Rimrunners (34 page)

they suited up, the smell of that godawful stuff they sprayed the insides with…

A whiff of it came when she took a look at the seals. Even after a guy died in

the damn thing, even after the rig had been standing months and years in a

chilled-down storage locker, the inside still smelled like lavatory soap.

She took inventory on the Europe rig, real simple c.o.d., a lousy big puncture

in the gut, right under the groin-seal. Big guy, name of W. Graham, Europe's,

tac-squad B-team—Willie, she remembered, strong as any two guys, but no chance

at all against a squeeze or an impact powerful enough to punch right through

quadplex Flexyne.

God.

So, well, if you wanted to see how bad the joints were, the easiest way was just

to strip down and start building the rig around you joint by joint, freezing not

only your ass off, but various other sensitive spots, because the internal

heater wouldn't work until the rig was powered up, and you didn't want the power

on while you were making tension adjustments. You messed around with lousy

little pin-sized wrenches and screwdrivers and tried not to chatter your teeth

loose while you were getting the wrench or the screwdriver seated in little

inconspicuous holes, about three to five of them a joint, and you fussed and you

messed with one turn against another, and you tried the tension in this and that

joint, till it felt right.

While your nose ran.

But you warmed up, joint by joint. Joint by joint, starting with the boots, the

rig cased you in and linked up, joint with joint and contact with contact, heavy

as sin and about all you could do to lift a knee and test the flex, clear up to

the body-armor.

Tension-straps between two layers of the ceramic, each with their little access

caps, and their nasty little adjustment screws on the action, too, four or five

a segment, that pulled the sensor contacts up against bare skin, contacts that

were going to carry signals to the hydraulics—all those had to be tightened or

loosened, so they'd all loosen up to the right degree when you pulled the

release to get out of the armor, and go right back to the proper configuration

when you got inside and threw the master switch: you could feel all those little

contact-points, and they shouldn't press hard, but they shouldn't lose contact

either, and the padding that kept you from bumping up against those contacts too

hard in spots had to be tightened down or loosened up with another lot of fussy

little spring-screws.

Some damned fool had just got in and powered up. Probably fallen on his ass or

sprained something just trying to stand up.

She hoped to hell it had been Fitch.

Maybe it was that thought that brought him.

The door opened. And she was sitting there on the deck half-naked and

half-suited, with Fitch standing in a warm draft from the door.

Fitch looked at her, she looked at Fitch with her heart pounding. Dammit. The

man still panicked her.

"Yessir," she said. "Excuse me if I don't get up, got no power at the moment."

"How's it going?" Fitch asked.

Plain question. She rested an armor-heavy wrist on an armored knee. "Thing's a

mess," she said. "Fixable. Take me a little while. Few days on this one."

Silence, then. "Tac-squad, huh?"

"Yessir."

If you had a quarrel with a mof, you for God's sake didn't act up and you didn't

get snide, you just kept your face innocent and your voice calm and all

professional, no matter what you were thinking.

"Is that insubordination, Ms. Yeager?"

"Nossir."

"Hard feelings, Ms. Yeager?"

"I've had worse than you give, sir."

Fitch took that and seemed to think about it a minute.

Stupid, Yeager, real stupid, watch that mouth of yours.

"Smartass again, Yeager?"

"Nossir, no intention of being."

"Are you quite sure of that, Ms. Yeager?"

"Twenty years on Africa, sir, I was never insubordinate."

"That's good, Ms. Yeager. That's real good."

After which, Fitch walked out and shut the door.

Dammit, Yeager, that was bright.

God, NG's working alone down there. Where's Wolfe?

Who else is on watch?

She threw the four manual latches on the gauntlet, slid it off; threw latches on

the body-armor and on the chisses and boots. Fast. And scrambled up and put

clip-lines on the scattered pieces and grabbed her clothes.

"Got to check supply," was the excuse she handed the bridge when she went

through. "Be back soon as I can."

Down the lift, all the way to downside, and up the curving downside deck in as

much hurry as she could, past the deserted lowerdeck ops, up-rim toward the

shop.

And naturally she popped into Engineering on the way. "H'lo," she called out at

NG's back, over the noise of working pumps, and startled NG out of his next

dozen heartbeats.

"God," he said.

"Fitch," she said. "Just thought I'd warn you."

He leaned back against the counter. She stepped up onto the first of the

gimbaled sections that turned Engineering into a stairstep puzzle-board. "No

particular trouble," she said, and raised a thumb toward the topside, casual.

"Captain's up there too, what I saw."

"They come and they go," NG said. Worried, she thought. "Captain may have gone

dockside. Don't get off in places with no witnesses."

"I'm working right next the—"

The lift was operating, audible over the heartbeat-thump of the fueling pumps.

"—bridge. I better get to the shop. I'm picking up some stuff, if Fitch asks."

"He'll ask," NG said, sober-faced, and she started back to the corridor and

stopped again, with this terrible fear that Fitch intended something, that Fitch

could, for firsts, spill everything.

"I got something I got to talk to you about," she said. "NG—"

He looked scared. She was. Maybe they caught it off each other. And the lift had

passed the core, had made that little catch it did when it passed through.

"He'll try to hurt us," she said. "Whatever he says, that's what he's intending

to do. Whatever happens, don't believe anything till you ask me—hear me? You

hear me, NG? You got to trust me."

"What's going on?"

"I—" She heard the lift stop, downside. There wasn't time, wasn't time to do

anything but mess things up if she threw it out cold. The way Fitch might. "Just

for God's sake—He's trying to get to us. Whatever he does, whatever he says,

remember what the game is. All right?"

He stared at her.

She eeled past and out the door again, ducked fast into the machine-shop entry,

hitting the lights on the way.

