From the Bookshelf of The Alternative Worlds…

The convoy winked in, the carrier Norway, and then the ten freighters – more, as Norway loosed her four riders and the protective formation spread itself wide in its approach to Pell’s Star.

Here was the refuge, one secure place the war had never yet reached, but it was the lapping of the tide. The worlds of the far Beyond were winning, and certainties were changing, on both sides of the line. (p. 10)

He had watched her for some hours, a foreboding presence in the center. She had a way of moving that made no noise, no swagger, no, but it was, perhaps, the unconscious assumption that anyone in her way would move. They did. Any tech who had to get up did so only when Mallory was patrolling some other aisle. She had never made a threat – spoke seldom, mostly to the troopers, about what, only she and they knew. She was even, occasionally and before the hours wore on, pleasant. But there was no question the threat was there. Most residents on-station had never seen close up the kind of gear that surrounded Mallory and her troops; had never touched a gun with their own hands, would be hard put to describe what they saw. He noted three different models in this small selection alone, light pistol; long-barreled ones; heavy rifles, all black plastics and ominous symmetries; armor, to diffuse the burn of such weapons … that gave the troopers the same deadly machined look as the rest of the gear, no longer human. It was impossible to relax with such among them. (p. 224)

“There were no Norway personnel involved.”

“You were operating outside the province of your own administration. Internal security is Captain Keu’s operation. Why was he not advised before this raid?”

“Because India troops were involved.” She looked directly at Keu’s frowning face, and at the others, and back at Mazian. “It did not look to be a major operation.”

“Yet your own troops escaped the net.”

“Were not involved, sir.”

There was stark silence for a moment. “You’re rather righteous, aren’t you?”

She leaned forward, arms on the table, and gave Mazian stare for stare. “I don’t permit my troops to sleepover on-station, and I keep strict account of their whereabouts. I knew where they were. And there are no Norway personnel involved in the market. While I’m being called to account, I’d also like to make a point: I disapproved of the general liberties when they were first proposed and I’d like to see the policy reviewed. Disciplined troops are overworked on the one hand and overlibertied on the other – stand them till they’re falling down tired and liberty them till they’re falling down drunk, that’s the present policy, which I have not permitted among my own personnel. Watches are relieved at reasonable hours and liberties are confined to that narrow stretch of dock under direct observation of my own officers for the very brief time they’re allowed at all. And Norway personnel were not involved in this situation.”

Mazian glared. She watched the steady flare of his nostrils. “We go back a long way, Mallory. You’ve always been a bloody-handed tyrant. That’s the name you’ve gotten. You know that.”

“That’s quite possible.”

“Shot some of your own troops at Eridu. Ordered one unit to open fire on another.”

“Norway has its standards.” (pp. 345-6)