Devil to the Belt

  Porey reached inside his coat, pulled a card from his pocket and tossed it down on his desk. “Put that authorization in your reader.”

  Salvatore picked up the card with the least dawning apprehension they were in deep, EC-level trouble, and put it in the reader slot.

  It said, Earth Company Executive Order, Office of the President, Sol Station, Earth Administration Zone.

  To all officers and agents of Security and Communications, ASTEX Administrative Territories:

  By the authority of the Executive Board and a unanimous vote of the Directors, a state of emergency is deemed to exist in ASTEX operations which place military priority contracts in jeopardy. ASTEX Security and Communications agencies and employees are hereby notified of the transfer of all affected assets and operations to the authority of EcoCorp, under ASTEX Charter provision 28 hereafter appended, and subject to the orders of EcoCorp Directors…I hereby and herewith order ASTEX company police and life services officers to place themselves directly under the order of UDC Security Office in safeguarding records and personnel during this transfer of operational authority.

  Salvatore sat down and read it again.

  “Effectively,” Porey said, “your paycheck comes directly from the EC now. You’re a civilian law enforcement officer in a strategically sensitive operation, subject to the rules and decisions of the UDG, the UN and the EC officers and board. I’m directing you to turn over those files.”

  “You can’t have gotten an order from the EC—you haven’t had the time to get a reply.”

  “Good, Mr. Salvatore. You are a critical thinker. There were triggering mechanisms. The transfer document has lain on my commanding officer’s desk for some few days. But I’d think again about destroying files, or advising your former administrators of your change of loyalties. You have a long career with the EC in front of you if you use your head. I can’t say that about all your managers.” A second card hit the desk. “That goes in a Security terminal. It will make its own accesses. Can you trust your secretary?”

  “I—” He saw the guns—automatics. Explosive shells. Not riot control gear. And not ASTEX any longer. “I think I’d better explain it to him,” he said, and thought about his wife, about his daughter. He took the card, slid it into the computer and pressed ENTER.

  The screen went to Access, and came up again with a series of dots. Porey folded his arms and watched it a moment, looked his way then with the tilt of a brow.

  “The Industry file. Purge it, among first things.”

  “Purge it? Erase it?”

  “It’s become irrelevant. Personnel have already been transferred. Certain questions won’t be asked beyond this office. That’s official, Mr. Salvatore. Your career could rise or fall on that simple point. Take great care how you dispose of it.—Mr. Paget.”

  “Sir!”

  “Find Paul Dekker and escort him to the dock.”

  “So what’s the new plan?” Meg asked, she thought with great restraint, standing between Dekker’s temper and some fill-in Shepherd data-jock with a rulebook up his ass who persisted in trying to get contact with a shuttle that was probably—

  The Shepherd said, “They’re still not getting through to Mitch—they’re jamming us.”

  “So what do you expect? It’s not just the company anymore, it’s the soldiers, for God’s sake, and you can’t hide on a station—”

  “You can’t hide a ship, either, Kady. I’m not sure how long my ship can hold position out there—”

  “Then let’s get up to the dock. Play it by ear for God’s sake!”

  “This isn’t a game, woman, we don’t know if the lifts are working—”

  “Sit on your ass a little longer and we won’t know what else won’t be working when we need it.”

  “I’m the only contact our people have on this station—I have my orders—Mitch is—”

  “Mitch isn’t answering, you’re not contacting anybody out there, the phones are down, the soldiers are all up and down the ‘deck, for God’s sake—let’s get the hell up to the dock, if that’s our option!”

  “It does us no good to get to the shuttle, our pilot’s out there on the ‘deck!”

  “Is that your problem? Well, you’re in luck, mister! You’re up to your ass in pilots.”

  “C-class, Kady, not a miner craft—”

  “Earth to orbit, ship to station, Bl, anything you can dock at this hellhole. Let’s just get the hell up there.”

  “Kady, there’s police out there. There’s armed police in front of our door. D’ you have a way we’re going to get past them?”

  Good question.

  A whole squad of soldiers passed, going somewhere in a hurry. Ben found sudden interest in a bar window, in a crowd of exiting patrons. They were shutting the bars, dammit. At least closing the doors.

