“Doing a little better,” Bird said.
“Yeah.” He hitched himself up on his elbows, still squinting against the overhead light. “I’m all right.” He was embarrassed. And scared. The doctors said he had lapses. He didn’t know how large this one might have been or how many days he had been here since he last remembered. “Thanks.”
Bird walked all the way in. “You’re sounding better.”
“Feeling better. Honestly. I’m sorry about the fuss.”
Ben edged in behind Bird, scowling at him. “Beer and pills’ll do that, you know.”
“Yeah,” he said. He earnestly didn’t want to fight with Ben. His head was starting to ache. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“Good God,” Ben said. “Sorry and Thank you all in one hour. Must be off his head.”
“I’ve got it coming,” he said. “I know.” He slipped back against the pillow, wanting time to remember where he was. “Leave the light on, would you?”
Ben said, “Hell, if it keeps him quiet—”
They left then, except Bird. Bird walked closer, loomed between him and the single ceiling light, a faceless shape.
“You had a rough time,” Bird said. “You got a few friends here if you play it straight with us. Watch those pills, try to keep it quiet. Owner’s a real nice guy, didn’t call the cops, just took our word you’re on the straight. All right?”
He recalled what he’d done. He knew he had maybe a chance with Bird, maybe even with Ben, if he could keep from fighting with him. “Tell Ben—I wasn’t thinking real clear. Didn’t know what ship I was on.”
“You got it straight now?”
“I hope I do.” His head was throbbing. He wanted desperately for them to believe him. He didn’t know whether he believed them—but no other way out offered itself. He put his arms over his eyes. “Thanks, Bird.”
Bird left. The light stayed on. He didn’t move. In a while more he took his arm down to fix the room in his mind. It was mostly when he shut his eyes that he got confused; it was when he slept and woke up again. He kept assuring himself he was out of the hospital, back with people who understood, the way the doctors didn’t, what it was like out there.
And the two rabs, who might be Shepherds, but who didn’t talk like it—he wasn’t sure what they were, or what they wanted, or why they zeroed in on him. They worried him the way Ben worried him—not the dress: the mindset—the mindset that said screw authority. No future. Get high. Get off. Get everything you can while you can, because the war’s coming, the war to end all wars.
Hell, yes, Cory had said, it could end Earth. But it won’t get the human race; that’s why we’re going, that’s why we’re heading out of here…
People in boardrooms had started the war over things nobody understood. And the rab had just said—screw that. And rattled hell’s bars when and as they could until the company shot them down. He hadn’t known that when he was a kid. He hadn’t understood anything, except he was mad at what they said was happening to the human race. He’d hated school, hated the have’s and the corporate brats—he’d understood corruption and pull, all right; he’d thought he was rab and scrawled slogans on walls and busted a few lights with slingshots, gotten skuzzy-drunk a few times and lightfingered a few trinkets in shops before he’d figured out what the rab was and wasn’t, and why those people had died trying to get through those doors—he’d been thirteen then, nothing could touch him and he’d be thirteen forever…
Til Cory.
And Cory—Cory wouldn’t at all have understood him sitting at the table with two women like that. Cory would talk to him later and say, the way she’d said more than once, Stay away from that kind, Dek, God, I don’t know where your mind is… we don’t want any trouble; we don’t want anything on our record—
Meg, the older one’s name was. Meg. With the red hair and the Sol accent he’d never realized existed until he’d gotten out here and heard Cory’s Martian burr and heard the Belter’s peculiar lilt. There might be a heavy dose of Sol in Bird’s speech. But none in Ben and none in the black woman—all of them the last types you’d ever think to be hanging around with a plain guy like Bird—or with each other. Not likely Shepherd women—who might drink with miners, maybe—but far less likely sleep with them… when women were scarce as diamonds out here and available, good-looking women could take their pick clear up to the company elite if they wanted, if they didn’t have a police record. They didn’t have to live on helldeck—unless they wanted to.
Maybe Bird didn’t understand the rab… wreck everything, take what you wanted, rip the company—
So much for ideals and causes. Same here as at Sol. Same in the Movement as in the company boardrooms. No difference.
