In the Company of Others (29 page)

“What ship?”

Gail stepped so close to Malley she had to tilt her head back to keep meeting his eyes, a proximity probably giving her guards fits, but she had a feeling the stationer was accustomed to people who stood near enough to touch if they had something important to say. There was something wild and angry in Malley's eyes, but he was listening. She had his attention.
Barely.
“Your friend's an Outsider,” she said quietly, earnestly. “We know that means he lives in one of the ships attached to the station. There could be recordings, logs—who knows what—on his ship that could help us treat him.”

“I wouldn't know,” Malley growled down at her. This close, the deep timbre of his voice sent those distracting vibrations along her bones again. “Even if I did—anything off-station is 'sider business, not mine. Aaron—we're friends, but 'siders are jumpy folks. Paranoid about some things, including their homes. I couldn't tell you which end of Thromberg he lives on, let alone guide you there.”

Gail shut her eyes for an instant, sure they'd betray her disappointment otherwise. Malley being able to take her directly to the
Merry Mate II
had been a gamble at best, but she'd hoped—

It felt far too good to close out the light. Gail drew in a slow breath, feeling the floor tempted to spin.
Time's almost up
, she thought, oddly detached. Five minutes had been too generous an estimate.

Hands on her upper arms . . . Gail opened her eyes to find Malley studying her face. “Damn. You're riding a boost,” he accused very quietly, so quietly perhaps only she heard. “Ordinarily, I'd be happy to see you crash and burn when it wears off, Gail Smith, but you're the only person making sense on this ship. Not to mention the only person who can get Aaron and me back where we belong.”

Gail frowned and tried to twist free without making it obvious to those doubtless watching with interest—including the plentiful vids. “I'm fine,” she hissed, regretting ever thinking Malley could be helpful in any way whatsoever.

“And I'm your man for a space walk. Tell it to someone else, lady. I've enough friends who live on the stuff. Mouth dry? Room spinning? You need ten hours plus—now—or the
Seeker
is going to be without a boss for a lot longer.” His grip wasn't tight, Gail noticed, his hands were merely warm rings around her arms, one above each elbow.
Points of stability.

“There's no time—” she protested, at a loss to know when or how she'd lost control of this interrogation. She was even more at a loss how to regain it.

“Order your mad scientist away from Aaron and make it clear I'm staying here,” Malley insisted. “Anything else can wait. There won't be any nonsense from the station until something riles them again—if you're resting, it won't be you, will it?” His eyes bored into hers, his fingers suddenly digging into her flesh until Gail knew they'd leave bruises. Any harder and the bones might give. Given the spectators, she didn't dare protest and suspected he knew it. “You know I'm right,” he whispered in a strangely urgent voice. “You can feel it wearing off already. Want to drop flat on your face in the middle of an order? I'd call that an unnecessary risk, wouldn't you?”

“Let go of my arms, Mr. Malley,” Gail told him very quietly, meaning every word, “or I'll have yours removed.”

Gail staggered slightly as Malley obeyed, spreading his arms mockingly wide and stepping back to bow as he did so. She quickly turned to put the stationer behind her and face those waiting. As she'd feared, she surprised amused looks on most faces, rapidly reassembled into serious attention or something approximating it.
Bah.

She hated fools.

Gail took a steadying breath, then said calmly, happy not to be watching Malley's face: “Stan, I want you to stick around and brief Aisha on the procedures you've got underway—and disengage any not related to Mr. Pardell's immediate comfort. Aisha, I'm told this comalike state has been temporary and self-terminating until now, so please get Mr. Pardell dressed in case he pleasantly surprises us.” She paused, then added firmly. “Mr. Malley will stay here to help monitor our patient. Someone arrange a meal and change of clothing for him. And a shower. I'll be in my quarters.”

“Sweet dreams, Dr. Smith.” A whisper against her hair.
Funny how it sounded like a threat.

Gail ignored it—and him. Instead, she stalked out of the room before any one could so much as imagine arguing or questioning her, picking up her current escort at the door.

Pretending, she admitted to herself, she wasn't running away from a confrontation she was in no shape to win.

SHIP'S night—but at least they didn't expect him to sleep.
Not when it was odd-cycle day to Malley's brain and he'd spent more than enough time unconscious as it was.

He'd been told lights throughout the ship were dimmed, as they were in the lab, with only essential personnel tending experiments—and Aaron. Even the ship's crew was similarly reduced. So there had to be enough quarters for most of the ship to rest at once.
No wonder they couldn't understand one another
, Malley concluded, reaching for the topmost of a pile of white, soft sheets he supposed had no other function but to dry water from skin and hair. Living like this, with everything new or in abundance, had to create a mindset incapable of grasping the reality of the station.

He did like the shower. It hadn't taken much to convince him he didn't need to conserve water—or the lather—although he'd inhaled a lungful of both at first and choked so loudly it had brought an anxious steward to the door. He'd reassured the man and been more careful.

Aisha had apologized for what she called spartan accommodations. Malley knew the reference, but couldn't see why she'd use it for a private, one-only room for washing and dressing. He supposed she had a similarly low opinion of the clothing laid out for him. Not for him to boast these were the finest, newest clothes he'd had against his skin for years.

He surveyed the result in the mirror. White pants, like the crew's, loose ankled over comfortable, slipperlike shoes. The pants were long enough, but he had to draw the waist fastener half around again to keep them in place. Good thing the ship's interior was so warm, since they couldn't find anything with sleeves to fit him. He'd been informed something was being made—
imagine that
—if he wouldn't mind wearing this yellow sleeveless vest. Malley thought it more likely this was Grant's way of preventing him from easily blending in with the crew. On a ship this size, on its first voyage, surely not everyone would be known on sight.

