Rimrunners (30 page)

trying to remember how she had gotten there. The whole day was a blank. Just

gone. And Bernstein hadn't thrown her out, just let her sleep it off in her

chair.

"Damn," she muttered, "I hope to hell I didn't insult anybody."

Bernstein quirked an eyebrow at her and gave her a smile, in a good mood, for

God's sake, after all she had told him, after everything that had happened. She

leaned on the seat-back and looked at everybody, at Walden, Slovak and Keane,

with their heads together—and NG over at station one, unscathed.

Hadn't taken Fletcher's pills, evidently.

"Been a real quiet day," Bernstein said then, and looked at Freeman. "Why don't

you take off early?"

She might be zee'd. She wasn't stupid. She stood there holding to the seat-back,

a little pain in her back, a general rubbery feeling about her legs that said a

long walk wouldn't be a good idea—and figured it wasn't out of simple muddled

priorities that Bernstein let an Africa trooper drug-case sit his boards all day

and sent a healthy Systems man back to quarters.

There was some talking going on, dammit, stuff was flying between alterday

Engineering and Liu's team, on one level and another—Musa had had a go at Liu,

Freeman was going back early, it didn't look like there'd been any bar-brawls in

Engineering during the shift, and Bernstein wasn't pissed at anything—she knew

him when he was, and this wasn't that kind of day, not at all.

Isn't what Fitch wanted, she thought, and thought with a little sense of things

delicately balanced, that Fitch being out asleep all their day, he was going to

wake up and find out things that wouldn't make him happy.

Then they were going to go to sleep and Fitch was going to be awake thinking of

ways to fix that.

Hell of a way to carry on a war, she thought, and stood there watching Freeman

check out and head back to quarters, doubtless, where he was going to be in time

for breakfast with his proper mates.

"Feeling any pain?" Bernstein asked her, as if she was all right with him, as if

everything was.

"Not much," she said slowly, wondering what the hell Bernstein was up to. But

Bernstein wasn't about to say and she wasn't going to upset things with

questions, hell, no.

She sat down again, she didn't bother anything, mostly she ran the sims and

watched the colored lights, still phasing out a little—still with a little

numbness about the common sense and feeling that she ought to be more spooked

than she was.

She wasn't too bad by rec time, all right enough to have a beer or two, sitting

with the new guys on the bench, with NG and Musa and McKenzie and Park and Figi;

and NG wasn't too bad either, a little tranked and placid on Fletcher's stuff—

Fletcher had herself an official scan record of a back that justified the

happy-stuff she had dosed her with, no matter it didn't halfway hurt until

Fletcher started messing with it, and Fletcher had poured enough different kinds

of stuff into her to make it real unlikely a test would prove a damned thing.

Her and NG…

God, NG was kind of pitiful, relaxed as he was, sitting on the bench between her

and Figi and leaning against the wall—eyes large-pupilled and this sort of happy

look on his face, like he was finally just gone, people could do what they

wanted with him, hell if he cared.

"You doing all right?" she asked him, and he mumbled that he was, and took

another sip of beer.

Not much for him, in that condition. She was getting his drinks for him and no

way was he getting any more alcohol, beyond the one, just soft drinks. Probably

wouldn't notice. Didn't remember to drink very often.

They sat, they talked, people came by to meet Freeman and his mates and say a

welcome-in, and to say how happy NG looked—

Meech, the son of a bitch, even went so far as to reach over and shake NG by the

shoulder, with a "Pleasantest I ever saw 'im," at which NG, conscious, might

have gone for him, but NG took it with a kind of bewildered look.

Never trust a prescription with just one pill in it.

"He all right?" Gypsy asked.

"Fletch give him a relaxer," Musa said. "Prescription."

No sight of Hughes and his pair of skuz since dinner. Watching the vid, maybe.

