Devil to the Belt

CHAPTER 6

GLASS touched glass, in the Liberty Bell, on 6. “Here’s to friends,” Sal said, and Bird, telling himself it was far too soon to plan on anything, had made up his mind not to tell Meg and Sal a thing.

But that had gone by the side the minute they’d seen Ben’s smugly cheerful face.

“You got it!” Meg said, before they even got their drink orders in.

“We’re at least tracking,” Ben said. “We’re gaining on it. They’re going to expedite the claim.”

For the life of him, Bird couldn’t figure how Ben managed to get around people in offices. But he did.

So here they were, on their way to feeling no pain at all, .7 gbe damned.

It wasn’t as if Meg and Sal would leave them cold tomorrow if the deal fell through. They weren’t that kind. But they sure as hell enjoyed the party tonight.

They enjoyed it afterward too, piled into two adjacent rooms in the Bell—actually the party traveled and they had to throw this one pair of tender-jocks out twice, who complained they’d been invited.

“No, you weren’t!” Sal Aboujib said. And shut the door and slid down it, laughing. Meg was laughing too much to help her, so they hauled her up and picked her up, Sal yelling that they were going to drop her on her head.

So they fell on the bed—which at low gmeant a slow bouncing, all of them, while up and down went sort of alcoholically crazed for a moment.

“God,” Bird said, falling back on what he thought was mattress. “I’m zee’d.”

Meg fell on him with a vaporous kiss and he stopped caring which way was up.

Turned out when they waked it was Ben and Sal’s bunk they were in, but that was no matter, Ben and Sal had just gone off next door. But they had last night’s sins to pay for—a hangover in low g, with your sinuses and your ears playing tricks, was hell’s own reward.

“Cory?” Dekker asked. “Cory?” But he was not in the ship, he was inside white walls with white-coated medics who asked him over and over “What happened to Cory?” and he couldn’t altogether remember what their truth was, or what they wanted him to say. He asked for Bird, and they asked him who that was, but someone said in his hearing that that was the man who’d brought him in.

From where? He tried to remember where he had left Bird, or what had happened, but it always went back to that shower stall, the watch showing him the time… March 12. And it was his choice what would happen that day…

He slept again. He was more comfortable when he waked. His hands were free and they let him sit up and gave him fruit drink. A man came and sat down by his bed with a slate and started asking him questions—How old are you? Have you any relatives? all rapid-fire. It was the sort of thing they asked if you’d had an accident, something about next of kin. It scared him. The shower in this room wasn’t the shower he remembered, he could see the white walls through the door. He’d jumped ahead. Cory wasn’t with him, and he was in a hospital having to go through these questions like some actor in a vid. It couldn’t be real. God, he didn’t want his mother to hear he was lying in a hospital somewhere she couldn’t help, he’d screwed up enough: he just said he was from Sol Station and shut up.

“What was your relationship with Corazon Salazar?” they asked him then, cold and impersonal. He said, going through the ritual, “She’s my partner.”

But if he went on answering, they’d write it down as true and he’d be here, he couldn’t go back to the shower, he’d be out of the loop and he’d have no chance to fix it: Cory would be dead then. No way back.

The man asked, “Did you have relations with her?”

That made him mad. “That’s not your business.”

The man asked: “Did you ever quarrel?”

“No.”

The man made a mark on his slate. “What did you invest in that ship?”

He didn’t understand that question. He shook his head.

“Did you put any money into it?”

He shook his head again. “That wasn’t the way it worked. Cory was the money.” Cory was the brains too, but he didn’t admit that to a stranger. Cory was the one who had no question what she wanted. But the man didn’t ask that. The man said, “What happened out there?”

He couldn’t go back to the shower now. No green walls. White. He thought, What should I tell them? And the man said, “Does that upset you? You said Ms. Salazar was working outside the ship. Why?”

He said, not sure what he might have changed, “We were working a tag.”

“Did Ms. Salazar regularly do the outside work?”

“I’m the pilot.” Two answers right. He felt surer now.

“I see. So she hired you. And gave you half interest in her ship. For nothing.”

He nodded.

“Where did you meet?”

“We wrote letters back and forth. We’d been writing a long time. Since we were kids.”

Another note on the slate. “Then it was more than a business relationship.”

“Friends.”

“You didn’t have a falling-out, did you?”

He looked at his watch. But it wasn’t there. They’d taken it.

