in control over the station offices while I was stationed on Downbelow. After three years there was some question of loyalties and authorities and cha

“It wasn’t to balance the presence on-station of a man named Jessad?”

His heart came close to stopping. He shook his head calmly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain Mazian. If you’d be so good as to tell me the source of your information — ”

Mazian gestured and someone entered the room. Jon looked and saw Bran Hale, who evaded his eyes.

“Do you know each other?” Mazian asked.

“This man,” Jon said, “was discharged on Downbelow for mismanagement and mutiny. I considered a previous record and hired him. I’m afraid my confidence may have been misplaced.”

“Mr. Hale approached Africa with some thought of enlistment… claimed to have certain information. But you flatly deny knowing a man named Jessad.”

“Let Mr. Hale speak for his own acquaintances. This is a fabrication.”

“And one Kressich, councillor of Q?”

“Mr. Kressich was, as I explained, in the control center.”

“So was this Jessad.”

“He might have been one of Kressich’s guards. I didn’t ask their names.”

“Mr. Hale?”

Bran Hale put on a grim face. “I stand by my story, sir.”

Mazian nodded slowly, carefully drew his pistol. Jon thrust back from the table, and the men behind him slammed him back into the chair. He stared at the pistol, paralyzed.

“Where is Jessad? How did you make contact with him? Where would he have gone?”

“This fiction of Hale’s — ”

The safety went off the pistol audibly.

“I was threatened,” Jon breathed. “Threatened into cooperation. They’ve seized a member of my family.”