In the Company of Others (40 page)

While Rosalind was not.
Gail knew Grant got the message. She imagined his techs were already figuring out how to block such signals from reaching their destinations. Their job. There were more immediate problems.

“Have you tried contacting whoever's out there?” Grant's answer was lost in a scream of metal as the floor abruptly shifted several degrees off horizontal. The mags kept them from sliding along with Bennett's equipment and the appalling chair, but at the cost of having them all lurch off-balance. “What are they doing?” Gail demanded.

Rosalind answered, her voice ice-cold and calm. “What they have done in the past. They are trying to rip the
'Mate
loose from the station. First, they sever the holdfasts and cables. This is what we are feeling. Once those are gone, they will weld launchers to every reachable surface. Only then will they attempt to cut through the live umbilicals.

“That's when we usually lose most of the fools—and when we go out to defend ourselves.”

She was reliving their wars, for wars they must have been
, Gail realized, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. So it had been battle damage as well as decay marring these ships. Gail could replay all she had seen and understand it now. The
Aces Adrift
hadn't quietly succumbed to age or structural flaws—she'd been torn apart by stationers using launchers to try to pull her from the station.

“If it's Thromberg, we can talk to them. Grant, get a link through to Nateba—”

Rosalind's eyes had lost nothing of their power, shining fiercely in the reddish glow within her helmet. “You are dealing with Outward Five now,” she told them. “Station Admin has no control over them.”

Gail knew someone who did. “Get Malley on the comm,” she ordered, managing to ignore the little voice in her head that knew how very much the stationer was going to enjoy this.

IF Malley'd ever had a better start to his day, he couldn't remember when.

“So Gail wants to talk to me,” he repeated. “Right now. Can't wait. Her Ladyship herself.

“Yes, Mr. Malley. It's urgent.”

He leaned back against the pillows and contemplated the now-flushed face of the FD—Taggart, it was—holding out a handheld comm. “How urgent?”

“Very—”

There was a squawk from the comm he could almost decipher. “That urgent?” he surmised, smile widening.

“Their lives are threatened, Mr. Malley,” Taggart said and practically threw the comm at Malley. “I'll ask you to cooperate now, sir, or you'll come with me to the bridge.” The man's voice had developed a distinctly menacing edge.

Malley cupped the device in one hand.
The bridge?
Where they doubtless had some obscenely large view of space on display? Not to mention passing through that hellish tunnel? “I'll cooperate.”

“Malley!”

No mistaking that voice, even through what sounded like an inferior signal transfer—
or
the stationer decided for no reason,
through some minimal attempts to jam the transmission.
“The one and only, Gail. Miss me?”

“Listen,” she demanded. “We're on your friend's ship, the
Merry Mate II.
It's under attack.”

Been busy again, haven't you?
Malley rolled to sit up on the cot and stared at the tiny device. “Who took you there?” he demanded. “Did you make Aaron—?”

“No.” Flat, definite, and convincing. Malley sagged in relief, then sat up in outrage again.
Rosalind!
She was the only one Aaron trusted with his codes. Several things became more than clear. Malley looked around for something to throw. Something large.

“You gave one of our comms to your friends, Malley,” Gail had continued, her voice cool enough, but rapid-fire. “Rosalind thinks those attacking the ship—and us—might be from Outward Five. Is there anyone you can contact? Someone with authority there who can stop them?”

He didn't deny it.
Waste not, want not
, was prime stationer thinking. “I'll do my best—but why are they attacking at all? And what makes her think it's stationers?” Malley swallowed his pride and admitted: “A lot are like me—they don't like it Outside. And there aren't many intact suits left. The 'siders have been trading—or stealing—parts for years.”

“Since you are in a better position to answer those questions than I, Mr. Malley,” Gail responded with a more familiar bite, “I suggest you start calling. Before your ‘friends' turn the
'Mate
and us into a debris field around the station.”

“So glad you need me,” he rumbled back at her before thumbing the link closed.

Once he had, Malley noticed Taggart waiting by the open door. “I'll need to talk to Aaron—the other one from the station—about this,” he told the FD. “He'll know who might be involved. You heard the lady. It's urgent.”

HOWEVER urgent the reason, it was good to be out of the dark room and back in the lab. The doors were just as locked, but the big, busy room didn't feel much like a brig. Aisha had been delighted to see them, although the Earther guard had kept away anyone else, keeping the two from Thromberg in a corner.
A shame
, thought Pardell,
the reason for their most recent liberation was the destruction of his home.

He counted to one hundred and one under his breath, tapping a finger surreptitiously against one thigh. Malley hated it when he was compulsive, but right now, the old habit was all Pardell could claim as his own.

“Rosalind has the right to let the Earthers on board,” he'd told the indignant Malley, along with other not-quites like: “I wasn't planning to go back to the
'Mate
regardless,” and “I don't care what happens to her.”
The ship—or Rosalind? Or the Earther?
He was confused himself which
her
he meant.

Malley likely bought it all. Easy to convince him about disliking the
'Mate.
He'd been on board only once, that horrific day he'd lost his mother and been forced Outside. Suffice it to say the
'Mate
held no good memories for the stationer.

She held those and everything else for Pardell. Now the
'Mate
was lost to him—
Danger, Damage, Thieves!
—Pardell's insides churned with grief. His ship was more than home and shelter. She'd been a companion and mother, confidant and playmate. If he imagined how the ship might feel in return, he grew almost paralyzed.

He understood the method of attack—better than Malley. They'd tear the
'Mate
apart, if allowed. That's what the launchers did. There was no science or plan when attackers welded them on and set them off, no matter how they claimed to be trying to peacefully remove squatters. Ships cracked and their human insides spilled out, scrambling for shelter in other ships, or crawling into the station to beg for air.

