Hellburner (44 page)

“Yessir.” Anger choked him of a sudden, out of what reserve of feeling he wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t at Graff. He refused at gut level to believe Graff had deliberately lied to him. The service had. The out-of-reach authorities had, and not for the first time in his life. He saluted, turned and reached for the door.

“Mr. Dekker,” Graff said, from the side of the room. “Excuse me, sir. —Mr. Dekker, outside, a moment.”

“Yessir.” He wasn’t enthusiastic. He didn’t want to talk. But Graff followed him outside, between the guards.

“Mr. Dekker, I failed a promise. —Do you want the information, on your mother’s whereabouts?”

He nodded. Couldn’t talk. He was acutely conscious of the guards on either hand; and Graff steered him well down the corridor, toward the corner, before he stopped. “Your mother is on Earth at the moment—everything funded by the Civil Liberty Association, as far as we can tell.”

“Why?”

“The peace movement finds the case useful—the Federation of Man, for starters—as I warned you might happen; there is a financial connection between certain of these organizations, the CRA, the Greens and a number of other organizations—“

“It doesn’t make sense! She’s not political!”

“I’m afraid it’s rather well left the original issue. It’s the power of the EC mat’s in question. There’ve been demonstrations at the Company offices in Bonn, in Orlando, Tokyo, Paris—“

More and more surreal. “I don’t believe this....”

“There’s a great deal of pent-up resentment against the Company, economic resentments, social resentments—so Saito tells me: mass population effect: the case came along, it embodied a concept of Company wealth and power against a helpless worker. The Company is understandably anxious to defuse the situation; they’ve offered a settlement, but concession seems to have encouraged the opposition. Salazar’s plane was forced to land in Dallas because of a bomb threat, that’s what the commander was talking about: whether that was a peace group or a random lunatic no one knows. I can’t overstate the seriousness of what’s happening downworld.”

“She’s never been on Earth. She can’t have any idea what’s going on...”

“We certainly wish she had decided against going down.”

“Did she ever call back?”

“No: my word on that, Mr. Dekker, I swear to you. Most probably her lawyers advised her against it. Most probably— considering who funds them.”

“I’ve got to call her! I’ve got to talk to her—“

“Reaching her, now, through the battery of bodyguards and security around her, on Earth—I earnestly advise against it. I don’t think you can get through that screen. If you do it’s almost certainly going to be monitored, very likely to be placed back on the news, by one side or the other in this affair.”

“God. Where is she—right now, where is she?”

“Bonn, as of this morning. Mazian is in the same city. There are peacer riots and demonstrations. The news-services are crawling all over the city. If you want to communicate with her, you just about have to do it through news releases, and it’s not the moment for it. We’re imminently concerned about this extradition bill getting through. We don’t want the maneuvering going public, and it could if you make a move. One believes the legislators aren’t stupid. No one is spelling out to the media what effect the bill will have, no one is saying outright that it’s aimed at you in specific, incredibly the news-services haven’t put it together yet or don’t even know about it. It’s all proceeding in committee, so far; Salazar publicly making speeches on the fear of some ‘criminal element’ with a finger on the fire button. Earth is extremely worried about mat point.”

“Do they know what we are? Do they understand this ship?”

“The general public knows now it’s no missile project: no one believed we could maintain cover after the bearings, yes, it’s leaked, what it is—senatorial aides, company representatives, nobody’s sure exactly what; but we’re completely public; and the program, with what we’ve found out in the last three hours, is in such disarray we can’t take another round of hearings. The coalition that put command of this facility in our hands is extremely shaky—as I understand it. If political reputations are threatened by the wrong kind of publicity, certain key votes could shift—and we could be massacred in the legislative committee. That, aside from your personal welfare, is why the Company and Fleet Command are extremely anxious to stop that bill; certain citizen lobbies are very fearful of wildcat attacks from the Fleet provoking a military strike at Earth; and even knowing it’s a certain faction in MarsCorp pushing that bill, certain key senators desperately need a success in this program to play against it or they can’t—politically—stand the heat of standing against the bill.”

