“Sir.” It was the com chief. The third screen from the left was alight. Angelo Konstantin, angry and flushed. Jon punched the call through.
“Use procedures,” Angelo spat, and broke off. The screen went dark, as Jon stood clenching his hands and trying to reckon whether that was because he had caught Angelo with no good answer or because Angelo was occupied.
Let it come, he thought in an excess of hate, the pulse pounding in his veins. Let Mazian evacuate all who would go. Union would come in after… would have need of those who knew the station. Understandings could be reached; his understanding with Jessad paved the way for that. It was no time to be timid. He was in it and there was no retreat now.
The first step… to become visible, a reassuring voice, and let Jessad see him doing it. Become known, have his face familiar all over the station. That was the advantage the Konstantins had always had, monopoly of public visibility, handsomeness. Angelo looked the vital patriarch; he did not. He had not the manner, the lifelong habit of authority. But ability — that he had; and once his heart had begun to settle out of the initial dread of the disorder out there, he found advantage in the disorder; in any events that went against the Konstantins.
Only Jessad… he remembered Mariner, which had died when Mazian had crowded in on the situation there. Only one thing protected them now… that Jessad had to rely on him and on Hale as his arms and legs, having no network yet of his own; and at the moment Jessad was neatly imprisoned, having to trust him, because he dared not try the halls without papers — dared not be out there with Mazian coming in.
He drew in a breath, expanded with the thought of the power he actually had. He was in the best of positions. Jessad could provide insurance… or what was another body vented, another paperless body, as they sometimes ended up vented out of Q? He had never killed before, but he had known from the time he accepted Jessad’s presence that it was a possibility.
Chapter Two
It was a slow process, to berth in so many ships: Pacific first, then Africa; Atlantic; India. Norway received clearance and Signy, from her vantage at the post central to the bridge, passed the order to Graff at controls. Norway moved in with impatient dispatch, having waited so long; was opening the ports of Pell dock crews to attach the umbilicals while Australia began its move; was completing secure-for-stay while the super-carrier Europe glided into dock, disdaining the pushed assist which station wanted to give.
“Doesn’t look like trouble here,” Graff said. “I’m getting an all-quiet on dockside. Stationmaster’s security is thick out there. No sign of panicked civs. They’ve got the lid on it.”
That was some comfort. Signy relaxed slightly, beginning to hope for sanity, at least while the Fleet sorted out its own business.
“Message,” com said then. “General hail from Pell station-master to Fleet at dock: welcome aboard and will you come to station council at earliest?”
“Europe will respond,” she murmured, and in a moment Europe’s com officer did so, requesting a small delay.
“All captains,” she heard at last on the emergency channel she had been monitoring for hours, Mazian’s own low voice, “private conference in the briefing room at once. Leave all command decisions to your lieutenants and get over here.”
“Graff.” She hurled herself out of her cushion. “Take over. Di, get me ten men for escort, double-quick.”
Other orders were pouring over com from Europe, from the deployment of fifty troopers from each ship to dockside, full combat rig; for passing Fleet command to Australia’s second, Jan Meyis, for the interim; for riders of docked ships to apply to station control for approach instructions, to come in for reattachment. Coping with those details was Graff’s job now. Mazian had something to tell them, explanations, long-awaited.
She went to her office, delayed only to slip a pistol into her pocket, hastened to the lift and out into the access corridor amid the rush of troops Graff was ordering to the dockside… combat-rigged from the moment they had gone into station approach, headed for the hatch before the echoes of Graffs voice had died in Norway’s steel corridors. Di was with them, and her own escort sorted itself out and attached itself as she passed through.
The whole dock was theirs. They poured out at the same moment as troops from other ships hit the dockside, and station security faded back in confusion before the businesslike advance of armored troops who knew precisely the perimeter they wanted and established it. Dockworkers scrambled this way and that, uncertain where they were wanted: “Get to work!” Di Janz shouted. “Get those waterlines over here!” And they made up their minds at once… little threat from them, who were standing too close and too vulnerable compared to the troops. Signy’s eyes were for the armed security guards beyond the lines, at their attitude, and at the shadowed tangles of lines and gantries which might shelter a sniper. Her detachment surrounded her, with Bihan as officer. She swept them with her, moving rapidly, up the row of ship-berths, where a mob of umbilicals and gantries and ramps stretched as far as the eye could see up the ascending curve of the dock, like mirror reflections impeded only by the occasional arch of a section-seal and the upward horizon… merchanters docked beyond them. Troops made themselves a screen all along the route between Norway and Europe. She followed after Australia’s Tom Edger and his escort. The other captains would be at her back, coming as quickly as they could.
She overtook Edger on the ramp up to Europe’s access; they walked together. Keu of India caught them up when they had passed the ribbed tube and reached the lift, and Porey of Africa was hard on Keu’s heels. They said nothing, each of them gone silent, perhaps with the same thoughts and the same anger. No speculations. They took only a pair apiece of their guards, jammed the lift car and rode up in silence, walked down the main-level corridor to the council room, steps ringing hollowly up here, in corridors wider than Norway’s, everything larger-scaled. Deserted: only a few Europe troops stood rigid guard here.
The council room likewise was empty, no sign of Mazian, just the bright lights of the room ablaze to tell them that they were expected at that circular table. “Outside,” Signy bade her escort, as the others went. She and the others took their seats by precedence of seniority, Tom Edger first, herself, three vacancies, then Keu and Porey. Sung of Pacific arrived, ninth among the chairs. Atlantic’s Kreshov arrived, settled into the number four seat by Signy’s other side.
“Where is he?” Kreshov asked finally, at the end of patience. Signy shrugged and folded her arms on the table, staring across at Sung without seeing him. Haste… and then wait. Pulled out of battle, kept in long silence… and now wait again to be told why. She focused on Sung’s face, on a classic aged mask which never admitted impatience; but the eyes were dark. Nerves, she reminded herself. They were exhausted, had been yanked out of combat, through jump, into this. Not a time to make profound or far-reaching judgments.
Mazian came in finally, quietly, passed them and took his place at the head of the table, face downcast, haggard as the rest of them. Defeat? Signy wondered, with a knot in the pit of her stomach, like something which would not digest. And then he looked up and she saw that small tautness about Mazian’s mouth and knew otherwise… sucked in her breath with a flare of anger. She recognized the little tension, a mask — Conrad Mazian played parts, staged his appearances as he staged ambushes and battles, played the elegant or the coarse by turns. This was humility, the falsest face of all, quiet dress, no show of brass; the hair, that silver of rejuv, was immaculate, the lean face, the tragic eyes… the eyes lied most of all, facile as an actor’s. She watched the play of expressions, the marvelous fluidity that would have seduced a saint. He prepared to maneuver them. Her lips drew tight