He squeezed his eyes shut, felt tears leak out. Raw pain. He had no idea why. He thought—
—screw all of them. Company and not.
But he didn’t mean it the stupid way the kid on Sol had meant it, 13 and stupid and tired of bumping up against company types, scared as hell about the rumors that said his generation wasn’t going to have a chance to grow up—he’d gotten a knot in his stomach and lain awake half the night, the first time he’d heard how the colonies didn’t have to fire a shot—how the rebels could just drop a rock out of jumpspace, a near-c missile aimed right at Earth or Sol Station. Nobody could see it coming in time. That for Earth—that for all the history they were supposed to memorize, all the rules, all the laws. Over in five minutes. So why learn anything that was going to be blown up? Why try for anything except grabbing as much as you could before it went bang?
But nobody’d do a thing like that. Nobody’d really hit Earth, nobody’d really hit a station and kill all those people. Of course they wouldn’t.
Cory would say—just get me far enough, fast enough. Cory had told him about places he’d never cared about until she made it sound like there was an honest chance of getting there—if you had the funds. If you could get the visa. If the cops didn’t stop you at the last minute and say, Wait a minute, Dekker, you have a record—
The Earth Company said no more free rides, and you had to pay off your tax debt before you could get a visa. Then your own government, the only time you’d ever see anything from your government, wrote you down as belonging to the ship you’d bought a share on, and you could go
—Where there’ll be something left, Cory would say—Cory had an absolute conviction that Out There was much better than where they were—
—on a ship that had no use for an insystem pilot. He didn’t know whether that was living or not. Truth be known, he had never had any idea what he was going to do then—keep balancing on one foot, he supposed, saying yes and meaning no, going with Cory because Cory was going somewhere—and he didn’t trust the draft wouldn’t take the miners, too, once those ships were built—haul him off to live in a warship’s gut and get killed for the company, blown to hell for the company—
Step at a time, Tommy had used to tell him when he was too zee’d to walk. Step at a time, Mr. Dekker…
Dammit, he wanted to fly, that was all, just get that back—get his hands back on the controls again—
The last few moments he’d thought—he’d thought, clear and cold, not at all afraid, that he could still pull it out—
That he could still make that son of a bitch pay attention to his com—
Wake somebody up on that damned ship, rattle their collision alerts if that was what it took—
He looked at the ceiling-tiles. He supposed they were real. He supposed he’d gotten this far away from the wreck. But no matter how far he stretched it, time just looped back and sank into that moment like light in a black hole. One single moment when things could have worked and didn’t…
Those sons of bitches on that ‘driver had known he was there. Had known they’d hit a ship. They must have. Even if it had never heard him—if somehow his com wasn’t getting through to them—if nothing else, when the tanks blew they’d have known it wasn’t a rock they’d
hit.
And if his com wasn’t reaching them—wouldn’t they have listened to the E-band after they’d hit a ship? Wouldn’t they have heard Cory’s suit-com?
Damned right they had.
Meg leaned close to the mirror, painting a thin black line beneath her bottom lashes. Hell to keep the eyes from running right after makeup: she blotted with her finger, tried again. The next door over opened and shut. Ben and Bird were off to breakfast, everybody dressing where their wardrobe was. Sal, mirrored past her shoulder, was putting her boots on. “We got a day to do,” Meg said, with a flourish at the corner of her eye. “But we can take second shift. I vote we feel out the novy chelovek.”
“Severe spook.”
“Decorative spook.” Eyebrow pencil. Auburn. Hard to come by out here. If you were broke you used grease pencil, and that was expensive. “He came straight last night, after the bogies. Seemed to be coming in focus… Bird talked to him.”
“After the things he shouldn’t have said in the bar, Kady, a serious lack of governance there—everybody was talking about it.”
“He was drunk. Gone out. Everybody knows that.”
“So he’s got no failsafes? Shit, Kady! Ben’s got severe misgivings on this.”
“Tsss.” She did the other eye with three even strokes, heard Sal get up and caught her reflection with a rap of the knuckle at the mirror. “Remains to see. Later’s time enough. Bird says.”
