types, only they’ll be up here with us, berthed right beside our ships.”
“They’re not likely to jeopardize Pell,” Keu said.
“And what if one of them is Unionist? We know well enough that they’ve
infiltrated the merchanters.”
“It’s a point worth considering,” Mazian said. “I’ve thought about it… which is
one reason, Captain Mallory, why I’m reluctant to take strong steps to recruit
those haulers. There are potential problems. But we need the supplies, and some
of them aren’t available elsewhere. We put up with what we have to.”
“So we make an example,” Kreshov said. “Shoot the bastard. He’s trouble waiting
to happen.”
“Right now,” Porey said slowly, “Konstantin and his crew work eighteen hours a
day… efficient work, quick, skilled and smooth. We don’t get that by other
methods. He gets dealt with when it’s workable without him.”
“Does he know that?”
Porey shrugged. “I’ll tell you the hold we’ve got on Mr. Emilio Konstantin. Got
ourselves a site with a lot of Downers and the rest of the human inhabitants,
all in one place. All one target. And he knows it.”
Mazian nodded. “Konstantin’s a minimal problem. We have worse worries. And
that’s the second matter on the table. If we can forbear another raid on our own
troops… I’d rather concentrate on the whereabouts of station-side subversives
and fugitive staff.”
Signy’s face heated. She kept her voice calm. “The new system is moving into
full use as quickly as possible. Mr. Lukas is cooperating. We’ve identified and
carded 14,947 individuals as of this morning. That’s with a completely new card
system and new individual codes with voice locks on some facilities. I’d like
better, but Pell units aren’t designed for it. If they had been, we wouldn’t
have had this security problem in the first place.”
“And the chances that you may have carded this Jessad person?”
“No. No reasonable likelihood. Most or all of our fugitives are moving into the
uncarded areas, where their stolen cards still work… for the time being. We’ll
find them. We’ve got a sketch of Jessad and actual photos of the others. I
estimate another week or two to begin the final push.”
“But all the operations areas are secure?”
“The security arrangements for Pell central are laughable. I’ve made
recommendations for construction there.”
Mazian nodded. “When we get workers off damage repair. Personnel security?”
“The notable exception is the Downer presence in the sealed area of blue one
four. Konstantin’s widow. Lukas’s sister. She’s a hopeless invalid, and the
Downers are cooperative in anything while it assures her welfare.”
“That’s a gap,” Mazian said.
“I’ve got a com link to her. She cooperates fully in dispatching Downers to
necessary areas. Right now she’s of some use, as her brother is.”
“While both are,” Mazian said. “Same condition.”
There were details, stats, tedious matters which could have been traded back and
forth by comp. Signy endured it grim-faced, nursing a headache and a blood
pressure that distended the veins in her hands, while she made meticulous notes
and contributed stats of her own.
Food; water; machine parts… they were taking on a full load, every ship, fit to
run again if it came to that. Repairing major damage and going ahead with minor
repairs that had been long postponed in the operation leading up to the push.
Total refitting, while keeping the Fleet as mobile as possible.
Supply was the overwhelming difficulty. Week by week the hope that the more
daring of the long-haulers would come venturing in diminished. They were seven
carriers, holding a station and a world, but with only short-haulers to supply
them, with their only source of some machined items—the supplies those very
haulers had aboard for their own use.
They were pent in, under siege, without merchanters to aid them, the
long-haulers who had freely come and gone during the worst of the war. Could not
now hope to reach to the Hinder Star stations… of which there was precious
little remaining, mothballed, stripped, some probably gone unstable—a long, long
time without regulation. Warships alone could not do the heavy cross-jump
hauling major construction required. Without the long-haul merchanters, Pell was
the only working station left them but Sol itself.