The dark, lovely eyes were set upon her, interested, intent upon her words as if she had skill like the old singers. She wove the truth as best she could, making this true, and not the terrible things which were Happening elsewhere, making it truer and truer, that the Dreamer might make it truth, that in the turning cycles, this truth might come round again as the flowers did, and the rains and all lasting things.
iii
The boards had stabilized. Station central had adjusted to panic as a perpetual condition, apparent in the fevered attention to details, the refusal of techs to acknowledge the increasing coming and going of armed men in the command center.
Jon patrolled the aisles, scowling, disapproving of any move beyond necessity. “Another call from the merchanter Finity’s End,” a tech told him. “Elene Quen speaking, demands information.”
“Denied.”
“Sir — ”
“Denied. Tell them to sit and wait it out. Make no more unauthorized calls. Do you expect us to broadcast information that could aid the enemy?”
The tech turned to her work, visibly trying not to see the guns.
Quen. Young Damon’s wife, with the merchanters, already trouble, making demands, refusing to come out. The information had already proliferated, and the Fleet had to be picking it up by now from the merchanters in pattern about the station. Mazian knew by now what had happened. Quen with the merchanters and Damon on green section dock; Downers knotted about Alicia’s bedside, blocking number four crosshall in that area. Let her keep her Downer guard: the section door was shut. He folded his hands behind him and tried to look calm.
A movement caught his eyes, near the door. Jessad was back after brief absence, stood there, a silent summons. Jon walked in that direction, misliking Jessad’s grim sobriety.
“Any progress?” he asked Jessad, stepping outside.
“Located Mr. Kressich,” Jessad said. “He’s here with an escort; wants a conference.”
Jon scowled, glanced down the hall where Kressich waited with a cluster of guards about him, and an equal number of their own security.
“Situation as it was with blue one four,” Jessad said. “Downers still have it blocked. We’ve got the door; we could decompress.”
“We need them,” Jon said tautly. “Let it be.”
“For her sake? Half-measures, Mr. Lukas…”
“We need the Downers; she’s got them. Let be, I said. It’s Damon and Quen who’re trouble. What are you doing in that regard?”
“Can’t get anyone on that ship; she’s not coming out and they’re not opening. As for him, we know where he is. We’re working on it.”
“What do you mean you’re working on it?”
“Kressich’s people,” Jessad hissed. “We need to get through out there, you understand me? Pull yourself together and talk to him; promise him anything. He’s got the mobs in his hand. He can pull the strings. Do it.”
Jon looked at the group in the hall, his thoughts scattering, Kressich, Mazian, the merchanter situation… Union. The Union fleet had to move soon, had to. “What do you mean, need to get through out there? Do you know where he is or don’t you?”
“Not beyond doubt,” Jessad admitted. “We turn that mob loose on him and there won’t be enough to identify. And we need to know. Believe me. Talk to Kressich. And hurry about it, Mr. Lukas.”
He looked, caught Kressich’s eyes, nodded, and the party came closer… Kressich, as gray and wretched-looking as ever. But those about him were another matter: young, arrogant, cocky in their bearing.
“The councillor wants a share of this,” one said, small, dark-haired man with a scar on his face.
“You speak for him?”
“Mr. Nino Coledy,” Kressich identified him, surprising him with a direct answer and a harder look than Kressich had ever mustered in council. “I advise you to listen to him. Mr. Lukas, Mr. Jessad. Mr. Coledy heads Q security. We have our own forces, and we can get order when we ask for it. Are you ready to have it?”
Jon turned a disturbed look on Jessad, obtained nothing; Jessad was blank of comment. “If you can stop the mobs — do it.”
“Yes,” said Jessad quietly. “Quiet at this stage would serve us. Welcome to our council, Mr. Kressich, Mr. Coledy.”
“Give me com,” Coledy said. “General address.”
“Give it to him,” Jessad said.
Jon drew a deep breath, suddenly with questions trembling on his lips, what kind of game Jessad was playing with him, pushing these two into the inner circle; Jessad’s own, as Hale was his? He swallowed the questions, swallowed anger, remembering what was out there, how fragile it all was. “Come with me,” he said, led the way inside, took Coledy to the nearest com board. Scan was visible from there, Mazian still holding steady. It was too much to hope that Mazian would be easily disposed of. Far too much, that it would be easy. The Fleet had the area pocketed… Mazian’s ships, dotted here and there about the multi-level halo that was the merchanters’ orbit about Pell.
“Move,” he said to a tech, dislodged him, put Coledy in that place and himself punched through to com central. Bran Hale’s face lit up the screen. “Got a call for you to send out,” he told Hale. “This one goes on general override.”
“Right,” Hale said.
“Mr. Lukas,” someone called, breaking the general hush in central. He looked about. Scan screens were flashing intersect alert.
“Where is it?” he exclaimed. Scan had nothing definite. A peppering of yellow haze warned of something incoming, fast. Comp began to siren alarms. There were soft outcries, curses, techs reaching for boards.
“Mr. Lukas!” someone cried, frantic appeal.
iv
“Scan,” the alarm rang out. Elene saw the flicker and cast a frantic look at Neihart.
“Break us loose,” Neihart said, avoiding her eyes. “Go”!
The word flashed ship to ship. Elene gathered herself against the parting jolt… too late to run for the dock, far too late; umbilicals were long since shut off, ships grappled-to only.
A second jolt. They were free, peeling away from station as the whole row of still-docked merchanters followed, counterclockwise round the rim; as any mistake in inside shutdown might mean a ruptured umbilical, as whole sections of dock might decompress. She sat still, feeling the familiar sensations she had thought she might never feel again, free, loose, like the ship, outward bound from what was coming at them; and feeling as if part of her were torn away.
A second invader passed… came zenith and disrupted scan, triggered alarms… was gone, on its way toward the Fleet. They were alive, drifting loose at their helpless slow motion rate, coming out on an agreed course, a general drift of all those undocking. She folded her arm across her belly and watched the screens before her in Finity’s command center, thinking on Damon, on all that was back there.
Dead, maybe; they said Angelo was dead; maybe Alicia was; maybe Damon — maybe… she hurled the thought at herself, trying to accept it sanely, if it had to be accepted, if there was revenge to be gotten for it. She drew deep breaths, thinking on Estelle, on all her kin. A second time spared, then. A talent for leaving disasters. She had a life in her that was Quen and Konstantin at once, names that meant something in the Beyond; names which Union would not find comfortable for them in future, that she would give them cause to remember.