Josh likewise put on a jacket… they were about the same size, and it was borrowed. Lending, Josh would accept, if not giving, augmenting his small wardrobe so that he could come and go in the offices without undue attention. Damon held the door button, instructed the office outside to delay calls for two hours.
“Back at one,” the secretary acknowledged, and turned to take an incoming call. Damon motioned Josh on through into the outer corridor.
“A half an hour at the gym,” Damon said, “then a sandwich at the concourse. I’m hungry.”
“Fine,” Josh said. He looked nervously about him. Damon looked too, and felt uneasy. The corridors had very little traffic even yet. People were just not trusting of the situation. : Some troops stood, distantly visible.
“The troops should all be pulled back,” he said to Josh, “by the end of this week. Our own security is taking over entirely in white; green maybe in two days. Have patience. We’re working on it.”
“They’ll still do what they want,” Josh said somberly.
“Huh. Did Mallory, after all?”
A shadow came on Josh’s face. “I don’t know. When I think about it, I still don’t know.”
“Believe me.” They had reached the lift, alone. A trooper stood at the corner of another corridor, a fact in the tail of the eye, nothing remarkable. He pushed the code for the core. “Had a bit of good news come in this morning. My brother called up, said things are smoothing out down there.”
“I’m glad,” Josh murmured.
The trooper moved suddenly. Came toward them. Damon looked. Others further down the hall started moving, all of them, at a near run. “Abort that,” the first trooper snapped, reaching them. She reached for the panel herself. “We’re on a call.”
“I can get you a priority,” Damon said — to be rid of them. The move indicated trouble; he thought of them shoving stationers around on other levels.
“Do it.”
He took his card from his pocket, thrust it into the slot and coded his priority; the lights went red. The rest of the troopers arrived as the car did, and armored shoulders pushed them aside as the troops all crowded in, leaving them there. The car whisked away, nonstop for whatever destination they had coded from inside. There was not a trooper left in the corridor. Damon looked at Josh, whose face was pale and set.
“We take the next car,” Damon said with a shrug. He was himself disturbed, and quietly coded in blue nine.
“Elene?” Josh asked.
“Want to get down there,” he said. “You come with me. If there’s trouble, it’s likely to end up on the dockside. I want to get down there.”
The car delayed in coming. He waited several moments and finally used his card a second time, a second priority; the lights went red, signifying a car on priority call, then blinked, signifying nothing available. He slammed his fist against the wall, cast a second look at Josh. It was far to walk; easier to wait for a car to free itself… quicker in the long run.
He walked over to the nearest com unit, keyed in on priority, while Josh stood waiting by the lift doors. “Hold the car if it comes,” he said to Josh, punched the call in. “Com Central, this is Damon Konstantin on emergency. We’re seeing troops pulling out on the run. What’s going on?”
There was a long delay. “Mr. Konstantin,” a voice came back, “this is a public com unit.”
“Not at the moment, central. What’s going on?”
“General alert. Emergency posts, please.”
“What’s going on?”
Com had cut itself off. A measured siren began to sound. Red lights began to pulse in the overheads. People came out of the offices, looked at one another as if hoping it was drill, or mistaken. His own secretary was outside, far down the hall.
“Get back inside,” he shouted. “Get those doors shut.” People moved backward, retreated into offices. The red light by Josh’s shoulder was still blinking, indicating no car available: every car in the system must have jammed up down at the docks.
“Come on,” he said to Josh, motioned toward the end of the hall. Josh looked confused and he strode over, caught Josh by the arm. “Come on.”
There were others in the hall, farther on. He snapped an order at them, cleared them out, not blaming them… there were others besides Konstantins who had loved ones scattered about the station, children in school and nurseries, people in hospital. Some ran ahead of them, refusing orders. A station security agent shouted out another order to halt; ignored, laid a hand on his pistol.
“Let them go,” Damon snapped. “Let be.”
“Sir.” The policeman’s face relaxed from a grimace of panic. “Sir, I’m not getting anything over com.”
“Keep that gun holstered. You learn those reflexes from the troops? Stand your post. Calm people down. Help them where you can. There’s a scramble going on. Could even be drill. Ease up.”
“Sir.”
They walked on, toward the emergency ramp, in the quiet hall… not running; a Konstantin could not run, spread panic. He walked, trying to hold off panic in himself. “No time,” Josh said under his breath. “By the time the alert gets here, the ships are on us. If Mazian’s been caught at dock…”
“Got militia and two carriers out from station,” Damon said, and remembered all at once who Josh was. He caught his breath, gave him a desperate look, met a face as worried as his own. “Come on,” he said.
They reached the emergency ramp, heard shouting, loud as they opened the doors. Runners were headed in down it from other levels. “Slow down!” Damon yelled at those who passed him, and they did, several turns, but a few became many, and suddenly there were more coming up, the noise increasing, more running… the transport system jammed everywhere and all the levels pouring into the spiral well. “Take it easy,” Damon shouted, grabbed shoulders physically and tried to slow it, but the rush accelerated, bodies jamming in, men, women, and children, impossible now even to get out of it. The doors were full of people trying to go down.
“The docks!” he heard shouted. It spread like fire, with the red light of alarm burning in the overhead, the assumption that had been seething in Pell since the troops came — that someday it would come, that the station was under attack, that evacuation was underway. The mass pressed down, and there was no stopping it.
ii
cfx/knight/189-8989-6877 easyeasyeasy/scorpiontwelve/zerozerozero/ endit
Signy keyed back acknowledgment and turned to Graff with a wide sweep of her hand. “Hit it!” Graff relayed, and go sounded throughout the ship. Warnings flared, spreading to dockside. Troops outside finished stripping the umbilicals. “We can’t take them,” Signy said when Di Janz fretted in com. It sat ill with her to abandon men. “They’re all right.”
“Umbilicals clear,” Graff shouted across, off com. It was a go-when-ready from Europe, which had left its troops, already moving out. Pacific was moving. Tibet’s rider was still heading in behind the wave of the original message, signaling with its presence what Tibet had already sent; and what was happening on the fringes of Pell System was as old as the light-bound signal that came reporting it, ships inbound, more than an hour ago. The lights on Norway’s main board flicked green, a steady ripple of them, and Signy released clamp and set Norway free, with the troops who had made it aboard still hastening for security. Norway moved null for a moment under the gentle puffs of directionals and undocking vents, continued the roll of her frame and cut in main thrust with a margin that skimmed Australia’s clearance and probably set off alarms all over Pell. They acquired hard G, the inner cylinder under combat synch, rolling to compensate stresses: weight bore down, eased, slammed down again.