So Porey had the stuff. Clear now how desperately they needed a mind of Porey’s essential qualities.
Clear now whose command he just might end up serving Helm for. The captain hadn’t trusted him. So they brought Porey in over his head?
He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he arranged his priorities and issued his orders, trusting they were getting through. It gave him the same surreal feeling he’d had writing his will, for the handful of personal possessions he did own—that past the time those instructions were carried out, his personal existence was going to be very much different.
He had ordered the records secured. That first. There were a lot of extremely upset UDC security personnel on the loose. There had very nearly been an armed stand-off. The UDC ordered erasure on certain files, he was quite certain. He was equally certain he had been too late to prevent that, during the time of the stand-off and queries flying back and forth between his office and Tanzer’s—he was sure UDC security had done exactly what they should have done, and that he had not been able to prevent it (although outside of going hand to hand with UDC personnel and cutting through a lock he didn’t know what he could have done) would be written down for a failure on his part.
He had not let them throw the database into confusion. That was a plus. He had not lost the library tapes. That also. He had ordered personnel in detention transferred; he had taken hospital and testing records under Fleet protection. He might order the release of detainees, but the disposition of those cases as a policy issue was not within his administrative discretion. He did not like the new commander. He, however, did not personally approve of creating administrative messes, which, counting his administrative style and Porey’s, might be the worse for the difference. He advised the UDC officers that all facilities were passing under Fleet administrative command, and personally phoned the UDC provost marshal and UDC Legal Affairs to be certain that all legal proceedings were frozen exactly where they were: no sense letting anything pass into record that need not.
Demas called, to say that the carrier was braking, directly after ceasing acceleration. Demas said that there was a contingent of marines aboard needing gravitied accommodations.
“I copy that. What’s the head count?”
“Two thousand.”
That was a carrier’s full troop complement. They wanted miracles. He called Tanzer, he listened to the shouting, he calmly requested invention, and ordered an emergency galley set up in an idle SoICorp module, ordered its power-up, ordered an Intellitron communications center linked in as FleetCom relay for the marine officers, ordered the Fleet gym given over to troop exercise, the Fleet exercise schedule combined with the UDC, on alternate days; located every class-4 storage can in Sol-2, shifted all class-4 storage to low-g and ordered station ops to consolidate the remainder and clear section D-2 for set-up as habitation. Sol-2 civil Ops bitched and moaned about access-critical supplies.
“I assure you,” he said coldly and courteously, “I appreciate the difficulty. But human beings have priority over galley supplies... That is a problem. I suggest than you move your dispenser equipment to 3-deck to handle it. There are bottles and carts available... —Then get them from maintenance, or we’ll order them. I’m sure you can solve that....”
Meanwhile, the thin nervous voice of approach control tracked the carrier’s braking, in a tone that said approach control wasn’t used to these velocities. Inner system wasn’t a place merchanters ever moved at anything like that v. Merchanters drifted into the mothersystem at a sedate, mind-numbing leisure, sir, while bored techs and mechanics did whatever repair they’d had on backlist— days and days of it, because the mothersystem with all its traffic had regulations, and a starship, which necessarily violated standard lanes, made mothersystem lawyers very anxious. The mothersystem was a dirty system. The mothersystem had a lot of critical real estate, the mothersystem had never accurately figured the astronomical chances of collision, and the Earth Company had made astronomically irritating regulations. Which they now saw Exceptioned. That was the word for it. Exceptioned, for military ships under courier or combat conditions.
The ECS4 wasn’t even at hard stretch. But station was anxious. If braking utterly failed (astronomically unlikely) that carrier would pass, probably, fifty meters in the clear. But tell them that in the corridors, where the rumor was, Security informed him, dial the carrier was aimed straight at them.
Porey, the bastard, might shave that to 25 meters, only because he hated Earth system. But Porey never said that in outside hearing.
Porey had other traits. But leave those aside. Porey was a strategist and a good one, and that, apparently, was the priority here. Not whether Edmund Porey gave a damn about the command he’d been given. Not whether he had any business commanding here, over these particular mindsets.
The Shepherds were his crews, dammit, down to the last two women the captain or someone had finagled in here.
Fingers hesitated over a keypad.
The captain. Or someone. Anyone in Sol System must have known more than he had. What in hell was going on?
He had a call from Mitch Mitchell on the wait list. He returned it only to ask, “Where are you?”
“Sir?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on? What’s—“
He said, “Where are you?”
Mitch said, “Your office in two minutes.”
“You don’t read, Mitch. Where?”
“Coffee machine in one.”
Not that long to work a carrier into dock, not the way they’d learned it in the Beyond, especially when it was a tube link and a straight grapple to a mast. The carrier used its own docking crew—marines, who simply moved the regular staff aside. More and more of them. A familiar face or two: Graff recognized them, if he couldn’t place them. Carina dockers. Mazian’s own crew. A lot of these must be.
Lynch, the sergeant-major identified himself, close-clipped, gray-haired, with no ship patch on his khaki and gray uniform, but Graff recalled the face. He returned the salute, took the report and signed it for transmission of station Secure condition.
More of them were coming off the lift. “Sgt,-major,” he said, with a misgiving nod in that direction. “We’ve had a delicate situation. Kindly don’t antagonize the UDC personnel. We’ve got a cooperation going that should make your job easier.”
“The commander said take the posts. We take ‘em, sir.”
He frowned at the sergeant-major. Darkly. Kept his hands locked behind him, so the white knuckles didn’t show. “You also have to live here, Sgt.-major. Possibly for a long while. Kindly don’t disturb the transition we have in progress. That also is an order.”
A colder face. A moment of silence. Estimation, maybe. “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. Carina man for certain. Dangerous man. Close to Mazian. Lynch moved off, shouted orders to a corporal.
Steps rang in unison. Breath steamed in the air in front of the lift. Marines were headed for the communications offices, the administrative offices, the lifesupport facilities, simultaneously.
The lift let out again. Armored Security and a scowling, close-clipped black man in a blue dress jacket.
Graff stood his ground and made his own bet whether Porey would salute or put out a hand.
It was the hand. Graff took it and said, “Commander.”
“Lieutenant. Good to see you.” He might have been remarking on the ambient temperature. “I take it the report is in our banks.”