Downbelow Station

red approach line was long-scan’s new estimate of the ridership’s position; the old estimate faded to faint blue, mere warning to watch that line of approach in case. They were headed right down it in outgoing plane, while the incoming rider was obliged to go nadir. And they were all streaming out together, right down the line.

Signy gnawed her lip, cautioned scan and com monitor to keep up with events all around the sphere, fretting that Mazian had hauled them out in one vector only. Come on, she thought with the taste of one disaster in her mouth, no more like Viking. Give us a few options, man.

cfx / knight / 189-9090-687 / ninerninerniner / sphinx / twotwotwo triplet / doublet / quartet / wisp / endit.

New orders. The late ships were given the other vectors. Pacific and Atlantic and Australia moved onto new courses, slow motion flowering of the pattern to shield the system.

iii

Pell: stationmaster’s offices

merchanter hammer to ecs in vicinity/maydaymaydaymayday/union carriers moving/twelve carriers our vicinity/going for jump/maydaymaydaymayday…

swan’s eye to all ships/runrunrunrun…

ecs tibet to all ships/relay/…

Over an hour old, proliferating through the system in relay through the com of every ship receiving and still going, like an echo in a madhouse. Angelo leaned to the comp console and keyed through to dockside, where the shock of a massive pullout still had crews spilling out on emergency call: military crews had handled it, their own way, undocked without interval. Central was in chaos, with a pending G crisis if the systems could not adjust to the massive kickoff. There were palpable instabilities. Com was jammed. And for nearly two hours the situation on the rim of the solar system had been in progress, while the message flashed its lightbound way toward them.

Troops were left on the dock. Most had been aboard already, barracked onship; some had not made it, and military channels on-station echoed with incomprehensible messages, angry voices. Why they had pulled the troops, why they had delayed to board those they could with attack incoming… the implication of that was the liberty of the Fleet to run out on them. Mazian’s order…

Emilio, he thought distractedly. The schematic of Downbelow on the left wall-screen flickered with a dot that was Porey’s shuttle. He could not call; no one could — Mazian’s orders… com silence. Hold pattern, traffic control was broadcasting to merchanters in orbit; it was all they could say. Com queries flowed from merchanters at dock, faster than operators could answer them with pleas for quiet.

Union was bound to have done this. Anticipated, Mazian had flashed him, in what direct communication he had gotten. For days the captains had stayed near the ships — troops jammed aboard in discomfort — not in courtesy to station; not in response to their requests to have the troops out of the halls.

Prepared for pullout. Despite all promises, prepared for pullout.

He reached for the com button, to call Alicia, who might be following this on her screens…

“Sir.” His secretary Mills came on com. “Security requests you come to com central. There’s a situation down in green.”

“What situation?”

“Crowds, sir.”

He thrust himself from his desk, grabbed his coat.

“Sir — ”

He turned. His office door opened unasked, Mills there protesting the intrusion of Jon Lukas and a companion. “Sir,” Mills said. “I’m sorry. Mr. Lukas insisted… I told him…”

Angelo frowned, vexed at the intrusion and at once hoping for assistance. Jon was able, if self-interested. “I need some help,” he said, and his eyes flicked in alarm at the small movement of the other man’s hand to his coat, the sudden flash of steel. Mills failed to see it… Angelo cried aloud as the man slashed Mills, scrambled back as the man flung himself at him. Hale: he recognized the face suddenly.

Mills shrieked, bleeding, sinking against the open doorway; there were screams from the outer office; the blow struck, a numbing shock. Angelo reached for the driving hand and met the weapon protruding from his chest, stared disbelievingly at Jon… at hate. There were others in the doorway.

Shock welled up in him, with the blood.

iv

Q

“Vassily,” the voice said over com. “Vassily, do you hear me?”