Malley pulled the knife and Earther weapon from their concealment in his old clothes and tucked them into a pocket and the waist respectively of his new ones.
So
, he told himself,
I'm to be trusted with these.
He'd already checked the weapon and found it contained a full load of ten trank doses. An interesting choice, if not particularly useful against things like locked doors. A knife was more—all purpose.

It said a great deal about the Earthers that they'd faced the mob with only tranks.
Stupid as well as brave
, Malley decided, but he was impressed in spite of himself. Whatever one could say about Gail Smith—and he could think of a lot—her soldiers played by civilized rules.

His stomach growled again. Malley ignored it, preferring to pay attention to his hands and arms, their cuts now glued into thin white lines. A permanent mend, he'd been told, that would be reabsorbed and disappear once the tissues beneath had healed. Beat the staples the doctor had punched through his upper thigh last year, after a fragment of steel had become a little too intimate. The bruising on his shoulders, something Malley rarely noticed, was fading as Aisha claimed it would. She'd applied a soothing cream to the skin before he showered.
Nice hands, as well as voice.

His hair. Malley scowled, then dug his fingers into it again. The Earthers' lather hadn't changed its dull red—something he'd half expected—and its dense, at-attention style still seemed ready to resist anything but exceptionally sharp scissors. He found if he wet his fingers—a distracting luxury—he could pull the mass into something that looked planned.

Ready for inspection
, as the saying went, although stationers normally used it to refer to things hidden that should be, with everything else out where expected. Kept Station Admin happy. Malley patted the pocket with his new, second knife, the long, thin one he'd borrowed from a table in the lab, and thought it appropriate.

“Still no change.”

Malley gazed down at Aaron and saw at least one: they'd managed to wrap his friend's torso in a sort of gown. It trapped the little blue bubbles over its surface until it looked more like a layer of froth than fabric. Malley had hoped for something a little closer to real clothing. Now he'd have to scrounge something and keep it ready.

When—not if—Aaron woke up, he wanted them both set to move quickly.

Out which door?
Malley had made sure to check the exits. There was no telling how long the reprieve would last. That's how it felt around here, with the formidable Gail Smith temporarily out of the way. He'd done her a favor, recognizing her imminent collapse from the boost, and was quite sure she wouldn't be grateful for it. Gail had that much in common with Aaron.
He hated being warned of weakness, too.

“Do you see something wrong, Mr. Malley?” Philips had a quick, quiet voice, like someone used to talking in a room full of sleeping children. He was one of the several lab techs constantly hovering over the instruments connected to Aaron's strange boxlike bath. Right now, he was hovering at Malley's right elbow.

“Just Malley,” the stationer said absently. He registered the question. “Nothing wrong—if you mean does he look the same. Are you getting good results from the pancreatic sampler?”

“What pancreatic sampler?” Philips replied innocently.

Malley hid a grim smile as he wandered over to the banks of equipment. “My mistake,” he said, adding another dib to his mental balance sheet against Dr. Gail Smith.

There were three techs working at the moment, all of whom gave him a curious look then turned back to their readouts and valves. No scientists.
Ship's night
, Malley reminded himself. Convenient, having a set time when the bosses were asleep.

The lab itself, now that he'd had time to examine it, seemed intentionally temporary, something oddly comforting to the stationer. It was about three times the size of Sammie's, high-ceilinged with purposefully asymmetrical walls. The lighting was localized around working stations, such as the one near Aaron's tank. There were six others with collections of equipment and cluttered tables, as though experimenters had been forced to abandon their work with Aaron's arrival. The lights on those were diminished. Malley wondered if they'd protested or if Gail Smith's control of this place was absolute.

One thing was clear: this wasn't any sort of hospital or medical facility.

Most of the walls were as mobile as his bed or Aaron's tank. Marks on the floor revealed how the room had taken different configurations in the past—perhaps some larger than this. He had taken a close look, when no one had stopped his prowling about. Malley had a feeling Gail hadn't decided whether to call him a prisoner or a guest.

Grant had an opinion on that. Two of the five closed doors in the walls were guarded by his people, making those the only doors of interest to Malley. One was used by the techs and scientists coming and going, so they likely led to other sections of the science sphere—perhaps quarters as well. Malley noted, then firmly ignored the second guarded doorway, knowing it probably led somewhere he'd leave to Aaron.

Of the unguarded doors, one was the room with the shower Malley had enjoyed. Another was to a storage area.
The third?

Someone had ordered a portable screen placed in front of it, similar to the two flanking his bed off to one side of Aaron's tank.
Her doing.
For Aaron's sake, Malley was willing to accept any help dealing with his personal demon, but this rankled. It was ridiculous to feel safer simply because from most of the room he couldn't see what was obviously an air lock. It was potentially very dangerous, given the source of his comfort.

Not an exit he planned to use, however, so Malley didn't bother looking toward it. Two of the—First Defense Unit, that was it—stood inside each of the guarded doors, their eyes never leaving him. Their scrutiny didn't bother Malley; he'd grown up within a crowd of people watching his every move. Wasn't easy for a kid who liked to play pranks, but he'd managed more times than not.

One of the best techniques was simply to be numbingly predictable. During the eight hours since Gail Smith had left, Malley had established his routine: he'd check on his unconscious friend, then watch the techs at work for a while. Following that, he'd take a few moments to stretch out on his bed, reading the literature Gail Smith had sent for him, nibbling from a tray of “safe for the novice” delicacies Aisha had arranged. Then a stretch and back to check on Aaron.

Malley was prepared to keep this up for days, if necessary. The food was great.

And he was learning.
Gail recognized his capabilities
, he gave her credit. What she'd supplied to him appeared to be summaries of her research on the Quill, including several unpublished papers with Titan U's bright red “official release only” stamps on every page. He dove into her work, reading voraciously.