Downbelow Station

systematic pilferage of stores and equipment, while his staff stood by watching it happen. Lights went on under the transparent domes… workers came out, more and more of them, standing in shock.

A siren sounded. He looked skyward, saw only the last few stars as yet, but com had wind of something. And a presence disturbed the rocks near him, and a slim arm slipped around his waist. He hugged Miliko against him, cherishing the contact.

There was a call from across the slope; arms lifted, pointed up. The light of the descending ship was visible in the paling sky… sooner than they had wanted.

“Minx!” He called one of the hisa to him, and she came, a female with the white blaze of an old burn on her arm; came burdened as she was and panting. “Hide now,” he told her, and she ran back to the line, chattering to her fellows as she went.

“Where are they going?” Miliko asked. “Did they say?”

They know,“ he said. ”Only they know.“ He hugged her the tighter against the wind. ”And their coming back again — that depends on who does the asking.“

“If they take us away…”

“We do what we can. But there’ll be no outsiders giving them orders.”

The light of the ship brightened, intense. Not one of their shuttles, but something bigger and more ominous.

Military, Emilio reckoned; a carrier’s landing probe.

“Mr. Konstantin.” One of the workers came running up, stopped with a bewildered spreading of his hands. “Is it true? Is it true that Mazian’s up there?”

“We were sent word that’s what it is. We don’t know what’s going on up there; indications are things are quiet. Keep it calm; pass the word… we keep our wits about us, ride events as they come. No one says anything about the missing supplies; no one mentions them, you understand? But we aren’t going to have the Fleet strip us down here and then go off to leave the station to starve; that’s what’s going on. You pass that word too. And you take your orders only from me and from Miliko, hear?”

“Sir,” the man breathed, and at his dismissal, ran off to carry the news.

“Better put it to Q,” Miliko said.

He nodded, started that way, from the hillside on which they stood. Over the hill a glow flared up, field lights on to guide the landing. He and Miliko walked the path over to Q, found Wei there. “Fleet’s up there,” Emilio said. And at the quick, panicked murmur: “We’re trying to keep food for station and ourselves; trying to stop a Fleet takeover down here. You saw nothing. You heard nothing. You’re deaf and blind, and you don’t have responsibility for anything; I do.”

There was murmuring, from the resident workers, from Q. He turned, he and Miliko, headed by the path from there to the landing site; a crowd of his own staff and resident workers formed about him… Q folk too; no one stopped them. They had no guards anymore, not here, not at the other camps; Q worked by posted schedules like other workers. It was not without its arguments, its difficulties; but they were less a threat than what descended on them all, which would make its demand for provisions for troop-laden carriers, and possibly demands for live bodies.

The ship came down in thunder, settled into the landing area and overfilled it, and on the hillside they stopped their ears in its sound and turned their faces from its reeking wind until the engines had shut down. It rested there in the breaking day, foreign and ungainly, and bristling with war. The hatch opened, lowered a jaw to the ground, and armored troops walked down onto the soil of the world as they on their hillside stood still in a line of their own, armorless and weaponless. The troops braced, aimed rifles. An officer came down the ramp into the light, a dark-skinned man with a breathing mask only, no helmet.

“That’s Porey,” Miliko whispered. “That has to be Porey himself.”

He felt the burden on himself to go down and answer the posed threat, let go Miliko’s hand; but she did not let go his. They walked down the hill together, to meet the legendary captain… stopped at speaking range, all too conscious of the rifles now much closer to them.

“Who’s in charge of this base?” Porey demanded.

“Emilio Konstantin and Miliko Dee, captain.”

“Before me?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Receive a decree of martial law. All supplies at this base are confiscated. All civilian government, human and native, is suspended. You will turn over all records of equipment, personnel, and supplies immediately.”

Emilio made an ironic sweep of his free hand, offering the domes, plundered domes. Porey would not be amused, he reckoned. Certain hand-kept books had disappeared too. He was afraid, for himself, for Miliko… for the men and women of this base and others; not least of all for the hisa, who had never seen war.

“You will remain on this world,” Porey said, “to assist us in whatever ways are necessary.”