Not so easy to transfer, when it was the whole effing alterday longscan tekkie

crew asking: that was what Musa said—bridge tekkies got used to their operators

and vice versa, and mainday was higher rank than alter-day, and there was no way

in hell the mainday operators were going to take Hughes and crew and no way they

were going to shift-trade with alterday just because Lindy Hughes went and

pulled a skutty trick.

So Lindy Hughes was somewhere being real quiet this evening, and it was

absolutely amazing how nice people were being, just absolutely amazing, people

like Liu and Freeman and all, having every right to be mad, being so friendly it

could give you a sugar overload—

Because—it didn't take much brains to figure it—alterday had been hassled,

alterday had been rousted and the mofs had come busting into quarters on what

just had to be a tip—

—and beat hell out of somebody they couldn't prove a damned thing on.

And that, in the humble estimation of the 'decks, was just a step too far.

Now, I'm not saying what would be illegal to say, Musa's line had been, she

heard him in action, but I do say if somebody's got the idea to roust us or any

one of us we got to take a real firm position on that problem… nothing against

the rules, no, but we ain't just the machinery on this ship, that you can kick

and cuss, and maybe we got to make that clear for people that've gotten a little

far from that fact—

So the Lius and the Musas and the McKenzies and the Gypsy Mullers of the 'decks

were smiling and telling their mates to smile and be nice, and Bernie was being

nice to Freeman and just bending double and twisting sideways to welcome them

in, ditto Musa, and the beers were being bought and people were just walking

around being deliberately, cussedly po-lite with each other. So it was funny,

people started having a good time and being in a good mood, like it was a joke

going around—and NG being as tranked as he was, people came by just to look at

him.

NG being as tranked as he was, he was going from bewildered to having a

tolerably good time, especially when a delegation headed by Meech and Rossi

bought him the second beer, the one she wasn't going to let him have. Rossi put

it into his hands, got his attention with a little pop on the side of the face

and said he looked like he needed another beer and a bunch of the bridge techs

had gotten together and decided he should have one on them.

NG just stared at Rossi open-mouthed, Rossi walked off, and finally NG started

drinking that one, totally glazed.

"Hey," she said, "sips."

She took it down a bit, enough to keep him from passing out where he sat, maybe,

and Figi was on his other side—if he fell that way, Figi was built like a rock,

probably wouldn't even notice.

You couldn't sit on the rec-deck. You could squat. In case somebody needed

through in a hurry. Meech and Rossi and some guys brought some dice, and they

squatted and they gambled for cred-points, dece a round.

Damn, even Freeman and his mates were in it, beyond loose, all the way to

blown—Battista and Keane headed off to bunks or a locker party, God knew, it was

all getting noisy enough in rec nobody heard the first mof-alert.

But the noise fell off fast—real fast, when bridge crew showed up, small, dark

fellow, and the squatters stood up and cleared the through-way.

"Kusan," Musa said under his breath.

Helm 2 himself, alterday command.

Kusan looked around him, Kusan scanned faces and said: "Yeager."

It was real, real quiet of a sudden, just noise from down at the end of rec and

out of the quarters where the vid was going.

And there was damn-all to do but hand the rest of her beer to Musa and nudge NG

over upright so he wouldn't look as crashed as he was, and get up and say,

"Yessir, I'm Yeager."

"Ms. Yeager," Helm 2 said, beckoning her to come, and to everybody at large: "As

you were."

There wasn't a sound. Not a sound, except of a sudden NG said, "What's going

on?" and tried to get up, except Musa grabbed onto him. "Shut it down!" Musa had

to say, too loud.

"Isn't any problem," Bet said.

She wished not. It was Fitch's watch, the tail end of Orsini's. Again.

And she hoped Musa could get a call through to Bernstein, or someone could.

"Bet!" NG yelled, mad as hell, crazy-sounding. Trying to get himself in trouble,

that was what he was doing. But people must have shut him up. She was afraid to

look back to see.

