Company Wars 01 – Downbelow Station

iv

Pell: Q; 1300 hrs.

Nothing worked. In Q nothing ever seemed to. Vassily Kressich punched buttons

totally dead and punched them again, hit the com unit with the heel of his hand

and still had no response from station com central. He paced the limits of his

small apartment. The breakdowns infuriated him, drove him almost to tears. They

happened daily; the water, the fans, the com, vid, supplies, shortages driving

home over and over again the misery of his living, the decay, the pressure of

bodies, the senseless violence of people driven mad by crowding and uncertainty.

He had the apartment. He had his possessions; he kept these things meticulously

in order, scrubbed often and obsessively. The smell of Q clung to him, no matter

how he washed and how diligently he scrubbed the floors and sealed the closet

against the pervading smell. It was an antiseptic reek, of cheap astringents and

whatever chemicals the station used to combat disease and crowding and keep the

life-support in balance.

He paced the floor, tried the com again, hoping, and it did not work. He could

hear commotion outside in the corridor, trusted that Nino Coledy and his boys

would have things under some control… hoped so. There were times when he could

not get out of Q, in the occasional disturbances, when the gates sealed and even

his council pass did not suffice to make an exception. He knew where he ought to

be—outside, restoring order, managing Coledy, trying to restrain the Q police

from some of their excesses.

And he could not go. His flesh cringed at the mere thought of confronting the

mobs and the shouting and the hate and the uglinesses of Q… of more blood, and

more things to disturb his sleep. He dreamed of Redding. Of others. Of people he

had known who turned up dead in the corridors, or vented. He knew that this

cowardice was ultimately fatal. He fought it, knowing where it led, that when

once he appeared to come apart, he was lost… and knowing that, there were days

when it was difficult to walk those halls, when he felt his courage inadequate.

He was one of them, no different from the rest; and given shelter, he did not

want to come out of it, did not want to cross even that brief space necessary to

reach the security post and the doors.

They would kill him, Coledy or one of the rival powers. Or someone with no

motive at all. Someday in the madness of rumor which swept Q, they would kill

him, someone disappointed in an application, someone who hated and found him a

symbol of authority. His stomach knotted now every time he opened the door of

his apartment. There were questions, outside and he had no answers; there were

demands, and he could not meet them; eyes, and he could not face them. If he

went out this day, he had to come back, when the disorder might be worse; he was

never permitted out of Q more than one shift at a time. He had tried, tested his

credit with them—finally gathered the courage to ask for papers, to ask for

release, days after the last disturbance—asked, knowing it might get back to

Coledy; asked knowing it might cost him his life. And they had denied him. The

great, the powerful council of which he was a member… would not hear him. He

had, Angelo Konstantin said, too great a value where he was, privately made a

show of pleading with him to stay where he was. He said nothing more of it,

fearing it would go more public, and he would not live long after that.

He had been a good man, a brave man once. He had reckoned himself so, at least,

before the voyage; before the war; while there was Jen, and Romy. He had twice

been mobbed in Q, once beaten senseless. Redding had tried to kill him and would

not be the last. He was tired and sick, and rejuv was not working for him; he

suspected the quality of what he had gotten, suspected the strain was killing

him. He had watched his face acquire new lines, a hollowed hopelessness; he no

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