“Bird says. Bird says. What’s Bird have in his head, here? ‘Find him a partner.’ Ben can’t scope it. And brut put, I don’t like this ‘partner’ talk and I sincerely don’t like Bird close with this jeune fils, whose tab I don’t know why we’re paying, with our funds, while he’s got a card and access, thank you.”
“So do I understand?” But she figured she did, more than Sal would. She looked at Sal, eye to mirrored eye, then turned and leaned against the counter, taking the mandatory three thoughts before a body should commit truth—as the saying went. But Sal was seriously upset this morning—Sal had had her eye on that ship, and Sal had been talking to Ben last night, in these rooms, that was point one, and scary enough—if that was all of it, and there were enough angles with Sal on a thing like this she wasn’t at all sure. “We got to talk, Sal.”
Sal stared at her a couple of beats, still hot, shrugged and picked up her jacket. “Na. Rather breakfast, actually.”
Meg didn’t move. Sal didn’t like brut talks, especially when she’d just snapped to a judgment about a thing, but Sal constitutionally didn’t like mysteries. She said, to Sal’s back, “Sal—do you want to know quelqu’ shoze?”
She waited, knew Sal was going to turn around with an exasperated look and say—
“What should I want to know?” As if there couldn’t possibly be anything worth the nuisance. Sal came at some things with her mind as tight as her fists.
She gave the room a significant glance around, then pushed buttons she knew were buttons with Sal. “Tell you later on second thought.”
Sal had this look like she’d knife something; but that only meant Sal’s mind was working again; and they’d been severely careful about bugs since the cops had torn the room apart. She snagged her jacket up. They walked out into the hall and through the door into The Hole proper, where the guys had a table in the shiftchange rush—Ben and Bird already into their breakfast. You went over to the hot table at the end of the bar, you told the second shift cook, Price, that you were breakfast, and he dumped whatever-it-was into a plate while you drew your own coffee.
They took their plates and their cups to Bird and Ben’s table and sat down. “Morning,” Bird said. “Morning,” Meg said back, and thought how that, too, was one of those things native Belters didn’t just naturally say.
Spooky kind of partnership, when you got to thinking about it.
Spookier still, just as they sat down, that Dekker showed up in the doorway. He came part of the way to their table and made a cautious little gesture like Can-I-join-you?
Bird waved his hand, swallowed his mouthful. “Grab your plate.”
Dekker was clean shaven, hair wet and combed back—quiet and polite. That was a plus. Good bones, under a jumpsuit that didn’t fit. A woman did notice things like that, if she was alive.
“Could do with feeding,” Bird said.
Ben made a surly shrug. Meg tried to think of something cheerful, took a forkful of The Hole’s best stand-in for sausage and eggs and a sip of not bad coffee, while they were all waiting for a lunatic to come and sit down with them.
“Want to bet he’ll ask the time?” Ben asked.
“Don’t you open your mouth,” Bird said sternly.
“Did I say a thing?”
“Nice rear,” Meg said.
“Doesn’t impress me,” Ben said.
“Quiet.”
“Yeah, he’d do that for hours.”
“Ben…”
“All right, all right. He’s doing just fine. Hasn’t jumped Price or anything.”
“Ben.”
Dekker came back, with his breakfast and his coffee—into a sudden quiet at their table.
“How are you feeling?” Bird asked him as he sat down.
“Hung over,” Dekker said, sipped the coffee with a grimace, and, from vials in various pockets, started laying out a row of pills: not unusual, for spacer-types—bone pills, mineral pills, vitamin pills; but Dekker’s collection was truly impressive.
“Dekker?” Ben said. “You having eggs with your pills, or what?”
Dekker gave this defensive little glance up, the cold sort that made Meg’s nerves twitch toward a knife she didn’t carry now—didn’t quite meet anybody’s eyes. “Yeah. Thanks, whoever put the crackers by the bed. Lived on them last night. My stomach was upset.”
“They give you a doctor’s number?” Bird asked.
