“I copy that. What’s the head count?”
“Two thousand.”
That was a carrier’s full troop complement. They wanted miracles. He called Tanzer, he listened to the shouting, he calmly requested invention, and ordered an emergency galley set up in an idle SoICorp module, ordered its power-up, ordered an Intellitron communications center linked in as FleetCom relay for the marine officers, ordered the Fleet gym given over to troop exercise, the Fleet exercise schedule combined with the UDC, on alternate days; located every class-4 storage can in Sol-2, shifted all class-4 storage to low-g and ordered station ops to consolidate the remainder and clear section D-2 for set-up as habitation. Sol-2 civil Ops bitched and moaned about access-critical supplies.
“I assure you,” he said coldly and courteously, “I appreciate the difficulty. But human beings have priority over galley supplies... That is a problem. I suggest than you move your dispenser equipment to 3-deck to handle it. There are bottles and carts available... —Then get them from maintenance, or we’ll order them. I’m sure you can solve that....”
Meanwhile, the thin nervous voice of approach control tracked the carrier’s braking, in a tone that said approach control wasn’t used to these velocities. Inner system wasn’t a place merchanters ever moved at anything like that v. Merchanters drifted into the mothersystem at a sedate, mind-numbing leisure, sir, while bored techs and mechanics did whatever repair they’d had on backlist— days and days of it, because the mothersystem with all its traffic had regulations, and a starship, which necessarily violated standard lanes, made mothersystem lawyers very anxious. The mothersystem was a dirty system. The mothersystem had a lot of critical real estate, the mothersystem had never accurately figured the astronomical chances of collision, and the Earth Company had made astronomically irritating regulations. Which they now saw Exceptioned. That was the word for it. Exceptioned, for military ships under courier or combat conditions.
The ECS4 wasn’t even at hard stretch. But station was anxious. If braking utterly failed (astronomically unlikely) that carrier would pass, probably, fifty meters in the clear. But tell them that in the corridors, where the rumor was, Security informed him, dial the carrier was aimed straight at them.
Porey, the bastard, might shave that to 25 meters, only because he hated Earth system. But Porey never said that in outside hearing.
Porey had other traits. But leave those aside. Porey was a strategist and a good one, and that, apparently, was the priority here. Not whether Edmund Porey gave a damn about the command he’d been given. Not whether he had any business commanding here, over these particular mindsets.
The Shepherds were his crews, dammit, down to the last two women the captain or someone had finagled in here.
Fingers hesitated over a keypad.
The captain. Or someone. Anyone in Sol System must have known more than he had. What in hell was going on?
He had a call from Mitch Mitchell on the wait list. He returned it only to ask, “Where are you?”
“Sir?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on? What’s—”
He said, “Where are you?”
Mitch said, “Your office in two minutes.”
“You don’t read, Mitch. Where?”
“Coffee machine in one.”
Not that long to work a carrier into dock, not the way they’d learned it in the Beyond, especially when it was a tube link and a straight grapple to a mast. The carrier used its own docking crew—marines, who simply moved the regular staff aside. More and more of them. A familiar face or two: Graff recognized them, if he couldn’t place them. Carina dockers. Mazian’s own crew. A lot of these must be.
Lynch, the sergeant-major identified himself, close-clipped, gray-haired, with no ship patch on his khaki and gray uniform, but Graff recalled the face. He returned the salute, took the report and signed it for transmission of station Secure condition.
More of them were coming off the lift. “Sgt,-major,” he said, with a misgiving nod in that direction. “We’ve had a delicate situation. Kindly don’t antagonize the UDC personnel. We’ve got a cooperation going that should make your job easier.”
“The commander said take the posts. We take ‘em, sir.”
He frowned at the sergeant-major. Darkly. Kept his hands locked behind him, so the white knuckles didn’t show. “You also have to live here, Sgt.-major. Possibly for a long while. Kindly don’t disturb the transition we have in progress. That also is an order.”
A colder face. A moment of silence. Estimation, maybe. “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. Carina man for certain. Dangerous man. Close to Mazian. Lynch moved off, shouted orders to a corporal.
Steps rang in unison. Breath steamed in the air in front of the lift. Marines were headed for the communications offices, the administrative offices, the lifesupport facilities, simultaneously.
The lift let out again. Armored Security and a scowling, close-clipped black man in a blue dress jacket.
Graff stood his ground and made his own bet whether Porey would salute or put out a hand.
It was the hand. Graff took it and said, “Commander.”
“Lieutenant. Good to see you.” He might have been remarking on the ambient temperature. “I take it the report is in our banks.”
“It should be. I take it you heard about the interservice incident. We have personnel in the brig...”
“The colonel’s office,” Porey said, shortly, and motioned him curtly to come along.
Quiet in the cell block, deathly quiet for a while. Then someone yelled: “Hey, Pauli.”
“Yeah?”
“You know that five you owe me?”
“Yeah?”
“Cancel it. You got that sumbitch.”
“That sumbitch is in here!” another voice yelled. “That sumbitch is going to whip you good, Basrami!”
“Yeah, you got a big chance of doing that, Charlie-boy. How was dessert?”
“Your guy can’t navigate an aisle! What’s he good for, him and his fe-male pi-luts? Couple of Belter whores, what I hear—”
Dekker stood at the bars, white-knuckled, Ben could see it from where he sat. From down the aisle Meg’s high, clear voice. “You a pi-lut, cher, or a mouth?”
“You come in here to save Dekker’s ass? Bed’s what you’re for, honey. It’s where you better stay.”
Ben winced. Meg’s voice:
“Fuck yourself, Charlie-boy, but don’t fuck with me. What are you, a tech or a pilot?”
“Pilot, baby, and you better stay to rock-picking. You’re out of your league.”
Chorus of derision from one side of the cell-block. Shouts from the other. Dekker hit the cross-bar with his fist, muscle standing hard in his jaw, and from down the row, Meg shouted:
“You got a bet, Charlie-boy.”
Wasn’t any way she wouldn’t take a challenge like that. Her and Sal. Ben felt his gut in a knot, saw Dekker lean his head against the bars, not saying anything, that was the danger signal in Dekker. And somebody down the row yelled, “Hey, Dekker! You hearing this?”
Shouting over the top of it. Dekker had to answer, had to, way the rules worked, and Ben held his breath and crawled off the bunk, not sure what he was going to do if Dekker blew.
“Dekker? You hear?”
Man couldn’t talk. Ben added those numbers fast, yelled out: “He’s ignoring you, mouth! You’re boring.”
“Funny he had a lot to say when Chad bought it! That right, Dekker? That right?”
Ben shoved his arm, not hard. Dekker was frozen. Hard as ice. Staring into nothing. Other guys were yelling. Something hit the middle of the aisle and rattled to a stop. And Dekker looked like a guy hit in the gut, wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t defending himself, was letting others do it. Another shove wasn’t going to push him into thinking. God only knew what it might do. He had the look of a man on the edge of cracking and Ben didn’t know what to do with him, he didn’t know how to answer the catcalls and the shouting that was going on, he hoped to hell for the MPs to come in and break it up. Wasn’t any more from Meg. He could hear Sal’s voice in the middle of it, but he had a desperate feeling he was in a cell with half a problem and Sal had the other half...