Kressich, at his desk, sat paralyzed. It was Coledy, of those who sat about him, hunched and waiting, who reached past him and punched the respond button. “I hear,” Kressich said past the knot in his throat. He looked at Coledy. In his ears was the buzz of voices out on the docks, people already frightened, already threatening riot.

“Keep him safe,” Coledy said to James, who was over the five others who waited outside. “Keep him very safe.”

And Coledy went. They had waited, had hovered about com, one of them always near it, gathered here in the confusion. It was on them now. After a moment there was a rise in the noise of the mob outside, a dull, bestial sound which shook the walls.

Kressich bowed his face into his hands, stayed so for a long time, not wishing to know.

“The doors,” he heard finally, a shout from outside. “The doors are open!”

v

Green nine

They ran, stumbling and breathless, jostling others in the corridor, a sea of panicked people, red-dyed in alarm lights. A siren still went; there was a queasiness of G as station systems struggled to keep themselves stable. “It’s the docks,” Damon breathed, his vision blurring. A runner hit him and he fended the body off, pushed his way, with Josh in his wake, where the ramp opened onto nine. “Mazian’s peeled off.” It was all that made sense.

Shrieks broke out and there was a massive backflow in the crowd that brought all the press to a stop. Of a sudden traffic began to go the other way, people retreating from something. There were frantic screams, bodies jammed against them.

“Damon!” Josh yelled from behind him. It was no good. They were pushed back, all of them, against the crush of bodies behind. Shots streaked overhead, and the whole jammed mass quivered and rang with screams. Damon got his arms in front of him for leverage, to keep from being suffocated… ribs were compressed.

Then the rear of the press turned, running in panic down some route of escape; and the crush became a battering flood. He tried to stand in it, having his own direction. A hand caught his arm, and Josh caught up with him, staggered as the mob shoved and stampeded and they tried to fight the current

More shots. A man went down; more than one — hit. The fire was going into the crowd.

“Stop shooting!” Damon shouted, still with a wall of people in front of him, a wall diminishing as if a scythe were hitting it. “Cease fire!”

Someone grabbed him from the back, pulled him as fire came through. He got the edge of one and jerked in pain, scrambling for balance in the rout, running now — it was Josh with him, pulling him along in their retreat. A man’s back exploded an arm’s length ahead of them, and the man fell under the others.

“This way!” Josh yelled, jerked him left, down a side corridor where part of the rout was going. He went, that direction as good as the other… saw a way to double back through, redoubled his effort, to get to the docks, running through the maze of secondary corridors back again to nine.

They made it as far as three intersections, frantic people scattering everywhere, at every intersection of the corridors, staggering in the flux of G. And then screams broke out in the halls ahead.

“Look out!” Josh yelled, catching at him. He gasped air and turned, ran where the curving inner hall rose up and up into what was going to turn into a blank wall, the sector division.

Not blank. There was a way. Josh yelled and tried to drag him back when he saw the cul de sac; “Come on,” he snapped and caught Josh’s sleeve, kept running as the wall came down off the horizon at them, became level, a blank wall with a painted mural, and at the right, the heavy door of a Downer hatchway.

He leaned up against the wall, fumbled his card out, jammed it in the slot. The hatch opened with a gust of tainted air, and he dragged Josh into it, into virtual dark, numbing cold.

The door sealed. Air exchange started and Josh looked about in panic; Damon reached for the masks in the recess, thrust one at Josh, got one over his own face and sucked a restricted breath, trembling so that he could hardly get the band adjusted.

“Where are we going?” Josh asked, voice changed by the mask. “Now what?”

There was a lamp in the recess. He took it, thumbed the light on. He reached for the inner-door switch, opened it, a sound that echoed up and up. A slant of the beam picked out catwalks. They were on a grid, and a ladder went down farther still, into a round tube. G diminished, dizzyingly. He caught at the rail.

Elene… Elene would be in the worst of it; she would go to cover, get those office doors locked — had to. He was not able to get through out there; had to get to