The man said, “Did you quarrel?”

“We never quarreled.”

“She always did what you wanted? Or didn’t she, this time?”

He didn’t understand. He shook his head. He thought about the shower, but it wasn’t vivid this time. Even the green seemed faded.

The man asked: “Why did you cross the line? To cover what you’d done?”

He didn’t understand what they were getting at. He shook his head again, looked furtively at his wrist, remembered he mustn’t do that. It upset people. Like Ben. It upset Ben a lot…

“Tell me the truth,” the man said. “What were you doing out there?”

“We had a tag,” he said. “We were working it.”

He lost the room of a sudden. It was dark and there were the boards lighting and blinking. He tried to find the safe white wall again.

“Did you leave her there?” the man said. He couldn’t remember what he’d just said, he could only see the boards, and someone was holding him down. He got an arm free. People were yelling. There were flashes of the white room, there were faces over him and they were all holding him. He yelled: “Let me go!” and felt a sharp explosion against his shoulder, but they kept holding him, telling him to calm down.

He said, out of breath, “I’ll be calm. I’ll be calm, I don’t want any more sedatives—”

Because when they drugged him he had no idea where he was or how long he was out or where he went in that dark…

He opened his eyes again with a terrible leaden feeling, as if he weighed too much and he couldn’t wake up—but he knew where he was, he was in the hospital. Two very strong men were holding him down and asking him how he felt now.

He was out of the dark. He said, when he had gotten a whole breath, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just don’t give me any more shots, all right?”

“Will you talk to us? Will you behave?”

“Yes,” he said.

The man in white leaned over him then, took hold of his wrist and asked him, “Are you still worried about your watch?”

His heart gave a little thump, making him dizzy. But he knew it was a test. He wasn’t supposed to ask the time. They beat him when he did that. Or gave him shots. He shook his head, wanting to stay awake now.

The doctor said, “We’re going to take some readings while we talk. Is that all right?”

Another test. He made up his mind then: it didn’t matter what the truth was. If he didn’t say exactly the right thing they’d give him shots. He’d been in trouble in his life—but this was serious. This was a hospital and they thought he was crazy.

The doctor asked him, “Are you still worried about your watch?”

Black. The siren going. He heard something beeping wildly. A timer was going off and he didn’t remember setting it. He could see the doctor frowning at him—he tried to track on the doctor: he knew how important it was. And when he did that, the beeping slowed down.

“That’s better,” the doctor said. “Are you all right? Do you want to tell me what just happened?”

He got a breath. He said, calmly, trying to pay no attention to the beeps, “Cory was outside. We were working this tag—”

“On which side of the line?”

“On this side.” Stupid question. The beeps went crazy a moment, when his heart did. He got it calm again. “We were working this tag. A big claim. Big. Kilometer wide…”

“Are you sure, Mr. Dekker?”

“It was that big. And we were out there. We’d shot our tag, but it wasn’t a good take. Cory said—” The beep sped up again and he slowed it down, staring at the wall, remembering Cory saying, We’re not letting those sons of bitches—”—We had to fix it. And she was going to go in—”

“You couldn’t handle a rock that size.”

“It was stable. Not that bad.” Again the beep. He said, before it could get away from him. “But this damn ‘driver—he wasn’t on the charts—he wasn’tslowing down. I said—I said, ‘Cory, get in here, Cory, he’s still not answering me, Cory, get inside—’”

“Get the trank,” the doctor said. The beep became a steady scream. Like the collision alert. Lights were flashing.

“I said, I kept saying, ‘You sonuvabitch, my partner’s out there, my partner’s outside, I can’t pull off—’”

They hit him with the trank. Two of them were holding him. But he kept screaming, ‘”I can’t pull off, you sonuvabitch!’ “

“It’s not working,” somebody said.

The doctor pushed his eyelid up, leaning close, said, looking elsewhere, “Get the chief,” while breath came short and the monitor was beeping a steady panic:

“They didn’t list it,” he said. “It wasn’t broadcasting—”

The doctor said, “Make up another dose. 50 ccs.”

“It wasn’t on the damn charts—”

“Easy,” the doctor said. “We understand you.—Cut that racket.”

The beeper stopped. He took an easier breath.

“Good. Good.” Another dark space then.