  Serious time to get somewhere. Bird might have headed back to The Hole, Bird might have been arrested by now, God only where he was.

  A touch brushed his arm. His heart turned over. He looked in that direction and saw a coffee-dark face under a docker’s knit cap.

  Dock monkey’s coveralls, too. When women were damn scarce on the docks. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting to the club unobviously as I can, which I think the both of us urgently better. Any word on Dekker?”

  “No, damn him, I’m looking for Bird right now.”

  “We better get him. They got soldier-boys with rifles now. They pulled those lads off liberty and they’re putting some of them down by the offices.”

  “Damn, I don’t like that.”

  “No argument, cher. Some of those guys are still flying a little.”

  “Bright. Corporate bright, there.”

  “Ain’t corp-rat, cher, that’s the so’jers—which we got gathering right down there. Don’t look. Just let’s stroll along and find Bird.”

  He hadn’t been entirely scared until now. He started to walk, hearing distant shouting. People were coming out of the bar behind their backs.

  A beer mug hit the deck and broke.

  “Just keep walking,” Sal said.

  “Don’t hold my arm. You’re a guy, dammit!”

  “Yeah,” Sal said, and dropped it.

  Try to find a match on a refinery station—

  “There’s candles in Scorpio’s,” the Shepherd said, rummaging the repair-kit.

  “Not excessively helpful, mister. Never mind the screwdriver. Screw. Have you got a brass screw? Wire?”

  Dekker objected, “Meg, what are you doing?”

  She pulled the cover off the door-switch. “Wait-see, cher rab. God, the man has wire. What are we coming to?”

  “A short’s only going to start the—”

  Dekker got this look then.

  “Yeah,” she said, winding wire about bare contacts. “Remember the ‘15, cher? Want you to take a few napkins, and the vodka bottles… Won’t take me a minute here.”

  “That door’s going to seal,” the Shepherd said, “the second the fire-sensor goes off. We’ll suffocate.”

  “Uh-uh. Door’s going to stay open. Make me happy. Say we got fire-masks in here.”

  CHAPTER 18

  THE emergency speakers said, from every other store front: This is a full security alert. Go to your residences immediately. Go to your residences immediately. Clear the walkways for emergency vehicles.

  Sal said: “So what are we supposed to do, go home or clear the walkways? Stupid shits!”

  “I don’t like this,” Ben said. “Seriously time to get down to the club.”

  The wires sparked and melted, the door opened, Meg whipped a chair into the doorway and ducked back. Shots spattered. Dekker kept his hands steady: the toilet paper caught, the cloth fibers caught, the cloth caught, blue fire in the folds; Dekker lit the next and Meg snatched the bottle and threw it into the hall.

  It shattered. Dekker lit a third vodka bottle, passed it, and Meg lobbed the second out the door and ducked back as somebody screamed in pa
in.

  The Shepherd was on a chair with another bit of burning cloth. The smoke alarm went off inside. The fire system started spraying, the door tried to shut as shots spattered off the edge and blew hell out of the chair-back. They were down to gin bottles.

  Fire-spray started outside, white chemical clouds billowing up.

  “That’s got it,” Meg said, pulled her mask up, trod on the chair and cleared it into the smoke outside as shots went past the door.

  No notion whether she’d made it, no knowledge how to dodge or duck—he just deafened himself to the shots, cleared the chair and hugged the wall in the neon-lit smoke—running shadows rushed out of Scorpio’s, screaming in panic.

  Shots slammed into the crowd. Bodies flew; voices shrieked above the wailing siren. He sprinted past the restaurant’s blue glare, dodged runners in the mist, not caring right now if the Shepherd was behind them or not—Meg was ahead of him trying for the Emergency Shaft, Meg had the Shepherds’ key, and people who’d been taking cover in the restaurant were running every which way through the mist and into the gunfire.

  He saw Meg stop, saw her trying to get the key in a slot.

  A shot blasted a gouge in the wall beyond her—he flinched, pressed himself as flat to the wall as he could.

