and blinked the memories away. Only… war… Someone near him whispered about
having to evacuate the station.
It was not possible. It could not happen.
Damon! he thought, wishing that he could get up and leave, go to the office, be
reassured. Only there was no reassurance to be found, and he was afraid to try
it.
Mazian’s Fleet. Martial law.
She was with them.
He might break, if he was not careful; the balance of his mind was delicate and
he knew it. Perhaps to have asked for this oblivion was in itself insane, and
Adjustment had made him no more unbalanced than he had ever been. He suspected
every emotion he felt, and therefore tried to feel as few as possible.
“Rest,” the supervisor said. “Ten-minute break.”
He kept working, as he had through previous rest periods. So did the girl beside
him.
ii
Norway; 1530 his.
“We hold Pell,” Signy told her crew and the troops, those present with her on
the bridge and those scattered throughout the ship. “Our decision—Mazian’s,
mine, the other captains—is to hold Pell. Company agents have signed a treaty
with Union… handed them everything in the Beyond and called for us to stand
aside while they do it; they turned our contact code over to Union. That’s why
we aborted the strike… why we took out. No knowing what of our codes is
betrayed.” She let that sink in, watching grim faces all about her, aware of the
whole body of the ship and all the listeners elsewhere within it. “Pell… the
Hinder Stars, this whole edge of the Beyond… this is what we have left secure.
We aren’t going to take that order from the Company; we aren’t going to accept
surrender, however it’s cloaked. We’re off the leash, and this time we fight the
war our own way. We’ve got ourselves a world and a station; and the whole Beyond
began from that. We can rebuild the Hinder Star stations, all that used to exist
between here and the Sun itself. We can do it. The Company may not be smart
enough to want a buffer now between themselves and Union, but they will, believe
me they will, and they’ll be smart enough at least not to trifle with us. Pell’s
our world now. We’ve got nine carriers to hold it. We’re not Company anymore.
We’re Mazian’s Fleet, and Pell is ours. Any contrary opinions?”
She waited for some, although she knew her people like family… for some might
have other opinions, might have second thoughts about this. There was reason
they should.
A sudden cheer erupted off the troop decks, found echo, all channels open.
People on the bridge were hugging one another and grinning. Graff embraced her;
armscomper Tiho did; and others of her officers of many years. Some were crying.
There were tears in Graff’s eyes. None in her own; might have been, but that she
felt guilt… still, irrationally, the habit of an outworn loyalty. She embraced
Graff a second time, pushed back, looked around her. “Get all of us ready,” she
said. It was going all over the ship, open com. “We’re moving in to take station
central before they know what’s hit them. Di, hurry it.”
Graff started giving orders. She heard Di doing so, down in the troop corridors,
distinctive echo. The bridge moved into activity, techs jostling one another in
the narrow aisles getting to posts. “Ten minutes,” she shouted, “full armament,
all available troops arm and out.”
There was shouting elsewhere, the com giving evidence of troops rushing to suit
even before the orders were officially passed. The commands began echoing
through the corridors. Signy walked back to her small office/quarters and took
the precaution of helmet and body armor, none for her limbs, trading risk for
freedom of motion. Five minutes. She heard Di counting over the open com, with
outright chaos feeding out from various command stations. No matter. This crew
and the troops knew their business in the dark and upside down. All family here.
The incompatible met early accidents and those left were close as brothers, as
children, as lovers.
She headed out, slipping her pistol openly into the armor-holster, rode the lift