Authors: C. J. Cherryh
works just fine until some damn emergency comes up and Bernie's got to have Musa
off over here, and you're off over there—"
"All you got to do is be halfway smart. Like you weren't."
"Musa's not going to put up with this past three days. Musa's going to duck out
of it soon's Bernstein gives him the excuse, and that leaves you, you understand
me, that leaves you in that damn locker. You like that?"
"Musa and I got this understanding, just this little arrangement—"
"What kind of arrangement?"
"What you think. Same's with you. Or-ga-ni-zation, merchanter-man. You
understand Family? I'll bet you do. Same thing. Same thing."
NG looked as if she had hit him in the face.
And he walked off on her, down the aisle to his bunk.
A second later, Musa walked through the door.
"What's that?" Musa asked.
Family merchanter, for sure, she thought, I bet you anything you like.
But she said, staring after NG, arms folded: "Just getting something at his
bunk."
Musa scratched his shoulder. "Not real happy, is he?" Musa said. "Didn't
figure."
"I got to tell you," she said, "I been sleeping over with him."
"He all right?" Musa asked.
"Little nervous," she said. "Real sweet, sometimes."
Musa thought that over. "Been a long time," Musa said. "Long time for me, too.
You're a pretty woman. Can't blame him."
She laughed a little. Felt a little nicer, at that. Nobody ever had said that
but Bieji when he was drunk.
That was what you had to do, find yourself a niche and a couple or three you
could trust. That was what was the matter with this ship, that there were so
damned few you could, you could pick that up right out of the air. And she
hadn't felt safe on this ship until she felt Musa put his arm around her.
Musa was all right in bed too, during the vid, when the bad guys and the good
guys were noisily shooting hell out of each other on the screen at the end of
the quarters, to the cheers of the drunks and heavy breathing from the couples
behind the privacy screens.
NG was in neither category. NG was sleeping, if he could. More likely he was
hurting, but at least he was safe—right next to the bed both of them were in,
NG's being endmost toward the vid, Musa's being next over.
It was something Musa had bargained his way into at Bernstein's instigation,
back when NG had first come onto alterday shift—Musa having a favored
mid-quarters bunk that Muller had been all too glad to trade for, and nobody but
Musa being on speaking terms with NG.
That was the way Musa explained it, anyway.
Which was how Musa with all his seniority ended up next to the vid, with
cheering drunks sitting on the deck at the foot of the bunk he was sharing at
the moment—good question now and again whether it was the vid they were
cheering.
"Damn fools," Musa said between breaths.
"'S all right," Bet said, and laughed, because it was funny, laughed and got
Musa to laughing, quietly, under the blankets they had thrown over themselves.
"You're a good woman," Musa said— Musa smelled of perfumed soap, no less, Musa
had clean sheets, Musa had hauled out an old bottle of real
honest-to-Mother-Earth whiskey and poured her a big hit on it. It was something
she had only heard about, from Africa troopers old enough to remember it.
Where'd you get this? she had asked, and Musa, pleased, had said, Taste of home.
So Musa was from Earth. The Fleet had fought for Earth. Africa had gone back to
fight there. It was kind of an obscure connection that formed, not even a
friendly one most of the time, but it made her think what a tangled lot of
things it took to get an Africa trooper and a man like Musa into the same bed.
Lot of places that led.
The vid reached a series of explosions, the drunks yelled. Musa voice-overed the
next lines from memory, funnier than hell, at least drunk as she was getting,
and poured her another drink.
The vid went quiet of a sudden. The drunks groaned into a disappointed silence.
"This is the captain speaking," the com thundered out. "This ship will make jump
at 0600 mainday."
Then the vid started up again, but the talk was quiet then.
"Damn," Bet said, "gone again. Where now?"
"Easy to answer," Musa said.
"Where, then?"
"Wherever they got us put."
"Damn," she said, and hit him a gentle punch.
"Actually," Musa said, settling down to be comfortable a while, "not too hard to
guess. The Fleet's got its ass kicked twice now, back at Earth, they popped out
again, nobody knows where—they say maybe old Beta Station—"
That could put a chill into you. There had always been rumors in the Fleet that
Mazian had a hole-card, and the name of abandoned Beta, old Alpha Cent, had come
up—the bad-luck station, second star humankind ever parked a pusher-can at and
set up to live there—and, the story ran, it had just gone transmission-silent
one day, the constant data-flow to other stations had just—stopped, no reason,
no explanation, and not a scrap of a clue left behind when a ship finally got
there—sublight—to investigate. Beta Station had systematically shut down, and
the pusher-module that could have gotten the people off was gone—
But no wisp of wreckage or electronic ghost of a transmission ever told what had
happened.
"They'd be fools," she said, and thought to herself it was the kind of rumor
Mazian himself might have started, just to confuse things.
"They jumped to some point in that direction," Musa said. "That's what I hear."
"So maybe they know some point of mass nobody else does."
"Could be. Or maybe they just jumped out to old Beta and laid real quiet. Beta
would be good for them, all that old mining and biomass gear, antiquated as
hell, but if the dust ain't got it it's still there. Could be what he's done."
"Is that where we're going?"
"Not us. No."
"Then what are we doing?"
"Keeping the lanes open. Not letting that sum-bitch cut us off from Earth. Not
letting him peel off the Hinder Stars. He could start the whole war up again,
get Earth cut off, force Pell into Union or force Pell to deal with him, one way
or the other. Sure as hell Pell can't hold out independent if Earth goes into
his pocket. Sure as hell the Hinder Stars are nothing but a damn human
warehouse. You found that out."
"Found that out," she said.
The vid never did get as noisy again, not what was going on-screen, not the
crowd that was watching. A lot of people left to go out to rec and get a beer
and talk, and a lot of people just sat around on bunks to drink and talk.
