what shooting could start with them.”
Damon nodded slowly, looked back toward the door to the access ramp. “Josh comes with me,” he said. “No one else. I’ll get Pell settled for you. Your troops can follow… after it’s quiet. If shooting starts, you may lose the station, and you wouldn’t want that at this stage, would you?”
“No,” Azov agreed. “We wouldn’t want that.”
Damon nodded and started for the doors. Josh walked beside him. A loudspeaker behind them began to recall troops, who came out the doors from the ramp in obedience to the summons, passing them as they entered and walked upward. The top was clear, doors to blue one closed. Damon pushed the button; it was dead. Manual opened it.
Downers sat beyond, huddled together, a mass that filled the main hall and the side corridors. “Konstantin-man,” one exclaimed, scrambling up suddenly, hurt as many of them were hurt, and bleeding from burns. They surged to their feet, reached out hands as he walked in, to touch his hands, his body, bobbing in delight and calling, shrieking in their own tongue.
He walked through, Josh trailing in his wake through the hysterical press. There were more of them inside the control center, beyond the windows, on the floor, sitting on the counters, in every available niche. He reached the doors, rapped on the window. Hisa faces lifted, eyes stared, solemn and calm… and of a sudden brightened. Downers leaped up, danced, bounced, shrieked wild cries silenced by the glass.
“Open the door,” he called to them. It was impossible that they could hear him, but he pointed to the switch, for they had it locked from inside.
One did. He walked in among them, touched and hugged, touched them in return, and in a sudden rush, found a hand locked viselike on his, clasping it to a furry breast. “I Satin,” the hisa said to him, grinning. “Me eyes warm, warm, Konstantin-man.”
And on the other side, Bluetooth. That broad grin and shaggy coat he knew, and hugged the Downer. “You mother send,” Bluetooth said. “She all right, Konstantin-man. She say lock doors, stand here not move, make they send find Konstantin-man, make all right the Upabove.”
He caught his breath, touched furred bodies, went to the central console, with Josh behind him. Human bodies lay there on the floor. Jon Lukas was one, shot through the head. He sat down at the main board, began pushing keys, rebuilding… took out the spool of tape and hesitated.
Mallory’s gift. To Pell. To Union. The tape might contain anything — traps for Union… a final destruct trigger…
He wiped a hand across his face, finally made up his mind and fed the leader in. The machinery sucked it in, beyond recall.
Boards began to clear, lights flickering to greens. There was a stir among the hisa. He looked above him, at troops reflected in the glass, standing in the doorway with rifles leveled. At Josh, behind him, who had turned to face them.
“Hold it where you are,” Josh snapped at them. They did, and rifles lowered. Maybe it was the face, the look that was Union’s lab-born; or the voice, that expected no argument. Josh turned his back on them and stood with his hands on the back of Damon’s chair.
Damon kept at work, spared a second glance to the reflecting glass. “Need a com tech,” he said. “Someone to get on public channels and talk. Get me someone with a Pell accent. We’re all right. They knocked some of the storage out, slagged some records… but we don’t really need those, do we?”
“They won’t know one name from the other,” Josh said softly, “will they?’”
“No,” he said. The adrenalin that had gotten him this far was wearing off. He found his hands shaking; looked aside as a Unioner tech seated himself at com. “No,” he said, rose and started over to object. Troops leveled guns. “Hold off,” Josh said, and the officer in charge hesitated. Then Josh himself glanced aside and stepped back. There was another presence in the doorway. Azov and his entourage.
“Private message, Mr. Konstantin?”
“I need to get crews at their jobs,” Damon said. “They’ll move at a voice they know.”
“I’m sure they would, Mr. Konstantin. But no. Stay away from com. Let our techs handle it.”
“Sir,” Josh said quietly. “May I intervene?”
“Not in this matter,” Azov said. “Keep at non-public work, Mr. Konstantin.”
Damon drew a quiet breath, walked back to the console he had left and carefully sat down. More and more troops had come in. The hisa crowded back against the walls and onto the counters, chattering soft alarm among themselves.
“Get these creatures out of here,” Azov said. “Now.”
“Citizens,” Damon said, turning his chair to look at Azov. “Pell citizens.”
“Whatever they are.”
“
“Sir?” the Union com tech asked.
Azov signaled for silence.
Damon leaned and tried to hit an alarm. Rifles leveled and he thought better of it. Azov himself went to com. “Mallory,” Azov said, “I’ll advise you to stay put.”
A moment’s silence. “Azov,” the voice returned softly, “somehow I thought there was no honor among thieves.”
“Captain Mallory, you are attached to the Union fleet, under Union orders. Accept them or stand in mutiny.”
Again a silence. And more silence. Azov gnawed at his lip. He reached past the com tech and keyed in his own numbers. “Captain Myes.
And on Mallory’s channel: “You take our offer, Mallory, or there’s no port. You can rip loose and you can run, but you’ll be number-one priority for our ships in Union space. Or you can run join Mazian. Or you can go with us against him.”
“Under your orders?”
“Your choice, Mallory. Free pardon… or be hunted down.”
Dry laughter came back. “How long would I stay in command of
“Pardon, Mallory. Take it or leave it.”
“Like your other promises.”
“Pell station,” a new voice broke in, disturbed. “This is
And another: “Pell station: this is the merchanter fleet. This is Quen of
Damon looked at longscan, that was rapidly compensating for new data, reckoning a signal two hours old.
Eyes tuned to scan, one man at first, and at that expression, others. Not one blip now, but a dusting of them, sent in as other input reached them. A mass, a swarm, an incredible horde of merchanters moving in on them. Damon looked, and leaned against the counter watching it come, a smile spreading across his face.
“They’re armed,” he said to Azov. “Captain, they’re long-haulers and they’ll be armed.”
Azov’s face was rigid. He snatched up a mike and patched it in. “This is Azov of Union flagship
An alarm started blinking, a board flashing alarm across the center. Damon looked at the lights and his heart began to speed. White dock was warning of imminent undocking.
“Ah, we’re just letting you know, Pell central. Warships might make quite a mess of those merchanters, armed or not. But they’ll have professional help if they want it.”
“Repeat,” Elene’s distance-delayed voice came over com. “We’re coming in for dock. We’ve been monitoring your transmissions. The merchanter’s alliance claims Pell, and we hold it to be neutral territory. We assume that you will respect this claim. We suggest immediate negotiation… or every merchanter in this fleet may well withdraw from Union territory entirely. Earthward. We don’t believe this would be the first choice of any parties involved.”
There was silence for a very long moment. Azov looked at the screens, on which blips spread like plague. The merchanter
“We have a basis for discussion,” Azov said.
Damon drew a long, slow breath and let it go.
ii
She came, with an escort of armed merchanters, onto the dock. She was pregnant, and walked slowly, and the merchanters about her took no chances exposing her to hazard on the wide dock. Damon stood by Josh, on the Union side, as long as he could bear, and finally risked himself and walked out, not certain whether either side would let him through to her. Rifles in merchanters’ hands leveled at him, a nervous ring of threat; and he stopped, alone in that empty space.
But she saw him, and her face lit, and merchanters moved, ordered aside left and right until their ranks drank him in and he could reach her.
Merchanter, and back with her own, and long off the solid deck of Pell. In the back of his mind had been doubt, a preparation for changes… that vanished with a look at her face. He kissed her, held onto her as she did him, afraid of hurting her she held him so tightly. He stood there with the whole horde of armed merchanters about them in a glittering haze, and inhaled the scent and the reality of her, kissed her again and knew that they had no time for talking, for questions, for anything.
“Took me quite a roundabout to get home,” she murmured.
