Downbelow Station (20 page)

“Earth is one world.”

He said nothing. Had nothing to say. He did not want to argue the desirability of Earth.

“The matter of Pell,” said Azov, “is an easy one. Do you know the vulnerability of a station? And when the will of the citizenry supports those outside, a very simple matter. No destruction; that’s not our purpose. But the Fleet will not operate successfully in the absence of a base… and you hold none. We sign the articles you ask, including the arrangement of Pell as a common meeting point—but in our hands, not yours. No difference, really… save in the observance of the will of the people… which you claim to hold so dear.” It was better than it might have been; but it was designed to appear so. “There are,” he said, “no representatives of the citizens of Pell here, only a self-appointed spokesman. I would like to see his letters of authorization.” Azov gathered up a leather-bound folder from before him. “You might be interested in this, sir: the document you offered us… signed by the government and Directorate of Union, and the council, precisely as you worded it… abstracting the control of stations which are now in our hands, and a few minor words regarding the status of Pell: the words ’under Company management’ have been struck, here and on the trade document. Three small words. All else is yours, precisely as you gave it. I understand that you are, due to distances, empowered to sign on behalf of your governments and the Company.” Refusal was on his lips. He considered it, as he was in the habit of considering what slipped from him. “Subject to ratification by my government. The absence of those words would cause distress.”

“I hope that you will urge them to acceptance, sir, after reflection.” Azov laid the folder on the table and slid it toward him. “Examine it at your leisure.
 
From our side, it is firm. All the provisions you desired, all the provisions, to put it frankly, that you can possibly ask, since your territories do not exist.”

“I frankly doubt that”

“Ah. That is your privilege. But doubt doesn’t alter fact, sir. I suggest that you content yourself with what you have won… trade agreements which will profit us all, and heal a long breach. Mr. Ayres, what more in reason do you think you can ask? That we cede what the citizens of Pell are willing to give us?” “Misrepresentation.”

“Yet you lack any means to investigate, thus confessing your own limitations of control and possession. You say the government which sent you from Earth has undergone profound changes, and that we must deal with you as a new entity, forgetting all past grievances as irrelevant. Does this new entity… propose to meet our signing of their document with further demands? I would suggest, sir, that your military strength is at a low ebb… that you have no means to verify anything, that you were obliged to come here in a series of freighters at the whim of merchanters. That a hostile posture is not to the good of your government” “You are making threats?”

“Stating realities. A government without ships, without control of its own military and without resources… is not in a position to insist that its document be signed without changes. We have abstracted meaningless clauses and three words, leaving the government of Pell essentially in the hands of whatever government the citizens of Pell choose to establish; and is this a fit matter for objection on the part of the interest you represent?” Ayres sat still a moment. “I have to consult with others of my delegation. I don’t choose to do so with monitoring in progress.”

“There is no monitoring.”

“We believe to the contrary.”

“Again you are without means to verify this one way or the other. You must proceed as best you can.”

Ayres took the folder. “Don’t expect me or my staff at any meetings today. We’ll be in conference.”

“As you will.” Azov rose, extended his hand. Jacoby remained seated and offered no courtesy.

“I don’t promise signature.”

“A conference. I quite understand, sir. Pursue your own course; but I should suggest that you seriously consider the effects of refusing this agreement.
 
Presently we consider our border to be Pell. We’re leaving you the Hinder Stars, which you may, if you wish, develop to your profit. In case of failure of this agreement, we shall set our own boundaries, and we will be direct neighbors.” His heart was beating very hard. This was nearing ground he did not want to discuss at all.

“Further,” said Azov, “should you wish to save the lives of your Fleet and recover those ships, we’ve added to that folder a document of our own.
 
Contingent on your agreement to attempt recall of the Fleet, and your order to them to withdraw to the territories you have taken for your boundary by the signature of this treaty, we will drop all charges against them and against other enemies of the state which you may name. We’ll permit them to withdraw under our escort and to accompany you home, although we understand that this is at considerable hazard to our side.”

