Downbelow Station

Perhaps he had changed so much in appearance that no one did recognize him. No one had yet pointed a finger at him or at Damon in public. There was some loyalty left on Pell, perhaps — or their involvement with the market protected them, or others who knew them were just too frightened to start something. Some of the gangs were linked into the market.

Occasional troopers walked in the halls, some back in nine two, no less common than Downers about their business. Green dock was still open as far as the end of white dock; and Africa and occasionally Atlantic or Pacific occupied the first two berths of green, while the other ships berthed in blue dock, and troops came and went freely through the perso

So much the easier to handle the victims until it came, Josh reckoned. They still had choices left, played the game with the troops, dodged and struggled… but all it took was a button pushed somewhere in central, no personal contact, no watching faces as they died. All clinical and distant.

He and Damon pla

And more realistic… they could try to pass the seals into the cleared sections, and chance the alarm-rigged access doors, regimented security, checkpoints at every corner and card use at every move… that was the way of life over there. Mallory’s doing. They had been checking it out. Too many men-with-guns, was Bluetooth’s warning. Cold they eyes.

Cold indeed.

And meanwhile there was the market and there was Ngo’s.

He approached the bar along green nine, not by the tu

He cast cautious glances one way and the other as he approached the front and ever-wide door of Ngo’s, not obvious looks around, but a rhythm of walking and looking as a man might who was simply making up his mind which bar he wanted.

A face caught his eye, abruptly, heart-stoppingly. He delayed a half a beat and looked toward Mascari’s, across the corridor at the emptying of nine onto the docks. A tall man who had been standing there suddenly moved and darted within Mascari’s.

Dark obscured his vision, a flash of memory so vivid he staggered and forgot all his pattern. He was vulnerable for that instant, panicked… turned for Ngo’s doorway blindly and went inside, into the dim light and pounding music and the smells of alcohol and food and the unwashed clientele.

The old man himself was tending bar. Josh went to the counter and leaned there, asked for a bottle. Ngo gave it to him, no asking for his card. That all came later, in the back room. But his hand shook in taking the bottle, and Ngo’s quick hand caught his wrist. “Trouble?”

“Close one,” he lied… and perhaps not a lie. “I got clear. Gang trouble. Don’t worry. No one tracked me. Nothing official.”

“You better be sure.”

“No problem. Nerves. It’s nerves.” He clutched the bottle and walked away toward the back, stopped a moment against the back doorway that led into the kitchen and waited to be sure his exit was not observed.

One of the Mazia

He pushed the door open on manual. “Damon,” he said, and the curtain at the rear of the cabinets opened. Damon came out and sat down among the canisters they used for furniture, in the light of the batteried lamp they used to escape comp’s watchful economy and infallible memory. He came and sank down wearily, gave Damon the bottle and Damon took a drink. Unshaven, both of them, with the look of the unwashed, depressed crowds which collected down here.

“You’re late,” Damon said. “You trying to give me ulcers?”

He fished the cards out of his pocket, arranged them by memory, made quick notes with a grease pencil before he should forget. Damon gave him paper and he wrote the details for each one, and Damon did not talk to him the while.

Then it was done, his memory spilled, and he laid the batch on top of the next canister and reached for the wine bottle. He drank and set it down. “Met Bluetooth. Said your mother’s fine. Give you this.” He drew the brooch from his pocket and watched as Damon took it into his hands with that melancholy look that told him it might have some meaning beyond the gold itself. Damon nodded glumly and pocketed it; he did not much speak of his family, living or dead, not in reminiscence.

“She knows,” Damon said, “she knows what it’s coming to. She can see it from her vid screens, hear it from the Downers… Did Bluetooth say anything specific?”

“Only that your mother thought we needed it.”

“No word of my brother?”

“It didn’t come up. We weren’t in a place we could talk, the Downer and I.”

Damon nodded, drew a deep breath and leaned his elbows on his knees, head bowed. Damon lived for such news. When it failed him his spirits fell, and it hurt. Hurt both of them. He felt as if he had dealt the wound.

“It’s getting tight out there,” Josh said. “Lots of anxiety. I delayed a little along the way, listening, but no news; everyone’s scared but no one knows anything.”

Damon lifted his head, took the bottle, drank down half the remaining wine, hardly a swallow. “Whatever we’re going to do, we’ve got to do soon. Either go into the secured sections… or try for the shuttle. We can’t go on here.”