Hellburner (24 page)

They’d done all the check-ins, gotten Meg and Sal scheduled for Aptitudes tomorrow—Ben had outright refused to sign up, declaring they could damned well get his Aptitudes from the UDC, or court-martial him for failure to show for tests: not an outright show of temper with the examiners, no, just a perfectly level insistence they look up his Security clearance, Ben said; turn up his assignment to Stockholm ... Benjamin Pollard wasn’t taking any Fleet Aptitudes until they showed him his old ones or put him in court.

Damned mess, he reflected, sorry for Ben, truly sorry for what had seemed to a pain-hazed mind his only rescue. Ben’s talk about court-martial upset him. Ben’s situation did. And all the lieutenant would say, when he had in fact gotten a phone call through to him, was: We’ll work with that. Let me talk to the examiners, all right?

He ground at his eyes with the heels of his hands, listened to the dull buzz of conversation and rattling plates over the monotone of the vid, and wondered if there was anything unthought of he could do, any pull he personally had left to use, to get Ben back where he belonged—as much as that, if there was anything he could do to send Meg and Sal back home—no matter that Meg really wanted her chance at the program. He’d been on an emotional rollercoaster since this morning, he’d been ready to go back to routine and they’d stopped him; they’d told him the lieutenant was fighting mat, and he’d been ready to come from the bottom again—

til, God, Meg hit him with the business about flying either with him or against him.

He didn’t want her killed, he didn’t want to lose anybody else—he didn’t want to be responsible for any life he cared about. He kept seeing that fireball when he shut his eyes; in the crowd-noise, he kept hearing the static on Cory’s channel, in the tumbling and the dark—because Meg’s threat had made it imminent, and real.

The hall seemed cold this evening. Somebody had been messing with the temperature controls, or the memories brought back the constant chill of the Belt. He sat there rebreathing his own breath behind his hands, knowing (Ben had a blunt, right way of putting it) knowing he was being a spook, knowing he hadn’t any right to shove Meg around, or tell her anything—no more than he’d had any right to take Ben’s name in vain or ask for Meg and Sal to come here—he supposed he must have asked for Meg, too, since they were here, even if he couldn’t figure why the Fleet had gone to that kind of trouble—

Except the captain had wanted him to testify in that hearing Ben had told him about, the one it was too late to testify in, even if he could remember—which he couldn’t.

So he’d let the captain down, he’d let the lieutenant down—in what cause he didn’t know; he only knew he’d disrupted three lives.

So Meg hadn’t been happy where she’d been, so the Hamilton wouldn’t let her right to the top of the pilot’s list: you didn’t get into that chair just walking aboard, Meg had to have known that, Meg must have known what to expect, coming in on a working crew with its own seniorities and its own way of doing things...

So you took a little hell. So you stuck it out. Everybody took hell. He hadn’t been all that good at keeping his head down and taking it, but, God, he’d started a police record when he was thirteen: he’d been a stupid kid—and Meg had done a stupid thing or two, run contraband, something like mat, that had busted her from the Earth shuttle to the Belt; but he and Meg were both older, now, Meg ought to know better and do better—he’d made it in the Belt; so had Meg—so she had to have damn-all better sense than she was using—

“You all right?” Meg asked. They were back with the sandwiches. He took a drink of the cola, wished he hadn’t gotten an iced drink.

“Yeah,” he said, chilled. He took his sandwich and unwrapped it while they sat down with their trays. Something on the vid about the hearings. ‘Missile test,’ they called it. That was Hellburner’s cover story. They talked about hearings adjourning on Sol One.... He wished they’d change the channel. Watch the stupid rerun movies. Had to be better. The message net had to be better.

“What else do we need?” Meg was asking. “What about these tests tomorrow? Is there anything we can do to prep ourselves?”

“Nothing but a lot of sleep. Relax. They put you through anything on the carrier? They did, me.”

“Didn’t see a damned soul on the carrier, except at mealtimes. We played gin most of the way.”

“Nice guys,” Sal sighed, “and the reg-u-lations said we couldn’t touch ‘em.”

That got a frown out of Ben. And Sal’s elbow hi Ben’s ribs.

Meg said, “So what do we do? What’s it like?”

