Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

sampled one of the delicacies of Pell and reacted with pleasure. He sipped at

his own.

“You’re no stationer,” Elene observed after some silence. Talley was gazing

beyond them, to the walls, the slow ballet of stars. You don’t get much view on

a ship, Elene had said once, trying to explain to him. Not what you’d think.

It’s the being there; the working of it; the feel of moving through what could

surprise you at any moment. It’s being a dust speck in that scale and pushing

your way through all that Empty on your own terms, that no world can do and

nothing spinning around one. It’s doing that, and knowing all the time old

goblin Deep is just the other side of the metal you’re leaning on. You

stationers like your illusions. And world folk, blue-skyers, don’t even know

what real is.

He felt a chill suddenly, felt apart, with Elene and a stranger across the table

making a set of two. His wife and the god-image that was Talley. It was not

jealousy. It was a sense of panic. He drank slowly. Watched Talley, who looked

at the screens as no stationer did. Like a man remembering breathing.

Forget station, he had heard in Elene’s voice. You’ll never be content here. As

if she and Talley spoke a language he did not, even using the same words. As if

a merchanter who had lost her ship to Union could pity a Unioner who had lost

his, beached, like her. Damon reached out beneath the table, sought Elene’s

hand, closed it in his. “Maybe I can’t give you what you most want,” he said to

Talley, resisting hurt, deliberately courteous. “Pell won’t hold you forever

now, and if you can find some merchanter to take you on after your papers are

entirely clear… that’s open too someday in the future. But take my advice, plan

for a long stay here. Things aren’t settled and the merchanters are moving

nowhere but to the mines and back.”

“The long-haulers are drinking themselves blind on dock-side,” Elene muttered.

“We’ll run out of liquor before we run out of bread on Pell. No, not for a

while. Things will get better. God help us, we can’t contain what we’ve

swallowed forever.”

“Elene.”

“Isn’t he on Pell, too?” she asked. “And aren’t we all? His living is tied up

with it.”

“I would not,” Talley said, “harm Pell.” His hand moved on the table, a slight

tic. It was one of the few implants, that aversion. Damon kept his mouth shut on

the knowledge of the psych block; it was no less real for being deep-taught

Talley was intelligent; possibly even he could figure eventually what had been

done to him.

“I—” Talley made another random motion of his hand, “don’t know this place. I

need help. Sometimes I’m not sure how I got into this. Do you know? Did I know?”

Bizarre connection of data. Damon stared at him disquietedly, for a moment

afraid that Talley was lapsing into some embarrassing sort of hysteria, not sure

what he was going to do with him in this public place.

“I have the records,” he answered Talley’s question, “That’s all the knowledge I

have of it.”

“Am I your enemy?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I remember Cyteen.”

“You’re making connections I’m not following, Josh.”

Lips trembled. “I don’t follow them either.”

“You said you needed help. In what, Josh?”

“Here. The station. You won’t stop coming by—”

“You mean visiting you. You won’t be in the hospital anymore.” Suddenly the

sense of it dawned on him, that Talley knew that. “You mean do I set you up with

a job and cut you loose on your own? No. I’ll call you next week, depend on it.”

“I was going to suggest,” Elene said smoothly, “that you give Josh comp

clearance to get a call through to the apartment. Troubles don’t keep office

hours and one or the other of us would be able to untangle situations. We are,

legally, your sponsors. If you can’t get hold of Damon, call my office.”

Talley accepted that with a nod of his head. The shifting screens kept their

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