CHAPTER 21

« ^ »

She was still a little out-there while she was walking the corridors beside

Kusan, too much beer and one of Fletcher's smaller pain-killers, which

combination let her feel no real pain, but she remembered what pain was and who

could cause it; and while there was certainly no reg against the 'decks drinking

and gambling in rec, there damn sure was a reg against drunk and disorderly. She

sneaked a tug at her jumpsuit, a rake of the fingers through her hair, a quick

roll-down and snap of the safety-tuck on her sleeves, duty-like. The beer-smell

and the wide spill on her knee she couldn't do anything about, and there were

probably three and four charges Fitch could think of, just looking at her.

Like beer and pills. Like spitting on the main-deck if Fitch said she'd done it,

or a drunk and disorderly—real easy.

But it wasn't Fitch waiting at the step-up to the bridge, it was Orsini—and

Orsini was clearly where Kusan was delivering her.

"Are you drunk, Yeager?"

"Not sober, sir, to tell God's truth." She was halfway upset—having gotten one

set of ideas arranged in her head and then coming up against Orsini, who was

being a fool if he thought it was safe to pull her in at this hour, where what

had happened last night could happen again.

If Orsini cared about that.

Orsini looked her up and down. "Spent a lot of today in that condition, haven't

you?"

What d'we got, a damn morals charge!

But it was Fletcher did it, Fletcher's Bernstein's friend—isn't she!

"Yessir, I apologize, sir."

"Come along," Orsini said, and led the way through the bridge-cylinders, past

mainday ops, past Helm, past—

Fitch stood on the bridge watching them go past. He didn't challenge Orsini. She

wasn't sure if he followed them, then. She couldn't hear, in the general racket

two sets of footsteps made on the hollow deck, in the whisper of multiple

cooling and circulation fans and other people moving around on business. She

just stayed with Orsini, wondering what in hell he was after, telling herself it

was all right, Bernstein hadn't acted overly upset with what she had told him—

Like they'd known already that something was wrong about me, and Bernie was

still on my side—

But Orsini thought I was Mallory's…

She did take a fast look back, to see where Fitch was. Not behind them… but

Fitch undoubtedly knew where they were going, and maybe Fitch was just waiting

for the shift-change, knowing that when Orsini was through, it was always his

turn.

Hope to hell you got a smart notion how to stop that, Mr. Orsini, sir.

Hope to hell you got some concern about that.

Hope to hell you and Bernie came to some understanding about whatever's going

on…

Orsini passed right by his own office, passed by Fitch's.

Where're we going? she thought. And: Oh, God…

They stopped in front of a door with a stencilled: Wolfe, J. and no more

designation than Fitch's office or Orsini's had.

Orsini pushed the button, the door opened on the office and the man inside, and

Orsini said: "Yeager, sir."

Fancy place, carpet, panels, a big black desk and the captain sitting there

waiting for her—blond, slight man in khaki. Pale eyes that didn't care shit what

your excuse was for existing, just what you were doing that crossed his path for

five minutes and annoyed him.

The door shut behind her. Orsini left her. Wolfe rocked his chair back, folded

his arms.

Wolfe said, "Machinist, are you?"

She felt distanced from everything around her. Nothing added, except that

everything she had told Bernie had spread, Orsini knew, now Wolfe knew. She

thought, between one heavy heartbeat and the next: Bernie, damn you, well, you

had to, didn't you?

She said, "I worked as that, sir. On Ernestine."

"Rank."

"M-Sgt. Elizabeth A. Yeager, sir." And she added, because she was a damn

smartass fool, and she hated being crowded: "Retired."

Wolfe wasn't amused. Wolfe sat there looking up at her, with no expression at

all.

"Africa, is it?"

"Yes, sir. Was." Nothing else to say. Bernie'd evidently said it all.

Damn sure.

And she'd had this dumb dim hope that Bernie didn't think she was a threat and

that maybe all the way to top command, a ship that got its crew out of station

brigs didn't give shit what it raked in for crew—