the view of all of them, to that vacant seat on the central council, the table
amid the tiers, the seats which carried most influence. He reached that seat,
settled into the fine leather and the carved wood, one of the Ten of Pell; and
felt an irrepressible flush of triumph amid these events—justice done, finally,
after decades. The great Konstantins had held him off and maneuvered him out of
the Ten all his life, despite his strivings and his influence and his merits,
and now he was here.
Not by any change of heart on Angelo’s part, he was absolutely sure. It had to
be voted. He had won some general vote here in council, the logical consequence
of his long, tough service on Downbelow. His record had found appreciation in a
council majority.
He met Angelo’s eyes, down the table, Angelo holding the audio plug to his ear,
looking at him still with no true welcome, no love, no happiness whatsoever.
Angelo accepted his elevation because he must, that was clear. Jon smiled
tightly, not with his eyes, as if it were an offer of support. Angelo returned
it, and not with the eyes either.
“Put it through again,” Angelo said to someone else, via com. “Keep sending. Get
me contact direct to Sung.”
The assembly was hushed, reports still coming in, chatter from central, the slow
progress of approaching freighters; but Pacific was gathering speed, going into
comp-projected haze on scan.
“Sung here,” a voice reached them. “Salutations to Pell Station. Your own
establishment can attend the details.”
“What is the number you’re giving us?” Angelo asked. “What number is on those
ships, captain Sung?”
“Nine thousand.”
A murmur of horror broke in the chamber.
“Silence!” Angelo said; it was obscuring com. “We copy, nine thousand. This will
tax our facilities beyond safety. We request you meet us here in council,
captain Sung. We have had refugees come in from Russell’s on unescorted
merchanters; we were constrained to accept them. For humanitarian reasons it is
impossible to refuse such dockings. Request you inform Fleet command of this
dangerous situation. We need military support, do you understand, sir? Request
you come in for urgent consultation with us. We are willing to cooperate, but we
are approaching a point of very difficult decision. We appeal for Fleet support.
Repeat: will you come in, sir?”
There was a little silence from the other side. The council shifted in their
seats, for approach alarms were flashing, screens flicking and clouding madly in
their attempt to reckon with the carrier’s accelerating approach.
“A last scheduled convoy,” the reply came, “is coming in under Kreshov of
Atlantic from Pan-Paris. Good luck, Pell Station.”
The contact was abruptly broken. Scan flashed, the vast carrier still gathering
speed more than anything should in a station’s vicinity.
Jon had never seen Angelo angrier. The murmur in the council chamber deafened,
and finally the microphone established relative silence again. Pacific shot to
their zenith, disrupting the screens into breakup. When they cleared, it had
passed on, to take an unauthorized course, leaving them its flotsam, the
freighters moving in at their slow, inexorable pace toward dock. Somewhere there
was a muted call for security to Q.
“Reserve forces,” Angelo ordered one of the section chiefs over com. “Call up
off-duty personnel—I don’t care how many times they’ve had callup. Keep order in
there if you have to shoot to do it. Central, scramble crews to the shuttles,
herd those merchanters into the right docks. Throw a cordon of short-haulers in
the way if that’s what it takes.”
And after a moment as the collision alarms died and there was only the steady
remaining report of the freighters on their slow way toward station: “We have to
get more space for Q,” Angelo said, staring around him. “And with regret, we’re
going to have to take those two levels of red section… partition them in with
Q—immediately.” There was a sorrowful murmur from the tiers, and the screens
flashed with an immediate registered objection from red-section delegates. It
was perfunctory. There were no supporters on the screen to second their
objection and bring it to vote. “Absolutely,” Angelo continued, without even