  “Take the lift on the next level,” the Shepherd gasped, clutching at his shoulder, beside them. “They’re bound to have our cards blocked—Use your own. Berth 18 if we get separated—”

  People were bunching up around them in panic—somebody in a waiter’s uniform had a key, shoved Meg aside. The door opened. Meg slid in with the crowd and he pushed after her, he didn’t care who he knocked out of the way—there were more and more pushing at their backs, the rush shoving them past the second door and up the steps. He pulled his mask down for air, grabbed the rail to keep from being shoved down and pushed all the way into the clear, with the Shepherd close behind, around the turn and up.

  “3-deck damn door isn’t going to work!” the Shepherd yelled out of the clangor behind them in the stairwell. “Door’s still open down there! Go for 4-deck, get a door shut behind us!”

  Dekker turned his shoulders, grabbed a handhold, forced his way past panicked, flagging clerks and restaurant help—the Shepherd yelling “Go!” and shoving him from behind.

  A hundred feet each deck level. No way clerks and waiters could outclimb spacer legs—on the end of four months’ gym time. Meg was out of sight above them.

  A siren had started in the distance—around the curvature of the ‘deck. Ben couldn’t see where—but, God, it was the direction of the club—where they were going.

  “Come on,” Sal cried, trying to hurry him—grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowd coming out of the Amalthea, but steps raced behind them. “Hold it!” a shout came from close at their backs: a hand grabbed Ben’s shoulder and spun him around and back, bang up against the plex front of the bar. He found himself nose to nose with a cop, with a stick jammed up under his chin.

  “Pollard, is it?”

  Shit, he thought, struggling for air.

  Out of nowhere, Bird’s voice said, “Hey! Hey, what do you think you’re dealing with?” Bird came up and caught the cop’s shoulder, another cop grabbed Bird and somebody in the crowd spun the cop around face-on with a beer mug.

  “Hold it,” Ben tried to say, “wait, dammit,—Bird!”

  Something banged, the plex window shook to an impact, and there was blood all over—he slipped, and the cop’s riot stick came away as he hit on his knees, Bird was lying there with a bloody great hole in his sleeve and a look of shock on his face. All else he could see was legs and all else he could hear was people cursing and screaming. He scrambled over, grabbed Bird’s coat and dragged him up close against the frontage, Bird fainting on him, people trampling them until he had a moment of clear space and Sal grabbed his arm to pull him to his feet.

  “Ben! Come on!”

  He scrambled for his feet, pulling at Bird. Sal hauled, Bird tried to get his legs under him, and they threw arms around him and ran with the crowd, battered and staggered by people passing them, Bird doing the best he could, Sal shoving him up from the other side—gunfire and shouts echoed at their backs.

  Screaming broke out ahead of them, and the crowd ebbed back at them without warning, shoved them the other way. The PA said, echoing over the shouting and the distant siren, This is not a test. This is a real emergency—

  “Stairs,” Bird gasped, and Ben thought, God, where are they? You passed them time and again, the utility accesses—between the frontages, back in the bars—

  —used to use them in the Institute, up and down the dorms, you used to duck under the security cameras—

  One was right next to The Hole, that was where.

  His lungs were burning, Bird was losing his footing, stumbling with every step as they reached the alcove and Sal shoved at the door.

  “Mike’s got a key,” Bird gasped.

  “Hell with that,” Ben said, and hit #, /, and 9 simultaneously, 8, 0, and /. Management Emergency Access.

  They weren’t the only ones that wanted the stairs—”Get out of my way!” Ben snapped at Sal, feeling the panic in the crowd as they pushed for the opening door—God, they couldn’t climb and carry Bird between them: he got a shoulder under him and carried him solo, with Sal running the stairs ahead of him. Hysterical people shoved him from behind, shoved past, nearly knocked him down, and then somebody with sense, thank God, pulled him square again and shoved him forward when his balance faltered.

  “Lock through, dammit!” Sal yelled—downside door shut was the only way the door up on 3-deck would open; and the guys ahead of her got out. Ben saw it through a black-rimmed blur, heard it through the ringing of the steps and the pounding in his chest, one thin feminine voice, “E-drill, ten at a time, you dumbass bastards!”

