In the Company of Others (5 page)

“Hey!” came a voice from the crowd. “Not so fast. I know the guy you're after—tall, heavyset fellow? Pardell. Yeah, I know him. Hangs around the ration line a lot, looking for handouts.”

In a falsetto, yet.
Pardell bit his lip to contain a grin. Trust Denery. He'd owe the man major dibs for this one. There were a few equally unhelpful descriptions shouted out at random. Given the level of alcohol consumed in the room earlier, he was surprised no one burst out laughing.

Though Forester won't believe a word of it
, he warned himself, losing that impulse himself,
but he won't risk looking a fool in front of the Earthers either.
Pardell wished he dared lean farther to one side or that Tanya's grandfather had thought to polish the metal sheathing behind the bar to make some sort of mirror.

Fourteen pairs of fresh-from-a-box mag boots clanged in unison as the Earthers acknowledged a new arrival. Pardell's curiosity got the best of him and he sidled as close as he dared to Tanya to catch a better look past her ample shoulder.

Forester was tall for a stationer, closer to Malley's height than Pardell's, but without his mass; the matched set of Earthers were tall and lanky as well. The figure now holding the curtain to one side, as though uncertain of welcome or justifiably offended by the atmosphere in Sammie's, was dwarfed by comparison.

It didn't matter.

She, or he, wore a floor-sweeping, metallic green cloak, complete with hood and goggled respirator. It resembled the gear used by the meds and their assistants during outbreaks of infectious disease, but made of layers of such fine, gauzelike material it could have been mistaken for some flight of fashion. One gloved hand kept the heavy, well-patched curtain open; the other held a notepad, curled protectively within the crook of an arm. The figure took a step into the room, letting the curtain fall, then fumbled abruptly at the respirator, finally pulling it down under her chin with an impatient yank.

For the face was female. Pardell released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Not a pretty face
, he decided.
Not one to easily forget either.
It might have been the combination of impatience and disapproval drawing her lips into a thin line—or the glitter of absolute determination in those bright blue eyes. Her cheeks were indented with the reddish pinch marks left by an ill-adjusted respirator. Rather painful-looking marks at that.
Not a happy lady.

They were her troops, all right, having frozen into a rigid attentiveness the moment she'd opened the curtain. Two more had followed her in, essentially filling the cleared part of the room. Forester was practically groveling. Pardell noticed everyone else, including Malley, seemed suddenly more entertained than wary, as though the arrival of this mystery woman was part of a free vidshow.
Maybe
, he thought with disgust,
they expected her to take off the cloak next and dance on the bar.

What she did do was take one more step to confront Forester. Given her expression and obvious discomfort, the controlled, pleasant tone of her voice surprised Pardell almost as much as her clipped accent—unfamiliar to an ear used to station drawls. “Is there a problem, Administrator?”

“I'm not getting the cooperation I expected, Professor Smith.”

Hard to imagine a less exotic name, which strangely added to the mystique.
Pardell found himself leaning forward expectantly with the rest, still keeping behind Tanya. Malley sent him a warning scowl. Professor Smith arched one slim, dark eyebrow, then looked away from Forester to survey the room. “I'm not surprised. What did you do?” she asked calmly. “Threaten to close the place? I wouldn't cooperate either.”

Sammie almost smiled, then apparently remembered it wasn't an expression that sat well on his square face and compromised with a nod. “Completely unnecessary, Madame,” he said briskly. “This is a peaceful—inn. The Administrator here, he comes in and disrupts my business. My patrons and I have been subjected to indignities.” He deepened his voice for emphasis: “And there's been a distinct loss of dibs. I can tell you that without checking my tills.”

Her other eyebrow rose. “‘Dibs?'”

