personnel who are fulfilling security duties in this emergency.”
Damon sank down on the steps. A cold deeper than the chill of the metal settled
into him. He could not breathe. He became aware that he was crying, tears
blurring the light and choking his breath.
“… announcement,” the com began to repeat “We are approaching G stabilization.
We ask that all citizens…”
A hand settled on his shoulder, pulled him about “Damon?” Josh said through the
noise.
He was numb. Nothing made sense. “Dead,” he said, and shuddered. “O God—
Josh stared at him, took the lamp from his hand. Damon thrust himself for his
feet, for the last climb, for the access he knew was up there.
Josh pulled him hard, turned him around against the solid wall. “Don’t go,” Josh
pleaded with him. “Damon, don’t go out there now.”
Josh’s paranoid nightmares. It was that look on his face. Damon leaned there,
his mind going in all directions, and no clear direction. Elene. “My father… my
mother… that’s blue one. Our guards were in blue one. Our own guards.”
Josh said nothing.
He tried to think. It kept coming up wrong. Troops had moved; the Fleet had
pulled out. Murders instant… in Pell’s heaviest security…
He turned the other way, the way they had just come, his hands shaking so he
could hardly grip the railing. Josh shone the light for him, caught his elbow to
stop him. He turned on the steps, looked up into Josh’s masked, light-distorted
face.
“Where?” Josh asked.
“I don’t know who’s in control up there. They say it’s my uncle. I don’t know.”
He reached for the lamp, to take it. Josh surrendered it reluctantly and he
turned, started down the ladders as quickly as he could slide down the steps,
Josh following desperately after.
Get down again. Down was easy. He hurried at the limit of breath and balance,
until he was dizzy and the lamp’s beam swung madly about the framework and the
tunnels. He slipped, recovered, kept descending.
“Damon,” Josh protested.
He had no breath for arguing. He kept going until his sight was fading from want
of air, sank down on the steps trying to pull air enough through the breather to
keep from fainting. He felt Josh leaning by him, heard him panting, no better
off. “Docks,” Damon said. “Get down there… get to ships. Elene would go there.”
“Can’t get through.”
He looked at Josh, realized he was dragging another life into this. He had no
choices either. He got up, started down again, felt the vibrations of Josh’s
steps still behind him.
The ships would be sealed. Elene would be there or locked in the offices. Or
dead. If the troops had hit him… if for some mad reason… the station was being
disabled in advance of a Union takeover…
But Jon Lukas was supposed to be up there in central.
Had some action failed? Had Jon somehow prevented them from hitting central
itself?
He lost count of the stops for breath, of the levels they passed. Down. He hit
bottom finally, a gridwork suddenly wider, did not realize what it was until he
searched with the light and stopped finding downward ladders. He walked along
the grid, saw the faint glimmer of a blue light, that over an access door. He
reached it, pushed the switch; the door slid back with a hiss and Josh followed
him into the lock’s brighter light. The door closed and air exchange started. He
tugged down the mask and got a full breath of air, chill and only slightly
tainted. His head was pounding. He focused hazily on Josh’s sweating face,
marked with the mask, distraught “Stay here,” he said in pity. “Stay here. If I
get this cleared up, I’ll come back; if I don’t—decide for yourself what to do.”
Josh leaned there, eyes glazed.
Damon turned his attention to the door, got his breathing back to normal, rubbed
his eyes to clear them, finally pushed the button and put the door in function.
Light blinded him; there was shouting out there, screaming, the smell of smoke.
Life-support, he thought with a chill… it opened on one of the minor halls, and