Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

one after the other, and have accident after accident, keeping Pell free of the

burden, keeping Pell what it was. Damon lost sleep over five men. He had begun

to meditate on utter horror.

For that reason too he wanted his sons gone from Pell. He thought sometimes that

he might actually be capable of applying the measures some urged, that it was

weakness that prevented him, that he was endangering what was good and whole to

save a polluted rabble, out of which reports of rape and murder came daily.

Then he considered where it led, and what kind of life they all faced when they

had made a police state of Pell, and recoiled from it with all the convictions

Pell had ever had.

“Sir,” a voice cut in, with the sharper tone of transmissions from central.

“Sir, we have inbound traffic.”

“Give it here,” he said, and swallowed heavily as the schematic reached his

screen. Nine of them. “Who are they?”

“The carrier Atlantic,” the voice of central returned. “Sir, they have eight

freighters in convoy. They ask to dock. They advise of dangerous conditions

aboard.”

“Denied,” Angelo said. “Not till we get an understanding.” They could not take

so many; could not; not another lot like Mallory’s. His heart sped, hurting him.

“Get me Kreshov on Atlantic. Get me contact.”

Contact was refused from the other end. The warship would do as it pleased.

There was nothing they could do to prevent it.

The convoy moved in, silent, ominous with the load it bore, and he reached for

the alert for security.

iii

Downbelow: main base; 5/28/52

The rain still came down, the thunder dying. Tam-utsa-pi-tan watched the humans

come and go, arms locked about her knees, her bare feet sunk in mire, the water

trickling slowly off her fur. Much that humans did made no sense; much that

humans made was of no visible use, perhaps for the gods, perhaps that they were

mad; but graves… this sad thing the hisa understood. Tears, shed behind masks,

the hisa understood. She watched, rocking slightly, until the last humans had

gone, leaving only the mud and the rain in this place where humans laid their

dead.

And in due time she gathered herself to her feet and walked to the place of

cylinders and graves, her bare toes squelching in the mud. They had put the

earth over Bennett Jacint and the two others. The rain made of the place one

large lake, but she had watched; she knew nothing of the marks humans made for

signs to themselves, but she knew the one.

She carried a tall stick with her, which Old One had made. She came naked in the

rain, but for the beads and the skins which she bore on a string about her

shoulder. She stopped above the grave, took the stick in both her hands and

drove it hard into the soft mud; the spirit-face she slanted so that it looked

up as much as possible, and about its projections she hung the beads and the

skins, arranging them with care, despite the rain which sheeted down.

Steps sounded near her in the puddles, the hiss of human breath. She spun and

leapt aside, appalled that a human had surprised her ears, and stared into a

breather-masked face.

“What are you doing?” the man demanded.

She straightened, wiped her muddy hands on her thighs. To be naked thus

embarrassed her, for it upset humans. She had no answer for a human. He looked

at the spirit-stick, at the grave offerings… at her. What she could see of his

face seemed less angry than his voice had promised.

“Bennett?” the man asked of her.

She bobbed a yes, distressed still. Tears filled her eyes, to hear the name, but

the rain washed them away. Anger… that too she felt, that Bennett should die and

not others.

“I’m Emilio Konstantin,” he said, and she stood straight at once, relaxed out of

her fight-flight tenseness. “Thank you for Bennett Jacint; he would thank you.”

“Konstantin-man.” She amended all her manner and touched him, this very tall one

of a tall kind. “Love Bennett-man, all love Bennett-man. Good man. Say he

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *