Rimrunners (17 page)

"Should have kicked you good. Leave it, dammit!"

Long, long time he was like that, clenched up hard, shaking. She just sat there,

leaned on his back and held the blanket around him, talked to him sometimes,

wished she dared hit him with the trank she carried, but God knew if that was

the right thing, or where he was, or when, out in some mental jump-space.

Finally he said: "Go 'way, Yeager. Get the hell out of here."

"You all right?"

"I'm all right."

"C'n you get up?"

He straightened up long enough to shove her away. "I said let me alone!"

She caught her balance squatting on her heels, put a hand down to steady

herself, not a defenseless position. "You yell all you like, man. You want crew

in here, you just yell your head off."

Silence from the shadow opposite her, a long, long time.

"Ramey."

"Get on back," he said without raising his head from his arms.

"Do what? Leave you to freeze your ass off? Get up. Come on."

No answer.

"Ramey, dammit."

Still no answer.

She pushed up to her feet, stiff, half-frozen, caught herself on the wall. "I'm

going after Bernstein."

"No!"

"Then get on your feet, Ramey, hear me?"

He moved. He started getting his clothes together, hands shaking. He didn't look

up, and she squatted down again and blotted her lip.

"Sonuvabitch," she said slowly, with a despairing shake of her head, and put out

her hand to press his shoulder. He shook that off.

"You're being an ass," she said.

"General opinion," he said. "Let me be."

"That how you pay all your favors?"

He sank against the wall, hand over his eyes, turned his shoulder away from her,

just beyond coping with her.

Her gut hurt. She was still shivering with adrenaline and her teeth were

chattering, but some kinds of pain got to her, and a man with a reality problem

was a hard one to sit through. A spacer who'd had done to him by another spacer

what Fitch had done—that was hard even to think about.

What this crew had done, on the other hand—

—maybe just not knowing what to do with him… She didn't know what to do with him

either, right now. She was ready just to give up and go away and let him pull

himself out of this particular hole in his own time, man wouldn't do himself any

hurt, he never had.

And maybe there was just nothing she could do but make him crazier.

He passed the hand over his face and leaned back against the wall, finally, bit

of light falling on his jaw, on one eye.

"You all right?" she asked.

He nodded, exhausted-seeming.

"Musa said Fitch didn't give you your trank," she said. "That true?"

Second nod.

"Fitch shoved me in that damn locker during undock," she said. "I was scared he

wouldn't."

The single visible eye flickered. Blinked, fast.

"Fitch is the crazy one," she said. "—You merchanter, Ramey?"

No answer.

"Ramey, you scared of me?"

No answer.

"I figure," she said quietly, "You got all you can handle. I can understand

that. But I tell you something, Ramey, I don't need anybody either. Not going to

lean on you, not going to doublecross you. I would appreciate it if you kind of

watch where your elbows are going."

He reached across the gap between them and pressed her arm, once, gently.

She put her hand on his, held onto his fingers. "You want to go back to rec and

buy me a beer? I'm still not sure my credit's in the bank."

He shook his head.

"Come on," she said. "Doesn't scare me."

Another shake of his head. His jaw showed knotted muscle.

"All right," she said. "I'll take your advice on it. But I tell you what.

Someday you're going to do that."

"Fitch," he said. Cold straight shot. Damned sobering one. "Name's NG," he said,

then, as if some obstruction in his throat had broken loose with that. "Don't

make a case of it. Don't stand outside the rest."

"I understand you."

He lifted his hand and touched her jaw, gentle, gentle touch, and it brought

back what he could be, either the crazy man or the sane one, she wasn't even

sure which was which with him.

"You're going to give me a hell of a rep," she said. "I tell McKenzie I'm going

off with a guy, I come back with a cut lip.—Where's the other holes on this

ship, so I can explain where I was? A lot of them?"

"Galley stores. Services. Core lift-bay. Stowages."

"Mofs get upset?"

Shake of his head. "Most don't."

"But Fitch is looking."

"This is Orsini's watch. Fitch is mainday."

"Orsini an S.O.B?"

"Different kind." NG ran a hand through his hair and leaned his forehead against

it. "He—"

The door opened. Lights came up.

NG's hand reached hers in a flash, clenched it. She closed down hard, sat

absolutely still while voices drifted back, woman's voice, man's sharp and

angry.

A switch thumped, machinery whined, and the cans moved on the track. Bet

snatched the blanket clear of the rail, where it could hang the track up, saw

the can coming at her and pressed against NG for a moment as can after can

cycled past, pushing against her with brutal force, shoving at her back and hip,

enough to drive the breath out of her.

More machinery. NG's hand pressed her head close against his shoulder as a

loader clanked.

And stopped.

Things quietened after a while. The voices were a dull murmur over the

ship-noise. Then the lights went down and the door shut.

She sat there with her teeth chattering, the cold all the way through her.

"Gap's still there," NG said, of the way they had gotten back into this hole.

"Always is."

"Good," she said, clench-jawed, because she'd been thinking about that, too

shaken-up to look.

"You better go," he said. "Slip past the shop door. It could be open. That was

Liu and Keane. Liu's a bitch."

She had to, that was all. She got her stiff limbs to work, she squeezed her body

between the cans at the curve and got herself out and down the corridor, walking

like she belonged there, with her knees weak and her gut gone to water.

She stopped around the line-of-sight from Ops, hung out near the lockers for a

good few shivering, worried minutes until NG showed up.

Not expecting her. That was clear.

"It's late," she said. Somehow the crew was at fault for the whole damned mess,

and for the aches and her cut lip. And for him. And she was mad enough now to be

stubborn. "I tell you what, I want that beer. I go in, sit down, you just come

in and make a move. All right?"

He nodded.

