Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

of this place—looked toward her. “You go back, go and set your own eyes on this

young Konstantin-man. Upabove hisa are one thing; but you are very quick, very

clever Downbelow hunter. You watch him, come and go.”

Bluetooth cast an uncertain look at Old One and at Lily.

“Good,” Lily agreed. “Good, strong hands. Go.”

He preened diffidently, a young male, but others gave him place; Satin regarded

him with pride, that even the old strange ones saw worth in him. And truth:

there was keen good sense in her friend. He touched the Old Ones and touched

her, quietly excused himself toward the outside of the gathering.

And the Dreamer slept, safe in their midst, although a second time humans had

fought humans and the secure world of the Upabove had rocked like a leaf on the

breast of river. Sun watched over her, and the stars still burned about them.

Chapter Six

« ^ »

Downbelow: 10/11/52; local day

The trucks moved at a lumbering pace through the clear area, forlorn, collapsed

domes, the empty pens, and above all the silence of the compressors, telling a

tale of abandonment. Base one. First of the camps after main base. Lock doors

banged loosely, unfastened, in a slight wind. The weary column straggled now,

all looking at the desolation, and Emilio looked on it with a pang in his own

heart, this thing that he had helped to build. No sign of anyone staying here.

He wondered how far down the road they were, and how they fared. “Hisa watch

here too?” he asked of Bluetooth, who, almost alone of hisa, still remained with

the column, beside him and Miliko. “We eyes see,” Bluetooth answered, which told

him less than he wanted.

“Mr. Konstantin.” A man came up from the back, walked along with him, one of the

Q workers. “Mr. Konstantin, we have to rest.”

“Past the camp,” he promised. “We don’t stay in the open longer than we can

help, all right? Past the camp.”

The man stood still and let the column pass and his own group overtake him.

Emilio gave Miliko’s shoulder a weary pat, increased his own pace to overtake

the two crawlers ahead of the column; he passed one in the clearing, overtook

the other as they reached the farther road, got the driver’s attention and

signed him half a kilometer halt. He stopped then and let the column move until

he was even with Miliko. He reckoned that some of the older workers and the

children might be at the end of their strength. Even walking with the breathers

was about the limit of exertion they could take over this number of hours. They

kept stopping for rest and the requests grew more and more frequent.

They began to straggle as it was, some of them stringing further and further

behind. He drew Miliko aside, and watched the line pass. “Rest ahead,” he told

each group as they passed. “Keep on till you get there.” In time the back of the

column came in sight, a draggled string of walkers. The older ones, patient and

doggedly determined, and a couple of staffers who walked last of all. “Anyone

left?” he asked, and they shook their heads.

And suddenly a staffer was coming down the winding road from the other end of

the column, jogging, staggering into other walkers, as the line erupted with

questions. Emilio broke into a run with Miliko in his wake, intercepting the

man.

“Com got through,” the runner gasped, and Emilio kept running, the slanted

margins of the road, up the tree-curtained windings until he saw the trucks and

people massed about them. He circled through the trees and worked his way

through the crowd, which broke to let him, toward the lead truck, where Jim

Ernst sat with the com and the generator. He scrambled up onto the bed, among

the baggage and the bales and the older folk who had not walked, worked his way

through to the place where Ernst sat, stood still as Ernst turned to him with

one hand pressing the plug to his ear and a look in his eyes that promised

nothing but pain.

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