No thanks of it. Crisis hit the station and the Downbelow expansion which had limped along in and out of planning sessions for a decade was suddenly moving. Plants would get the additional facilities he had made possible, manned by workers whose supply and housing he had made possible, using Lukas Company funds and Lukas Company equipment.
Only a pair of Konstantins was sent down to supervise during that stage, without a thank you, Mr. Lukas, or a well done, Jon, thanks for leaving your own company offices and your own affairs, thanks for doing the job for three years. Emilio Konstantin and Miliko Dee appointed Downbelow supervisors; please arrange affairs and shuttle up at the earliest. His nephew Emilio. Young Emilio was going to ran things during construction. Konstantins were always in at the last stage, always there when the credit was about to be handed out. They had democracy in the council, but it was dynasty in the station offices. Always Konstantins. Lukases had arrived at Pell as early, sunk as much into its building, an important company back in the Hinder Stars; but Konstantins had maneuvered and gathered power at every opportunity. Now again, his equipment, his preparation, and Konstantins in charge when it reached a stage when the public might notice. Emilio: his sister Alicia’s son, and Angelo’s. People could be manipulated, if the Konstantin name was all they were ever allowed to hear; and Angelo was past master at that tactic.
It would have been courtesy to have met his nephew and his wife when they came in, to have stayed a few days to trade information, or at the least to have informed them of his immediate departure on the shuttle which had brought them down. It would also have been courtesy on their part to have come at once to the domes for an official greeting, some acknowledgment of his authority at the base — but they had not. Not even a com-sent hello, uncle, when they landed. He was in no mood for empty courtesies now, to stand in the rain shaking hands and mouthing amenities with a nephew with whom he seldom spoke. He had opposed his sister’s marriage; argued with her; it had not linked him in to the Konstantin family: with her attitude, it was rather a desertion. He and Alicia had not spoken since, save officially; not even that, in the last several years… her presence depressed him. And the boys looked like Angelo, as Angelo had been in his younger days; he avoided them, who probably hoped to get their hands on Lukas Company… at least a share of it, after him, as nearest kin. It was that hope, he was still persuaded, which had attracted Angelo to Alicia: Lukas Company was still the biggest independent on Pell. But he had maneuvered out of the trap, surprised them with an heir, not one to his taste, but a live body all the same. He had worked these years on Downbelow, reckoning at first it might be possible to expand Lukas Company down here, through construction. Angelo had seen it coming, had maneuvered the council to block that. Ecological concerns. Now came the final move.
He accepted the letter of his instruction to return, took it just as rudely as it was delivered, left without baggage or fanfare, like some offender ordered home in disgrace. Childish it might be, but it might also make a point with council… and if all the stock in the mill was soaked on the first day of the Konstantin administration here, so much the better. Let them feel shortages on station; let Angelo explain that to council. It would open a debate in which he would be present in council to participate, and ah, he wanted that.
He had deserved something more than this.
Engines finally activated, heralding lift. He got up, searched up a bottle and a glass from the locker. He received a query from the shuttle crew, declared he needed nothing. He settled in, belted, and the shuttle began lift. He poured himself a stiff drink, nerving himself for flight, which he always hated, drank, with the amber liquid quivering in the glass under the strain of his arm and the vibration of the ship. Across from him the Downers held each other and moaned.
ii
The prisoner sat still at the table with the three of them, stared at the guard supervisor in preference, his eyes seeming focused somewhere beyond. Damon laid the folder on the table again and studied the man, who was most of all trying not to look at him. Damon found himself intensely uncomfortable in this interview… different from the criminals he dealt with in Legal Affairs — this man, this face like an angel in a painting, this too-perfect humanity with blond hair and eyes that gazed through things. Beautiful, the word occurred to him. There were no flaws. The look was complete innocence. No thief, no brawler; but this man would kill… if such a man could kill… for politics. For duty, because he was Union and they were not. There was no hate involved. It was disturbing to hold the life or death of such a man in his hands. It gave him choices in turn, mirror-imaged choices — not for hate, but for duty, because he was not Union, and this man was.
We’re at war, Damon thought miserably. Because he’s come here, the war has.
An angel’s face.
“No trouble to you, is he?” Damon asked the supervisor.
“No.”
“I’ve heard he’s a good midge player.”
That got a flicker from both of them. There were illicit gamblings at the detention station, as in most slow posts during alterday. Damon offered a smile when the prisoner looked his way, the least shifting of the pale blue eyes… went sober again as the prisoner failed to react. “I’m Damon Konstantin, Mr. Talley, of the station legal office. You’ve given us no trouble and we appreciate that. We’re not your enemies; we’d dock a Union fleet as readily as a Company ship — in principle; but you don’t leave stations neutral any longer, not from what we hear, so our attitude has to change along with that. We just can’t take chances having you loose. Repatriation… no. We’re given other instructions. Our own security. You understand that.”
No response.
“Your counsel’s made the point that you’re suffering in this close confinement and that the cells were never meant for long-term detention. That there are people walking loose in Q who are far more a threat to this station; that there’s a vast difference between a saboteur and an armscomper in uniform who had the bad luck to be picked up by the wrong side. But having said all that, he still doesn’t recommend your release except to Q. We have an arrangement worked out. We can fake an id that would protect you, and still let us keep track of you over there. I don’t like the idea, but it seems workable.”
“What’s Q?” Talley asked, a soft, anxious voice, appealing to the supervisor and to his own counsel, the elder Jacoby, who sat at the end of the table. “What are you saying?”
“Quarantine. The sealed section of the station we’ve set apart for our own refugees.”
Talley’s eyes darted nervously from one to the other of them. “No. No. I don’t want to be put with them. I never asked him to set this up. I didn’t.”