Chapter Four
Vittorio poured a drink, his second since space around them had suddenly become filled with a battle-worn fleet. Things had not gone as they should. A silence had fallen over Hammer, the bitter silence of a crew who felt an enemy among them, a witness to their national humiliation. He met no eyes, offered no opinions… had only the desire to anesthetize himself with all due speed, so that he could not be blamed for any matters of policy. He did not want to give advice or opinions.
He was plainly a hostage; his father had set things up that way. And it occurred to him inevitably that his father might have double-crossed them all, that he might now be worse than a useless hostage… that he might be one whose card was due to be played.
My father hates me, he had tried to tell them; but they had strugged it off as irrelevant. They did not make the decisions. The man Jessad had done that. And where was Jessad now?
There was supposed to be some visitor on his way to the ship, some person of importance.
Jessad himself, to report failure, and to dispose of a useless bit of human baggage?
He had time to finish the second drink before the activity of the crew and eventual nudge at the hull reported a contact. There was a great deal of machinery slamming and the noise of the lift going into function, a crash as the cage synched with the rotation cylinder. Someone was coming up. He sat still with the glass before him and wished that he were a degree drunker than he was. The upward curve of the deck curtained the lift exit, beyond the bridge. He could not see what happened, only noted the absence of some of Hammer’s crew from their posts. He looked up in sudden dismay as he heard them coming round the other way, from his back, into the main room through crew quarters.
Blass of Hammer. Two crew. A number of military strangers and some not in uniform, behind them. Vittorio gathered himself shakily to his feet and stared at them. A gray-haired officer in rejuv, resplendent with silver and rank. And Dayin. Dayin Jacoby.
“Vittorio Lukas,” Blass identified him. “Captain Seb Azov, over the fleet; Mr. Jacoby of your own station; and Mr. Segust Ayres of Earth Company.”
“Security council,” that one corrected.
Azov sat down at the table, and the others found place on the benches round about. Vittorio settled again, his fingers numb on the table surface. He was surrounded by an alcoholic gulf that kept coming and going. He tried to sit naturally. They had come to see him… him… and there was no possible help he could be to them or to anyone.
“The operation has begun, Mr. Lukas,” Azov said. “We’ve eliminated two of Mazian’s ships. They won’t be easy to get out; they’re hanging close to station. We’ve sent for additional ships; but we’ve driven the merchanters out, all the long-haulers. The ones left are Pell short-haulers, serving as camouflage.”
“What do you want with me?” Vittorio asked.
“Mr. Lukas, you’re acquainted with the merchanters based out of station — you’ve run Lukas Company, at least to some extent — and you know the ships.”
He nodded apprehensively.
“Your ship Hammer, Mr. Lukas, is going back within hail of Pell, and where it regards merchanters, you’ll be Hammer’s com operator… not under your real name, no, you’ll be given a file on the Hammer family, which you’ll study very carefully. You’ll answer as one of them. But should Hammer be challenged by merchanter militia, or by Mazian, your life will rely on your skill in invention. Hammer will suggest to the merchanters remaining that their best course for survival would be to get to the system fringe and have nothing to do with this matter, to get utterly out of the way and cease trade with Pell. We want those ships out of the way, Mr. Lukas; and it wouldn’t at all be politic to have merchanters know we’ve tampered with Hammer and Swan’s Eye. We don’t intend to have that known, you understand me?”
The crews of those ships, he thought, would never be set free, not without Adjustment. It occurred to him that his own memory was hazardous to Union, that it would never be politic to have merchanters know Union had violated merchanter neutrality, which they claimed as a sin of Mazian’s alone. That they had confiscated not just personnel by impressment, but whole ships, and names… most of all the names, the trust, the selves of those people. He fingered the empty glass before him, realized what he was doing and stopped at once, trying to seem sober and sensible. “My own interests lie in that direction,” he said. “My future on Pell is far from assured.”
“How so, Mr. Lukas?”
“I entertain some hopes of a Union career, captain Azov.” He lifted his eyes to Azov’s grim face, hoping that he sounded as calm as he tried to be, “Relations between myself and my father… are not warm, so he threw me to you quite willingly. I’ve had time to think. Plenty of time. I prefer to make my own understandings with Union.”
“Pell is running out of friends,” Azov observed softly, with a glance at the sad-faced Mr. Ayres. “Now the indifferent desert her. The will of the governed, Mr. Ambassador.”
Ayres’ eyes turned toward Azov, sidelong. “We have accepted the situation. It was never the intent of my mission to obstruct the will of the people resident in these areas. Only I am anxious for the safety of Pell Station. We are talking about thousands of lives, sir.”
“Siege, Mr. Ayres. We cut them off from supplies and disrupt their operations until they grow uncomfortable.” Azov turned his face toward Vittorio, stared at him a moment “Mr. Lukas — we have to prevent their access to the resources of the mines, and of Downbelow itself. A strike there… possible, but militarily costly getting to it, and costly in its effect. So we proceed by disentanglement. Mazian has a death grip on Pell; he’ll leave ruin if he loses, blow Downbelow and the station itself, fall back toward the Hinder Stars… toward Earth. Do you want your precious motherworld used for a Mazianni base, Mr. Ayres?”
Ayres shot him a troubled look.
“Ah, he is capable of it,” Azov said, not ceasing to look at Vittorio, a cold, penetrating stare. “Mr. Lukas, that is as much as your duty involves. To gather information… to dissuade merchanters from trade. Do you understand? Do you think that’s within your capacity?”
“Yes, sir.”
Azov nodded. “You’ll understand, Mr. Lukas, if we excuse you and Mr. Jacoby at this point.”
He hesitated, a little dazed, realized it fuzzily as an order and that Azov’s gray stare brooked no countersuggestions. He rose from the table. Dayin excused himself past Ayres, and that left Ayres, Blass, and Azov in council. Hammer’s captain prepared to receive orders the nature of which he much wished to know.
Ships had been lost. Azov had not told the truth as it was. He had heard the crew talking. There were whole carriers missing. They were to be sent into that.
He paused where the curve curtained the meeting area, looked back at Dayin, sank down on a bench at the table in this the crew quarters. “You all right?” he asked Dayin, for whom he had never had great affection; but a face from home was very welcome in this cold place, in these circumstances.
Dayin nodded. “And you?” It was more courtesy than he had generally had from uncle Dayin.
“Fine.”
Dayin settled opposite.
“Truth,” Vittorio asked him. “How many did they lose out there?”
“Took heavy damage,” Dayin said. “I reckon that Mazian cost them some. I know there are ships missing… carriers Victory and Endurance gone, I think.”