Emilio smiled tautly and pressed Miliko’s hand. It was arrest, nothing less than that. His father’s message, rousing him out of sleep, had given him time. About him were workers who had never asked to be put in this position, who had been volunteered for this service. He relied less on their silence than on the hisa’s speed. It was even possible that the military would put him under more direct restraint. He thought of his family on the station, the possibility of Pell being evacuated, and of Mazian’s men making deliberate ruin of Downbelow itself in a pullout, destroying what they did not want Union to get their hands on, impressing all the able-bodied into the Fleet. They would put guns in hisa’s hands if it would get them lives to throw against Union.

“We’ll discuss the matter,” he answered, “captain.”

“Arms will be turned over to my troops. Personnel will submit to search.”

“I suggest discussion, captain.”

Porey gestured sharply. “Bring them inside.”

The troops started for them. Miliko’s hand clenched on his. He took the initiative and they walked forward on their own, suffered themselves to be spot-searched and brought up the ramp into the glare of the ship’s interior, where Porey waited.

Emilio stopped at the upper end of the ramp, with Miliko beside him. “We have the responsibility for this base,” he said. “I don’t want to make public issue of it. Very quietly, I’ll comply with reasonable needs of your forces.”

“You are making threats, Mr. Konstantin.”

“I’m making a statement, sir. Tell us what you want. I know this world. Military intervention in a working system would have to take valuable time to establish its own ways, and in some cases, intervention could be destructive.”

He stared into Porey’s scar-edged eyes, well read that this was a man who did not like to be defied. Who was personally dangerous.

“My officers will go with you,” Porey said, “to get the records.”

Chapter Five

i

Pell: sector white two; 1700 hrs.

Police had come in, quiet men, who stood by the door and talked to the supervisor. Josh saw them from under his brows and kept his head down, his fingers never missing a turn of the piece he was removing. The young girl by him had stopped outright, nudged him hard in the ribs.

“Hey,” she said. “Hey, it’s police.”

Five of them. Josh ignored the blows in his ribs and she only jabbed him the harder.

Above them the com screen came on. The light caught his eyes and he looked up for an instant at another general announcement, for the return of limited freedom of passage in green section. He ducked his head and resumed work.

“They’re looking this way,” the girl said.

They were. They were making gestures in this direction, Josh shot a look up and down again, up once more, for troops had come in, armored. Company soldiers. Mazianni. “Look,” the girl said. He set himself back to work. The silken voice of central continued over the com, promising that it was all safe. He stopped believing it.

Footsteps were in the aisle, coming from the other side, heavy steps and many of them. They reached him and stopped behind him. He kept working in a last, feverish hope. Damon, he thought, wished. Damon!

A hand touched his shoulder and made him turn. He stared up into the supervisor’s face, unfocused, on the security police from the station and a soldier in the armor and insignia of Mazian’s Fleet.

“Mr. Talley,” said one of the police, “will you come with us, please?”

He realized the wrench in his hand as a weapon, carefully laid it on the counter, wiped his hand on his coveralls, and stood up.

“Where are you going?” the girl beside him asked. He had never known her name. Her plain face was distressed. “Where are you going?”

He did not answer, not knowing. One of the police took him by the arm and brought him away down the aisle and up the side of the shop to the door, They were all staring. “Quiet,” the supervisor said. There was a general murmuring. The police and the troops brought him outside into the corridor and stopped there. The door closed, and a troop officer, in body armor only, faced him to the wall and searched him.

The man took his papers from his pocket. He faced about again when they let him and stood with his back against the wall, watching the officer go through the papers. Atlantic, their insignia said. A sick terror worked in him. Company soldiers had the papers in their hands, and they were all his claim to harmlessness, proof of what he had been through, that he was no danger to anyone. He reached out to recover them and the officer held them out of reach. Mazianni. The shadow came back.He withdrew his hand, remembering other encounters, his heart pounding. “I have a pass,” he said, trying to keep the tic from his face, which came when he was upset. “It’s with the papers. You can see I work here. I’m supposed to be here.”

“Mornings only.”