He'd miss Raner's teaching vids the most—
who'd have thought it?
Dry things—a self-conscious man doing his best to provide an education for his son. And his readers. Probably the Earthers had the same titles and thousands more, but not the ones he'd held until his hands cramped, until his eyes throbbed, Until . . .

“Aaron. Stay in the here and now, if you please. We have a situation to deal with—remember?” Malley, seeming satisfied by Pardell's look upward that he had his attention, waved the comm device in the air. “I gave one of these to Syd. But we need to tell him who'd be in range of your ship. The nearest section, at least. It's the late end of odd-cycle night. Who are we likely dealing with?”

“In other words, who wants me dead?”

Malley's face tried to restructure itself into denial and failed. Instead, his friend's broad mouth turned down at the ends, and he gave a sigh like a bellows emptying. “Fine. Who wants you dead? Although I was hoping we could stick to guessing who'd want Her Ladyship cast adrift for a few days.”

“Her Ladyship?”

“Gail. Gail Smith. The Earther behind all this mess? The woman who causes trouble just by breathing? The plague—?”

“Then why'd you kiss her?” Pardell asked.

Wonders
, Malley actually blushed. “Who told you about that?”

Pardell's eyebrows shot up involuntarily. “You mean you did?”

“Listen,” Malley started to say, then rubbed one hand over his face. “Forget it. What can we do from here to help them out? Who can we reach—?”

Who cares?
Pardell thought, but didn't say it out loud. Regardless if something was or wasn't going on between Malley and Dr. Smith, past experience had taught him the pointlessness of expressing an opinion about any female Malley found enticing.
And there was always
, he remembered with unexpected amusement,
at least one.

“The nearest access point to the
Merry Mate II
,” he told his friend, “is E49.”

Malley's expression was all he could have wished. “You're kidding.”

“Would I joke at a time like this? About something so important?”

“That's the closest 'lock to Sammie's. You never use that one. All these years, you've made me hike a quarter spin around Outward Five with you. No matter how drunk or how late or how many were chasing us—and you lived right there!”

Pardell shrugged nonchalantly. “Makes sense, don't you think?”

“Only to a paranoid 'sider,” Malley said with a growl. “Okay. So Sammie should know what's going on—if anyone does.” He held up the comm as if to use it, then paused, glaring at Pardell. “Right there, huh? All this time.”

Pardell gave his most innocent look.

The clarity of the voices, all of them, impressed Pardell—the present conversation didn't. He stood as close to Malley's shoulder as he dared, out of habit knowing to allow space for the bigger man to swing his arms when exasperated. Malley never had figured out how much useful air that took from a room.

The stationer had also failed to calculate just how drunk their friends might be at this hour. “Syd, just get to the bar and pass this over to Sammie, okay?”

“Hi, Malley!” Syd said happily, and for the third time, shouting to be heard over that dull, familiar, background roar. “How'sss tings—thhh-ings?”

It might have been funny, except that lives hung in the balance. The Earthers had set up a more powerful comm system on one of the lab benches, not wanting to risk a smaller unit being jammed.
Given the amount of attention the receiver of the signal was paying to its content
, Pardell thought almost hysterically,
the extra power hardly made any difference.

“SAMMIE. NOW.”

Well, there was the bellow into the pickup grille approach.
The Earther helping them, Taggart, winced with Pardell.

“You don't have to shout, Malley,” Syd said with the abused dignity of the truly soused. There were some indeterminate sounds, including a curse or two and what might have been a chair breaking, then a new voice.

“Malley?”

“Tanya,” a word spoken with complete relief “We're okay,” Malley said quickly and urgently. “Aaron, too. But I need to talk to your grandfather.”

A rustle overlaid the drone of voices and clink of mugs. Pardell could almost see Tanya turning from the crowd—waving an apology to those howling at being abandoned—then edging past the other bartenders until she was against the back wall. “He's not here tonight,” breathless and low. “He and the older ones had a meeting. I don't know when he'll be back.”

“Ask her. What was the meeting about?” Pardell whispered, feeling suddenly cold inside. “Was it about me?”

Malley made a shushing gesture with one hand. “Tanya. What were they talking about—do you know?”

“Where are you? On the Earther's ship—the way Syd's been saying?”

“Yes. Now about you—”

“Is Aaron there?”

When Pardell would have answered, Malley repeated his gesture to silence him. “He's on the ship, but not right here,” Malley lied easily. “Should I get him?”

Then Pardell lost any urge to speak as Tanya said in a low, distressed voice: “No. Don't get him. But it's good he's on the ship with you. That's really good, Malley. You keep him there, okay? There's bad things running the halls about him—things people here, who grew up with Aaron, don't believe. You have to tell him that.”

“I will,” Malley said in a strangled voice. “But I need to know what kinds of things, Tanya. How serious is it? The man wants to get home eventually.”

She didn't answer for so long, Pardell wondered if their link had been severed. He looked over at Taggart, who was monitoring the equipment. The Earther shrugged and nodded, as if to say everything was still okay.

“What are they saying, Tanya?” Malley repeated.

“That Aaron killed some stationers for the Earthers. That he's got some kind of power. Power like the—”

“Like what?”

“Like the Quill. It's foolish stuff. The kind that rattles around here when there's nothing better to talk about. No one believes it.”

“Are Sammie and the older ones talking, Tanya? Or are they
doing
something?”

Pardell shaped the word
No
with his lips.
Don't ask
, he begged silently, too late.
I can't hear this.

“Aaron's with you for sure, Malley? On the Earther ship?” Anxiety in her voice now. No denying it. “There was word he'd come back to his own—Outside. People started acting crazy, Malley.”