Somebody had had an accident, an Rl ship turned up in R2 zone, probable ‘driver accident—which should be BM’s job, but it was in William Payne’s day-file, straight from Crayton’s office, in General Administration.

The memo said: Handle this. We need minimal publicity.

Payne paged through the file. A freerunner pilot in hospital—making wild charges about a ‘driver captain violating regulations…

God. The Shepherd Association was hardnosing it in contract talks, the company trying to avert a strike—Payne shook his head. Not quite his job, but it was very clearly an information-control situation, and that washis department, as executive director of Public Information. One could even, if one were paranoid, suspect a set-up by the Independents—but it seemed the pilot’s physical condition was no fake, and a miner was dead.

Bad timing—damned bad timing for this to come in.

The question was how far the rumors had already gotten. Freerunners had done the rescue. That was one problem. News & Entertainment could run another safety news item, give the odds against a high- vrock, remind everyone it was a remote possibility—or maybe best not to raise the question. The Shepherd Association wanted an issue. It was begging for a forum. Meanwhile the police were going over the wreck, poking about— thatwas a department Public Information couldn’t entirely handle. Best keep them away from the issues in the case.

A release from the pilot was the all-around best fix. Evidently BM had a crack team going over that ship—that was good: if there was a mechanical fault, settle the problem there, no problem. Get a statement from the pilot, fix culpability if there was any—

Not with a company captain, damned sure, and not in a lawsuit that could bring the Shepherd Association in as friends of the court. That certainly wasn’t what Crayton meant by “settlement.”

A hand touched Dekker’s face. It gave him the willies. He couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t even open his eyes yet.

“Mr. Dekker, would you answer a question for me? There’s something I don’t understand.”

He got a breath. Two breaths. Did get his eyes open, marginally. “What?”

“Why the watch?”

“Kept the time.”

“Mr. Dekker.”

Clearer and clearer. It was the doctor again. He made a ‘ try at sitting up, inched higher on the pillows.

“How are we feeling, Mr. Dekker?”

“Like shit.”

“You were talking about the watch.”

Beep.

“ Explainto me about the watch, Mr. Dekker. Why does it upset you?”

He wished he knew the answers to that one. The doctor stood there a long time. Finally he thought, Maybe this one’s going to listen. He said, tentatively, “We had some stuff linked to the main board. Way Outwas old. The arm didn’t work off the main board. It was supposed to be a three-man, you know, the way some of the ships used to be…”

“Go on, Mr. Dekker. The watch.”

“You couldn’t work the arm and see the log chrono. Real easy to lose track of time when you’re working and we didn’t trust her suit indicators. So we used my watch.” His voice shook. He was scared the doctor was going to interrupt him and order him sedated if he lost it. And he wasn’t sure if he was making sense to the man. “It only timed an hour, you know, the alarm was a bitch to set—so we’d set it to January 1.—What day is it?”

“July 15th, Mr. Dekker.”

He despised crying. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. The doctor was getting impatient. He took deep breaths to help him. “Don’t give me any shots. I need to figure—how far is it…”

“Don’t distress yourself, Mr. Dekker.”

January has thirty-one days. February is 28. March, 12.

71.

Out there in space. Seventy-one days. She’d have been out of air in 4 hours. Oh, God…

“Mr. Dekker.”

“March has thirty days. Or 31?”

“31.”

12 from 31 is 19. Nineteen days in March. April is—

Thirty days hath September… April, June, and November…

The doctor patted his shoulder. One of the orderlies came back.

“No!” he yelled. “I’ve almost got it, dammit!”

They shot him with it anyway. “Be still,” they said. “Be still. Don’t try to talk now.”

49. They found me on the 21st. 49 and 21. Do you count the 12th twice?

I’m losing it… start again.

Or can I trust my memory?

It was still 6-deck and still a waiting game. Every day Ben went down and checked the lists. Every day it turned up nothing but PENDING. Trinidadherself was still hung up in the investigation—there was no way they could lease her, no matter that there were a dozen teams applying; there was no way they could even start her charge-up, and every day she sat at dock she was costing money instead of earning it. Bird haunted the supply shops, pricing the few small parts she needed; but they couldn’t even get access to her, the way Bird put it, to fix the damned clothes dryer.

“You can’t hurry the police,” Ben said, trying to put a reasonable face on things. “It can’t be much longer.”

And Sal, between sit-ups—they were working out in the gym: “I thought you could fix anything.”

