“Took heavy damage,” Dayin said. “I reckon that Mazian cost them some. I know
there are ships missing… carriers Victory and Endurance gone, I think.”
“But Union can build more. They’re calling others in. How long is this going to
go on?”
Dayin shook his head, rolled a meaningful glance at the overhead. The fans
hummed, deadening conversation into local areas, but not shielding them from
monitoring. “They’ve got him cornered,” Dayin said then. “And they can get
supplies indefinitely, but Mazian’s bottled. What Azov said, that was the truth.
He cost them, cost them badly, but they cost him worse.”
“And what about us?”
“I’d rather be here than at Pell, frankly.”
Vittorio gave a bitter laugh. His eyes blurred, a sudden pain in his throat,
which was never really gone, and he shook his head. “I meant it,” he said for
those who might chance to be monitoring them. “I’ll give Union the best I’ve
got; it’s the best thing I ever had going for me.”
Dayin regarded him strangely, frowned and perhaps understood his meaning. For
the first time in his twenty-five years he felt a kinship with someone. That it
should be Dayin, who was three decades older and had had a different experience…
that surprised him. But a little time in the Deep might make comrades out of the
most unlikely individuals, and perhaps, he thought, perhaps Dayin had already
made such choices, and Pell was no longer home for either of them.
Chapter Five
« ^ »
i
Pell: Green Dock; 2000 hrs. md.; O8OOa.
Fire hit the wall. Damon flinched tighter into the corner they occupied,
resisted half a heartbeat as Josh seized him and sprang up to run, followed
them, dodged among the panicked and screaming crowds which back-washed out of
green nine onto the docks. Someone did get shot, rolled on the decking at their
feet, and they jumped that body and kept going, in the direction the troops
meant to drive them.
Station residents, Q escapees… there was no difference made. They ran with fire
peppering the supports and the storefronts, silent explosions in the chaos of
screams, shots aimed at structures and not the vulnerable station shell itself.
Shots went over their heads now that the crowd was moving, and they ran until
the weakest faltered. Damon slowed as Josh did, found himself in white dock, the
two of them weaving through the scattered number still running in panic, the
last few who in their terror seemed to think the shots were still coming. He saw
shelter among the shops by the inner wall, went that way and Josh followed him,
to the recessed doorway of a bar which had been sealed against rioters, a place
to sit quietly, out of the way of chance shots.
Several bodies lay out on the dock before them, new or old was not certain. It
had become an ordinary sight in recent hours. There were occasional acts of
violence while they sat there against the doorway… fights among stationers and
what might be Q residents. Mostly people wandered, sometimes calling out names,
parents hunting children, friends or mates hunting each other. Sometimes there
were relieved meetings… and once, once, a man identified one of the dead, and
screamed and sobbed. Damon bowed his face against his arms. Eventually some men
helped the relative away.
And eventually the military sent detachments of armored troops into the area, to
round up work crews, ordering them to gather up the dead and vent them. Damon
and Josh slunk deeper into the doorway and evaded that duty; it was the active
and restless the troops picked.
Last of all Downers came out of hiding, timidly, with soft steps and fearful
looks about. They took it on themselves to clean the docks, scrubbing away the
signs of death, faithful to their ordinary duties of cleanliness and order.
Damon looked at them with a slight stirring of hope, the first good thing he had
seen in all these hours, that the gentle Downers returned to the service of
Pell.
He slept a little, as others did who sat over in the docking areas, as Josh did
beside him, curled up against the door frame. From time to time he roused to