Downbelow Station

“Yet your own troops escaped the net.”

“Were not involved, sir.”

There was stark silence for a moment. “You’re rather righteous, aren’t you?”

She leaned forward, arms on the table, and gave Mazian stare for stare. “I don’t permit my troops to sleepover on-station, and I keep strict account of their whereabouts. I knew where they were. And there are no Norway perso

Mazian glared. She watched the steady flare of his nostrils. “We go back a long way, Mallory. You’ve always been a bloody-handed tyrant. That’s the name you’ve gotten. You know that.”

“That’s quite possible.”

“Shot some of your own troops at Eridu. Ordered one unit to open fire on another.”

“Norway has its standards.”

Mazian sucked in a breath. “So do other ships, captain. Your policies may work on Norway, but our separate commands make different demands. Working independently is something we excel at; we’ve done it too long. Now I have the responsibility of welding the Fleet back together and making it work. I have the kind of independent bloody-mindedness that hung Tibet and North Pole out there instead of moving in as sense should have told them. Two ships dead, Mallory. Now you’ve handed me a situation where one ship holds itself distinct from others and then pulls an independent raid on an admittedly illicit activity involving every other crew in the Fleet. There’s some talk that there was a second page to that List, do you know that? That it was destroyed. This is a morale problem. Do you appreciate that?”

“I perceive the problem; I regret it; I deny that there was a destroyed page and I resent the implication that my troops were motivated by jealousy in reporting this situation. It casts them in a light I refuse to accept.”

“Norway troops will follow the same schedule hereafter as the rest of the Fleet.”

She sat back. “I find a policy which gives us mutiny, and now I’m ordered to imitate it?”

“The destructive thing at work in this company, Mallory, is not the small amount of black marketing that’s bound to go on, that realistically goes on every time we have troops off-ship, but the assumption of one officer and one ship that it can do as it pleases and act in rivalry to other ships. Divisiveness. We can’t afford it, Mallory, and I refuse to tolerate it, under any name. There’s one commander over this Fleet… or are you setting yourself up as the opposition party?”

“I accept the order,” she muttered. Mazian’s pride, Mazian’s ever-so-sensitive pride. They had come to the line that was not to be crossed, when his eyes took on that look. She felt sick at her stomach, boiling with the urge to break something. She settled quietly back into her chair.

“The morale problem does exist,” Mazian went on, easier, himself settling back with one of those loose, theatrical gestures he used to dismiss what he had determined not to argue. “It’s unfair to lay it to Norway alone. Forgive me. I realize you’re a good deal right… but we’re all laboring under a difficult situation. Union is out there. We know it. Pell knows it. Certainly the troops know it, and they don’t know all that we know, and it eats at their nerves. They take their pleasures as they can. They see a less then optimum situation on the station: shortages, a rampant black market — civilian hostility, most of all. They’re not in touch with operations we’re taking to remedy the situation. And even if they were, there’s still the Union fleet, sitting out there waiting its moment to attack; there’s a known Union spotter out there we can’t do anything about. Not even the normalcy of dock traffic on this station. We’re begi

“After what happened to North Pole — ” Kreshov muttered.

“With due caution. We keep all the station-side carriers at ready and we don’t stray too far from cover. There’s a course which can put a carrier near the mines and not take it far out of shelter. Kreshov, with your admirable sense of caution, let that be your task. Get the supplies we need and teach a few lessons if necessary. A little aggressive action on our part will satisfy the troops and improve morale.”

Signy bit her lip, gnawed at it, finally leaned forward. “I volunteer for that one. Let Kreshov sit it out.”

“No,” Mazian said, and quickly held up a pacifying hand. “Not with any disparagement, far from it. Your work here is vital and you’re doing an excellent job at it. Atlantic makes the patrol. Herds a few haulers into line and restores station traffic. Blow one if you have to, Mika. You understand that. And pay them in Company scrip.”

There was general laughter. Signy stayed sour. “Captain Mallory,” Mazian said, “you seem discontent.”

“Shootings depress me,” she said cynically. “So does piracy.”

“Another policy debate?”

“Before taking on any large-scale operations of that kind, I’d like to see some effort toward conscripting the short-haulers, not blowing them. They stood with us against Union.”

“Couldn’t get out of the way. There’s a far difference, Mallory.”

“That should be remembered… which of them were out there with us. Those ships should be approached differently.”

Mazian was not in a mood for listening to her reasons, not today. He had a high flush in his cheeks and his eyes were dark. “Let me get through the orders, old friend. That’s taken into consideration. Any merchanter in that category will obtain special privileges when docked at station; and we presume any merchanter in that category will not be among those out there refusing our orders to move in.”

She nodded, carefully erased the resentment from her face. There was danger in upstaging Mazian. He had an enormous vanity. It overbalanced his better qualities on occasion. He would do what was sensible. He always had. But sometimes the anger lingered — long.

“I’d like to point out,” Porey’s deep voice interjected, “contrary to Captain Mallory’s expectations of local help, we have a problem case in the Downbelow operation. Emilio Konstantin snaps his fingers and gets what he wants out of his workers down there. It gets us the supplies we need and we put up with it. But he’s waiting. He’s just waiting; and he knows right now he’s a necessity. If we get those short-haulers involved at station we’ve got other potential Konstantin types, only they’ll be up here with us, berthed right beside our ships.”