down; armored troops pouring down the corridor at a rattling run hit the wall to
give her room the instant they recognized her coming through, so that she could
run to the fore, where she belonged.
“Signy!” they cried after her, jubilant. “Bravo, Signy!”
They were alive again, and felt it.
iii
Pell council: sector blue one
“No,” Angelo said at once. “No, don’t try to stop them. Pull back. Pull back our
forces immediately.”
Station command acknowledged and turned to its business. Screens in the council
chamber began to reflect new orders; the muffled voice of security command gave
reports. Angelo sank back in his chair, at the table in the center of council,
amid the partially filled tiers, the soft murmurings of panic among those who
had contrived to get back here through the halls. He propped his mouth against
his steepled hands and sat studying the incoming reports which cut across the
screens in rapid sequence, views of the docks, where armored troops boiled out.
Some of the council had waited too long, could not get out of the sections where
they worked or where they had taken up an emergency post. Damon and Elene came
in together, for refuge, out of breath, hesitated at the door. Angelo beckoned
his son and daughter-in-law in on personal privilege, and they approached at his
urging and settled at two of the vacant places at the table. “Had to leave dock
office in a hurry,” Damon said quietly. “Took the lift up.” Hard behind them
came Jon Lukas and his clutch of friends to seat themselves, the friends in the
tiers and Jon at the table. Two of the Jacobys made it, hair disheveled and
faces glistening with sweat. It was not council; it was a sanctuary from what
was happening outside.
On the screens matters were worsening, the troops headed in toward the heart of
the station, security trying to keep up with the situation by remote, switching
from one camera to the next in haste, a rapid flickering of images.
“Staff wants to know if we lock the control-center doors,” a councillor said
from the doorway.
“Against rifles?” Angelo moistened his lips, slowly shook his head, staring at
the flick of images from camera to camera to camera.
“Call Mazian,” Dee said, a new arrival. “Protest this.”
“I have, sir. I have no answer. I reckon he’s with them.”
Q disorder, a screen advised them. Three known dead; numerous injured.…
“Sir,” a call broke through the message. “They’re mobbing the doors in Q, trying
to batter them down. Shall we shoot?”
“Don’t open,” Angelo said, his heart pounding at the acceleration of insanity
where there had been order. “Negative, don’t fire unless the doors are breached.
What do you want—to let them loose?”
“No, sir.”
“Then don’t.” The contact went dead. He wiped his face, feeling ill.
“I’ll get down that way,” Damon offered, half out of his chair.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Angelo said. “I don’t want you gathered up in any
military sweep.”
“Sir,” an urgent voice came at his elbow, a presence which had come down from
the tiers. “Sir—”
Kressich.
“Sir,” Kressich said.
“Q com is down,” security command advised. “They’ve got it out again. We can
splice something in. They can’t have reached the dock speakers.”
Angelo looked at the man Kressich, a haggard, grayed individual, who had gotten
more so in the passing months. “Hear that?”
“They’re afraid,” Kressich said, “that you’re going to leave here and let the
Fleet leave them for Union.”
“We don’t know what the Fleet’s intention may be, Mr. Kressich, but if a mob
tries to breach those doors into our side of the docks, it’s going to be beyond
our power to do anything but shoot. I suggest you get on the com link to that
section when they get it patched, and if there’s a speaker they haven’t broken,
make that clear to them.”
“We know we’re pariahs whatever happens,” Kressich returned, lips trembling. “We
asked, we asked over and over, speed up the checks, run id’s, purify our
records, do it faster. Now it’s too late, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily, Mr. Kressich.”
“You’re going to see to your own people first, get them on the available ships