docked ship.
He had never been aboard a warship. It was cramped as a freighter for all its
exterior size. It made him claustrophobic. The rifles in the hands of the
troopers at his back gave him no more comfort, and whenever he would hesitate,
turning left, entering the lift, they would push him with the rifle barrels. He
was sick with fear.
They knew, he kept thinking. He kept trying to persuade himself it was military
courtesy, that Mazian chose to meet him as new stationmaster, that Mazian wished
to bluff or bully. But from this place they could do what they pleased. Could
vent him out a waste chute and he would be indistinguishable from the hundreds
of other bodies which now drifted, frozen, a nuisance in the station’s vicinity
for the skimmers to freeze together and boost off. No difference at all. He
tried to pull his wits together, reckoning that he survived by them now or not
at all.
They showed him off the lift into a corridor with troops standing guard in it,
into a room wider than most, with a vacant round table. Made him sit down in one
of the chairs there. Stood waiting with the rifles over their arms.
Mazian came in, in plain and somber blue, haggard of face. Jon rose to his feet
in respect; Conrad Mazian gestured him to sit down again. Others filed in to
take their places at the table, Europe officers, none of the captains. Jon
darted glances from one to the next
“Acting stationmaster,” Mazian said quietly. “Mr. Lukas, what happened to Angelo
Konstantin?”
“Dead,” Jon said, trying to suppress all but innocent reactions. “Rioters broke
into station offices. Killed him and and his staff.”
Mazian only stared at him, utterly unmoved. He sweated.
“We think,” Jon said further, guessing at the captain’s thoughts, “that there
may have been conspiracy—the strike at other offices, the opening of the door
into Q, the timing of it all. We are investigating.”
“What have you found?”
“Nothing as yet. We suspect the presence of Union agents passed somehow into
station during the processing of refugees. Some were let through, may have had
friends or relatives left back in Q. We’re puzzled as yet how contacts were
passed. We suspect connivance of the barrier guards… black market connections.”
“But you haven’t found anything.”
“Not yet.”
“And won’t very quickly, will you, Mr. Lukas?”
His heart began beating very fast. He kept panic from his face; he hoped he
succeeded at it. “I apologize for the situation, captain, but we’ve been kept
rather busy, coping with riot, with the damage to station… lately working at the
orders of your captains Mallory and…”
“Yes. Bright move, the means you used to clear the halls of riot; but then it
had quieted a little by then, hadn’t it? I understand there were Q residents let
into central.”
Jon found breathing difficult. There was a prolonged silence. He could not think
of words. Mazian passed a signal to one of the guards at the door.
“We were in crisis,” Jon said, anything to fill that terrible silence. “I may
have acted high-handedly, but we were presented a chance to get control of a
dangerous situation. Yes, I dealt with the councillor from that area, not, I
think, involved in the situation, but a calming voice… there was no one else at
the—”
“Where is your son, Mr. Lukas?”
He stared.
“Where is your son?”
“Out at the mines. I sent him out on a shorthauler on a tour of the mines. Is he
all right? Have you had word of him?”
“Why did you send him, Mr. Lukas?”
“Frankly, to get him off the station.”
“Why?”
“Because he had lately been in control over the station offices while I was
stationed on Downbelow. After three years there was some question of loyalties
and authorities and channels of communication within the company offices here. I
thought a brief absence might straighten things out, and I wanted someone out
there in the mine offices who could take over if communications were
interrupted. A policy move. For internal reasons and for security.”
“It wasn’t to balance the presence on-station of a man named Jessad?”