Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

“You’re moving against green next?”

She nodded.

“Let me talk to them on com. Let me try to reason with them.”

“To save your life? Or to replace Lukas? It won’t work.”

“To save theirs.”

She stared at him a long, bleak moment.

“You’re not going to surface, Mr. Konstantin. You’re to vanish very quietly. I

think you know that.” There was a gun at her hip; she rested her hand on it as

she sat, reckoning that he would not, but in case. “Let’s say if I can find two

individuals, I won’t vent the section. Names are James Muller and Judith

Crowell. Where are they? If I could locate them right off… it would save lives.”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know them?”

“Don’t know where they are. I don’t think they’re still alive, if they’re

supposed to be in green. I know the section too well; had means to have found

them if they were there.”

“I’m sorry for that,” she said. “I’ll do what I can as reasonably as I can.

Promise you that. You’re a civilized man, Mr. Konstantin. A vanished breed. If I

could find a way to get you out of this I’d do it, but I’m hemmed in on all

sides.”

He said nothing. She kept an eye to him, sipped a mouthful from the bottle. He

drank from the glass.

“What about the rest of my family?” he asked at last

Her mouth twisted. “Quite safe. Quite safe, Mr. Konstantin. Your mother does

everything we ask and your brother is harmless where he is. The supplies arrive

on schedule and we have no reason to object to his presence down there. He’s

another civilized man, one—fortunately—without access to large crowds and

sophisticated systems where our ships are docked.”

His lips trembled. He drank the last remaining in the glass. She leaned forward

and poured him more of the liquor. Took a deliberate chance in leaning close to

him. It was gambling; it evened scales. It was time to call it quits. If he

outlived tomorrow he would learn too much of what would happen and that was

cruelty. There was a sour taste in her mouth the brandy would not cure. She

pushed the bottle at him. “Take it with you,” she said, “I’ll let you go back to

your quarters now. My regards to you, Mr. Konstantin.”

Some men would have protested, cried and pleaded; some would have gone for her

throat, a way of hastening matters. He rose and went to the door without the

bottle, looked back when it would not open.

She keyed the duty officer. “Pick up the prisoner.” The acknowledgment came

back. And on a second thought: “Bring Josh Talley while you’re at it.”

That brought a flicker of panic to Konstantin’s eyes. “I know,” she said. “He’s

minded to kill me. But then he’s undergone some changes, hasn’t he?”

“He remembers you.”

She pursed her lips, smiled then without smiling. “He’s alive to remember. Isn’t

he?”

“Let me talk to Mazian.”

“Hardly practical. And he won’t agree to hear you. Don’t you know, Damon

Konstantin, he’s the source of your troubles? My orders come from him.”

“The Fleet belonged to the Company once. It was ours. We believed in you. The

stations—all of us—believed in you, if not in the Company. What happened?”

She glanced down without intending to, found it difficult to look up again and

meet his ignorant eyes.

“Someone’s insane,” Konstantin said.

Quite possibly, she thought. She leaned back in the chair and found nothing to

say.

“There’s more than the other stations involved at Pell,” he said. “Pell was

always different. Take my advice, at least. Leave my brother in permanent charge

on Downbelow. You’ll get more out of the Downers if you do things the slow way.

Let him manage them. They’re not easy to understand, but they don’t understand

us easily either. They’ll work for him. Let them do things their own way and

they’ll do ten times the work. They don’t fight. They’ll give you anything you

ask for, if you ask and don’t take.”

“Your brother will be left there,” she said.

The light by the door flashed. She keyed it open. They had brought Josh Talley.

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