Pardell was amused by the contortions of Forester's face as the stationer heroically managed to keep his mouth shut while Sammie went on to explain, at some length and with considerable gusto, the barter system allowing patrons to make their purchases based on recorded work exchanges. The crowd, growing bored and likely thirsty, became involved by way of throwing out examples, many of them totally incomprehensible and a couple profanely hopeful. The Earther woman appeared fascinated. “But we don't call them in—the work, that is—very often anymore, Madame,” Sammie finished. “It's coin of the realm these days.”

“I see. Mr. Leland—”

“Call me Sammie. Please.”

Pardell was sure he spotted the ghost of a dimple at the comer of her mouth; it could have been the poor lighting. “Thank you. Sammie. I believe there may have been a misunderstanding. I'm here to offer Mr. Pardell a job—a job for which I would pay him in other than ‘dibs,' as you've ably explained them. I assure you I mean him no harm and that it has nothing to do with Administrator Forester or any other station personnel. So,” Smith raised her voice, although she had everyone's rapt attention, turning in a slow circle to address the entire crowd. Her gaze passed over the bar as if it wasn't there. Pardell fought the urge to duck. “Please relay this message to Mr. Pardell for me: if he's interested, he should come to the docking ring, and introduce himself to any member of my crew. There's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity waiting for him. In the meantime,” this as she faced Sammie again, “my sincere apologies for disturbing you and for any losses you've incurred.” Forester began to sputter. The professor bent down and picked up the broken remains of a cup to wave under his nose. She silenced him completely by adding: “Send the bill for the next three rounds to the
ERC
Deep Space Vessel
Seeker.
”

Professor Smith swept up her Earther troops, Administrator Forester, and her cloak, heading to the curtained door with a suddenness that suggested she either knew very well to get out of the way of the imminent stampede to the bar—or she'd accomplished what she wanted here and was in a hurry to do the same elsewhere.

Or both
, Pardell thought uneasily, distracted as the bar's bell rang automatically, its message to patrons lost in happy confusion.

THE cup had been washed so many times, the letters walking around its base were faded and broken.
Clear enough.
Gail's finger followed the “
Merry Mate II
” pensively, avoiding the razor-sharp edge where the cup had shattered, aware the three men in front of her traded puzzled looks.

They don't appreciate the irony of it
, she reminded herself, forcing down triumph and impatience with the ease of tedious practice. To be fair, they didn't have the information to do so; she had no intention of providing it. She raised her eyes when she was ready and not an instant before.

“Have you briefed the guards you've posted on the dock?” she asked.

Commander Daniel R. Grant of the Sol System First Defense Unit 518—presently assigned to the
Seeker
—pressed his lips together in utter disapproval, an all-too familiar expression.
Unlikely to change any time soon
, she thought. The twenty-four FD troops and their leader disapproved of many things she required of them. “As you ordered, Dr. Smith,” Grant said in a tone so neutral it grated. “They are to wait for Pardell to arrive, then immediately bring him on board to you.”

At this, the man beside the commander, Captain Tomoki Tobo, gave another theatrically-dismayed sigh. For once, he seemed to have found common ground with his military counterpart. Neither of them approved of bringing a stationer—any stationer—on the
Seeker.
Their novel alliance had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the thousands of angry would-be immigrants on the other side of the air lock.

She didn't
, Gail thought with sudden revulsion,
need to be reminded.
As if anyone from Earth could forget what had happened in those first months after the Quill: the swarming and overloading of unguarded ships, the pathetic broadcasts for help still traveling through the space that had swallowed their senders whole, the riots and near anarchy.

As if any from a station could forget—or forgive—Earth's panicked response to the desperate flood of returning immigrants, brought on by terror that they carried the Quill and would contaminate humanity's center. The Patrol had been ordered to turn back any station-origin ship trying to enter Sol System, to fire on and destroy those who refused to believe they couldn't go home. To defend against their own.

Stationers try to take an Earth ship to Sol today? Only if they had a death wish
, Gail decided.
And any of that particular bent would have readily found their desire satisfied long before the
Seeker
docked.

