Downbelow Station: The Company Wars (Daw Books Collectors)
C. J. Cherryh
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: 0756405505
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Hugo Award-winning classic, now available in a trade edition for the first time.
Pell?s Station, orbiting the alien world simply called Downbelow, had always managed to remain neutral in the ever escalating conflict between ?The Company,? whose fleets from Earth had colonized space, and its increasingly independent and rebellious colony worlds. But Pell?s location?on the outer edge of Earth?s defensive perimeter? makes her the focal point in the titanic battle of colony worlds fighting for independence?
light of an angry star. Mining, industry regarding metals and minerals ... that was its support. Segust Ayres watched, from the vantage of the freighter's bridge, the image on the screens. And something was wrong. The bridge whispered with alarm passed from station to station, frowns on faces and troubled looks. Ayres glanced at his three companions. They had caught it too, stood uneasily, all of them trying to keep out of the way of procedures that had officers darting from this station to that
doubling. "Mr. Ayres, we shall wrap you in cotton wool and hand you on most gently, most, most gently, to Cyteen. With great hope that at last someone on Earth has come to his senses. A last question, rephrased. Was Mallory alone at Pell?" "I can't answer." "You have not yet disowned the Fleet, then." "I retain that option in negotiations." Andilin pursed her lips. "You need not worry about giving us critical information. The merchanters will deny us nothing. Were it possible for 96 Downbelow
he was here, and it was very right. The motion of the ship changed; they held each other a moment in fear, but this men had warned them of, and they had heard that there was a time of great strangeness. They laughed, and joined, and ceased, giddy and delirious. They marveled at the bit of blossoming twig which floated by them in the air, which moved when they batted at it by turns. She reached carefully and plucked it from the air, and laughed again, letting it free. "This is where Sun lives,"
sought Elene's hand, closed it in his. "Maybe I can't give you what you most want," he said to Talley, resisting hurt, deliberately courteous. "Pell won't hold you forever now, and if you can find some merchanter to take you on after your papers are entirely clear ... that's open too someday in the future. But take my advice, plan for a long stay here. Things aren't settled and the merchanters are moving nowhere but to the mines and back." 133 Downbelow Station "The long-haulers are drinking
operate successfully in the absence of a base ... and you hold none. We sign the articles you ask, including the arrangement of Pell as a common meeting point— but in our hands, not yours. No difference, really ... save in the observance of the will of the people ... which you claim to hold so dear." It was better than it might have been; but it was designed to appear so. "There are," he said, "no representatives of the citizens of Pell here, only a self-appointed spokesman. I would like to see