“They hook you up to a machine, like medical tests, eye tests, response tests, hand-eye, that sort of thing.”

“Hurt?” Sal asked.

“Yeah, some.”

“You going to study up?” Sal asked Ben.

“I’m telling you, I’m not taking them. I’m not showing. Let them court-martial me, it’s exactly what I want,”

“Ben, —“

Guys stopped by the table. C-Barracks. Techs. Mason, among them, nudged his shoulder with his tray. “Dek,” Mason said. “How you doing?”

“All right,” he said, “pretty tired.”

“Good to see you. Real good to see you....”

“Pop-u-lar,” Ben said when Mason and his guys had moved on. “Just can’t figure how. All these people get to know you and they haven’t broken your neck,”

“Ben,” Sal said, defending him. But it didn’t sting, couldn’t even say why, just—it didn’t. Ben didn’t ask for help, Ben didn’t ask for anything—Cory had been a lot like mat. Ben was going to fight his way out of this mess on his own, and that was at least one piece of karma he wouldn’t have to worry about.

“Best—“ he started to say. And caught a name on the vid, sounded like Dekker. He picked up Sol Station, and... lodging a complaint—

“Ms. Dekker, what specifically are you alleging?”

God. It was. She looked—

“Dek?” Meg asked, and turned around to look where he was looking, at the vid, at a woman in a crowd of reporters. Blond hair was faded. Face was lined. She didn’t look good, she didn’t look at all good...

Something about MarsCorp, something about threats, an investigation into phone calls ... Some organization backing a suit—

Sal said: “What’s going on?” and Meg: “Shhh.”

He couldn’t track on it. Didn’t make sense. Something about losing her job, some civil rights organization launching a lawsuit in her name—

“It’s his mother,” Ben said; he said, “Shut up, dammit, I can’t hear—“ But he could see the background, see the MarsCorp logo, he knew that one—MarsCorp offices on Sol Station, police, reporters, some guy who said he was a lawyer—something about her son—

Picture jumped, tore up. The local station cut in with the channel 2 program information crawl—but he wasn’t finished yet, wasn’t damned finished yet...

“They cut it off!” He shoved the chair around to get up, get to a phone, saw the shadow of the tray and the sense of balance wasn’t there. He staggered, hit it, food went everywhere, cup bounced—“Shit!” He was flat off his balance, elbowed the guy trying to hold his feet, guy grabbed at him and he didn’t want a fight, he just wanted the phone. “Get out of my way!”

“You son of a bitch!” The guy had his arm. Ben and Meg and Sal grabbed for him, Ben saying something about Let him go, the man’s upset; but the guy wasn’t letting him go, the guy swung him and he grabbed for a handhold on the UDC uniform, about the time there were a whole lot of other chairs clearing, and Fleet was all around them. A high voice yelled, “You damn fools, stop it—“

Wasn’t any stopping it. The UDC guy hit him, and he hit the guy with everything he had, figuring it was the only blow he was going to get in—couldn’t hear anything, with guys coming over the tables, guys pushing and shoving and punches flying past his head—he didn’t want to be here, he wanted the damned phone, wanted the truth out of the station, that was all—

Lights were flashing on and off, shouting filled his ears, fist rattled his skull and gray and red shot across his vision as arms came around him and hauled him out of it.

He wasn’t breathing real well, couldn’t half see: he yelled after Meg and Sal in the melee, couldn’t tell who he was hitting when he tried to break free—

“Dekker!” That was the lieutenant. So he was in deeper shit; but more imminently of a sudden, he had his wind cut off as they bent him over a table. Something cold clicked shut around his wrists. That scared him: he’d felt that before... and it got through to his brain that the guys holding him were the cops, and Graff s voice made him understand that help was here, the fight was over, and the lieutenant wanted him to stand still. He tried to; which meant they got the other wrist, locked the cuff on, and at least pulled him back off the table so he could get a breath...

“The guy shoved him.” Meg’s voice rang out loud and dear. “Wasn’t Dek’s fault, he was just trying to get up — it was an emergency, f God’s sake. This ass wanted to argue right of way!”

Guys started shouting all around, one side calling the other the liars.

