burn. Station police were everywhere, armed with rifles, no light arms. He
stayed on the docks, close to the police, afraid to go back into the corridors
for fear of the terrorist gangs. It was impossible to hope the police had gotten
them all. There were far too many.
Eventually the station set up an emergency dispensary for food and drink near
the section line, for the water had been shut down during the emergency, the
kitchens vandalized, everything turned to weapons. Com had been vandalized;
there was no way to report damage; and no repair crews were likely to want to
come into the area.
He sat on the bare dock and ate what they were given, in company with other
small knots of refugees who had no more than he. People looked on each other in
fear.
“We aren’t getting out,” he heard repeatedly. “They’ll never clear us to leave
now.”
More than once he heard mutterings of a different sort, saw men he knew had been
in the gangs of rioters, which had begun in his barracks, and no one reported
them. No one dared. They were too many.
Unionizers were among them. He became sure that these were the agitators. Such
men might have most to fear in a tight check of papers. The war had reached
Pell. It was among them, and they were as stationers had always been, neutral
and empty-handed, treading carefully among those who meant murder… only now it
was not stationers against warships, metal shell against metal shell; the danger
was shoulder to shoulder with them, perhaps the young man with the hoarded
sandwich, the young woman who sat and stared with hateful eyes.
The convoy came in, without troops for escort. Dock crews under the protection
of a small army of station police managed the unloading. Refugees were let
through, processed as best could be with most of the housing wrecked, with the
corridors become a jungle. The newcomers stood, baggage in hand, staring about
them with terror in their eyes. They would be robbed by morning, Kressich
reckoned, or worse. He heard people round about him simply crying softly,
despairing.
By morning there was yet another group of several hundred; and by now there was
panic, for they were all hungry and thirsty and food arrived from main station
very slowly.
A man settled on the deck near him: Nino Coledy.
There’s a dozen of us,“ Coledy said. ”Could sort some of this out; been talking
to some of the gang survivors. We don’t give out names and they cooperate. We’ve
got strong arms… could straighten this mess out, get people back into
residences, so we can get some food and water in here.“
“What, we?”
Coledy’s face took on a grimace of earnestness. “You were a councillor. You
stand up front; you do the talking. We keep you there. Get these people fed. Get
ourselves a soft place here. Station needs that. We can benefit by it.”
Kressich considered it. It could also get them shot. He was too old for this.
They wanted a figurehead. A police gang wanted a respectable figurehead. He was
also afraid to tell them no.
“You just do the talking out front,” Coledy said.
“Yes,” he agreed, and then, setting his jaw with more firmness than Coledy might
have expected of a tired old man: “You start rounding up your men and I’ll have
a talk with the police.”
He did so, approaching them gingerly. “There’s been an election,” he said. “I’m
Vassily Kressich, councillor from red two, Russell’s Station. Some of our own
police are among the refugees. We’re prepared to go into the corridors and
establish order… without violence. We know faces. You don’t. If you’ll consult
your own authorities and get it cleared, we can help.”
They were not sure of that. There was hesitation even about calling in. Finally
a police captain did so, and Kressich stood fretting. The captain nodded at
last. “If it gets out of hand,” the captain said, “we won’t discriminate in
firing. But we’re not going to tolerate any killing on your part, councillor
Kressich; it’s not an open license.”
“Have patience, sir,” Kressich said, and walked away, mortally tired and