“What do they want from us? I’m not a criminal! Jamil and his crew aren’t criminals! I want to know who’s trying to kill me that doesn’t fucking care if they get my crew along with me! Nobody’s going to do a damned thing about those guys that did this, are they—are they, sir?”

“Keep your voice down. The guards have audio. We don’t even know at this point that it wasn’t a simple mechanical. Those systems have been under heavy use. But FU grant you we don’t think that’s the case. That’s one problem. And I’ll tell you between us and no further, I had a real moment of doubt at the outset whether to make an issue of the Aptitudes with your crew or let it ride the way it was. The temptation to let it stand and save this program one more major setback was almost overwhelming— but I know, and I think you know, this system is operationally too sensitive and strategically too critical to accept half right. I hate what happened to Jamil. I wish I’d ordered a general stand-down-—but hindsight’s cheap. As it is, the pod sims are in stand-down, we’ve got a question of other sabotage possible—what you’ve given us is very valuable; but we’re running short of time to develop a case, and we’re going to have to find answers for a pack of legislators, it’s dead certain. Right now I don’t want you to think about any of this. I want you to take the stand-down, get a night’s sleep, and remember what you know is dangerously sensitive. You understand me on that point?”

“Yessir.”

“I have confidence in you,” Graff said, turned and walked him back to the marine guards, “Corporal. One of you take Mr. Dekker where he wants to go. Get him what he needs. —I suggest it’s a beer, Mr. Dekker. I strongly suggest it’s a beer. Tell galley I said so. Check with me if they quibble.” “”’

“Yes, sir,” the marine said. “This way, sir.”

“Beer, sir,” the guard said, had even gotten it for him and brought it to him at a table back in the galley, quiet refuge in a flurry of cooks and a clatter of pans around them—and in consideration of the Rules around this place, and politeness, and the damned regulations—Dekker shoved the kid’s hand back across the table, with: “Sip, at least. Where I come from—fair’s fair.”

“Nossir,” the corporal said, and shoved the beer into his hand, “We can, any evening, and you guys can’t, and, damn, you guys earn it.”

Misted him up, he’d had no expectation of that, and he hid it in a sip of beer. Guy he didn’t know. Young kid who was going to ride that carrier out there with two thousand other guys and get blown to hell if he made a mistake.

Guy’s name was Bioomfield, T.

And if Graff could have done anything personal for him—he was grateful to the lieutenant for Cpl. Bioomfield, who didn’t know him, had no personal questions, didn’t chatter at him, just let him sip his beer. He felt the alcohol go straight for his bloodstream and his head: after months of abstinence he was going to be a serious soft hit. He thought about going back to barracks and catching some sleep, he thought about his crew and Jamil and the guys he knew; and he wanted quiet around him, just quiet, no one to deal with, and when they got to the changes they were going to make in assignments—that wasn’t going to happen.

He wondered where Meg was, most of all, finally said to Bioomfield, “You have a com with you. You think you guys could locate a female about my height, red hair, shave job, Reel uniform...?”

“That one,” Bioomfield said reverently. And kept any remark he might have to himself. “Yessir.” And got on the com and said, “This is Bioomfield. Anybody on the com know where the redhead is?”

Remarks came back, evidently. Bioomfield listened to something on the earplug, struggled for a sober face, and asked, looking at him: “You want her here, sir?”

He managed a laugh. “Tell her it’s Paul Dekker asking. Cuts down on casualties.”

YOU knew it was bad, Mitch put it, and trez correctly so, Meg thought—when they gave the whole barracks a beer pass, and brought cans and chips into the sacred barracks to boot.
 
Pod sims were severely crashed, mags could be down a week, if sabotage wasn’t the cause, as was the running speculation in the barracks: in which case, plan on longer.

