Rimrunners (20 page)

works just fine until some damn emergency comes up and Bernie's got to have Musa

off over here, and you're off over there—"

"All you got to do is be halfway smart. Like you weren't."

"Musa's not going to put up with this past three days. Musa's going to duck out

of it soon's Bernstein gives him the excuse, and that leaves you, you understand

me, that leaves you in that damn locker. You like that?"

"Musa and I got this understanding, just this little arrangement—"

"What kind of arrangement?"

"What you think. Same's with you. Or-ga-ni-zation, merchanter-man. You

understand Family? I'll bet you do. Same thing. Same thing."

NG looked as if she had hit him in the face.

And he walked off on her, down the aisle to his bunk.

A second later, Musa walked through the door.

"What's that?" Musa asked.

Family merchanter, for sure, she thought, I bet you anything you like.

But she said, staring after NG, arms folded: "Just getting something at his

bunk."

Musa scratched his shoulder. "Not real happy, is he?" Musa said. "Didn't

figure."

"I got to tell you," she said, "I been sleeping over with him."

"He all right?" Musa asked.

"Little nervous," she said. "Real sweet, sometimes."

Musa thought that over. "Been a long time," Musa said. "Long time for me, too.

You're a pretty woman. Can't blame him."

She laughed a little. Felt a little nicer, at that. Nobody ever had said that

but Bieji when he was drunk.

That was what you had to do, find yourself a niche and a couple or three you

could trust. That was what was the matter with this ship, that there were so

damned few you could, you could pick that up right out of the air. And she

hadn't felt safe on this ship until she felt Musa put his arm around her.

Musa was all right in bed too, during the vid, when the bad guys and the good

guys were noisily shooting hell out of each other on the screen at the end of

the quarters, to the cheers of the drunks and heavy breathing from the couples

behind the privacy screens.

NG was in neither category. NG was sleeping, if he could. More likely he was

hurting, but at least he was safe—right next to the bed both of them were in,

NG's being endmost toward the vid, Musa's being next over.

It was something Musa had bargained his way into at Bernstein's instigation,

back when NG had first come onto alterday shift—Musa having a favored

mid-quarters bunk that Muller had been all too glad to trade for, and nobody but

Musa being on speaking terms with NG.

That was the way Musa explained it, anyway.

Which was how Musa with all his seniority ended up next to the vid, with

cheering drunks sitting on the deck at the foot of the bunk he was sharing at

the moment—good question now and again whether it was the vid they were

cheering.

"Damn fools," Musa said between breaths.

"'S all right," Bet said, and laughed, because it was funny, laughed and got

Musa to laughing, quietly, under the blankets they had thrown over themselves.

"You're a good woman," Musa said— Musa smelled of perfumed soap, no less, Musa

had clean sheets, Musa had hauled out an old bottle of real

honest-to-Mother-Earth whiskey and poured her a big hit on it. It was something

she had only heard about, from Africa troopers old enough to remember it.

Where'd you get this? she had asked, and Musa, pleased, had said, Taste of home.

So Musa was from Earth. The Fleet had fought for Earth. Africa had gone back to

fight there. It was kind of an obscure connection that formed, not even a

friendly one most of the time, but it made her think what a tangled lot of

things it took to get an Africa trooper and a man like Musa into the same bed.

Lot of places that led.

The vid reached a series of explosions, the drunks yelled. Musa voice-overed the

next lines from memory, funnier than hell, at least drunk as she was getting,

and poured her another drink.

The vid went quiet of a sudden. The drunks groaned into a disappointed silence.

"This is the captain speaking," the com thundered out. "This ship will make jump

at 0600 mainday."

Then the vid started up again, but the talk was quiet then.

"Damn," Bet said, "gone again. Where now?"

"Easy to answer," Musa said.

"Where, then?"

"Wherever they got us put."

"Damn," she said, and hit him a gentle punch.

"Actually," Musa said, settling down to be comfortable a while, "not too hard to

guess. The Fleet's got its ass kicked twice now, back at Earth, they popped out

again, nobody knows where—they say maybe old Beta Station—"

That could put a chill into you. There had always been rumors in the Fleet that

Mazian had a hole-card, and the name of abandoned Beta, old Alpha Cent, had come

up—the bad-luck station, second star humankind ever parked a pusher-can at and

set up to live there—and, the story ran, it had just gone transmission-silent

one day, the constant data-flow to other stations had just—stopped, no reason,

no explanation, and not a scrap of a clue left behind when a ship finally got

there—sublight—to investigate. Beta Station had systematically shut down, and

the pusher-module that could have gotten the people off was gone—

But no wisp of wreckage or electronic ghost of a transmission ever told what had

happened.

"They'd be fools," she said, and thought to herself it was the kind of rumor

Mazian himself might have started, just to confuse things.

"They jumped to some point in that direction," Musa said. "That's what I hear."

"So maybe they know some point of mass nobody else does."

"Could be. Or maybe they just jumped out to old Beta and laid real quiet. Beta

would be good for them, all that old mining and biomass gear, antiquated as

hell, but if the dust ain't got it it's still there. Could be what he's done."

"Is that where we're going?"

"Not us. No."

"Then what are we doing?"

"Keeping the lanes open. Not letting that sum-bitch cut us off from Earth. Not

letting him peel off the Hinder Stars. He could start the whole war up again,

get Earth cut off, force Pell into Union or force Pell to deal with him, one way

or the other. Sure as hell Pell can't hold out independent if Earth goes into

his pocket. Sure as hell the Hinder Stars are nothing but a damn human

warehouse. You found that out."

"Found that out," she said.

The vid never did get as noisy again, not what was going on-screen, not the

crowd that was watching. A lot of people left to go out to rec and get a beer

and talk, and a lot of people just sat around on bunks to drink and talk.