Dekker nodded, swept up a fistful of pills, chased them one after another with coffee, and didn’t ever answer that. Bird shrugged. Dekker ate his eggs. They ate theirs. Finally Dekker got up and went back to his room, saying something about needing his rest.
“Yeah, well,” Ben said, staring after him.
“Man’s hung over,” Bird said.
Ben didn’t say a thing to that except, “Are we going in to the docks?”
“Yeah,” Bird said. “Afraid they’re not going to move if we don’t push. And we can pull those panels, right now. We can do that. But four’s too crowded up there.”
They were close to viable now on Way Out. They’d gotten the tanks mated three days ago, they’d gotten the interior blown out and certified for access, they’d gotten everything well toward completed, if they could just get the refit crews to keep after it and get the value assemblies connected… but when it was a case of getting skilled help on free time, it wasn’t easy. It took inducements and constant look-ins to make tired crews on overtime look sharp and do it right.
“We’ll be back about suppertime,” Bird said. “And if you two wouldn’t mind to be staying here…”
“Hey!” Sal held up a hand. “Don’t make us responsible for this guy!”
“Don’t let him cross Price. Or Mike. All right?”
“No!”
“ ‘Appreciate that.” As Bird and Ben got up quickly and beat a retreat.
“Well, hell!” Sal said.
“There’s worse.”
“I’d rather vac the cabin.”
“Hey. Don’t judge too soon. That’s good bone structure.”
Sal gave her a flat, disgusted stare.
Meg said, “You can go up if you want. I can hold it here. Or we can take a walk and I can tell you what I won’t say in the room.”
“Yeah,” Wills said, on the phone, “yeah, we did find him.”
Salvatore got a breath. “Damn right you’d better have found him.”
“Yessir.”
“So where the hell is he?”
“Sleepery, sir, just hadn’t paid a bill yet. No problem.”
“There’d be
tter not be. You listen to me. If you can’t tag him any other way you keep somebody on it. You don’t let that guy slip. Understand?”
“Yessir. Report’s coming to you right now.” Wills sounded upset. But he’d been on it, when a routine print had shown no card use for a sleepery. Couldn’t particularly fault Wills: Dekker wasn’t the only case Wills had on his lap, a couple of them felonies, while Dekker was Minimal Surveillance. But Human Services had dropped 5 whole C’s onto that card for the sole purpose of making sure Dekker stayed traceable, and it was embarrassing to the department to have him slip in the first couple of hours, in a place where he had no friends, no contacts, no credit and no way to get it.
Wills asked: “You want Browning to ask a few questions?”
Salvatore scanned the report, how Dekker had spent 5-odd dollars in a Helldeck bar, 5.50 on beer and phone calls, and nothing else—
Browning had talked to The Pacific, who’d referred Dekker down the row to The Black Hole, and sent his card there when the management at The Hole had called for it. Browning had had the sense to query Wills before any next step, and Wills had told Browning not to follow that lead too closely: Dekker was apparently still there, The Hole was a quiet place with no apparent reason to lie to The Pacific, but Dekker hadn’t used the card at The Hole after he’d gotten it—which indicated Dekker must have some acquaintance there—or that he’d found some means of support—meaning hiring out for something, ditching the card for a while, not an uncommon dodge for a man evading the cops: prostitution was the ordinary way for somebody with reason to duck the System—or if not that, he had to have friends.
Wills said: “Bird and Pollard are staying there. We checked them earlier.”
Bird and Pollard. Salvatore searched his recent memory.
“The ones that claimed his ship,” Wills said. “The ones that brought him in. Ship claim went through. The company paid. But Bird and Pollard saved his life. My guess is he looked them up, with what idea I don’t know, but evidently it wasn’t war. He’s staying there, evidently on one of their cards.”
Not necessarily looking for trouble, then—searching out the only two people he knew made perfect sense. Healthy sense, even. Salvatore sipped at a cooling cup of coffee, thought about it, and said: “All right, all right, the boy’s got himself settled. Long as he’s quiet, understand? Just get a list of the current residents. Run backgrounds. That sort of thing.”