So she did that, came in and got the free tea the galley offered; and sipped it

with a sore lip and hung around the counter with her back to two couples who

were the only crew there.

So NG came trailing in after a little, and she went and sat down while he

brought her the beer.

"Thanks," she said, and patted the place beside her on the bench.

But he went and got his and drank it standing at the counter, with his shoulder

to her.

CHAPTER 12

« ^ »

We got a water-leak in galley," Musa said wearily, "Bernstein wants you to fix."

Then Musa stopped and looked at her twice.

So did anyone who got up close.

"You caught hell," Musa said. "You got trouble from anybody?"

Bet shook her head. "In the shop," she said. "Tried to recoil some line, it

snaked round and got me."

Best lie she could think of, that could account for a bruise on her head and a

cut lip.

"Hey," Musa said, worried-looking, "you got to watch that stuff, Bet, don't pick

any fights with it."

Like hell Musa believed that story.

"I'm all right," she said.

And got on the damned leaky coupling in the galley, a crawl through an access

barely body-wide, and a nice flat-on-her-back and slightly over to the side

reach next to a damned, noisy refrigeration compressor in a space that gave you

barely enough room to get a wrench on the bastard. Bernstein, she figured, was

well through the necessary jobs and into the real busywork scut.

"Sonuvabitch," she kept saying between her teeth, just to keep the breath

moving, and other things, while hot water dripped in her face.

She got the line disconnected, got the failed coupling off and stuffed it, the

work of the two fingers that could reach it, into one pocket, got the

replacement out of the opposite and lay there blinking hot water drip and trying

to get the damn line dried off to take the adhesive on the coupling.

Effin' plumbing. Effin' same effin' system since humans blasted out of

atmosphere. Maybe before. Modern effin' starship and the effin' plumbing got

stressed in the effin' expensive swing-section galley and cheap little effin'

gaskets had to be seated or nothing worked.

And the drip never ran out. Ran over her face and into her eye and down her

cheek into her hair, while the damn thing had to fit on just so, and the damn

com was sputtering at her ear, the plug come loose and about to fall out where

nobody human could get at it—had to wear the damn thing, reg-u-la-tion, when you

were working in a hole like this.

"Yeager," it said, nattering at her personally this time.

"Yeah," she said, but the mike was out of reach too, the way she had to tilt her

head to get the band-light to bear on what she was doing. "Yeah, I got my

page—just a minute—

Bernstein checking up on her.

"Yeager."

"I got my fuckin' hands full!" she yelled at it.

"Yeager! Check in!"

She held the line and the coupling with one hand, shaking head to foot, made a

desperate reach to adjust the com. "Yeager here!" she yelled.

And heard Bernstein's voice. "—forty seconds to firing."

Oh, my God.

"Say again," she said. Like a fool she grabbed after the coupling and jammed it

home on the snap-ring.

"This ship is moving, Yeager! Thirty seconds!"

She reached after the cut-off valve, screwed it open, a half-dozen fast turns.

The coupling held.

"Yeager!"

She started eeling out of that access, using heels and hips and hands, fast as

she could go.

The take-hold bell started ringing.

"You got hot water!" she yelled to the com. "Can't get your access-door!"

"Dammit, where are you, Yeager?"

She scrambled up and grabbed the E-belt, bright yellow D-ring, put her back to

the galley wall and snapped the shoulder-hip restraint closed, put a hand behind

her head, pulling her head down. "Clear!" she yelled. "Clear!"

Loki kicked, her neck-muscles strained, feet lost their footing and the whole

galley-cylinder rumbled on its track, reorienting until the strain became weight

on her feet, and the general com was yelling: Going for jump. Move with caution.

You have time to secure doorways and stow hazards. Burn-rate will increase two

hundred forty-five percent over the next three minutes…

She unclipped the E-belt and let it snap back into its housing, she knelt down,

swung the access to and screwed the bolts tight by hand, fighting the drag that

tried to tear her hand down.

Up, then, weighing near double, hauling that weight erect, hand back to pull the

jumpseat down, straddle it, pull the yellow D-ring again, to haul it over, get

the tab inserted.

Down the burn-deck, complete vacancy—crew had gone to whatever E-clips they

could find, against solid surfaces, inside compartments, no time to rig the

hammocks.

Hell and away more comfortable, flat on your back on the inside burn-deck, than

upright on a jumpseat in a swing-section.

This ship is approaching jump…

Got a problem, we got a problem, God, something's on our tail out there…

I had to stop for the damn cut-off valve. God, I could've been stuck in there—

God, God—we're really moving—got a hell of a push on this ship—where's my trank

pack?

She fought for air, felt the drag at gut and joints, lifted a hand up after the

trank pack in her breast-pocket, found it, got her fist around it and squeezed

the trigger against her neck, only bare skin she could orient to.

We going to shoot at that sonuvabitch or what?

Where's NG? Musa and Bernstein?

Everybody all right?

Got hot tea when we get there.

Wherever…

… coming up again, siren blowing… Battle stations, condition red, condition red.

… This ship is now inertial… Stand by…

Crew may attend emergencies with caution…

Condition still red… Medical to 23…

Hell of a way to be first in line, she thought, helping Johnson the cook throw

trank-packs and c-packs at crew who got themselves to the counter, handing out

ten-packs for the scarcely mobile to carry back to friends a little wobblier,

while the com thundered advisories at them—

"A second jump is possible but not imminent. We are presently in transmission

silence…

"We have suffered one fatality. Scan-tech John Handel Thomas—"

"Shit!" Johnson groaned.

"—died instantly on impact. The captain expresses his personal regrets.

"Station-chiefs and area monitors, medical is attending two serious injuries: do

not send minor injuries to sickbay…"