Downbelow Station

“They’re not likely to jeopardize Pell,” Keu said.

“And what if one of them is Unionist? We know well enough that they’ve infiltrated the merchanters.”

“It’s a point worth considering,” Mazian said. “I’ve thought about it… which is one reason, Captain Mallory, why I’m reluctant to take strong steps to recruit those haulers. There are potential problems. But we need the supplies, and some of them aren’t available elsewhere. We put up with what we have to.”

“So we make an example,” Kreshov said. “Shoot the bastard. He’s trouble waiting to happen.”

“Right now,” Porey said slowly, “Konstantin and his crew work eighteen hours a day… efficient work, quick, skilled and smooth. We don’t get that by other methods. He gets dealt with when it’s workable without him.”

“Does he know that?”

Porey shrugged. “I’ll tell you the hold we’ve got on Mr. Emilio Konstantin. Got ourselves a site with a lot of Downers and the rest of the human inhabitants, all in one place. All one target. And he knows it.”

Mazian nodded. “Konstantin’s a minimal problem. We have worse worries. And that’s the second matter on the table. If we can forbear another raid on our own troops… I’d rather concentrate on the whereabouts of station-side subversives and fugitive staff.”

Signy’s face heated. She kept her voice calm. “The new system is moving into full use as quickly as possible. Mr. Lukas is cooperating. We’ve identified and carded 14,947 individuals as of this morning. That’s with a completely new card system and new individual codes with voice locks on some facilities. I’d like better, but Pell units aren’t designed for it. If they had been, we wouldn’t have had this security problem in the first place.”

“And the chances that you may have carded this Jessad person?”

“No. No reasonable likelihood. Most or all of our fugitives are moving into the uncarded areas, where their stolen cards still work… for the time being. We’ll find them. We’ve got a sketch of Jessad and actual photos of the others. I estimate another week or two to begin the final push.”

“But all the operations areas are secure?”

“The security arrangements for Pell central are laughable. I’ve made recommendations for construction there.”

Mazian nodded. “When we get workers off damage repair. Perso

“The notable exception is the Downer presence in the sealed area of blue one four. Konstantin’s widow. Lukas’s sister. She’s a hopeless invalid, and the Downers are cooperative in anything while it assures her welfare.”

“That’s a gap,” Mazian said.

“I’ve got a com link to her. She cooperates fully in dispatching Downers to necessary areas. Right now she’s of some use, as her brother is.”

“While both are,” Mazian said. “Same condition.”

There were details, stats, tedious matters which could have been traded back and forth by comp. Signy endured it grim-faced, nursing a headache and a blood pressure that distended the veins in her hands, while she made meticulous notes and contributed stats of her own.

Food; water; machine parts… they were taking on a full load, every ship, fit to run again if it came to that. Repairing major damage and going ahead with minor repairs that had been long postponed in the operation leading up to the push. Total refitting, while keeping the Fleet as mobile as possible.

Supply was the overwhelming difficulty. Week by week the hope that the more daring of the long-haulers would come venturing in diminished. They were seven carriers, holding a station and a world, but with only short-haulers to supply them, with their only source of some machined items — the supplies those very haulers had aboard for their own use.

They were pent in, under siege, without merchanters to aid them, the long-haulers who had freely come and gone during the worst of the war. Could not now hope to reach to the Hinder Star stations… of which there was precious little remaining, mothballed, stripped, some probably gone unstable — a long, long time without regulation. Warships alone could not do the heavy cross-jump hauling major construction required. Without the long-haul merchanters, Pell was the only working station left them but Sol itself.

Unwelcome thoughts occurred to her as she sat there, as they had been occurring regularly since the Pell operations began to go sour. She looked up from time to time, at Mazian, at Tom Edger’s thin, preoccupied face. Edger’s Australia partnered with Europe more often than any other… an old, old team. Edger was second in seniority as she was third; but there was a vast gulf between second and third. Edger never spoke in council. Never had a thing to say. Edger did his talking with Mazian in private, sharing counsels, the power at the side of the throne, as it were; she had long suspected so. If there was any man in the room who really knew Mazian’s mind, it was Edger.

The only station but Sol.

So they were three who knew, she reckoned glumly, and kept her mouth shut on it. They had come a long way… from Company Fleet to this. It was going to be a vast surprise to those Company bastards on Earth and Sol Station, having a war brought to their doorstep… having Earth taken as Pell had been. And seven carriers could do it, against a world which had given up starflight, which had, like Pell, only short-haulers and a few in-system fighters at its command… with Union coming in on their heels. It was a glass house, Earth. It could not fight… and win.

She lost no sleep over it. Did not plan to. More and more she was convinced that the whole Pell operation was busywork, that Mazian might be doing precisely what she had advised all along, keeping the troops busy, keeping even his crews and captains busy, while the real operation here was that on Downbelow and what he proposed with the mines and short-haulers, the gathering of supplies, the repairs, the sorting of station perso

Only here there were no merchanters to be pressed into duty as transport, and no carrier was going to let itself become a refugee ship. Could not. Had no room. It was no wonder that Mazian was not talking, was refusing to say anything about contingency plans which were, under numerous pretexts, already swinging into operation. A scenario constructed itself: station comp blown, for they had all the new comp keys; Downbelow base thrown into chaos by the elimination of the one man who was holding it together and the execution of all those gathered multitudes of humans and Downers so that Downers would never work for humans again; the station itself thrown into descending orbit; and themselves ru

While Union had to decide whether to save itself a stationful of people and a base, and to battle the chaos on Downbelow which could starve the station out even with rescue… or to let Pell die and go for a strike unencumbered, having no base behind them closer than Viking… a vast, vast distance to Earth.

Bastard, she hailed Mazian privately, with a glance under her brows. It was typical of Mazian that he worked moves ahead of the opposition and thought the unthinkable. He was the best. He always had been. She smiled at him when he fed them dry, precise orders about cataloging, and had the satisfaction of seeing the great Mazian for a moment lose the thread of his thought. He recovered it, went on, looked at her from time to time with perplexity and then with greater warmth.

So now assuredly they were three who knew.

“I’ll be frank with you,” she said to the men and women who assembled kneeling and standing in the lower deck suiting room, the only place on Norway she could get most of the troops assembled with an unobstructed view, jammed shoulder to shoulder as they were. “They’re not happy with us. Mazian himself isn’t happy with the way I’ve run this ship. Seems none of you is on the List. Seems none of us is involved with the market. Seems other crews are upset with you and me, and there are rumors flying about tampering with the list, about a deliberate tipoff due to some black market rivalry between Norway and other ships… Quiet! So I’m given orders, from the top. You get liberties, on the same schedule and on the same terms as other troops; you get duty on their schedule too. I’m not going to comment, except to compliment you on doing an excellent job; and to tell you two more things: I felt complimented on behalf of this whole ship that there was not a Norway name involved in that blue section mess; second… I ask you to avoid argument with other units, whatever rumors are passed and however you’re provoked. Apparently there is some hard feeling, for which I take personal responsibility. Apparently… well, leave that unsaid. Questions?”