Rimrunners (25 page)

"Crewmate got it off this dark-point trade," she said.

That was where Africa had got it, all right, except they hadn't paid for it, out

in the dark between the stars—where ships met in realspace and the carriers had

taken what they wanted.

Blood all over a wall. AP's didn't leave much of a man's middle. First time

she'd been with the boarding-team.

Pork that night. Galley did it up in little pieces for the whole ship's company.

Except you could bet your ass the bridge crew got slices.

The line moved up. "Fish," Musa was saying. "Told you it was fishcake."

NG shrugged. He stood there ahead of her with his hands in his pockets, looking

down again at the floor like he was going away again and she just reached out

and tweaked his sleeve.

"You all right?"

He looked at her very odd for a moment—scared, maybe, worried, but there, thank

God.

"Don't slip on me," she said.

He didn't say anything. He just stared until the line moved and Musa bumped both

of them and got them to close it up.

NG looked back at her a second time, like he was trying to figure something just

outside his reach.

"Hey," she said, "I ain't the enemy, you know."

And that came out funny, kind of a chill going through her gut.

"Go on," somebody yelled from behind, "do it in the locker."

Their turn. They got the meatloaf. Musa did. It was pale, pale gray and it

smelled fishy right past the flavor-stuff and the sauces cookie put on it, it

crunched with bones you tried not to notice.

Tried not to notice the way people kind of looked toward them while they were

eating either, how heads got together and voices were quiet and Hughes was at

the other side of the rec-benches, down at the opposite end—Hughes with a

patched-up mess in the middle of his forehead and a lot of looks their

direction. Hughes and his two mates; and Mel Jason sitting with Kate and a

couple of the other women, all of them with their heads together—

There was a kind of a gap between her and NG and Musa and everybody else—not a

big one, but they were a three-set, no mistaking it, on the end of the

bench—until McKenzie and Park and Figi got through the line and took that spot.

Deliberately.

Man, she thought, looking at McKenzie, I do owe you.

"Hughes isn't happy," McKenzie said for openers, and took a big drink of his

beer.

"Pity," Musa said.

NG was wound tight as a spring. She felt that. "What's he saying?" she asked

Gabe McKenzie.

"Says he'll settle accounts," McKenzie said.

"You're taking a chance, then."

"Yeah," McKenzie said.

She thought about that, thought about what she owed and where, and how NG was

likely to react to company, damn him anyway; but she was about to take the

chance when Musa said, "Got to arrange a get-together, you and us."

Musa having manners and sense, God save him.

"Might," McKenzie said.

"Yeah," she said, and nudged NG with her knee. "All right?"

NG nodded and mumbled, "Fine."

So they got a card-game together at McKenzie's and Park's bunk, the two being

next to each other. They did a little drinking, a little talking—NG and Park

being about equally conversational, but Figi was a card-artist, no question, the

moment you saw him shuffle, and Figi gave a kind of shy grin and proved there

was a real brain in there, the kind that could remember what had turned up in a

deck.

NG wasn't bad at it either, come to find out; and Musa was sharp as you'd expect

when a guy had spent long, long realspace voyages with very little rec aboard.

"You can get skinned in this company," she complained, figuring up it was two

and a half beers she had lost to Figi by now.

"That's how he got so healthy," McKenzie said. "All those beers."

Figi just grinned, and sipped the one he had.

About which time the vid died and the lights came up full in the quarters,

bright as morning, and a voice yelled out, via the intercom:

"Inspection!"

"Good God," McKenzie said in annoyance.

And: "What in hell's that?" Park said. "We ain't touched a port."

"Go immediately to the center aisle where you are. No talking. No delays to

secure materials. If you're drinking or eating, hold it; if you're doing

anything else, leave it. No talking, no discussion, no walking around. Move

now't"

"Shit," NG muttered, and sent a twitch through Bet's nerves.

"Shut up," she hissed, scared for reasons she couldn't exactly pin anything on,

except when NG took a notion to be an ass he could do it up in ribbons, and she

didn't like that attitude. She took her beer and she took herself to the aisle,

leaving everything the way the mofs said, all six of them standing out there.

Musa went on sipping his beer, other people did, so she figured it must be all

right, while the mof search squad came in and started at the other end of the

quarters.

God, when they pulled a check in the troop-deck, you didn't sip any beers, you

swallowed it to keep the ship move-ready, you threw everything loose into the

mesh bag that hung by your bunk, you stood in that aisle at attention and you

didn't think about drinking any beers while the mofs were going through your

stuff and writing down every frigging thing that wasn't inspection-ready, God

help you if you had drugs or unregistered armament in your locker.

People did talk, under their breaths, shifted around a little to do it, where

the mofs weren't right at hand, you could hear the little muttering under the

ship-noise.

Then two more mofs walked in, Orsini and Fitch together.

"Oh, God," somebody said.

She slid a glance toward NG, saw the set of his jaw, saw him take a deliberate

slow drink of the beer he was holding and stare murder in Fitch's direction.

They just stood there, and talk died down entirely in the area.

Fitch was in his own morning rounds and Orsini was on duty during his

rec-period, both, you could figure, because they were searching all the bunks

and all the stuff, what belonged to mainday as well as what belonged to

alterday.

The search had started near the vid, four junior officers she'd never laid eyes

on, but that could include a whole lot of the bridge crew, even those that were

alterday. Bunks got turned up, the storages underneath inspected, everything got

a general lookover, but it went pretty fast.