Beer helped the mood, though: the ping-pong game got highly rowdy, a couple of armscompers not quite in their best form, but at least everybody was laughing. Word from hospital was guardedly optimistic—the meds weren’t talking about life and death with Jamil and the guys now, but how long they’d be in hospital, about the percentage they could expect to come back and how soon. Jamil was conscious, Trace was. In the ruckus around the table, nobody questioned Ben and Sal slipping late into barracks. Ben just settled down soberly on Dek’s other side with: “Heard the news. Bad stuff,” while Sal went for beers. “Meg pulled them out,” Dek said, “Got to them fast as anybody alive could. And the sim chief was on fuckin’ duty this time, didn’t have to stop to get fuckin’ Tanzer’s fuckin’ authorization, he just braked the other mags and cut the power, was all. The worst part’s the stop. I can tell you that. —They go on and switch you guys, or is somebody going to tell me what they did, or what?”

Dek had had considerably more than one beer, not a happy drunk, but direct.

“Yeah, they switched us. Damned right they did.”

At which Dek looked at Ben and Meg recognized it was a good thing Sal came back with the beers.

Dek asked: “Why in hell didn’t you tell me?”

Ben took his beer and Meg held her bream. Ben said: “Because they could’ve said no deal. And you already knew.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes, you did. Give me armscomp, hell, I don’t want the guns ... why’d they give me the guns? I’m a numbers man. So Sal said, ‘Want to trade?’ and I said, ‘You friggin’ got it, give me the comp and I’ll get you the fire-tracks ...’’’

“Bully, Ben.” Dek’s voice wobbled of a sudden. “What are they going to do about it, then?”

Like he didn’t know. Like he hadn’t told her, in a couple of minutes during which Cpl. Bloomfield had been calling the hospital, checking on Jamil.

“Come on, cher.” Sal squatted down with her beer and patted Dek on the knee. “Screw the regs. Ben’s the numbers, Ben’s always been the numbers—“

Ben said, “Armscomp and longscan’s integrated boards, what’s the difference, who’s punching up, who’s punching in? They ran us switched, as a pair, didn’t have an iota of trouble with the sim—Sal’s got to get the feel for the ordnance, but she’s on it...”

“It’s not a free lunch, Ben.”

“Close as. I got my hands on that system, Dek-boy, I got a system runs like it’s friggin’ elegant—“

Ben was in serious lust. Dek looked at him. Dek was going to hit him, Meg thought, poised to grab. But Dek didn’t.

Sudden quiet from the ping-pong match. Rapid fall-off of noise from the door inward, and she looked, where, God, it was VDC uniforms incoming, senior guys; and the lieutenant was with them. Guys were coming to their feet. They did.

“Villanueva...” Dek murmured. The redoubted Captain Villy, then.

“At your ease,” Graff said—official voice, mat. Something sure as hell was up. Nobody moved. “Personal message first,” Graff said. “Jamil says he’s coming back. Says he and Dekker are in a race.”

Fly-by was a show-out, but, God, that was good news: he was no cheap write-off and neither was his crew. Cheers at that. A faint laugh out of Dek.

“As you know,” Graff continued, “the mag interfaces took damage in shut-down, repair crews can handle that... but the larger question is what caused the pod to hang, and we are not putting crews back into the moving sims until we can pinpoint a cause and ensure operational safety. This does not, however, mean the program is at stand-down.”

Whole room must be breathing in unison, Meg thought. Good on everything they’d heard so far. But there were the UDC uniforms.

Just hope to God they aren’t putting us back under Tanzer.

“—Lab-sims will continue as scheduled. We have also made selection of Fleet crews for a carrier operations exercise—“

“Test run,” Dekker muttered, at her side. Translation from a lot of sources, to the same effect.

“—starting within the hour.” Quiet settled. Quickly. “In the meanwhile we are taking steps to integrate Fleet and UDC instructional and operational personnel. You will see UDC personnel in Fleet areas, eventually in barracks: on which matter I want to say something specific Rising murmur of dismay. The lieutenant waited, frowning.

‘ ‘There was an incident reported to me, out of rec-hall, an attempt from a UDC crew to meet this company halfway, which was reciprocated with good grace. As a pilot myself, I appreciate the cnticality of operational confidence in fellow personnel—let’s be blunt: confidence of mat kind was a casualty of the Wilhelmsen run.