“Not in my range of contacts,” he said, frustrated himself. Nudging Security was asking for more investigation.

“Hell,” Bird said, mopping his face, leaning on the frame of a weight machine. “I sincerely hope they just get something decided. My heart can’t stand much more of this prosperity.”

Meg didn’t say anything but, “Easy, Bird.”

Payne said: “No, dammit, just don’t answer. Tell Salvatore—no, don’ttell Salvatore. I’ll talk to him…”

Hell of a day. A Shepherd crew and a tender crew mixed into it in a bar and a bystander was in hospital; and this—

Some clerk in Rl had return-sent the Salazar kid’s mail as Deceased, Return to Sender, and the sender in question, Salazar’s mother, had hit the phone asking for information on her daughter. The operator in ASCOM, knowing nothing about it, had sent the call to Personnel, the confused clerk that took the call in Rl Personnel there couldn’t find Salazar’s file and insisted to the bereaved mother there was no such person, while hersupervisor had tried to stall for a policy clarification out of Rl’s Administrative levels, then realized she was out of her depth and tried to send it through to a higher level, after which it had bounced confusedly from department to department until a secretary in Legal Affairs put the call on hold and the woman hung up.

Salazar’s mother was on the MarsCorp board, for God’s sake. Nobody had told him. Nobody had told Towney. Nobody had flagged the dead miner as a problem—

Alyce Salazar’s next phone call had hit the president’s desk. Not Towney’s, in ASTEX. Hansford, in the Earth Company’s Sol Station headquarters. Hansford had called Towney, Towney had had to release the file, and Hansford’s office had released the details to MarsCorp.

Alyce Salazar had found out Dekker had survived, and immediately claimed it was no accident, he was a scoundrel who’d seduced her daughter, kidnapped her to the Belt, and killed her for her money.

Which turned out to have been a fair amount, before expenses. There was a binding surviving-partner clause—

But Alyce Salazar was an angry woman, one damnedangry woman… and lawyers were talking to lawyers at very expensive phone rates.

“Mr. Crayton is on the line,” Payne’s secretary said.

God…

“Mr. Crayton, sir…”

Crayton said, “Have you got the letter?”

“Yes. I have it up now.”

“One went to Security.”

Oh, my God… “I’m sorry, sir. I certainly didn’t—”

“Not from your office. From Ms. Salazar. She wants that boy’s head. You understand the implications? We needthis mess cleared up. We don’t want him in court. I want you to patch this up. Get the facts straight. We’ve got to have an answer for this one.”

Still no police clearance. And on a certain afternoon in the Bell, when Ben was in the bar doing some technical reading, Meg slipped into the chair across the table, leaned both arms on the table and said, “Benjie, cher, let’s go do talk.”

He’d thought at first Meg was just bored, Bird being out of sorts for the last couple of days; and he wasn’t totally surprised, back in her room, to end up in bed in mid-shift,—not the first time for him and Meg, but it was all the same unusual, even if he was entirely sure—and he was—that Bird wouldn’t take exception. The side-shaving was a turn-on. The mop on top and down the back was several shades brighter than elsewhere, but it was beyond a doubt Meg’s right color; and she had some kind of creature tattooed around one leg—snake, Meg had told him once, early on in their acquaintance. Bird had told him what kind it was and said if it bit you, you were dead in three minutes. He thought that might well fit Meg, if you got on her bad side.

But he wasn’t on her bad side. He had it figured by then that Meg had ulterior motives, though Meg wasn’t the sort to hold a man off while his brains scrambled—he swore he couldn’t do anything until she’d told him what was going on, but she proved that wrong: she had him truly gone before she started asking him about the ship, about Dekker, about the way Bird was stewing and fretting—

“Bird’s severely upset,” Meg said. “You think there’s a chance on that ship?—Because if there isn’t, you got to talk to him.”

“Dekker’s brain’s gone. No question. Yeah, there’s a solid chance on that ship, there’s a good chance.”

