Rimrunners (15 page)

went by that corridor doorway, whether NG had come on into quarters or not. She

might have passed out a while, she woke up and another vid was on and McKenzie

was snoring, so she got out of bed and went on up to the loft.

Somebody accosted her up there in the dark of the walkway past the bunks, big

man, a little rude, drunk and offering her a drink if she'd stop at his bunk,

so, what the hell, she did it with him, she didn't know why, she just wasn't

sleepy, and she wanted somebody to touch off what NG had last night and blow

holes in all her careful analysis.

He didn't. He didn't care, either, he was far too lost in his own space, but he

shared his bottle, she got herself wobbly-drunk, still found her bunk, got

undressed and went to bed in good order, out soon after her head hit the

mattress.

But she woke up part of the way through the night, disgusted and scared by what

she'd done, dropped off and woke up a second time with the alterdawn bell

ringing and people getting up to go to work.

Damn, she had no idea who the second man had been or what bunk she'd been in.

She wanted a shower. She wanted not to have done what she'd done, at least the

second one, for God's sake. That piece of gossip would make the rounds, damn

sure it would.

Fool stunt—no name, nothing—get blind drunk in a strange place, let herself get

talked into a bunk with some skuz as drunk as she was, God, she couldn't even

remember if one was all there had been, or how she'd gotten back to her own

bunk. She could've ended up a med case, no knowing what could have happened,

they were no shipmates of hers, not yet, not by a long way.

Only hope was, the drunk she'd slept with might be wondering who she was.

Damn, damn, damn! she was mad at NG Ramey, that was what, damn spook, damn

lunatic, she was crazy if she had to have him to set her off, it was a piece of

nonsense, a feeling bred of too many drinks and too many loose ends around her,

that was all, it was insecurity, and it was easier to worry about an effin'

spacecase than it was to worry about where the ship was and what kind of game

she was into and what she was going to do when Bernstein tried her on some

complicated something she couldn't fix.

She got her shower, she ate her breakfast, a few quick gulps of synth orange and

some salt to get her blood back in balance, piece of cracker, enough to cushion

her stomach and buffer a couple of pills for a sick hangover.

But she showed up in Engineering, first to sign in this time, clean sweater,

clean pants, never mind the red in her eyes and the pounding in her skull.

There was check to do, she grabbed the checklist off the wall-clip, and got

right to it, all enthusiastic efficiency, exactly the way Bernstein had said

first-in was expected to do.

NG showed up, walked over and took the board out of her hand.

"Good morning," she said.

"I'd better check it over," he said, and then started re running all the checks,

everything she'd just done, from the top.

"I'm right," she said indignantly, at his elbow, trying to keep it all quiet

from the mainday crew members that were still finishing up. "Dammit, I can write

down a damn number, Ramey!"

He nodded, and didn't even look at her, just walked on his rounds.

She couldn't do anything about him just then. The mainday chief was still there,

within earshot, and then Bernstein walked in with Musa. So she choked it down

and waited for Bernstein to put her on something.

Bernstein put her on a core-crawl with Musa, that was how the rest of the day

went—suited up and still freezing her ass off, a long, long misery of checking

joints and looking for leaks and all the while knowing, as Musa put it—

"I like to move a little fast on this. Different from any merchanter—if Loki had

to move right now, mate… we'd be in for one hell of a ride."

"How are we so lucky?" she asked, meaning alterday shift. They drifted, zero-G,

in the dark dizzy perspective of pipes a quarter kilometer long, half swing up

and over the pipes, half swing down under, like lacing, helmet-lamps and

hand-held spots throwing close pipe into light, losing itself down the long,

long fall Musa was talking about.

"Bernstein lost a bet," Musa said.

"You serious?"

"Crazier stuff goes on." A moment of silence, while the sniffer-lights ticked

away, blink-blink, blink-blink.

You had a tether you kept moving and clipping on as you moved. You hoped to hell

you never had to trust it. You never let yourself think up or down in a place

like this, or they might have to pry you loose from the girders.

Anybody in the Fleet knew all about long corridors and sudden moves. A carrier's

ring wasn't a ring, it was a cylinder with a few long, long corridors fore to

aft, and corridors zigged, precisely to break falls like that, but even those

could be a long, long drop if the engines cut in. You ran like hell when the

take-hold sounded, you set yourself into a nook, hoped you had a ringbolt close

you could clip your safety-belt to, you held onto the handholds as long as your

hands could stand and sometimes the push was too hard for that, you just hoped

it quit soon and concentrated on breathing. One time there'd been only a

three-second split between the take-hold siren and a push that became a whole

lot too much, a hundred twenty dead, that time, just couldn't get the clips

on—God, she remembered that, she dreamed about it sometimes, remembered bodies

falling right past her—and herself just lucky enough to have her back to a solid

wall.

You didn't look at a perspective like the core as down, no way, or you could

heave everything in your stomach.

Especially with a hangover.

Damn him.

"Musa."

"Yeah."

"You mind to tell me something?—Is anybody going to monitor us?"

"Not real likely. Can. What d'you want?"

"What's the story on NG?"

"Who you been talking to?"

"Muller."

Long silence, just the hiss of the airflow and the ping of the sniffer-readout.

Then: "What'd Muller say?"

"Just he was on the outs. That he had some bad shit with the crew, didn't say

what."

Another long silence. "He give you trouble?"

"No. What's his problem?"

"At-ti-tude, mate. I told him.—I tell him that now and again. What he did, he

killed a man."

"Law didn't get him?"

"Wasn't like that. Just wasn't where he was supposed to be, wasn't watching what

he was supposed to be watching. Damn pipe blew, killed a man, name of Cassel.

Good man. NG—just had that habit of ducking out when he wanted to, Cassel tried

to cover for him. That's how he paid Cassel."

