time to mount. If anyone wants to stay here and work for the new management… or
Porey, if he shows up again, then do it. I can’t fight you and I’m not
interested in trying.”
There was near silence. Then some pushed out of the group and started gathering
up personal belongings. More and more did. His heart was beating very hard. He
pushed Miliko toward their quarters, to gather up the few of their belongings
they could take. It could go the other way. Something could start among them.
They could deliver him and Miliko to the new owners, if that was what it came
to, gain points with the opposition. They could do that. There were far and away
enough of them… and Q, and the workers out there…
Of his family… no word. His father would have sent some message if he could. If
he could.
“Make it quick,” he told Miliko. “Word of this is going every which way out
there.” He slipped one of the base’s only handguns into his pocket as he
snatched up his heaviest jacket; he gathered up a boxful of cylinders for the
breathers, took up a canteen and the short-handled axe. Miliko took the knife
and a couple of blankets rolled up, and they went out again, into the confusion
of staff packing up blanketrolls in the middle of the floor. They stepped over
it. “Get the pump shut down,” he told a man. “Get the connector out of it.” He
gave other instructions, and men and women moved, some for the trucks and some
for acts of sabotage. “Move it,” he yelled after them. “We’re moving in fifteen
minutes.”
“Q,” Miliko said. “What do we do with them?”
“Give them the same choice. Get down the line, put it to the regular workers, if
they haven’t heard yet.” They passed the lock door, through the second and up
the wooden steps into night-bound chaos, with people moving as fast as the
limited air would let them. There was the sound of a crawler starting up. “Be
careful,” he yelled at Miliko as their paths diverged. He headed down over the
crushed rock path, down and up again onto the shoulder of Q’s hill, where the
patched, irregular dome showed wan yellow light through its plastic, where Q
folk were outside, dressed, looking as if they had had no more sleep than others
this night.
“Konstantin,” one yelled, alerting the others, and word went into the dome with
the speed of a slammed door. He kept walking, went into the midst of them, his
heart in his throat “Come on, get everyone out here,” he yelled, and they began
to pour out with a swelling murmur of numbers, fastening jackets, adjusting
masks. In a moment the dome began to collapse, and the lock sighed the air out,
a gust of warmth and a flood of bodies that began to surround him. They were all
but quiet, a murmur, nothing more; the silence did not comfort him. “We’re
pulling out of here,” he said. “We don’t get any word out of station and it’s
possible Union’s in control up there; we don’t know.” There were outcries of
distress, and some of their own number ordered silence. “We don’t know, I say.
We’re luckier than station; we’ve got a world under us, food to eat; and if
we’re careful… air to breathe. Those of us who’ve lived here know how to manage
that… even in the open. You have the same choice we do. Stay here and work for
Union, or take a walk with us. It’s not going to be easy out there, and I
wouldn’t recommend it for the older ones and the youngest, but I’m not so sure
it’s going to be safe here either. We’ve got a chance out there, that they’ll
think we’re too much bother to come after. That’s it. We’re not sabotaging any
machine you need for life. The base here is yours if you want it; but you’re
welcome with us. We’re going… never mind where we’re going; unless you’re coming
with us. And if you come, it’s on equal terms. Now. Immediately.”
There was dead silence. He was terrified. He was crazy to have come among them