trooper who had fired on Di and lived… not, at least, officially: but that woman
would do well not to walk alone where Norway troops were docked, as long as she
lived.
Di was all right, out of surgery and burning mad. That was healthy. He had a
splice in a rib and a good deal of the blood in him was borrowed, but he was
able to face vid and curse with coherency. It helped her spirits. Graff was with
him, and there was a list of officers and crew willing to sit and keep Di quiet,
a show of concern which would greatly disturb Di if he realized the extent of
it.
Peace. A few hours’ worth, until tomorrow, and operations in green. She propped
her feet on her bed, sitting sideways at the desk in her own quarters,
cross-handedly poured herself a second drink. She rarely had a second. When she
did it went to thirds and fourths and fifths, and she wished Di or Graff were
here, to sit and talk. She would go sit with them, but Di had a head of steam he
was willing to let off, which would have his blood pressure up telling her the
tale. No good for Di.
There were other diversions. She sat and thought a while, and, hesitating
between the two, finally punched up the guard station. “Get Konstantin in here.”
They acknowledged. She sat back and sipped the drink, keyed in on this station
and that to be sure that operations were going as they should and that the anger
below decks stayed smothered. The drink failed to tranquilize; she still felt
the urge to pace the floor, and there was not, even here, much floor to pace.
Tomorrow…
She dragged her mind back from that. One hundred twenty-eight dead civs in
stabilizing white sector. It was going to be far worse in green, where all who
had real reason to fear identification had taken cover. They could vent it if
the two comp-skilled techs could not be turned up in time; indeed they could. It
was the sensible solution; a quick death, if indiscriminate; a means to be sure
they had all the fugitives… and more merciful to those individuals than to be
left on a deteriorating station. Hansford on a grand scale, that was the gift
they would leave Union, rotting bodies and the stench, the incredible stench of
it…
The door opened. She looked up at three troopers and at Konstantin—cleaned up,
wearing brown fatigues, bearing a few patches on his face the meds had done. Not
bad, she thought remotely, leaned forward on one arm. “Want to talk?” she asked
him. “Or otherwise?”
He did not answer, but he showed no disposition to quarrel. She waved the
troopers out. The door closed and Konstantin still stood there staring at
something other than her.
“Where’s Josh Talley?” he asked finally.
“Somewhere aboard. There’s a glass in the cabinet over there. Want a drink?”
“I want,” he said, “to be set out of here. To have this station handed over to
its own lawful government. To have an accounting of the citizens you’ve
murdered.”
“Oh,” she said, laughed a breath and reassessed young Konstantin. Smiled sourly
and pushed her foot against the bed, sending her chair back a bit. She gestured
to the bed, a place for him to sit. “You want,” she said. “Sit down. Sit down,
Mr. Konstantin.”
He did so. He stared at her with his father’s mad dark stare.
“You don’t really have any such illusions,” she asked him, “Do you?”
“None.”
She nodded, regretting him. Fine face. Young. Well-spoken; well-made. He and
Josh were much alike. There were wastes in this war that sickened her. Young men
like this turned into corpses. If he were anyone else… but his name happened to
be Konstantin, and that doomed him. Pell would react to that name; and he had to
go. “Want the drink?”
He did not refuse it. She passed him her own glass, kept the bottle for herself.
“Jon Lukas stays as your puppet,” he said. “Does he?”
There was no need to torment him with the truth. She nodded. “He takes orders.”