On the surface, twenty years later, things were more civilized. There was an assumption of some responsibility for the stranded immigrants by Earth, motivated by guilt as well as self-interest, the latter an awareness that casting aside the stations entirely could come back to haunt the home system. Not that the stations looked to Earth any longer for help or hope of a future. Like Thromberg, twelve of the thirty-three original stations had been stable for a decade or more. Some were close to sustaining themselves, if not of growth.

The others? Well, no one spoke of those.

Gail looked from Grant to Tobo, finding it ironic that the survival of humanity under such desperate conditions had become a source of fear; sufficient at least to bind these two together against her for the first time.

Until now, the two officers had maintained a relationship comprised of equal parts disdain and respect: Tobo's disdain and Grant's respect. Tobo—short to Grant's regulation height, chubby to Grant's regulation fitness, and of pure Kanshu lineage to Grant's peculiar blend of who knew how many ethnicities comprised the military's ideal soldier these days—spent much of his time inventing ways to demonstrate how little the troops understood about life on a starship. Grant, Gail had noticed, appeared torn between his awareness that, onboard the
Seeker
, Tobo was a superior officer, and an obsessive need to prove he and his people could handle anything. The
Seeker
's journey from Sol System had been punctuated by the results—inconvenient at best and often messy. Gail had managed to convince Grant that Tobo's idea of randomly shutting down lowerdecks' gravity in the middle of shipnight wasn't essential to his troops' training for space. Convincing the vastly entertained Tobo, whom she suspected of hiding a vid in the troops' quarters, had taken a fair amount of outright yelling.

Her inner smile faded as the third man spoke, his voice high-pitched and scornful. “At the risk of repeating myself, this is ridiculous. With that plan, you'll end up with a hundred ‘Pardells' in your lap by shipnight.” Manuel Reinsez, like Gail, sat at his ease while Grant and Tobo stood almost at attention. The semi-retired Chilean xenopathologist was old even by the standards of Earth, which granted the risky rejuv treatments sparingly, based on an arcane formula combining health factors and projected contributions to society. Gail suspected Reinsez had had more than one, or had qualified unfortunately late in life for his first. The man's face wasn't merely wrinkled—his sallow skin was so limp it draped free from brow, cheek, and jawbones. When he felt in the mood—or had had too much sherry—Reinsez would pull the loose skin of his jowls back to hide his ears, pursing his lips to imitate a fish. A dead fish.

A shark, more like it
, Gail reminded herself, careful not to show any response beyond polite attention. She could handle Grant's anxious efficiency. The man was patently a superb officer, simply out of his depth in their current situation. The stats and vids of the station he had to rely on for information were so dated as to be laughable and Tobo's campaign hadn't exactly boosted Grant's self-confidence.

She'd probably been wrong to turn a blind eye to Tobo's peculiar sense of humor, but he was the closest thing to a friend and confidant she'd had on this trip; a closeness which didn't mean he knew everything about what she was doing here.

Professor Reinsez thought he did. His presence was Titan University's latest grip on her project and its tightest. Without Reinsez on the
Seeker
, they'd still be in synchronous orbit over the campus, battling endless red tape and obstructions, her already minimal funding sucked dry by bribes to faceless individuals and shapeless organizations to keep fuel in the ship's belly, let alone gain support to move her project up the waiting list.

Dibs
, Gail thought wryly.
The stationers had no idea how much
cleaner
that concept sounded.

“I'm well aware we may have to screen a multitude of impostors, Dr. Reinsez,” she said out loud. “But unless you have a better suggestion . . . ?”

Reinsez waved both hands in denial, slouching more comfortably into his chair. “Not I, Dr. Smith. Not I. This is your show. I'm along for the entertainment value.”

“And to report our findings to Titan's Directors,” Gail added gently, a reminder intended for Grant's ears.
It never hurt to keep the cards in view
, she thought.
Theirs, if not hers.

“But of course, Dr. Smith,” Reinsez agreed, eyes glistening within their deeply creased lids. “That goes without saying.”