necessity. All points of the station are secure and there has been no damage or
crisis. Records will be made of calls, and failure to regard this official
request will be noted. All Downer work crews, report to your section habitats at
once and wait for someone to direct you. Stay off the docks. All other workers
continue about your assigned business. If you can solve problems without calling
central, do so. As yet we have nothing but operations contact with the Fleet; as
soon as information becomes available, we will make it public. Please stay by
your receivers; this will be the quickest and most accurate source of news.”
He leaned out of the field. The warning lights went off the console camera. He
looked about him to find the chaos on the boards much less, as the whole station
had been otherwise occupied for a moment. Some calls returned at once,
presumably necessary and urgent; most did not. He drew a deep breath, thinking
in one part of his mind of what might be happening in his apartment, or worse,
away from it—hoping that Jessad was there, and fearing that he would be
discovered there. Mazian. Military presence, which might start checking records,
asking close questions. And to be found harboring Jessad—
“Sir.” It was the com chief. The third screen from the left was alight. Angelo
Konstantin, angry and flushed. Jon punched the call through.
“Use procedures,” Angelo spat, and broke off. The screen went dark, as Jon stood
clenching his hands and trying to reckon whether that was because he had caught
Angelo with no good answer or because Angelo was occupied.
Let it come, he thought in an excess of hate, the pulse pounding in his veins.
Let Mazian evacuate all who would go. Union would come in after… would have need
of those who knew the station. Understandings could be reached; his
understanding with Jessad paved the way for that. It was no time to be timid. He
was in it and there was no retreat now.
The first step… to become visible, a reassuring voice, and let Jessad see him
doing it. Become known, have his face familiar all over the station. That was
the advantage the Konstantins had always had, monopoly of public visibility,
handsomeness. Angelo looked the vital patriarch; he did not. He had not the
manner, the lifelong habit of authority. But ability—that he had; and once his
heart had begun to settle out of the initial dread of the disorder out there, he
found advantage in the disorder; in any events that went against the
Konstantins.
Only Jessad… he remembered Mariner, which had died when Mazian had crowded in on
the situation there. Only one thing protected them now… that Jessad had to rely
on him and on Hale as his arms and legs, having no network yet of his own; and
at the moment Jessad was neatly imprisoned, having to trust him, because he
dared not try the halls without papers—dared not be out there with Mazian coming
in.
He drew in a breath, expanded with the thought of the power he actually had. He
was in the best of positions. Jessad could provide insurance… or what was
another body vented, another paperless body, as they sometimes ended up vented
out of Q? He had never killed before, but he had known from the time he accepted
Jessad’s presence that it was a possibility.
Chapter Two
« ^ »
Norway: 1400 hrs.
It was a slow process, to berth in so many ships: Pacific first, then Africa;
Atlantic; India. Norway received clearance and Signy, from her vantage at the
post central to the bridge, passed the order to Graff at controls. Norway moved
in with impatient dispatch, having waited so long; was opening the ports of Pell
dock crews to attach the umbilicals while Australia began its move; was
completing secure-for-stay while the super-carrier Europe glided into dock,
disdaining the pushed assist which station wanted to give.
“Doesn’t look like trouble here,” Graff said. “I’m getting an all-quiet on
dockside. Stationmaster’s security is thick out there. No sign of panicked civs.
They’ve got the lid on it.”
That was some comfort. Signy relaxed slightly, beginning to hope for sanity, at