Cold, God, your breath frosted. You got the cold right through your boots, off

the tilting deck-plates, and the air bit bare skin and clothed parts alike. She

cut the heat on, cursing the sum-bitches who'd decided to powersave, and

hurried, grabbed a few extra clip-lines, typed, Flexyne? on the terminal, and

got inventory and location of tubing and sheets.

Flexbond?

Location of that, too. She blew on her fingers, entered six clip-lines and

wondered what was going on next door, wondered whether she just ought to walk

back in, whether it was Fitch at all, whether he was next door with NG, what in

hell was going on over there…

God knew what she'd babbled, sounded like a fool, or worse .

You got to trust me—

God! If that won't make a man check his pockets—

She took her lip between her teeth and stood there shivering a second, then made

up her mind and ducked out into the corridor again, down the curve past

Engineering. The door was open and Fitch was there, all right, she saw him

talking to NG, NG standing there paying all his attention, the way you better do

with Fitch—

She couldn't hear anything, couldn't read lips: NG wasn't saying anything and

she couldn't see Fitch's face. She just went on past, down to the lift and up

again the long ride to the bridge.

Her coming up here got a bare turn of the head from the officer on duty—not even

sure who it was. She had a momentary, desperate thought about going straight to

the captain and telling him how Fitch was pushing them—but that might not be a

good idea.

She stopped, turned, took a deep breath.

"'Scuse, sir, is Mr. Bernstein or Mr. Orsini aboard?"

"Not at the moment," the officer said.

"Would you mind, sir, putting out a call? I've got a problem with the fix."

"Mr. Fitch is on duty."

"Yessir, but Mr. Orsini said call him specifically."

"I'll advise Mr. Fitch of that."

Shit.

She said, "Thank you, sir," restrained the hand from a salute, and walked off

very politely, down to the locker.

Not real smart to try to talk to Wolfe, right after the man had said a solid no.

Better get back to work, long enough to make it look like she did have a

problem, then try to get downside again.

No probability that Wolfe was aboard, unless he had been in downside ops and

just not advertising the fact. But the stowage and sickbay were the only topside

areas that were swing-sectioned like the bridge, only places you could get to up

here, only places you'd want to get to up here, the mofs' quarters being all

upside down or sideways as long as the ship was in dock and the ring was locked

down, which meant ordinary doors were upside down and a step beyond the swing

sections would put your foot on the overhead. Wolfe might have a cot downside,

in ops or the purser's office, captains not tending to stay in dockside

sleepovers like ordinary mortals, captains usually spending their dock time in

places like the Station Residency, where service was fancy and the high and the

mighty didn't have to rub up against their crews on liberty.

And if Wolfe was on his own liberty-tour, off having pork and real whiskey or

whatever captains ate that the 'decks never saw, well, hell if that cold bastard

was going to want to hear that Bet Yeager had the willies about Mr. Fitch.

Dammit, Orsini knows Fitch is on-ship right now, Bernie's got to know—Bernie's

got to care… Bernie's got to be smart enough to figure what can happen…

Probably a stupid panic, Fitch never pushes anything that'll get shit on him,

he's smarter than that, that's always the trouble. If Bernie was smart enough to

get a hands-off and a no-talk order down from Wolfe, then Fitch won't dare open

his mouth to NG—

Please God.

She shut the locker door again, attached the clips to the nearest ring, and sat

down to work on the damn rig again, familiar feel, familiar smell that set off

memories just handling it, waked up old ways of dealing with things—fond

thoughts of how Fitch could just turn up dead somewhere—except, dammit, ask

anybody on the ship who'd have most reason to want Fitch dead and the answer

would always come up NG Ramey; and even if nobody gave a damn about Fitch taking

a long fall, you couldn't axe somebody that high up unless you could really make

it credibly an accident that just couldn't be anything else.

God, isn't Fitch going to come back topside?

What's going on down there?

While she sat there adjusting little damn tension screws…

And hell if that sonuvabitch mof on the bridge had ever called Orsini, just

count herself lucky if maybe he wouldn't even bother to call Fitch.

Oh, God, Bernie, check back in, you know Fitch is out for blood—get your ass

back on this ship, get Orsini back here—

Nothing. Just nothing, while she adjusted screws and took pieces off and put

them on again, sick at her stomach, thinking and thinking of ways to get at

Fitch.

Get him to hit her, maybe, get him somewhere near the safety limit in the

corridor out there—

Sorry, captain, he was shoving me and I just moved—

What if he didn't die?

She heard the lift work again, heard it reach topside, and sat and patiently

adjusted screws and thought, I got to have the Flexyne, shop's got to be warmer

now, I can go down there and get some tubing, get a chance to talk to NG—no

knowing if it was Fitch just come up, but he can't be still talking down there…

Damn, if I go down there I got to tell NG everything…

Got to find him in a decent mood, I got to—

God, I hope he didn't hit Fitch.

She hooked the left gauntlet up with the left arm, flexed the fingers—whole arm

exhausted just from the resistance in the damn thing.

If I try to make up what I'm going to say I'll just screw it up—I just got to

tell him, is all, whether or not Fitch's done anything, either patch it up or

head it off—

She safety-clipped the sleeve, closed the lid on the tool-kit.

The door opened. She looked up at Fitch, Fitch walked in and looked over what

she was doing, the scattered pieces of the rig.

"Having a problem, Ms. Yeager?"

The airlock opened, distant echo through the ship. She tried to collect herself

and remember what exactly she'd said to the mof out there, said, "Mr. Orsini

didn't indicate whether he wanted a patch or a fix, sir."

"How's it coming, so far?"

From Fitch, a quiet and civil question. It rattled her. She made a second try

after scattered wits, got a breath. "I dunno, sir, nothing particularly wrong