Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

docked ship.

He had never been aboard a warship. It was cramped as a freighter for all its

exterior size. It made him claustrophobic. The rifles in the hands of the

troopers at his back gave him no more comfort, and whenever he would hesitate,

turning left, entering the lift, they would push him with the rifle barrels. He

was sick with fear.

They knew, he kept thinking. He kept trying to persuade himself it was military

courtesy, that Mazian chose to meet him as new stationmaster, that Mazian wished

to bluff or bully. But from this place they could do what they pleased. Could

vent him out a waste chute and he would be indistinguishable from the hundreds

of other bodies which now drifted, frozen, a nuisance in the station’s vicinity

for the skimmers to freeze together and boost off. No difference at all. He

tried to pull his wits together, reckoning that he survived by them now or not

at all.

They showed him off the lift into a corridor with troops standing guard in it,

into a room wider than most, with a vacant round table. Made him sit down in one

of the chairs there. Stood waiting with the rifles over their arms.

Mazian came in, in plain and somber blue, haggard of face. Jon rose to his feet

in respect; Conrad Mazian gestured him to sit down again. Others filed in to

take their places at the table, Europe officers, none of the captains. Jon

darted glances from one to the next

“Acting stationmaster,” Mazian said quietly. “Mr. Lukas, what happened to Angelo

Konstantin?”

“Dead,” Jon said, trying to suppress all but innocent reactions. “Rioters broke

into station offices. Killed him and and his staff.”

Mazian only stared at him, utterly unmoved. He sweated.

“We think,” Jon said further, guessing at the captain’s thoughts, “that there

may have been conspiracy—the strike at other offices, the opening of the door

into Q, the timing of it all. We are investigating.”

“What have you found?”

“Nothing as yet. We suspect the presence of Union agents passed somehow into

station during the processing of refugees. Some were let through, may have had

friends or relatives left back in Q. We’re puzzled as yet how contacts were

passed. We suspect connivance of the barrier guards… black market connections.”

“But you haven’t found anything.”

“Not yet.”

“And won’t very quickly, will you, Mr. Lukas?”

His heart began beating very fast. He kept panic from his face; he hoped he

succeeded at it. “I apologize for the situation, captain, but we’ve been kept

rather busy, coping with riot, with the damage to station… lately working at the

orders of your captains Mallory and…”

“Yes. Bright move, the means you used to clear the halls of riot; but then it

had quieted a little by then, hadn’t it? I understand there were Q residents let

into central.”

Jon found breathing difficult. There was a prolonged silence. He could not think

of words. Mazian passed a signal to one of the guards at the door.

“We were in crisis,” Jon said, anything to fill that terrible silence. “I may

have acted high-handedly, but we were presented a chance to get control of a

dangerous situation. Yes, I dealt with the councillor from that area, not, I

think, involved in the situation, but a calming voice… there was no one else at

the—”

“Where is your son, Mr. Lukas?”

He stared.

“Where is your son?”

“Out at the mines. I sent him out on a shorthauler on a tour of the mines. Is he

all right? Have you had word of him?”

“Why did you send him, Mr. Lukas?”

“Frankly, to get him off the station.”

“Why?”

“Because he had lately been in control over the station offices while I was

stationed on Downbelow. After three years there was some question of loyalties

and authorities and channels of communication within the company offices here. I

thought a brief absence might straighten things out, and I wanted someone out

there in the mine offices who could take over if communications were

interrupted. A policy move. For internal reasons and for security.”

“It wasn’t to balance the presence on-station of a man named Jessad?”

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