“Bird says if you get anything it’ll have to be in court. Bird’s saying you won’t win. That it’s all just a waste. But he doesn’t act it.—Is there anything the company can turn up? I mean, you didn’t seriously transgress any regs out there…”

So that was what was bothering Meg. Meg and Sal had to be looking for a lease for their next run, if that ship wasn’t going to come through—or if they were only going to sell it to the company. Meg and Sal hadn’t been betting elsewhere: that was what he suddenly figured, and they were down to decisions. “There isn’t going to be any court. I promise you. You know what Bird’s problem is? He’s scared he’s going to make money. Every time you get to talking about it—he just looks off the other way. If I hadn’t filed on that ship, you think he’d ever have done it? Hell, no. He’d have waited till he got his legs. Then he’d have said, well, it’s too late, there’d be other creditors—you tell me what goes through his head, Meg. I swear I don’t know.”

“Dirtsider.”

“So?” One of Meg’s stories had her born on Earth, too. But that didn’t seem to be the version Meg was using today. “Are they all like that? Is it something in the water?”

“Bird grew up poor.”

“So I grew up an orphan. So what’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s habit with him: when he gets enough—that’s all. That’s all he wants from life. He doesn’t want to be rich. He just wants enough.”

It didn’t make any sense—not at least the why of it. He held the thought a moment, turned it over, looked at its underside, and decided he wasn’t going to understand. “Well, it’s not enough for me. Damn well not enough for me.”

Meg sighed. “Haven’t ever seen enough to know what enough is.”

“Damned short rations,” he said. “That’s what Bird’s ‘enough’ comes to. And it doesn’t keep you fed when your legs and your back give out. Doesn’t get you insurance.”

“Insurance,” Meg chuckled. “God, jeune fils…”

“That’s a necessity, dammit! Ask me where I’d have been if my mama hadn’t had it.”

“Yeah, well.—She was a company pilot, wasn’t she?”

“Tech.” He rolled over. He didn’t like to talk about things that were done with or people that didn’t come back. They didn’t matter. But the example did. “You don’t get any damn where halfass protected. Insurance—my company schooling—Bird’s knowing who to lease to—”

“Like us?”

Oh, then, herewas the approach. Meg was looking at him, chin on hands, putting it to him dead-on, with no Bird for a back-up. He didn’t want to alienate Meg and Sal—especially Sal. They weren’t the best miners in the Belt, but they had other benefits—not all of them in bed. And he kept asking himself if he was using good sense, but the answer kept coming up that there might be miners better at their job, but if you wanted a couple of stick-to-a-deal, canny partners, present company and Sal weren’t damn bad.

Some of Bird’s friends, now—had his affliction. And they were going broke or had gone.

Meg said, “You suppose you could put in a word with Bird, explain how we’d be reasonable. We’d work shares.”

Not every day somebody as tough and canny as Meg needed something from him—seriously needed something. He toted it up, what the debts might be, what the collection might be. If one looked to have a long career leasing ships—one needed a couple of reliable partners who knew the numbers. And Sal in particular had possibilities—if Sal could get a grip on her temper and shake out that who-gives-a-damn attitude. Sal also had useful contacts. While Meg—

He said, he hoped after not too long a pause: “I could talk to him. What are friends for?”

“Wake up.” Someone shook at Dekker’s shoulder. “Come on, Dekker. Come on. Come out of it.”

He didn’t want to come back this time. It was more white coats. He could see that with his eyes half shut. But there was dark green, too, and the gleam of silver. That didn’t match.

A light slap at his face. “Come on, Dekker. That’s fine.—Do you want an orange juice?”

It never was. It was a cousin of that damned Citrisal. But his mouth was dry and he sipped it when they put a straw between his lips and elevated his bed. Gfelt heavier here. He thought: This isn’t the same place. We’re deeper in.

“How are you feeling?” his doctor asked him.

But he was looking suddenly at the company police, realizing what that uniform was.

“Paul Dekker?” the head cop said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”

He heard that beep again. That was him. That was the cops listening to his heartbeat, and it was scared and rapid.

“Have you found her?” he asked. Cops always came with bad news. He didn’t want to hear what they might have to say to him.

But one of them sat down on the side of his bed. That man said, “What did you do with the body?”

“Whose body?” For a moment he honestly didn’t know what they were talking about, and the monitor stayed relatively quiet. Then his pulse picked up. “Whose body?”

“Your partner’s.”

The beeps became hysterical. He hauled the rate back down again, saying calmly, “I couldn’t find her. They hit us. I couldn’t find her afterward.”

“Mr. Dekker, don’t play us for fools. We’ll level with you. Don’t you think it’s time you leveled with us?”

