the man snatched two more and ran.
It was Jon Lukas on the screen. It always was when Mazian had an official
announcement to station. The man had become a skeleton, a pitiable shadow-eyed
skeleton. “… been sealed off,” Lukas was saying. “White-area residents and
others who wish to leave will be permitted to leave. Go to the green dock access
and you will be permitted to pass.”
“They’re herding all the undesirables in here,” Ngo said. Sweat stood on his
wrinkled face. “What about us who work here, Mr. Stationmaster Lukas? What about
us honest people caught in here?”
Lukas repeated all the announcement. It was probably a recording; doubtful if
they ever let the man on live.
“Come on,” Damon said, hooking Josh’s arm. They walked out the front door and
around the corner onto green dock, walked far along the upward curve, where a
great mass of people had gathered looking toward white. They were not the only
ones. There were troops, moving out along the far-side wall, by the berths and
gantries.
“Going to be shooting,” Josh muttered. “Damon, let’s get out of here.”
“Look at the doors. Look at the doors.”
He did look. The massive valves were tightly joined. The personnel access at the
side was not open. It did not open.
“They’re not going to let them through,” Damon said. “It was a lie… to get the
fugitives to the docks over there.”
“Let’s get back,” Josh pleaded with him.
Someone fired; their side, the troops—a barrage came over their heads and into
the shopfronts. People shrieked and shoved, and they fled with it, down the
dock, into nine, into Ngo’s doorway, while riot surged past and down the hall. A
few others tried to follow them, but Ngo rushed up with a stick and fended them
off, all the while shrieking curses at the two of them for running in with
trouble after them.
They got the door closed, but the crowd outside was more interested in running,
the path of least resistance. The room lights came on full, on a room full of
tangled chairs and spilled dishes.
In silence Ngo and his family began cleaning up. “Here,” Ngo said to Josh, and
thrust a wet, stew-soiled rag at him. Ngo turned a second frowning look on
Damon, although he did not order: a Konstantin still had some privilege. But
Damon started picking up dishes and straightening chairs and mopping with the
rest of them.
It grew quiet outside again, with an occasional pounding at the door. Faces
stared at them through the plastic window, people simply wanting in, exhausted
and frightened people, wanting the service of the place.
Ngo opened the doors, cursed and shouted, let them in, set himself behind the
bar and started doling out drinks with no regard to credit for the moment. “You
pay,” he warned all and sundry. “Just sit down and we’ll make out the tickets.”
Some left without paying; some did sit down. Damon took a bottle of wine and
drew Josh to a table in the farthest corner, where there was a short ell. It was
their usual place, which had a view of the front door and unobstructed access to
the kitchen and their hiding places. The com music channel had come on again,
playing something wistfully soothing and romantic.
Josh leaned his head against his hands and wished he dared be drunk. He could
not be. There were the dreams. Damon drank. Eventually it seemed to be enough,
for Damon’s shadowed eyes had an anesthetized haze which he envied.
“I’m going out tomorrow,” Damon said. “I’ve sat in that hole enough… I’m going
out, maybe talk to a few people, try to make some contacts. There’s got to be
someone who hasn’t cleared out of green. Someone who still owes my family some
favors.”
He had tried before. “We’ll talk about it,” Josh said.
Ngo’s son served them dinner, stew, stretched as far as possible. Josh sipped a
spoonful of it, nudged Damon with his foot when he sat there. Damon gathered up
his spoon and ate, but his mind still seemed elsewhere.
Elene, perhaps. Damon spoke her name sometimes in his sleep. Sometimes his