Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

She sat watching… a quiet exchange of glances, an attempt to question without

asking questions… “Are you all right?” Josh asked. Konstantin nodded.

“Mr. Konstantin is leaving,” she said. “Come in, Josh. Come on in.”

He did so, with a backward anxious look at Konstantin. The door closed between

them. Signy reached again for the bottle, added to the glass which Konstantin

had left on the side of the desk.

Josh too was cleaner, and the better for it. Thin. His cheeks had gone very

hollow. The eyes—were alive.

“Want to sit down?” she asked. From him she did not know what to expect. He had

always been acquiescent, in everything. Now she watched, anticipating some act

of craziness, remembering the time he had come to find her on the station, his

shouting at her from the doorway. He sat down, quiet as he had ever been. “Old

times,” she said, and drank. “He’s a decent man, is Damon Konstantin.”

“Yes,” Josh said.

“Still interested in killing me?”

“There’s worse than you.”

She smiled grimly and the smile faded. “Know a pair named Muller and Crowell?

Know anyone by those names?”

“The names mean nothing to me.”

“Have any contacts on Pell who could handle station comp?”

“No.”

“That’s the sole official question. I’m sorry you don’t know.” She sipped at the

glass. “Considering Konstantin’s welfare has you on good behavior. That it?”

No answer. But it was truth. She watched his eyes and reckoned well that it was.

“I wanted to ask you the question,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Who are they… the people you want? Why? What have they done?”

Questions. Josh had never questioned. “Adjustment agreed with you,” she said.

“What were you up to when Australia’s men waded in on you?”

Silence.

“They’re dead, Josh. Does it matter now?”

His eyes went unfocused, the old absent look… back again. Beautiful, she thought

of him, as she had thought a thousand times. And he was another one there was no

sparing. She had thought she might, had reckoned without his sanity. When

Konstantin went, he would become very dangerous. Tomorrow, she thought. It

should be done tomorrow, at least.

“I’m Union,” he said. “Not a regular… not what the records showed. Special

services. You brought me here yourself. And there was another one of us who

found his own way on… the way he did at Mariner. His name was Gabriel. And he

ruined Pell. He acted against you, never the Konstantins. He and his operation

assassinated Damon’s family, lost him his wife… how it all went, I don’t know. I

didn’t do it to him. But whatever the assumptions you’ve made, the power you’ve

set in control of the station now… was bribed to murder by Gabriel. I know

because I know the tactics. You’ve got the wrong man under arrest, Mallory. Your

man Lukas was Gabriel’s before he was yours.”

The alcohol left her brain with cold suddenness. She sat with the glass in hand

and stared into Josh’s pale eyes and found her breath short. “This Gabriel…

where is he?”

“Dead. You got the head of it. Him. A man named Coledy; another named Kressich;

Gabriel. Station knew him as Jessad. They were killed by the troops that took

us. Damon didn’t know… didn’t know a thing about it. You think he’d have been

there meeting with them if he’d known they killed his father?”

“But you got him there.”

“I got him there.”

“He knew about you?”

“No.”

She drew a deep breath, let it go. “You think it makes a difference to us, how

Lukas got there? He’s ours.”

“I tell you so you know it’s finished. That there’s nothing more to go after.

You’ve won. There’s no need for any more killing.”

“I should take a Unioner’s word there’s nothing more to hunt?”

No answer. He was not slipping off into nowhere. The eyes were very much alive,

full of pain.

“It was quite an act, Josh, that you put on with me.”

“No act. I’m born for what I do. My whole past is tapes. I had nothing when they

got through with me on Russell’s. I’m one of the hollow men, Mallory. Nothing