After that it was as simple as taking a lift through the varied levels and into the administrative section, blue upper corridor. It was a sudden change of worlds, from the barren steel of the docks and the stripped quarantine area, into a hall tightly controlled by station security, into a glass-walled foyer with sound-deadening matting underfoot, where bizarre wooden sculptures met them with the aspect of a cluster of amazed citizenry. Art. Signy blinked and stared, bemused at this reminder of luxuries and civilization. Forgotten things, rumored things. Leisure to make and create what had no function but itself, as man had done, but himself. She had lived her whole life insulated from such things, only knowing at a distance that civilization existed, and that rich stations maintained luxury at their secret hearts.
Only they were not human faces which stared out from curious squat globes, among wooden spires, but faces round-eyed and strange: Downbelow faces, patient work in wood. Humans would have used plastics or metal.
There were indeed more than humans here: that fact was evident in the neat braided matting, in the bright painting which marched in alien geometries and overlays about the walls, more of the spires, more of the wooden globes with the faces and huge eyes all about them, faces repeated in the carved furniture and even in the doors, staring out from a gnarled and tiny detail, as if all those eyes were to remind humans that Downbelow was always with them.
It affected them all. Di swore softly before they walked up to the last doors and officious civs let them in, walked with them into the council hall.
Human faces stared at them this time, in six tiers of chairs on a side, an oval table in the pit between, their expressions and those of the alien carvings remarkably alike in that first impression.
The white-haired man at the end of the table stood up, made a gesture offering them the room into which they had already come. Angelo Konstantin. Others remained seated.
And beside the table were six chairs which were not part of the permanent arrangement; and six, male and female, who were not, by their style of dress, part of the station council or even of the Beyond.
Company men. Signy might have dismissed the troops to the outer chamber in courtesy to the council, rid herself of the threat of rifles and the remainder of force. She stood where she was, unresponsive to Konstantin smiles.
“This can be short,” she said. “Your quarantine zone is set up and functioning. I’d advise you to guard it heavily. I’ll warn you now that other freighters jumped without our clearance and made no part of our convoy. If you’re wise, you’ll follow the recommendations I made and board any incoming merchanter with security before letting it in near you. You’ve had a look at Russell’s disaster here. I’ll be pulling out in short order; it’s your problem now.”
There was a panicked muttering in the room. One of the Company men stood up. “You’ve behaved very high-handedly, Captain Mallory. Is that the custom out here?”
The custom is, sir, that those who know a situation handle it and those who don’t watch and learn, or get out of the way.“
The Company man’s thin face flushed visibly. “It seems we’re constrained to bear with that kind of attitude… temporarily. We need transport up to whatever exists as a border. Norway is available.”
She drew a sharp breath and drew herself up. “No, sir, you’re not constrained, because Norway isn’t available to civ passengers, and I’m not taking any on. As for the border, the border is wherever the fleet sits at the moment, and nobody but the ships involved knows where that is. There aren’t borders. Hire a freighter.”
There was dead silence in the hall.
“I dislike, captain, to use the word court-martial.”
She laughed, a mere breath. “If you Company people want to tour the war, I’m tempted to take you in. Maybe you’d benefit by it. Maybe you could widen Mother Earth’s sight; maybe we could get a few more ships.”
“You’re not in a position to make requisitions and we don’t take them. We’re not here to see only what it’s determined we should see. We’ll be looking at everything, captain, whether or not it suits you.”
She set her hands on her hips and surveyed the lot of them. “Your name, sir.”
“Segust Ayres, of the Security Council, second secretary.”
“Second secretary. Well, we’ll see what space we come up with. No baggage beyond a duffle. You understand that. No frills. You go where Norway goes. I don’t take my orders from anyone but Mazian.”
“Captain,” another put forth, “your cooperation is earnestly requested.”
“You have what I’ll give and not a step further.”
There was silence, a slow murmuring from the tiers. The man Ayres’s face reddened further, his precise dignity that instinctively galled her now further and further ruffled. “You’re an extension of the Company, captain, and you hold your commission from it. Have you forgotten that?”
“Third captain of the Fleet, Mr. Second Secretary, which is military and you’re not. But if you intend to come, be ready within the hour.”
“No, captain,” Ayres declared firmly. “We’ll take your suggestion about freighter transport. It got us here from Sol. They’ll go where they’re hired to go.”
“Within reason, I don’t doubt.” Good. That problem was shed. She could reckon Mazian’s consternation at that in the midst of them. She looked beyond Ayres, at Angelo Konstantin. “I’ve done my service here. I’m leaving. Any message will be relayed.”
“Captain.” Angelo Konstantin left the head of the table and walked forward, offered his hand, an unusual courtesy and the stranger considering what she had done to them, leaving the refugees. She took the firm handclasp, met the man’s anxious eyes. They knew each other, remotely; had met in years past. Six generations a Beyonder, Angelo Konstantin; like the young man who had come down to help on the dock, a seventh. The Konstantins had built Pell; were scientists and miners, builders and holders. With this man and the others she felt a manner of bond, for all their other differences. This kind of man the Fleet had for its charge, the best of them.
“Good luck,” she wished them, and turned and left, taking Di and the troopers with her.
She returned the way she had come, through the beginning establishment of Q zone, and back into the familiar environs of Norway, among friends, where law was as she laid it down and things were as she knew. There were a few last details to work out, a few matters still to be arranged, a few last gifts to bestow on station; her own security’s dredgings — reports, recommendations, a live body, and what salvaged reports came with it.
She put Norway on ready then, and the siren went and what military presence Pell had for its protection slipped free and left them.
She went to follow a sequence of courses which was in her head, and of which Graff knew, her second. It was not the only evacuation in progress; the Pan-Paris station was under Kreshov’s management; Sung of Pacific had moved in on Esperance. By now other convoys were on their way toward Pell, and she had only set up the framework.
The push was coming. Other stations had died, beyond their reach, beyond any salvage. They moved what they could, making Union work for what they took. But in her private estimate they were themselves doomed, and the present maneuver was one from which most of them would not return. They were the remnant of a Fleet, against a widespread power which had inexhaustible lives, and supply, and worlds, and they did not.