"I got to check on NG," she said, and leaned down off the edge of the bunk to

put her head below the level of the privacy screen.

"He all right?" Musa asked.

"Looks to be asleep. 'Scuse."

She crawled out and ducked under, and sat down again on NG's bunk, beside him.

Half-asleep, all right. Pills had a kick to them. He gave her a bleary look.

"You hear that?" she said. "We got jump in the morning."

"Got to wake up," he muttered.

"No, you sleep. Musa and I'll pour you into your hammock in the morning. No

problem. You can trust us." She squeezed his hand. "G'night. All right?"

No answer. The fingers didn't twitch. But he was all right. She and Musa had

custody of the pills—in case. And if Loki was going somewhere tomorrow, wherever

that was, then at least they were starting out in good order this time, no

surprises.

She ducked back under, crawled back into Musa's bed, cold and shivering.

Man who didn't mind that was a gentleman, she thought.

CHAPTER 15

« ^ »

Out of the bunks and off to duty stations, theirs being the lucky watch that

drew duty through this particular jump: scant time for a dance through the

shower, grab the trank-pack and the c-pack off the galley counter along with a

Keis-and-biscuit and a hot drink while Services was stringing the hammocks for

mainday. NG was barely functioning, limping around and definitely reluctant to

leave the hot shower, but Musa was next in line, and she steered NG out to the

breakfast line, bleary-eyed and sullen as he was.

"I'm saying get off me," he muttered while they were going through the door.

"Watch doesn't mean hanging onto me."

"Hey, you're not put out about me and Musa, are you?"

"Hell!"

"So go on." She nudged him with her elbow. "Get your breakfast."

He looked bloody awful, one eye swollen, mouth swollen, and his expression this

morning made no improvement. He muttered something for an answer, limped toward

the line ahead of her.

Hughes and his friends. She saw it coming before NG did, a half a second before

Hughes shouldered him and knocked him off his balance.

"Watch where you're going!" Hughes said.

"You watch where you're fucking going!" Bet hissed at Hughes, grabbing a fistful

of sleeve. "You want an argument, mister, you got one."

Hughes grabbed for her wrist and ended up with nothing—not going to cut loose in

a full-scale brawl, no, not here, not likely; but the whole rec-hall got quiet.

"You a friend of his?" Hughes said, and there was just ship-sound in the hall.

"May be," she said. "I dunno your quarrel with him, and I don't care, mister,

but I'm on his tail on orders of the chief, who don't like his crew running into

any locker door. Nothing personal."

"Screwing with him on the chief's orders too."

"That's personal and that's shit. Don't give me shit, mister. I'll give it

back."

Real quiet.

"No fighting," NG said.

"That's fine," she said. "I ain't fighting. Man's just got a little problem.

Probably glandular. You want to fuck with me, mister? Take you right down to

that locker, soon's this ship clears jump. You and your two bedmates there. We

can straighten everything out."

"Here, Lindy—" Musa showed up, right through the audience, thank God, still damp

from the shower, low-key as always. "We got a little problem?"

"Problem's your new girl," Hughes said. "Problem's this piece of garbage on our

deck."

"Problem is," Bet said, loud and sharp, "we got some crossed lines here, this is

the same skuz butted in yesterday while our shift was sitting down doing simple

business over a beer; and beyond that I don't fucking care what his problem is,

somebody took severe exception to that beer, in the dark and from the back, the

way I see it. So I'm asking, was it you, Lindy Hughes?"

Lot of quiet, then. Some more mainday crew had strayed in from duty, and their

voices got quiet too, more spectators.

"Somebody did this ship a favor," Hughes said.

"Hell if it did!" she said. "I hear all to hell and gone what NG did, but I see

nothing but a damn good engineer at his post ever'day doing his own job and

several others', and the only time he ever missed he was lying beat half to

death in the supplies locker, so don't tell me about responsibility, mister, I

seen more of it in NG Ramey than I seen in whatever fool beat up our Systems man

when this ship is apt to go jump any damn minute—"

Slow, measured clap of the hands from somewhere around the fringe. That nettled

Hughes. "You want to fuck with him?" Hughes asked, playing to the crew at large.

He made a wide gesture. "Neo comes on here and tells us what a fine, upstanding

man NG Ramey is. Shit!"

"Pull off, Lindy," Musa said.

"Fucking neo."

"I said, pull off! Bernstein's orders. Somebody beat up our Systems man, and we

got orders to keep him in one piece, it ain't a question of preferences, mine or

hers."

"I ain't taking shit from her!"

"Shut it down, Lindy."

Long silence. Then Hughes shouldered past, and so did his friends.

"Sorry about that," Bet said under her breath. "He shoved NG in line."

Musa put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the counter.

NG was still standing there, in whatever frame of mind she didn't care to figure

at the moment. She got her packs and her breakfast. Johnson the cook was there,

galley staff working fast to set up for after the jump. Johnson gave her an

under-the-brows look.

"You're crazy," Johnson said, which she took for a friendly warning.

"May be," she said. "But I go with what I see."

She got NG's two packs too, and collected a second breakfast and brought it back

to him.

NG took them, no expression, no look directly at her, he just tucked the packs

under an arm and gulped the biscuit and the tea. She swallowed hers, too much

adrenaline coursing her bloodstream to afford any appetite, her stomach in a

knot, but you took food when you could get it, hell with Lindy Hughes.

A couple of mainday Engineering were there, Walden and Farley having come in,

maybe having been there through the ruckus. She didn't spot Hughes any longer.

Damn stupid, she thought, with her mouth full of biscuit. She was catching more

attention from little confabs here and there in rec-hall than was good for

anybody.

—Yeager, you've done it good and proper. You've just picked yourself a fight you

can die in.

—Better'n some, though…