“We are not aggressive.”

“We could better believe that did you not refuse to call off your ships, which are presently attacking our citizens.”

“I’ve told you flatly that I have no command over the Fleet and no power to recall it” “We believe that you might use considerable influence. We will make facilities available to you for the transmission of a message… the cessation of hostilities will follow the Fleet ceasefire.”

“We’ll consider the matter.”

“Sir.”

Ayres bowed, turned, walked out, met by the ever-present young guards, who began to guide him elsewhere among the offices. “The other meeting has been canceled,” he informed them. “We go back to my quarters. All my companions do.” “We have our orders,” the foremost said, which was all they ever said. It would be straightened out only when they reached the site of the 0800 meeting and gathered the whole party, a new group of young guards then to guide them back, long waiting in between while things were cleared through channels. This was always the way of things, inefficiency meant to drive them mad.
 
His hand sweated on the leather of the folder he was given, the folder with the documents signed by the government of Union. Pell, lost. A chance to recover at least the Fleet and a proposal which might destroy it. He much feared that the government of Union was planning further ahead than Earth imagined. The Long View. Union had been born with it. Earth was only now acquiring it. He felt transparent and vulnerable. We know you’re stalling, he imagined the thoughts behind Azov’s broad, powerful face. We know you want to gain time; and why; and for now it suits us too, a trifling agreement we and you will abrogate at earliest convenience.

Union had swallowed all it meant to digest… for now.
 
They could not afford debate, could not raise deadly issues in a privacy they probably did not have. Sign it and carry it home. What he had in his head was the important matter. They had learned the Beyond; it was about them in the person of soldiers with a single face and virtually a single mind; in the defiance of Norway’s captain, the arrogance of the Konstantins, the merchanters who ignored a war that had been going on all about them for generations… attitudes Earth had never understood, that different powers rule out here, different logic.

Generations which had shaken the dust of Earth from off their feet.
 
Getting home—by signing a meaningless paper Mazian would never heed, no more than Mallory would come to heel for the asking—getting back alive was the important thing, to make understood what he had seen. For that he would do the necessary things, sign a lie and hope.

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i

Pell: stationmaster’s office, sector blue one; 9/9/52; 1100 hrs.
 
The daily ton of disasters extended even to regions beyond station. Angelo Konstantin rested his head on his hand and studied the printout in front of him.
 
A seal blown on Centaur Mine, on Pell IV’s third moon… fourteen men killed.
 
Fourteen—he could not help the thought—skilled, cleared workers. They had humanity rotting in its own filth the other side of Q line, and they had to lose the like of these instead. Lack of supply, old parts, things which should have been replaced being rigged to keep working. A quarter credit seal gave way and fourteen men died in vacuum. He typed through a memo to locate workers among Pell techs who could replace the lost ones; their own docks were going idle… jammed with ships on main berths and auxiliaries, but very little moving in or out… and the men were better out there in the mines where their expertise could do some good.

Not all the transferred workers had necessary skills at what they were set to do. A worker had been killed on Downbelow, crushed trying to direct a crawler out of the mud where an inexperienced partner had driven it. Condolences had to be added to those Emillio had already written to the family on-station.
 
There were two more murders known in Q, and a body had been found adrift in the vicinity of the docks. Supposedly the victim had been vented alive. Q was blamed. Security was trying to get id on the victim, but there was considerable mutilation of the body.

There was a case of another kind, a lawsuit involving two longtime resident families sharing quarters in alterday rotation. The original inhabitants accused the newcomers of pilferage and conversion. Damon sent him the case as an example of a growing problem. Some council action was going to have to be taken in legislation to make responsibilities clear in such cases.
 
