answer the query. Let Emilio figure it a military order which silenced station
central.
On the screens the scan showed ominous lack of activity. They were sitting out
there. Waiting. He paced the circuit of the room again, looked up abruptly as
the door opened. Every tech in the room froze, duties forgotten, hands in
mid-motion at the sight of the group which appeared there, civilian, with rifles
leveled, with others at their backs.
Jessad, two of Kale’s men, and a bloodied security agent, one of their own.
“Area’s secure,” Jessad reported.
“Sir.” A director rose from his post. “Councillor Lukas—what’s happening?”
“Set that man down,” Jessad snapped, and the director gripped the back of his
chair and cast Jon a look of diminishing hope.
“Angelo Konstantin is dead,” Jon said, scanning all the frightened faces.
“Killed in the rioting, with all his staff. Assassins hit the offices. Get to
your work. We’re not clear of this yet.”
Faces turned, backs turned, techs trying to make themselves invisible by their
efficiency. No one spoke. He was heartened by this obedience. He paced the room
another circuit, stopped in the middle of it.
“Keep working and listen to me,” he said in a loud voice. “Lukas Company
personnel are holding this sector secure. Elsewhere we have the kind of
situation you see on the screens. We’re going to restore com, for announcement
from this center only, and only announcements I clear. There is no authority on
this station at the moment but Lukas Company, and to save this station from
damage I will shoot those I have to. I have men under my command who will do
that without hesitation. Is that clear?”
There were no comments, not so much as the turning of a head. It was perhaps
something with which they were in temporary agreement, with Pell’s systems in
precarious balance and Q rioting on the docks.
He drew a calmer breath and looked at Jessad, who nodded a reassuring
satisfaction.
viii
The webbery of ladders stretched before and behind, a maze of tubes across the
overhead, and it was bitterly cold. Damon shone the beam one way and the other,
reached for a railing, sank down on the gridwork as Josh sank down by him, the
breather-sounds loud, strained. His head pounded. Not enough air, not fast
enough for exertion; and the maze they were in… branched. There was logic to it:
the angles were precise; it was a matter of counting. He tried to keep track.
“Are we lost?” Josh asked between gasps.
He shook his head, angled the beam up, the way they should go. Mad to have tried
this, but they were alive, in one piece. “Next level,” he said, “ought to be
two. I figure… we go out… take a look, how things are out there…”
Josh nodded. G flux had stopped. They still heard noise, unsure in this maze
where it came from. Distant shouts. Once a booming shock he thought might be the
great seals. It seemed better; he hoped… moved, with a clattering ringing of the
metal, reached for the rail again and started to climb, the last climb. He was
overwhelmingly anxious, for Elene, for everything he had cut himself off from in
coming this way… No matter the hazard, he had to get out.
There was a static sputter. It boomed through the tunnels and echoed.
“Com,” he said. It was coming back together, all of it.
“This is a general announcement. We are approaching G stabilization. We ask that
all citizens keep to their present areas and do not attempt to cross section
lines. There is still no word from the Fleet, and none is expected yet. Scan
remains clear. We do not anticipate military action in the vicinity of this
station… It is with extreme sorrow that we report the death of Angelo Konstantin
at the hand of rioters and the disappearance in violence of other members of the
family. If any have reached safety, please contract station central as soon as
possible, any Konstantin relative, or any knowing their whereabouts, please
contact station central immediately. Councillor Jon Lukas remains acting
stationmaster in this crisis. Please give full cooperation to Lukas Company