Those in the process of loading had been hurried aboard the nearest ship at the
last, doors had been sealed as soon as the counters reached capacity. Jen and
Romy should have been aboard before him. He had stayed, trying to keep order at
his assigned post. Most of the ships had gotten sealed in time. It was Hansford
the mob had gotten wide open, Hansford where the drugs had run out, where the
pressure of lives more than the systems could bear had broken everything down
and a shock-crazed mob had run riot. Griffin had been bad enough; he had gotten
aboard well before the wave the guards had had to cut down. And he had trusted
that Jen and Romy had made it into Lila. The passenger list had said that they
were on Lila, at least what printout they had finally gotten in the confusion
after launch.
But neither of them had gotten off at Pell; they had not come off the ship. No
one of those critical enough to be taken to station hospital matched their
descriptions. They could not be impressed by Mallory: Jen had no skills Mallory
would need, and Romy—somewhere the records were wrong. He had believed the
passenger list, had had to believe it, because there were too many of them that
ship’s com could pass direct messages. They had voyaged in silence. Jen and Romy
had not gotten off Lila. Had never been there.
“They were wrong to throw them out in space,” the woman nearest him moaned.
“They didn’t identify them. He’s gone, he’s gone, he must have been on the
Hansford”.
Another man was at the desk again, attempting to check, insisting that Mallory’s
id of impressed civilians was a lie; and the operator was patiently running
another search, comparing descriptions, negative again.
“He was there,” the man shouted at the operator. “He was on the list and he
didn’t get off, and he was there.” The man was crying. Kressich sat numb.
On Griffin, they had read out the passenger list and asked for id’s. Few had had
them. People had answered to names which could not possibly be theirs. Some
answered to two, to get the rations, if they were not caught at it. He had been
afraid then, with a deep and sickly fear; but a lot of people were on the wrong
ships, and one of them had then realized the situation on Hansford. He had been
sure they were aboard.
Unless they had gotten worried and gotten off to go look for him. Unless they
had done something so miserably, horribly stupid, out of fear, for love.
Tears started down his face. It was not the likes of Jen and Romy who could have
gotten onto Hansford, who could have forced their way among men armed with guns
and knives and lengths of pipe. He did not reckon them among the dead of that
ship. It was rather that they were still on Russell’s Station, where Union ruled
now. And he was here; and there was no way back.
He rose finally, and accepted it He was the first to leave. He went to the
quarters which were assigned him, the barracks for single men, who were many of
them young, and probably many of them under false id’s, and not the techs and
other personnel they were supposed to be. He found a cot unoccupied and gathered
up the kit the supervisor provided each man. He bathed a second time… no bathing
seemed enough… and walked back among the rows of sleeping, exhausted men, and
lay down.
There was mindwipe for those prisoners who had been high enough to be valuable
and opinionated. Jen, he thought, O Jen, and their son, if he were alive… to be
reared by a shadow of Jen, who thought the approved thoughts and disputed
nothing, liable to Adjustment because she had been his wife. It was not even
certain that they would let her keep Romy. There were state nurseries, which
turned out Union’s soldiers and workers.
He thought of suicide. Some had chosen that rather than board the ships for some
strange place, a station which was not theirs. That solution was not in his