A docksider newly assigned to his post was in hospital, half killed by the crew of the militarized merchanter Janus. The militarized crews demanded merchanter privileges and access to bars, against some stationer authorities who tried to put them under military discipline. The bones would mend; the relations between station-side officers and the merchanter crews were in worse condition. The next stationer officer who went out with the patrols was looking to get his throat cut. Merchanter families were not used to strangers aboard.
 
No station personnel to be assigned to militia ships without permission of ship’s captain, he sent to the militia office. Militia ships will patrol under their own officers pending resolution of morale difficulties.
 
That would create anguish in some quarters. It would create less than a mutiny would, a merchanter ship against the station authority which tried to direct it.
 
Elene had warned him. He found occasion now to take that advice, an emergency in which stationmaster could override council’s ill-advised desire to keep its thumb on the armed freighters.

There were petty crises in supply. He stamped authorizations where needed, some after the fact, approval on local supervisors’ ingenuity, particularly in the mines. He blessed skilled subordinates who had learned to ferret hidden surpluses out of other departments.

There was need for repair in Q and security asked authorization for armed forces to seal and clear orange three up to the forties, for the duration of the construction, which meant moving out barracksful of residents. It was rated urgent but not life-threatening; taking a repair crew in without sealing the area was. He stamped it Authorized. Shutting down the plumbing in that sector instead threatened them with disease.

“A merchanter captain Ilyko to see you, sir.”

He drew in his breath, stabbed at the button on the console, calling the woman in. The door opened, admitted a huge woman, grayed and seamed with years rejuv had not caught in time. Or perhaps she was in the decline… the drugs would not hold it off forever. He gestured to a chair; the captain took it gratefully. She had sent the interview request an hour ago, while the ship was coming in. She came from Swan’s Eye, a can-hauler out of Mariner. He knew the locals, but not this woman. She was one of their own now, militarized; the blue sleeve cord was the insignia she wore to indicate as much.

“What’s the message,” he asked, “and from whom?” The old woman searched her jacket and extracted an envelope, leaned heavily forward to lay it on his desk. “From the Olvigs’ Hammer,” she said. “Out of Viking. Flashed us out there and gave us this hand-to-hand. They’re going to be out of station scan a while… afraid, sir. They don’t like what they see at all.” “Viking.” Word of that disaster had come in long ago. “And where have they been since then?”

Their message might make it clearer; but they claim to have taken damage clearing Viking. Short-jumped and hung out in nowhere. That’s their story. And they’re scarred up for sure, but they’ve got a load. We should have been so lucky when we ran. Then we wouldn’t be running militia service, would we, sir, for dock charges?“ “You know what’s in this?”

“I know,” she said. “There’s something on the move. Push is coming to shove, Mr.
 
Konstantin. The way I reckon it… Hammer tried a jump Unionside and didn’t find it so good over there after all; Union tried to grab her, it seems, and she ran for it. She’s scared of the same thing here. Wanted me to come in ahead of her and bring the message, so’s she won’t have her hands dirty with it. Consider her position if Union figures she blew the whistle on them. Union’s moving.” Angelo regarded the woman, the round face and deep-sunken dark eyes. Nodded slowly. “You know what happens here if your crew talks on station or elsewhere.
 
Makes it very hard on us.”

“Family,” she said. “We don’t talk to outsiders.” The black eyes fixed steadily on him. “I’m militia, Mr. Konstantin, because we had the bad luck to come in with no load and you laid a charge on us; and because there’s nowhere else.
 
Swan’s Eye isn’t one of the combine haulers; got no reserve and no credit here like some. But what’s credit, eh, Mr. Konstantin, if Pell folds? From here on, never mind the credits in your bank; I want supplies in my hold.” “Blackmail, captain?”

“I’m taking my crew back out there on patrol and we’re going to watch your perimeter for you. If we see any Union ships we’ll flash you word in a hurry and jump fast. A can-hauler isn’t up to seek-and-dodge with a rider ship, and I’m not going to do any heroics. I want the same advantage Pell crews have, that have food and water hoarded up off the manifests.”