“Clear back!” Voice he knew but couldn’t place. His nose was running and he sniffed. Couldn’t say anything, just tried to breathe past the stuffy nose and the clog in his throat.

“What happened here?” the Voice asked — he blinked the haze mostly clear and saw a lot of MPs, a lot of angry guys standing along the wall with more MPs and soldiers. What Happened Here? drew shouting from all around, Meg and Sal profane and high-pitched in the middle of it, how the guy’d bumped him, how his mother was in some kind of trouble on the news . . .

Had to talk about his mother, God, he didn’t want an audience, didn’t want to talk about his mother in front of everybody. He tried to look elsewhere, and meanwhile the lieutenant was saying they’d better move this out of here, he’d take him in custody —

Please God. Anywhere, fast.

The other voice said: “I think we’d both better get this moved out of here,” and he made out the blurry face now for Captain Villy, with a knot of UDC MPs and a whole lot of trouble. They were holding Meg, and Sal, and Ben, among a dozen mixed others. “Move “em,” Villy said, and there were Fleet Security uniforms among the lot. He started to argue for Meg and Sal and Ben; but: “Dekker,” Graff said sharply, and said, “Do it.”

He did it. He kept his head down and walked where they wanted him to, he heard Graff at the top of his lungs chewing out the rest of the guys in the messhall and Villanueva doing the same, telling them they were all dunned fools, telling them how they were on the same

Yeah, he thought. Yeah. Tell ‘em that, lieutenant.

Himself, he didn’t want to think what was going on back at Sol Station, didn’t want to think what he’d just done back there in the messhall; he kept his mouth shut all the way to the MP post, and inside; him, and Ben and a whole crowd of their guys and the UDC arrestees; but when they tried to take Meg and Sal into the back rooms:

“I want Fleet Security—laissez, laissez, you sumbitch —ow!”

And Sal screamed how she was going to file complaints for rape and brutality....

The MPs got real anxious then. “Where’s Cathy?” one asked, and a guy got on the phone and started trying to scare up a female officer, while Meg argued with them about holding on to him, “Dammit, let him go, he’s just out of hospital, for God’s sake—man got up and bumped a tray, his mother was on the news—“

God. “Meg, shut up. It doesn’t matter!”

“That sumbitch shoved you!”

At which the sumbitch with the custard all over him started yelling at Meg, somebody shoved, Sal started yelling, and he couldn’t do anything, he was cuffed, same as Ben was, same as the UDC guy was, except they’d made the mistake of not doing that with Meg and Sal.

“Meg,” he yelled, “Afeg!”

They got rough with Meg, they got rough with Sal, he kicked a guy where he saw a prime exposed target and they shoved him up against the wall, grabbed him by the hair and by the collar and shoved him into a chair.

“She didn’t do anything,” he said, but nobody was listening to him. He said, “None of them did anything....”

They got Meg and Sal out of the room. Ben and the other guy, too, and left one guy to stand and watch him. He was dizzy, the adrenaline still had his head going around, and his nose dripped a widening circle on his shirt. He tried to sniff it back, breathing alternate with that disgusting sensation; and in his head kept replaying as much as he’d heard on the vid about what was going on with his mother....

A lawsuit, for God’s sake—but she wasn’t anybody to show up on vid, with lawyers from—what the hell organization was it?

The Civil Liberty Association? He didn’t know who they were, but she’d looked like hell, hair stringing around her ears, makeup a mess. He kept seeing her blinking at the strong lights and looking lost and angry. He knew that look. She’d worn it the last time she’d bailed him out of juvenile court.

.../ don’t need any more trouble, she’d written him. Stop sending me money, I don’t want any more ties to you. I don’t want any more letters....

He had never taken leave back to Sol One: there was a serious question, Legal Affairs had warned him from the beginning of his enlistment, whether once he came onto Sol Station where lawyers could get to him with papers, he could escape a civil process being served... or whether the Fleet could prevent him being arrested. The Fleet had put him behind a security wall only because having him on trial wouldn’t sit well with the Belt, where they mined the steel; and the EC cooperated because letting Cory Salazar’s case get to the media would raise questions about a whole long , laundry list of things about ASTEX and MarsCorp the Earth ‘ Company itself didn’t want washed in public. Anything to keep him out of court—