"I got to check on NG," she said, and leaned down off the edge of the bunk to
put her head below the level of the privacy screen.
"He all right?" Musa asked.
"Looks to be asleep. 'Scuse."
She crawled out and ducked under, and sat down again on NG's bunk, beside him.
Half-asleep, all right. Pills had a kick to them. He gave her a bleary look.
"You hear that?" she said. "We got jump in the morning."
"Got to wake up," he muttered.
"No, you sleep. Musa and I'll pour you into your hammock in the morning. No
problem. You can trust us." She squeezed his hand. "G'night. All right?"
No answer. The fingers didn't twitch. But he was all right. She and Musa had
custody of the pills—in case. And if Loki was going somewhere tomorrow, wherever
that was, then at least they were starting out in good order this time, no
surprises.
She ducked back under, crawled back into Musa's bed, cold and shivering.
Man who didn't mind that was a gentleman, she thought.
CHAPTER 15
« ^ »
Out of the bunks and off to duty stations, theirs being the lucky watch that
drew duty through this particular jump: scant time for a dance through the
shower, grab the trank-pack and the c-pack off the galley counter along with a
Keis-and-biscuit and a hot drink while Services was stringing the hammocks for
mainday. NG was barely functioning, limping around and definitely reluctant to
leave the hot shower, but Musa was next in line, and she steered NG out to the
breakfast line, bleary-eyed and sullen as he was.
"I'm saying get off me," he muttered while they were going through the door.
"Watch doesn't mean hanging onto me."
"Hey, you're not put out about me and Musa, are you?"
"Hell!"
"So go on." She nudged him with her elbow. "Get your breakfast."
He looked bloody awful, one eye swollen, mouth swollen, and his expression this
morning made no improvement. He muttered something for an answer, limped toward
the line ahead of her.
Hughes and his friends. She saw it coming before NG did, a half a second before
Hughes shouldered him and knocked him off his balance.
"Watch where you're going!" Hughes said.
"You watch where you're fucking going!" Bet hissed at Hughes, grabbing a fistful
of sleeve. "You want an argument, mister, you got one."
Hughes grabbed for her wrist and ended up with nothing—not going to cut loose in
a full-scale brawl, no, not here, not likely; but the whole rec-hall got quiet.
"You a friend of his?" Hughes said, and there was just ship-sound in the hall.
"May be," she said. "I dunno your quarrel with him, and I don't care, mister,
but I'm on his tail on orders of the chief, who don't like his crew running into
any locker door. Nothing personal."
"Screwing with him on the chief's orders too."
"That's personal and that's shit. Don't give me shit, mister. I'll give it
back."
Real quiet.
"No fighting," NG said.
"That's fine," she said. "I ain't fighting. Man's just got a little problem.
Probably glandular. You want to fuck with me, mister? Take you right down to
that locker, soon's this ship clears jump. You and your two bedmates there. We
can straighten everything out."
"Here, Lindy—" Musa showed up, right through the audience, thank God, still damp
from the shower, low-key as always. "We got a little problem?"
"Problem's your new girl," Hughes said. "Problem's this piece of garbage on our
deck."
"Problem is," Bet said, loud and sharp, "we got some crossed lines here, this is
the same skuz butted in yesterday while our shift was sitting down doing simple
business over a beer; and beyond that I don't fucking care what his problem is,
somebody took severe exception to that beer, in the dark and from the back, the
way I see it. So I'm asking, was it you, Lindy Hughes?"
Lot of quiet, then. Some more mainday crew had strayed in from duty, and their
voices got quiet too, more spectators.
"Somebody did this ship a favor," Hughes said.
"Hell if it did!" she said. "I hear all to hell and gone what NG did, but I see
nothing but a damn good engineer at his post ever'day doing his own job and
several others', and the only time he ever missed he was lying beat half to
death in the supplies locker, so don't tell me about responsibility, mister, I
seen more of it in NG Ramey than I seen in whatever fool beat up our Systems man
when this ship is apt to go jump any damn minute—"
Slow, measured clap of the hands from somewhere around the fringe. That nettled
Hughes. "You want to fuck with him?" Hughes asked, playing to the crew at large.
He made a wide gesture. "Neo comes on here and tells us what a fine, upstanding
man NG Ramey is. Shit!"
"Pull off, Lindy," Musa said.
"Fucking neo."
"I said, pull off! Bernstein's orders. Somebody beat up our Systems man, and we
got orders to keep him in one piece, it ain't a question of preferences, mine or
hers."
"I ain't taking shit from her!"
"Shut it down, Lindy."
Long silence. Then Hughes shouldered past, and so did his friends.
"Sorry about that," Bet said under her breath. "He shoved NG in line."
Musa put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the counter.
NG was still standing there, in whatever frame of mind she didn't care to figure
at the moment. She got her packs and her breakfast. Johnson the cook was there,
galley staff working fast to set up for after the jump. Johnson gave her an
under-the-brows look.
"You're crazy," Johnson said, which she took for a friendly warning.
"May be," she said. "But I go with what I see."
She got NG's two packs too, and collected a second breakfast and brought it back
to him.
NG took them, no expression, no look directly at her, he just tucked the packs
under an arm and gulped the biscuit and the tea. She swallowed hers, too much
adrenaline coursing her bloodstream to afford any appetite, her stomach in a
knot, but you took food when you could get it, hell with Lindy Hughes.
A couple of mainday Engineering were there, Walden and Farley having come in,
maybe having been there through the ruckus. She didn't spot Hughes any longer.
Damn stupid, she thought, with her mouth full of biscuit. She was catching more
attention from little confabs here and there in rec-hall than was good for
anybody.
—Yeager, you've done it good and proper. You've just picked yourself a fight you
can die in.
—Better'n some, though…