Free Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh Page B

and photographed them all standing against the wall. They stood in a chaos of com-chatter and discussion.   “You can go,” the police leader said, and they began to file out; but when Kressich started to leave the officer caught his arm. “Vassily Kressich. I’ll be giving your name to headquarters.”
    He was not sure whether that was good or bad; anything was a hope. Anything was better than what existed here in Q, with the station stalling and unable to place them or clear them out.
    He walked out onto the dock itself, shaken by the sight of the wreckage that had been made here, with the dead still lying in their blood, piles of combustibles still smouldering, what furnishings and belongings had remained heaped up to burn. Station police were everywhere, armed with rifles, no light arms. He stayed on the docks, close to the police, afraid to go back into the corridors for fear of the terrorist gangs. It was impossible to hope the police had gotten them all. There were far too many.
    Eventually the station set up an emergency dispensary for food and drink near the section line, for the water had been shut down during the emergency, the kitchens vandalized, everything turned to weapons. Com had been vandalized; there was no way to report damage; and no repair crews were likely to want to come into the area.
    He sat on the bare dock and ate what they were given, in company with other small knots of refugees who had no more than he. People looked on each other in fear.
    “We aren’t getting out,” he heard repeatedly. “They’ll never clear us to leave now.”
    More than once he heard mutterings of a different sort, saw men he knew had been in the gangs of rioters, which had begun in his barracks, and no one reported them. No one dared. They were too many.
    Unionizers were among them. He became sure that these were the agitators. Such men might have most to fear in a tight check of papers. The war had reached Pell. It was among them, and they were as stationers had always been, neutral and empty-handed, treading carefully among those who meant murder… only now it was not stationers against warships, metal shell against metal shell; the danger was shoulder to shoulder with them, perhaps the young man with the hoarded sandwich, the young woman who sat and stared with hateful eyes.   The convoy came in, without troops for escort. Dock crews under the protection of a small army of station police managed the unloading. Refugees were let through, processed as best could be with most of the housing wrecked, with the corridors become a jungle. The newcomers stood, baggage in hand, staring about them with terror in their eyes. They would be robbed by morning, Kressich reckoned, or worse. He heard people round about him simply crying softly, despairing.
    By morning there was yet another group of several hundred; and by now there was panic, for they were all hungry and thirsty and food arrived from main station very slowly.
    A man settled on the deck near him: Nino Coledy.
    There’s a dozen of us,“ Coledy said. ”Could sort some of this out; been talking to some of the gang survivors. We don’t give out names and they cooperate. We’ve got strong arms… could straighten this mess out, get people back into residences, so we can get some food and water in here.“ “What, we?”
    Coledy’s face took on a grimace of earnestness. “You were a councillor. You stand up front; you do the talking. We keep you there. Get these people fed. Get ourselves a soft place here. Station needs that. We can benefit by it.” Kressich considered it. It could also get them shot. He was too old for this.   They wanted a figurehead. A police gang wanted a respectable figurehead. He was also afraid to tell them no.
    “You just do the talking out front,” Coledy said.
    “Yes,” he agreed, and then, setting his jaw with more firmness than Coledy might have expected of a tired old man: “You start rounding up your men and I’ll have a