  They had a human wave behind them. Sal was holding the door open. Sal screamed at them to get in, and the guys behind—thank God, must have had the sense to turn around in the lock and shove the tide back. The doors shut, the hallway door opened, and they had the clear cold air of 3-deck.

  “Core-lift!” Sal yelled, grabbing him. He didn’t know how he could do it, but Bird wasn’t in any shape to carry himself. His knees and his ankles were giving and wobbling with every step, his vision was nearly gone—people were scattering past them in every direction, piling into the Trans, any way in hell they could get away. He couldn’t get enough wind, he knew his knees were going, but it was close… he knew it was close.

  He couldn’t see anything but blurs—didn’t even know where they were, except Sal kept him straight, and Sal hit the button when they got there and propped him on his feet—he kept blinking sweat out of his eyes, couldn’t hear anything but his heartbeat and distant screams, was scared mindless the core-lift was shut off at 3 with the alarms down on helldeck, but the door opened, welcomed them with white light and cold air.

  She got the door shut. He stooped, eased Bird down from his shoulder, held on to him til he could lean him against the wall—Bird’s face was white even after the head-down carry, Bird’s blood was soaking him, but Bird breathed something coherent about the door.

  Sal was trying to card it to move. He staggered to the panel to try the E-code, but abruptly the power cut in without his touching it and the car rose—

  “What did you do?” he gasped—but then the car slowed down again, on 4, and the door opened, on an out-of-breath Meg, Dekker, and a Shepherd with a key—

  “God,” Meg said. And: “Bird?”

  The Shepherd shoved them in ahead of him and keyed them from the core as fast as Ben could get his next breath—bent double with the pain in his gut, while Meg and Sal were kneeling and trying to take care of Bird.

  “We waited,” Dekker panted. “Long as we could—”

  Ben nodded. He didn’t have the breath to tell Dekker he was an ass and it was his damned fault, he wasn’t sure he could get his next gasp. He waved a helpless gest
ure at Bird, meaning take care of him, fool, do something for him: he couldn’t straighten—while the car shot for the core and the Shepherd said, “We don’t know what’s going to be waiting for us up there. The minute the door’s open, out and hit the handlines. If he can’t hold the line—” A breathless wave of the hand in Bird’s direction. “There’s no way to take him.”

  “Screw you!” Dekker said. “We’re taking him.”

  “There’s guards on the dock up there!”

  “Then screw them too!” Dekker yelled.

  “Listen, kid,—”

  “Shut up!” Meg yelled, and Ben saw the way Meg was holding Bird—how of a sudden Bird had become weight in her arms and his eyes and his mouth were still open. No, Ben thought; he couldn’t move, just stood there, waiting for Bird to move, bent over with the ache in his gut, until Sal got up and took hold of him and a handhold, because they were approaching the null-zone.

  Meg said, between breaths, Bird still locked in her arms, “We got a shuttle at 18, clear down the far end of the mast, dumb shits couldn’t park it closer—going to take us out to a Shepherd ship. They got that carrier coming this way from the shipyard, don’t know if it’s got guns mounted.”

  “It’s fast,” the Shepherd said. “Too damn fast.”

  Their talk went past Ben’s ears. It ran through his brain, as a set of facts explaining where they were going and that their chances weren’t good. He thought he ought to come up with a better idea, but his brain wasn’t working right—he just felt the lift reach that queasy spot and felt his gut knot up.

  Bird wasn’t dead, Bird couldn’t be gone—it didn’t make sense to him. He’d done everything he could and somehow Bird just—went out on them and he didn’t know what to do with him. It wasn’t damned fair, what had happened—he’d carried him, dammit, til his gut was full of knives, and Bird wasn’t friggin’ dead, he couldn’t go like that—

  Dekker reached in slow-motion after his arm as the car clanked into the interface. Dekker held on to him until the car stopped and the doors opened. The Shepherd made the first swing from the lift’s safety grip to the mounting bar and hand-over-handed himself toward the line. Meg had let Bird go, and Meg went next—