“This ship ran us down—”

“—and it wasn’t on the charts. Come now, Mr. Dekker, you know and I know you had a motive. College girl comes out here with her whole life savings, and here you are—not a steady job in your life, no schooling, not a cent to your name. How’d you get here? How’d you get passage?”

“Cory and I were friends. From way back.”

“So she puts up the equity, she just insists the ship go down as joint ownership, with a death provision in there—”

“No.”

“Or was that your idea?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You signed it. We’ve got your signature right at the bottom.”

“I didn’t read it. Cory said sign, I just signed it!”

The officer had reached for a slate the other cop had.

He pressed buttons. “We have here a deposition from your port of origin, from one Natalie R. Frye, to the effect that you and Ms. Salazar quarreled over finances the week you left…”

“Hell if we did!”

“Quote: ‘Cory was mad about a bill for a jacket or something—’”

“I bought a jacket. She thought I paid too much. Cory’d wear a thing til it fell apart…”

“So you quarreled over money.”

“Over a jacket. A damn 38-dollar jacket. We fought, all right, we fought, doesn’t everybody?”

“Ms. Frye continues: ‘Cory had been sleeping around. Dek didn’t like that.’”

“Screw Natalie! She wasn’t a friend of ours. Cory wouldn’t spit on her.”

“ DidMs. Salazar’sleep around’?”

“She slept where she wanted to. So did I, what the hell?”

“Well, that wouldn’t matter to anyone, Mr. Dekker, except that she never got back.”

The beeps accelerated, not from shock: a fool could see where this was going. He was shaking, he was so mad, and if he went for the bastard’s throat they’d trank him and write thatdown, too.

“Cory’s lost out there,” he said doggedly. “A ship ran us down—”

“Mr. Dekker, there was no other ship in that sector.”

“That’s a lie. That’s a damn lie.” He reached frantically for things they couldn’t deny. “Bird knew it was there. Ben knew. We talked about it. It was a ‘driver, was what it was—it wasn’t on my charts—”

The officer said, dead calm: “Bird and Ben?”

“The guys that picked me up!” He was scared they were going to tell him thatnever happened either. But someonehad brought him in. “I called that sonuvabitch, I told it we were there, I told it my partner was outside—”

“Are you sure the rock didn’t block the signal?”

“No!—Yes, I’m sure! I had it on radar. Why in hell didn’t it see me?”

“We don’t know, Mr. Dekker. We’re just asking. So you did see it coming. And did you advise your partner?”

They made him crazy, changing the rules on him. One moment they accused him. Then they believed him. Sometimes he seemed to lose things.

“Didn’t you say you’d hit a rock? Wasn’t that your story at one point?”

He was lost and sick and the drugs still had him hazed. The beeps increased in tempo. He wasn’t sure whether it was his heart or something on com.

“So where did you manufacture this ship, Mr. Dekker?”

“It was out there.”

“Of course it was out there,” the officer said. “You had it on your charts. Your log showed that. How could we doubt that?”

He was totally confused. He put his hands over his ears, he tried to see if the alarm going was his heart or something in his head. “Call the ‘driver, for God’s sake. See if they picked Cory up.”

“Didn’t you call?” the cop asked.

“Yes, dammit, I called, I called and it didn’t answer. Maybe my antenna got hit. I don’t know. I called for help. Did anybody hear it?”

“A ship heard you. A ship picked you up.”

“Different.” He was tired. He didn’t want to explain com systems and emergency locaters to company cops. “Just call the ‘driver out there.”

“If there is a ‘driver out there,” the cop said, “well ask. But if they had picked up your partner, wouldn’t they have notified their Base? Don’t you think they’d have called that in?”

He thought about that answer. He thought about the way that ship had ignored warnings. He thought about it not answering his hails. He thought—It’s not hours, is it? It’s months, it’s been months out there.

The alarm sounded again. He wanted it calm, because when he didn’t do that within a certain time they sedated him, and he was trying to be sane for the police. “I don’t know they heard me. Just call them.”

“We’re going to be calling a lot of people, Mr. Dekker.” The cop got up from his bed. “We’re going to be asking around.”

They walked to the door. The doctor went with them. He lay there just trying to keep the monitor steady and quiet, on the edge of hysteria but a good deal saner than he wanted to be right now. He remembered Bird, he remembered Ben. He was relatively sure he had come here on their ship. But sometimes he even feared Cory might not have existed. That he had always been in this place. That he was irrevocably crazy.