"Hell of a tag."

"Not only the one thing that won it for him. I'm fair with him, I don't pick any

fights, I don't make trouble, and Bernstein's his last chance. Fitch had him up

on charges, last time he ducked out. Fitch was going to space him, no shit.

Those rules and rights in quarters?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't you believe 'em… And NG, he was done, but Bernstein got him off,

Bernstein threw a fit with the captain and said put him on alterday crew, and

move this other chap, he'd take him. Or NG'd have gone the walk, damn sure."

Lot to think about in that, she thought.

"He thank Bernstein?"

"I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not.—I tell you, I tell you something. That man's not

altogether here. But he never run out on duty again. Never gives Bernstein any

trouble, never gives me any. You just don't cross him." Another long silence,

Musa rising above the level of the pipe, arcing over toward her. Musa grabbed

her hand and pulled her close until their helmets touched. He cut his com off.

She understood that game and cut hers. "I tell you something else, Yeager."

Musa's voice came strange and distant. She could see his face inside the helmet,

underlit in the readout-glows. "I think one time this ship went jump and NG was

in the brig—I'm not real sure Fitch saw he got his trank. I'm not sure,

understand, but that time Bernstein got him off—maybe it was just one time too

often in the brig, maybe it was just that jump and looking that spacewalk in the

face—but I'm not real sure that didn't happen, just the way I said: Fitch hates

his guts, we had an emergency, we had to go for jump, NG was dead, the way Fitch

had to figure. But once Bernstein got him reprieved, the other side of jump—no

way was Fitch going to tell the captain what he'd done. Can't prove it. NG don't

talk. I'm not real sure all of him came back from that trip."

"God…"

"Not saying it's so, understand. No way to prove it. Don't even think about it.

We're legitimate now. We're Alliance. There's rights and there's laws, and the

captain's signed to 'em. But they aren't on this ship, woman, and you don't get

off this ship, no way you ever get a discharge from this crew, I hope you

figured that when you signed your name. You skip on a dockside, Fitch'll find

you, you go complain to station law, Fitch'll lie and get you back, and you'll

go a cold walk, that's sure. Fitch tell you that?"

"No. But I'm not real surprised."

"You got the right of it, then."

"NG a volunteer?"

"Dunno. Fitch gets 'em. NG never has said. Unless he told Cassel. Doesn't

matter. He's on this ship, he'll die on this ship, and so will all of us." Musa

pushed her adrift and turned his com back on. She flipped the switch on hers.

"Let's make a little time," Musa said, motioning along the ship spine with a

shine of his lamp. "I hate this effin' core-crawl, damn if I don't."

CHAPTER 11

« ^ »

She peeled the suit, she checked back with Bernstein along with Musa, a long,

long day, a chill set deep in the bones. "Just go on," Bernstein said. "Quiet

day, only an hour till shift end, NG's on and you're off, get."

She was willing to swear, then, that Bernstein was human. But she hung around

reading the duty sheet while Musa was already checking out, and she dropped by

NG's work-station on her way, while Musa was leaving and Bernstein was busy with

his back turned.

NG didn't turn his head, NG kept on with his keyboard and his readouts, and she

came up close and brushed her fingers across the back of NG's neck. "Want to see

you," she said. He swatted at the nuisance, and looked around at her with an

expression—

. Mad, maybe; disturbed, confused, scared—all of that in a second's blink, then

a scowl and a furious set of his jaw.

She said, "Where?"

He kept scowling at her.

"Front of the lockers?" she said cheerfully. " 'Bout 2100?"

"Shop-stowage," he said with no change of expression.

"You'll get us—" —spaced, she almost said, but that wasn't a good idea.

He didn't say anything. He didn't look happier, either.

"All right," she said, and walked on out before Bernstein could turn around and

notice anything.

So she picked up her laundry from Services, walked on up-ring to rec, sat down

on the bench and had a cup of tea with Musa during mainday shift's breakfast,

waiting on mainday crew to clear the showers, then very purposefully dawdled

through cleanup and through dinner—

Because McKenzie had more notions. She saw the look he gave her when he spotted

her, and she was dodging him. She took a seat close between two women, nodded a

pleasant hello to two stony silences, then paid absolute attention to the stew;

but McKenzie walked over and asked her how she was doing.

"Oh, fine," she said, thinking fast, "except I got to get Services straightened

out, damn screw-up with my laundry—"

"What about tonight?"

"I dunno," she said, in the friendliest possible way. She saw NG walk in, down

at the down-ring end of rec—dammit! And McKenzie could properly feel insulted if

a woman turned cold after a first-time sleepover… especially if man number two

from last night was going around telling how she'd left McKenzie and come up to

his bunk because McKenzie had given out. God!

So she smiled at McKenzie, wrinkled her nose in a sweet expression. "I tell you,

I really want to take you up on that." She got up with her tray in hand, tried

just to shake him, but at least the retreat moved McKenzie over where she could

talk to him without the two women in earshot. "I owe you the truth, Gabe. Fact

is, I got an appointment tonight—well, actually a couple of nights ahead, right

now, and I don't think I ought to do any different—but you're on my good-list,

you really are. I'm just not ready to go single, first off. Never been my

policy."

Damn man was entirely out of line, coming on her twice in a row like that,

putting her to it in public, making her defend herself when there was no wrong

on her side. Damn! she could pick them.

"After that," he said.

"Hey," she said, "I got to be politic, Gabe."

"Nothing you don't want," he said.

"Did you hear don't want? I didn't hear that. But I just got this bad feeling

about singularity first and right-off. Bad business. But I do make my favorites

after the new wears off." She patted him on the arm, chucked the dishes and the

tray, turned around and winked at him. "See you, luv."