Hell of a time to start looking for drugs, Park was right. No sense to start

searching now for what they could have brought aboard. Probably some damn thing

had gone missing, maybe they'd lost a bottle or two out of the officers' mess,

maybe the captain had lost his watch or something. Probably was a stolen-goods

check, if they were finally headed into port, to make sure something didn't get

carried offship and bartered for booze. That was probably what was going on.

But it sure as hell made you start tallying up what you had brought aboard and

re-checking the regs in your mind to see if you had anything you weren't

supposed to.

No prohibition on anything she had, she was sure of that: she'd read that list

real careful. And they were already past NG's bunk, thank God, with no problems

evident.

The search got to them, they stood quietly, all six of them, while the mofs

turned up McKenzie's bunk and then Park's and Figi's, and the guys' across the

aisle, and worked all the way down to the bulkhead.

Up to the loft then.

Nothing I got's illegal. Please God.

She sipped her own beer, feeling odd about it, telling herself this ship was

hell and away looser about a whole lot of things. But you couldn't help

worrying—particularly when you knew you had enemies, and particularly when you'd

had the message delivered that same day that some sum-bitch with bridge-level

connections was out to get even.

"Yeager," the intercom called out. "Come to your bunk area."

Oh, shit!

She took, a deep breath and started to excuse herself past, felt somebody pat

her back, another take her arm.

One was Musa, the one who held her arm was NG. She looked at him and gave a

shrug. "Probably the viewer," she said: at the moment she hoped to hell it was.

He let her go, she went and climbed the ladder, and somebody else was coming up

after her, which she had a very clear idea was the two watch-officers. She

didn't look over her shoulder, she walked on to where the four inspectors had

gathered—where her bunk was standing on its side and they had the underneath

storage open to view.

Their sniffer-box was going crazy, the red light was flashing, and a plastic

packet of capsules was lying on top of her stuff, right there in front of God

and everybody.

"This your bunk?" one asked.

"Yessir," she said. "But I didn't put that there."

About the time Orsini and Fitch showed up and the inspection crew said how

they'd found it—of course—in her stowage, and she said, when Orsini asked her

whether she had a prescription, "Nossir, but that's not mine."

"Whose is it?"

"Lindy Hughes', sir. He said he had something for my headache, said he'd leave

it at my bunk."

"You consider going to the pharmacy, Yeager?"

"Didn't know it was prescription, sir, must've got it this morning, he had an

accident, you know, figure he didn't think it was strong enough to worry over."

Orsini took the packet in his fingers. "Remains to be seen if this is

prescription."

"Yessir."

"Find out where Hughes's been," Fitch said.

Wasn't a presence-sniffer they had, then, just a basic job, no way to track

where anybody was—more the pity.

"I'd like to point out, sir, if I was running contraband, I'd do it in a better

container."

"You want me to note that down, Yeager?"

"Yessir. I know the ways stuff gets past. And how it doesn't. Plain plastic bag

isn't going to get past anybody."

"You want to tell us anything else?" Orsini asked.

"Don't mind to take a test, sir. Nothing in my system except the last trank

dose."

Fitch picked up the viewer and shoved a fiche in. He was quiet a moment.

Looking. Then Fitch turned the viewer off and gave her a cold, measuring stare.

"Think you'd better come to Administrative, Yeager."

"Yessir," she said, and went where Fitch and Orsini indicated, back down the

aisle, down the ladder, a couple of steps ahead of them.

There was a gossipy murmuring in the crew. It got quieter in her immediate

vicinity. She saw NG close up, saw him with a panicked look on his face—not

waiting where he was supposed to be, not him, not Musa either, who had a firm

grip on his arm. What NG might do scared her, so she just gave him a straight

I-don't-know-you stare and kept walking to the door, calmly as she could,

because Fitch was there, Fitch was likely to pick up on any communication she

made with anybody and write that into his report.

They got through to the door, they walked out into rec and general com started

calling Lindy Hughes to report to Orsini's office.

That gave her a little satisfaction, at least. If she was going down, if this

was going to start with little questions and get to the ones she didn't want

asked—then it didn't matter as much who had done it as she just wanted to take a

few shots that counted, and take out the ones that did matter.

They had her stop by infirmary and do the tests: she was real glad about

that—"Nothing but the last trank-down in my system," she told the med. "That's

all you're going to find."

"Hope so," Fletcher said.

She was confident about that. She wasn't, about the interview in the office.

Except Bernstein showed up as they were going in, said, "What in hell, Yeager?"

And she said, "Wish I knew, sir,"—figuring that saying more than that right

then, just outside Orsini's office, while Orsini was opening the door to let her

in, was going to annoy him seriously.

Civ procedures. Civ mofs ran all over each other's prerogatives, and talked to

each other in ways that made her nervous, but having Bernstein waiting out there

was a comfort, even if she figured it could set Orsini off.

So she walked in, stood quietly at informal rest while Orsini came in and sat

down at his desk. He pushed a button on the console.

"We're recording."

"Yessir."

"You maintain the pills belong to Hughes."

"I've got every reason to think so, sir."

"Why?"

"Man promised me."

"After his accident with the door."

"Shower head, sir."

"Don't be flip with me."

"Yessir."

"Friend of yours?"

"Nossir, not much. But if he tells me he's going to do something, I won't doubt

him."

Orsini made a note on his TranSlate, looked up under his eyebrows. "You're a

smartass, Yeager."

"Sorry, sir."

"You like Hughes? Got anything personal with him?"

"If he set me up I got something personal with him, yessir, but I haven't had

that proved yet."

"You insist he promised you pills for a headache."

"I stick by what I said, sir."

"You come onto this ship, you pick fights, you create dissension in my watch,

Yeager, you just make trouble all up and down the line, don't you?"