That was mortally necessary; and on this particular approach, Signy wished herself and her crew on that assignment. There was bitter choice ahead. She did not look forward to another operation like Russell’s Station, where civ panic had anticipated the military action for the station’s dismantling, mobs at the docks… her crew had had enough of that. She had, and disliked the thought of letting troops loose on a station when they were in the mood hers were in now.

Another message came through. Pell Station advised that it had shifted a number of freighters out of berths to accommodate the warships in one sequence and without immediate neighbors on the docks. The dislodged freighters would be moving through the pattern of the orbiting ships in a direction opposite to their entry of that pattern. Mazian’s voice cut in, deep and harsh, a repeated advisement that, whatever disruption in the patterns of ships about Pell, if any freighter tried to jump system they would be blown without warning.

Station acknowledged; it was all they could do.

iv

Nothing worked. In Q nothing ever seemed to. Vassily Kressich punched buttons totally dead and punched them again, hit the com unit with the heel of his hand and still had no response from station com central. He paced the limits of his small apartment. The breakdowns infuriated him, drove him almost to tears. They happened daily; the water, the fans, the com, vid, supplies, shortages driving home over and over again the misery of his living, the decay, the pressure of bodies, the senseless violence of people driven mad by crowding and uncertainty. He had the apartment. He had his possessions; he kept these things meticulously in order, scrubbed often and obsessively. The smell of Q clung to him, no matter how he washed and how diligently he scrubbed the floors and sealed the closet against the pervading smell. It was an antiseptic reek, of cheap astringents and whatever chemicals the station used to combat disease and crowding and keep the life-support in balance.

He paced the floor, tried the com again, hoping, and it did not work. He could hear commotion outside in the corridor, trusted that Nino Coledy and his boys would have things under some control… hoped so. There were times when he could not get out of Q, in the occasional disturbances, when the gates sealed and even his council pass did not suffice to make an exception. He knew where he ought to be — outside, restoring order, managing Coledy, trying to restrain the Q police from some of their excesses.

And he could not go. His flesh cringed at the mere thought of confronting the mobs and the shouting and the hate and the uglinesses of Q… of more blood, and more things to disturb his sleep. He dreamed of Redding. Of others. Of people he had known who turned up dead in the corridors, or vented. He knew that this cowardice was ultimately fatal. He fought it, knowing where it led, that when once he appeared to come apart, he was lost… and knowing that, there were days when it was difficult to walk those halls, when he felt his courage inadequate. He was one of them, no different from the rest; and given shelter, he did not want to come out of it, did not want to cross even that brief space necessary to reach the security post and the doors.

They would kill him, Coledy or one of the rival powers. Or someone with no motive at all. Someday in the madness of rumor which swept Q, they would kill him, someone disappointed in an application, someone who hated and found him a symbol of authority. His stomach knotted now every time he opened the door of his apartment. There were questions, outside and he had no answers; there were demands, and he could not meet them; eyes, and he could not face them. If he went out this day, he had to come back, when the disorder might be worse; he was never permitted out of Q more than one shift at a time. He had tried, tested his credit with them — finally gathered the courage to ask for papers, to ask for release, days after the last disturbance — asked, knowing it might get back to Coledy; asked knowing it might cost him his life. And they had denied him. The great, the powerful council of which he was a member… would not hear him. He had, Angelo Konstantin said, too great a value where he was, privately made a show of pleading with him to stay where he was. He said nothing more of it, fearing it would go more public, and he would not live long after that.

He had been a good man, a brave man once. He had reckoned himself so, at least, before the voyage; before the war; while there was Jen, and Romy. He had twice been mobbed in Q, once beaten senseless. Redding had tried to kill him and would not be the last. He was tired and sick, and rejuv was not working for him; he suspected the quality of what he had gotten, suspected the strain was killing him. He had watched his face acquire new lines, a hollowed hopelessness; he no longer recognized the man he had been a year ago. He feared obsessively for his health, knowing the quality of medical care they had in Q, where any medicines were stolen and might be adulterated, where he was dependent on Coledy’s largesse for drugs as well as wine and decent food. He no longer thought of home, no longer mourned, no longer thought of the future. There was only today, as horrible as yesterday; and if there was one desire he had left, it was to have some assurance it would not be worse.

Again he tried com, and this time not even the red light came on. Vandals dismantled things in Q as fast as their own repair crews could get them working… their own crews. It took days to get Pell workmen in here, and some things stayed broken. He had nightmares of such an end for them all, sabotage of something vital by a maniac who did not consider personal suicide enough, the whole section voided. It could be done. In crisis.

Or at any moment.

He paced the floor, faster and faster, clenched his arms across his stomach, which hurt constantly when he was under stress. The pain grew, wiping out other fears.

He gathered his nerve at last, put on his jacket, weaponless as most of Q was not, for he had to pass checkpoint scan. He fought nausea, setting his hand on the door release, finally nerved himself to step out into the dark, graffiti-marred corridor. He locked the door after him. He had not yet been robbed, but he expected to be, despite Coledy’s protection; everyone was robbed. Safest to have little; he was known to have much. If he was safe it was that what he had belonged to Coledy in his men’s eyes, that he did — if word of his application to leave had not gotten to their ears.

Through the hall and past the guards… Coledy’s men. He walked onto the dock, among crowds which stank of sweat and unchanged clothes and antiseptic sprays. People recognized him and snatched at him with grimy hands, asking news of what was happening over in the main station.

“I don’t know, I don’t know yet; com’s dead in my quarters. I’m on my way to learn. Yes, I’ll ask. I’ll ask, sir.” He repeated it over and over, tearing from one pair of clutching hands to the next, one questioner to the other, some wild-eyed and far gone in the madness of drugs. He did not run; running was panic, panic was mobs, mobs were death; and there were the section doors ahead, the promise of safety, a place beyond which Q could not reach, where no one could go without the precious pass he carried. “It’s Mazian,” the rumor was running Q dockside. And with it: “They’re pulling out. All Pell’s pulling out and leaving us behind.”

“Councillor Kressich.” A hand caught his arm and meant business. The grip pulled him abruptly about. He stared into the face of Sax Chambers, one of Coledy’s men, felt threat in the grip which hurt his arm. “Going where, councillor?”