feverish hope. Damon, he thought, wished. Damon!
A hand touched his shoulder and made him turn. He stared up into the
supervisor’s face, unfocused, on the security police from the station and a
soldier in the armor and insignia of Mazian’s Fleet.
“Mr. Talley,” said one of the police, “will you come with us, please?”
He realized the wrench in his hand as a weapon, carefully laid it on the
counter, wiped his hand on his coveralls, and stood up.
“Where are you going?” the girl beside him asked. He had never known her name.
Her plain face was distressed. “Where are you going?”
He did not answer, not knowing. One of the police took him by the arm and
brought him away down the aisle and up the side of the shop to the door, They
were all staring. “Quiet,” the supervisor said. There was a general murmuring.
The police and the troops brought him outside into the corridor and stopped
there. The door closed, and a troop officer, in body armor only, faced him to
the wall and searched him.
The man took his papers from his pocket. He faced about again when they let him
and stood with his back against the wall, watching the officer go through the
papers. Atlantic, their insignia said. A sick terror worked in him. Company
soldiers had the papers in their hands, and they were all his claim to
harmlessness, proof of what he had been through, that he was no danger to
anyone. He reached out to recover them and the officer held them out of reach.
Mazianni. The shadow came back.He withdrew his hand, remembering other
encounters, his heart pounding. “I have a pass,” he said, trying to keep the tic
from his face, which came when he was upset. “It’s with the papers. You can see
I work here. I’m supposed to be here.”
“Mornings only.”
“We were all held,” he said. “We were all held over. Check the others. We’re all
from morning shift.”
“You’ll come with us,” one of the troopers said.
“Ask Damon Konstantin. He’ll tell you. I know him. Hell tell you that I’m all
right.”
That delayed them. “I’ll make a note of that,” the officer said.
“It’s possibly true,” said one of the station police. “I’ve heard something like
that. He’s a special case.”
“We have our orders. Comp spat him out; we have to clear the matter. You lock
him up in your facilities or we lock him up in ours.”
Josh opened his mouth to state a preference. “We’ll take him,” the policeman
said before he could plead.
“My papers,” Josh said. He stammered and flushed with shame. Some reactions were
still too much to control. He held out a demanding hand for his papers and it
shook visibly. “Sir.”
The officer folded them and carefully put them into his belt-kit. “He doesn’t
need them. He’s not going anywhere. You take him and put him away, and you have
him available if any of us want him, you understand that? He may go into Q
later, but not till command’s had a chance to review it”
“Understood,” the policeman said crisply. He seized Josh’s arm, led him down the
corridor. The troops walked behind, and finally, at an intersection of
corridors, their path and that of the troops diverged.
But there were Mazianni at every visible hallway. He felt cold and exposed… felt
profound relief when the police stopped at a lift and took him into the car
alone; they were, for that ride up and around to red sector one, without the
troops.
“Please call Damon Konstantin,” he asked of them. “Or Elene Quen. Or anyone in
their offices. I know the numbers.”
There was silence for most of the ride.
“We’ll report it through channels,” one said finally, without looking at him.
The lift stopped, red one. Security zone. He walked out between them, through
the transparent partition and to the desk at the entry. Troops were inside this
office too, armored and armed, and that sent a wave of panic through him, for he
had hoped that in this place at least he was under station authority.
“Please,” he said at the desk, while they were checking him in. He knew the