“I know that,” Elene said hoarsely. “But I’m still asking it.”
“You’ve got com if you want it.”
iv
Signy turned restlessly and came up against a sleeping body, a shoulder, an inert arm. Who it was she did not remember for a moment, in her half-asleep confusion. Graff, she decided finally, Graff. She settled comfortably again, against him. They had come offshift together. She kept her eyes open on the dark wall for a moment, the row of lockers, in the starlight glow of the light overhead — not liking the images she saw against her lids, the remembered reek of dying in her nostrils, that she could not bathe away.
They held Pell.
She closed her eyes finally, drew a deliberately peaceful breath. Graff stirred against her, settled again, a friendly presence in the dark.
v
“She sleep,” Lily said. Satin drew in a breath and settled her arms about her knees. They had pleased Sun-her-friend; the Dreamer had wept for joy to hear the news that Bluetooth had brought, the Konstantin-man and his friend safe… so, so awesome the sight of tears on that tranquil face. All the hisa’s hearts had hurt within them until they understood it was happiness… and a warmth had sat within the dark and lively eyes, that they had crowded close to see.
Then at last she smiled, and closed her eyes.
“Sun-shining-through-clouds.” Satin nudged Bluetooth and he who had been zealously grooming himself — trying vainly to bring order to his coat, for respect of this place — looked toward her. “You go back, go and set your own eyes on this young Konstantin-man. Upabove hisa are one thing; but you are very quick, very clever Downbelow hunter. You watch him, come and go.”
Bluetooth cast an uncertain look at Old One and at Lily.
“Good,” Lily agreed. “Good, strong hands. Go.”
He preened diffidently, a young male, but others gave him place; Satin regarded him with pride, that even the old strange ones saw worth in him. And truth: there was keen good sense in her friend. He touched the Old Ones and touched her, quietly excused himself toward the outside of the gathering.
And the Dreamer slept, safe in their midst, although a second time humans had fought humans and the secure world of the Upabove had rocked like a leaf on the breast of river. Sun watched over her, and the stars still burned about them.
Chapter Six
The trucks moved at a lumbering pace through the clear area, forlorn, collapsed domes, the empty pens, and above all the silence of the compressors, telling a tale of abandonment. Base one. First of the camps after main base. Lock doors banged loosely, unfastened, in a slight wind. The weary column straggled now, all looking at the desolation, and Emilio looked on it with a pang in his own heart, this thing that he had helped to build. No sign of anyone staying here. He wondered how far down the road they were, and how they fared. “Hisa watch here too?” he asked of Bluetooth, who, almost alone of hisa, still remained with the column, beside him and Miliko. “We eyes see,” Bluetooth answered, which told him less than he wanted.
“Mr. Konstantin.” A man came up from the back, walked along with him, one of the Q workers. “Mr. Konstantin, we have to rest.”
“Past the camp,” he promised. “We don’t stay in the open longer than we can help, all right? Past the camp.”
The man stood still and let the column pass and his own group overtake him. Emilio gave Miliko’s shoulder a weary pat, increased his own pace to overtake the two crawlers ahead of the column; he passed one in the clearing, overtook the other as they reached the farther road, got the driver’s attention and signed him half a kilometer halt. He stopped then and let the column move until he was even with Miliko. He reckoned that some of the older workers and the children might be at the end of their strength. Even walking with the breathers was about the limit of exertion they could take over this number of hours. They kept stopping for rest and the requests grew more and more frequent.
They began to straggle as it was, some of them stringing further and further behind. He drew Miliko aside, and watched the line pass. “Rest ahead,” he told each group as they passed. “Keep on till you get there.” In time the back of the column came in sight, a draggled string of walkers. The older ones, patient and doggedly determined, and a couple of staffers who walked last of all. “Anyone left?” he asked, and they shook their heads.
And suddenly a staffer was coming down the winding road from the other end of the column, jogging, staggering into other walkers, as the line erupted with questions. Emilio broke into a run with Miliko in his wake, intercepting the man.
“Com got through,” the runner gasped, and Emilio kept running, the slanted margins of the road, up the tree-curtained windings until he saw the trucks and people massed about them. He circled through the trees and worked his way through the crowd, which broke to let him, toward the lead truck, where Jim Ernst sat with the com and the generator. He scrambled up onto the bed, among the baggage and the bales and the older folk who had not walked, worked his way through to the place where Ernst sat, stood still as Ernst turned to him with one hand pressing the plug to his ear and a look in his eyes that promised nothing but pain.
“Dead,” Ernst said. “Your father… riot on the station.”
“My mother and brother?”
“No word. No word on any other casualties. Military’s sending. Mazian’s Fleet. Wants contact with us. Do I answer?”
Shaken, he drew in a breath, aware of silence in the nearest crowd, of people staring up at him, of a handful of old Q residents on the truck itself looking at him with eyes as solemn as the hisa images.
Someone else scrambled up onto the truckbed and waded through, flung an arm about him. Miliko. He was grateful… shivered slightly with exhaustion and delayed shock. He had anticipated it. It was only confirmation.
“No,” he said. “
Ernst stood up, told them. He hugged Miliko against him. Miliko’s parents and sister were up there, cousins, uncles and aunts. The Dees might survive or, equally, they might die unnoted by the dispatches: there was more hope for the Dees. They were not targets like the Konstantins.
The Fleet had seized control, imposed martial law, Q — Ernst hesitated and doggedly continued, before all the uplifted faces below — Q had rioted and gotten across the line, with widespread destruction and loss of life, stationers and Q both.
One of the old Q residents was crying. Perhaps, Emilio acknowledged painfully, perhaps they too had people for whom to worry.
He looked down on row after row of solemn faces, his own staff, workers, Q, a scattering of hisa. No one moved now. No one said anything. There was only the wind in the leaves overhead and the rush of the river beyond the trees.
“So they’re going to be here,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “they’re going to be back here wanting us to grow crops for them and work the mills and the wells; and Company and Union are going to fight back and forth, but it’s not Pell anymore, not in their hands, when what we grow can be taken to fill their holds. When our own Fleet comes down here and works us under guns… what when Union comes after them? What when they want more work, and more, and there’s no more say any of us has in what happens to Downbelow? Go back if you like; work for Porey until Union gets here. But I’m going on.”
“Where, sir?” That was the boy — he had forgotten the name — the one Hale had bullied the day of the mutiny. His mother was by him, in the circle of his arm. It was not defiance, but a plain question.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Wherever the hisa can show us that’s safe, if there is any such place. To live there. To dig in and live. Grow our crops for ourselves.”
A murmur ran among them. Fear… was always at the back of things for those who did not know Downbelow, fear of the land, of places where man was a minority. Men who were unconcerned by hisa on-station grew afraid of them in the open land, where men were dependent and hisa were not. A lost breather, a failure… they died of such things on Downbelow. The cemetery back at main base had grown as the camp did.
“No hisa,” he said again, “ever harmed a human. And that despite things we’ve done, despite that we’re the aliens here.” He climbed down from the truck, hit the yielding ruts of the road, lifted his hands for Miliko, knowing she at least was with him. She jumped down, and questioned nothing. “We can set you up in the camp back there,” he said. “Do that much for you at least, those of you that want to take your chances with Porey. Get the compressors running for you.”
“Mr. Konstantin.”
He looked up. It was one of the oldest women, from the truckbed.
