holding the door open.
“I think I have a right to know what this is about,” Sandor protested, not sure
that Union rights applied here at all, this side of the Line.
“We don’t know,” the officer in charge said, and put him into the lift with the
other police, closed the door behind. “Sir.”
The lift whisked them up with a knee-buckling force, two, four, six, eight
levels. Sandor put his hands toward his pockets, nervous habit, remembered and
did it anyway, carefully. The door opened and let them out into a carpeted
corridor, and one of the police took a scanner from his belt and took him by the
arm, holding him still while he ran the detector over him. Another finished the
job, waist to feet.
“That’s fine,” the officer said then, letting him go. “Pardon, sir.”
Maybe he had rights this violated. He was not sure. He let them take his arm and
guide him down the corridor, a corporation kind of hall, carpeted in natural
fiber, with bizarre carvings on the walls. The place daunted him, being full of
wealth, and somewhere so far from Lucy he had no idea how to get back. Perhaps
it was the shock of the strung-together jumps he had made getting here; maybe it
was something else. His mind was not working as it ought; or it lacked
possibilities to work on. His hands and feet chilled as if he were operating in
a kind of shock. He was threadbare and shabby and as out of place here as he
would be in Dublin’s fine corridors. Lost. There was money here that normally
ignored nuisances his size, and somehow the thought of arguing a three thousand
credit account in a place like this that dealt in millions-One of the police
strode ahead and opened a door with a key card, let them into an office where a
militia guard stood with a large, ugly gun at his side; and two more station
security officers, and a man at a desk who might be a secretary or a clerk.
“Go on in,” that one said, and pushed a button at the desk con-sole. The
militiaman opened the farther door and Sandor hesitated when the police did not
bid to move. “Go on,” the officer said, and he went, far from confident, down an
entry corridor into a large room with a U-shaped table.
All its places were filled, mostly by stationers silver-haired with rejuv; but
there were exceptions. The woman centermost was one, a handsome woman in an
expensive green suit; and next to her was another, a militia officer in blue, a
pale blond man with bleak pale eyes.
“Papers,” the woman in the center said. He reached into his pocket and handed
them to a security agent on duty in the room, who walked to the head of the U
and handed them to her. She unfolded them in front of her and gave them a
cursory scrutiny.
“Why am I here?” Sandor ventured, not loud, not aggressive. But it had never
seemed good to back up much either. They just asked me to come up here. They
didn’t say why.”
She passed the papers to the militia officer beside her. She looked up again,
hands folded in front of her. “Elene Quen-Konstantin,” she identified herself,
“dockmaster of Pell.” And he recalled then what was told about this woman, who
had defied a Union fleet. He swallowed his bluffs unspoken, taking her measure.
‘There’s been some question about your operation, Captain Stevens. We’re
understandably a little anxious here. We have statements by some merchanters
that you’re under ban at Mariner, under a different name. On unspecified
charges. This is hearsay. You don’t have to answer the questions. But we’re
going to have to run a check. We’re quite careful here. We have to be, under
circumstances I’m sure I don’t have to lay out for you. Your combine will be
reimbursed for any unwarranted delays and likewise your housing and your dock
charges will be at Pell’s expense during the inquiry. Unless, of course,
something should turn up to substantiate the charges.”
It took a great deal to keep his knees steady. “There ought to be something a
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