like the core and its machinery. Jan Meyis, Australia’s second in command, was
on that delicate task. Keu drew back a chair at the council table, taking
possession of it and the chamber; Kreshov followed Mazian out. “Come on,” Signy
said, and young Damon paused for a glance at his father, who was thin-lipped and
upset, at parting with the young woman at his side. They did not, Signy
reckoned, think much of her company. She waited, then walked with him to the
door where she gathered up two of her own troopers for escort, Kuhn and Dektin.
“The command center,” she directed Konstantin, and he showed her out the door
with incongruous and natural courtesy, tending the way they had come in.
Not a word from him; his face was set and hard.
“Your wife back there?” Signy asked. She collected details… on those of
consequence. “Who?”
“My wife.”
“Who?”
“Elene Quen.”
That startled her. “Station family?”
“The Quens. Off Estelle. Married me and stayed off her last run.”
“She’s lost. You know that.”
“We know.”
“Pity. Children, you two?”
It was a moment before he answered that one. “On the way.”
“Ah.” The woman had been a little heavy. “There are two of you Konstantin boys,
aren’t there?”
“I have a brother.”
“Where is he?”
“On Downbelow.” The expression was more and more anxious.
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worrying.”
She smiled, mocking him.
“Are your forces on Downbelow too?” he asked.
She kept the smile, saying nothing. “I recall you’re from Legal Affairs.”
“Yes.”
“So you’d know quite a few of the comp accesses for personnel records, wouldn’t
you?”
He shot her a look that wasn’t frightened. Angry. She looked to the corridor
ahead, where troops guarded the windowed complex of central. “We’re assured your
cooperation,” she reminded him.
“Is it true that we were ceded?”
She smiled still, reckoning the Konstantins, if anyone, to have their wits about
them, to know their value and that of Pell. “Trust me,” she said with irony.
command central, a sign said, with an arrow pointing; communications, another;
blue one, 01-0122. “Those signs” she said, “come down. Everywhere.”
“Can’t.”
“And the color keys.”
“The station is too confusing—even residents could get lost—the halls
mirror-image, and without our color-keys…”
“So in my ship, Mr. Konstantin, we don’t mark corridors for intruders.”
“We have children on this station. Without the colors…”
“They can learn,” she said. “And the signs all come off.”
Station central lay open before them… occupied by troops. Rifles swung anxiously
as they entered, then recentered. She looked all about the command center, the
row upon row of control consoles, the technicians and station officers who
worked there. Troops visibly relaxed at her presence. Civs at their posts looked
relieved as well—at that of young Konstantin, she reckoned; for that purpose she
had brought him.
“It’s all right,” Signy said to the troops and the civs. “We’ve reached an
accommodation with the stationmaster and the council. We’re not evacuating Pell.
The Fleet is setting up a base here, one we’re not going to give up. No way
Union’s coming in here.”
A murmur went among the civs, eyes meeting eyes with subdued looks of relief.
From hostages they were suddenly allies. The troops had grounded their rifles.
“Mallory,” she heard whispered from point to point of the room. “That’s
Mallory.” In that tone, which was not love… nor was it disrespect.
“Show me about,” she said to Damon Konstantin.
He walked about the control center with her, quietly named the posts, the
personnel who filled them, many of whom she would remember; she was good at that
when she wanted to be. She stopped a moment and looked about her, at the
screens, the rotating schematic Downbelow, dotted with green and red points.
“Bases?” she asked.
“We’ve got several auxiliary sites,” he said, “trying to absorb and feed what
you left us.”
“Q?” She saw the monitor on that section too, seething human mass battering at a
sealed door. Smoke. Debris. “What do you do with them?”
“You didn’t give us that answer,” he replied. Few took that tone with her. It
amused her.
She listened, looked about her at the grand complex, bank upon bank, boards with