Elene I’d send you home. She sounded upset.”
“All right,” he agreed, but he failed to move, lacking the volition or the
energy. Emilio’s hand tightened, fell away.
“I saw the monitors,” Emilio said. “I know what we’ve got here.”
Damon tightened his lips against a sudden rush of nausea, staring straight
before him, not at refugees, but at infinity, at the future, at the undoing of
what had always been stable and certain. Pell. Theirs, his and Elene’s, his and
Emilio’s. The Fleet took license on itself to do this to them and there was
nothing they could do to stop it, because the refugees were poured in too
suddenly, and they had no alternatives ready. “I’ve seen people shot down,” he
said. “I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. Couldn’t fight the military. Dissent…
would have caused a riot. It would have taken all of us under. But they shot
people for breaking a line.”
“Damon, get out of here. It’s my concern now. We’ll work something out.”
“We haven’t any recourse. Only the Company agents; and we don’t need them
involved. Don’t let them into this.”
“We’ll handle it,” Emilio said. “There are limits; even the Fleet understands
them. They can’t jeopardize Pell and survive. Whatever else they do, they won’t
risk us.”
“They have,” Damon said, focused his eyes on the lines across the docks, turned
a glance then on his brother, on a face the image of his own plus five years.
“We’ve gotten something I’m not sure we can ever digest.”
“So when they shut down the Hinder Stars. We managed.”
“Two stations… six thousand people reach us out of what, fifty, sixty thousand?”
“In Union hands, I’d surmise,” Emilio muttered. “Or dead with Mariner; no
knowing what casualties there. Or maybe some got out in other freighters, went
elsewhere.” He leaned back in the chair, his face settled into morose lines.
“Father’s probably asleep. Mother too, I hope. I stopped by the apartment before
I came. Father says it was crazy for you to come here; I said I was crazy too
and I could probably clean up what you didn’t get to. He didn’t say anything.
But he’s worried—Get on back to Elene. She’s been working the other side of this
chaos, passing papers on the refugee merchanters. She’s been asking questions of
her own. Damon, I think you ought to get home.”
“Estelle.” Apprehension hit through to him. “She’s hunting rumors.”
“She went home. She was tired or upset; I don’t know. She just said she wanted
you to get home when you could.”
“Something’s come in.” He pushed himself to his feet, gathered up his papers,
realized what he was doing, pushed them at Emilio and left in haste, past the
guardpoint, into the chaos of the dock on the other side of the passage which
divided main station from quarantine. Native labor scurried out of his way,
furred, skulking forms more alien by reason of the breather-masks they wore
outside their maintenance tunnels; they were moving equipage and cargo and
belongings in frantic haste… shrieked and shouted among themselves in insane
counterpoint to the commands of human overseers.
He took the lift over to green, walked the corridor into their own residence
area, and even this was littered with displaced belongings in boxes, a security
guard dozing at his post among them. They were all overshift, particularly
security. Damon passed him, turned a face to a belated and embarrassed
challenge, walked to the door of the apartment.
He keyed it open, saw with relief the lights on, heard the familiar rattle of
plastic in the kitchen.
“Elaine?” He walked in. She was watching the oven, her back to him. She did not
turn. He stopped, sensing disaster, another world amiss.
The timer went off. She removed the plate from the oven, set it on the counter,
turned, managed composure to look at him. He waited, hurting for her, and after
a moment came and took her in his arms. She gave a short sigh. “They’re gone,”
she said. And a moment later another short gasp and a release. “Blown with
Mariner. Estelle’s gone, with everyone aboard. No possible survivors. Sita saw