vast size were moving in on that, sending ships off dock out into it. Mazian’s
com was firing a steady catechism of questions and authorizations at Pell, as
yet refusing to specify what he wanted or where he meant to dock, if he meant to
dock at all.
Us next? The nightmare was with them. Evacuation. Pregnancy was no state in
which to contemplate a refugee journey to God knew where, through jump—to some
long-abandoned Hinder Star station; to Sol, to Earth… He thought of Hansford.
Thought of Elene… in that. Of what had been civilized men when they started.
“Maybe we won,” a tech said. He blinked, realized that too for a possibility,
but not possible… they had always known at heart that it was impossible, that
Union had grown too big, that the Fleet could give them years, as it had until
now, but not victory, never that. The carriers would not have come in in this
number, not for any other reason than retreat.
He reckoned their chances if Pell refused evacuation; reckoned what awaited any
Konstantin in Union hands. The military would never let him stay behind. He set
his hand on Elene’s shoulder, his heart beating fit to break, realizing the
possiblity of being separated, losing her and the baby. He would be put aboard
under arrest if there were an evacuation, the same way as it had happened on
other stations, to get vital personnel out of Union hands, people put on
whatever ship they could reach. His father… his mother… Pell was their lives;
was life itself to his mother—and Emilio and Miliko. He felt sick inside,
stationer, out of generations of stationers, who had never asked for war.
For Elene, for Pell, for all the dreams they had had, he would have fought.
But he did not know where to begin.
iii
Norway: 1300 hrs.
Signy had it visual now, the hubbed ring of Pell’s Station, the distant moon,
the bright jewel of Downbelow, cloud-swirled. They had long since dumped
velocity, moved in with dreamlike slowness compared to their former speed, as
the station’s smooth shape resolved itself into the chaos of angles its surface
was.
Freighters were jammed into every berth of the visible side, docking and
standby. There was incredible clutter on scan, and they were moving slowly
because it took that long for these sluggish ships to clear an approach for
them. Every merchanter which had not been swept into Union hands had to be
hereabouts, at station, in pattern, or farther out, or hovering off in the deep
just out of system. Graff still had controls, a tedious business now.
Unprecedented crowding and traffic. Chaos indeed. She was afraid, when she
analyzed the growing tautness at her gut. Anger had cooled and she was afraid
with a helplessness she was not accustomed to feel… a wish that by someone very
wise and at some time long ago, other choices had been made, which would have
saved them all from this moment, and this place, and the choices they had left.
“Carriers North Pole and Tibet will stand off from station,” the notification
came from Europe. “Assume patrol.”
That was mortally necessary; and on this particular approach, Signy wished
herself and her crew on that assignment. There was bitter choice ahead. She did
not look forward to another operation like Russell’s Station, where civ panic
had anticipated the military action for the station’s dismantling, mobs at the
docks… her crew had had enough of that. She had, and disliked the thought of
letting troops loose on a station when they were in the mood hers were in now.
Another message came through. Pell Station advised that it had shifted a number
of freighters out of berths to accommodate the warships in one sequence and
without immediate neighbors on the docks. The dislodged freighters would be
moving through the pattern of the orbiting ships in a direction opposite to
their entry of that pattern. Mazian’s voice cut in, deep and harsh, a repeated
advisement that, whatever disruption in the patterns of ships about Pell, if any
freighter tried to jump system they would be blown without warning.
Station acknowledged; it was all they could do.