Hellburner

Chapter 5

2-DECK 229 was a tacky little hallway in a tacky little facility that met you with a security-locked, plastic-protected bulletin board that said things like

NO ALCOHOL IN QUARTERS and REMEMBER THE 24-HR

RESTRICTIONS, along with SIM SCHEDUUE and LOST CARD,

DESPERATE, BILL H. SMITH.

Humanitarian transfer, hell. You couldn’t shoot a Fleet officer. Wasn’t legal. Couldn’t even kill Dekker, who didn’t know what was going on, who just looked at you and said, Yeah, Ben. All right, Ben. Like you could do anything you wanted to him, the worse had already happened.

Bloody hell.

He found Barracks C. He walked in, where a handful of guys with a vid-game looked up and got up and stared at him, a solid wall of hostility.

“Lost?” one of them asked.

“I’m fuckin’ assigned here,” he muttered, and got dismay and frowns.

“No such,” one said, Belter accent thick and surly. “UDC shave-head? You got the wrong barracks, loo-tenant.”

Fine. Great. He said, in deep Belter brogue, “Not my pick, mate, they do the numbers.”

Wasn’t what they expected out of a UDC mouth. Postures altered, faces did.

“You wouldn’t be Pollard, would you?”

He’d hoped to get his assigned bunk, nothing more. But mere was no good making enemies here. He said, grudgingly, “Yeah. Benjamin J.,” and saw expressions go on changing for the positive. Not the reaction he generally got from people.

“Pollard.” The head troublemaker came over. “Almarshad.” A gesture to left and right, behind him. “Franklin and Pauli. What’s the word on Dekker?”

Dekker didn’t attract friends either, not among people who really knew him; and when a guy introduced himself the way Almarshad did you should worry about bombs. He shook Almarshad’s offered hand, said, conservatively, “Not the best I’ve ever seen him,” and watched reactions. Looked like they were friends of Dekker’s. And it was true Dekker was a Cause in the Belt. A Name—among people who didn’t know him. Not with Shepherds, much as he knew, and that was what this set looked to be—but it could be Dekker had found a niche in this classified hell.

Franklin asked,

“He say who hit him?”

Or these guys could be the committee that put Dekker in hospital, for all he knew.

He said, again carefully, “Bounced on his head too often. I don’t know. He doesn’t. —Friends of his, are you?”

Almarshad seemed to comprehend his reserve, then, frowned and said, “He’s got no enemies in this barracks. You keeping mat uniform?”

He hadn’t many allegiances in his life. But, hell, the UDC fed you, gave you everything you could dream of, held out the promise of paradise, until Dekker helpfully dropped your name in the wrong classified ears—which landed you up to your ears in an interservice feud; and now some Shepberd-tumed-bluecoat wanted to make an issue of your uniform? Hell, yes, you could take offense at being pushed. “Yeah, I’m keeping it. Far as I know.”

“Shit,” Pauli said with a roll of his eyes, and turned half away and back again with an outheld hand. “Tanzer give you your orders?”

“I don’t know who gave me my orders. Captain over FSO Keu got me out here. The Fleet got me out here. Humanitarian leave. Now it’s a fuckin’ humanitarian transfer, I can’t find my fuckin’ baggage, I can’t find my fuckin’ bunk, I got no damn choice, here, mister! I’m supposed to be in Stockholm! I’d rather be in Stockholm, which I won’t now! —I’m a security Priority 10, and they got me in here for reasons I don’t know, with a damn classified order I’m probably securitied high enough to read. But you don’t question orders here, I’m certainly finding mat out!”

A hand landed on his shoulder. Almarshad. “Easy. Easy. Pauli means to say welcome in. Tanzer’s a problem, we know who you are, we know damn well you’re not his boy.”

“I don’t fuckin’ know Tanzer!”

“Better off,” Franklin said under his breath. “Where’ve they got you? What room?”

“We got rooms.” Thank God. “Said just—here.”

“You’re Dekker’s, then. A-10. Demi-suites. If you count four bunks and a washroom.”

Personally he didn’t. But he’d been prepared for worse in the short term. He said, “Thanks,” and took the pointed finger for his guide.

Hell if, he kept saying to himself. Hell if I’m going to stay here. Hell if this is going to be the rest of my life, —Mr. Graff, sir.

He’d flunked his Aptitudes for anything remotely approaching combat, deliberately and repeatedly: he couldn’t pass basic without a waiver for unarmed combat on account

of a way-high score in technical; he’d worked hard to clean the Belter accent out of his speech and to fit in with blue-skyers and here he was resurrecting it to deal with some sumbitch Shepherd who’d have walked over him without noticing, back in R2. Get into technical, get his security clearance—get connections and numbers, the same as he’d had in R2, that was his priority. His CO back in TI, Weiter—Weiter had connections, Weiter had let him make his rating in very fast order, and George Weiter had had the discriminating good sense to screw the regs, bust him past tire basics and into levels where he could learn from where he was and get at those essential, top-ievel access numbers.

No guns, damned sure, nothing to do with guns. He’d made sure of mat.

And here he was busted to a pilot trainee rating? It was crazed. It was absolutely insane. It was going to get fixed. Get to Weiter—somehow. Get to somebody up in HQ. In Stockholm. Fast.

He located A-10, at the corner of the hall, opened the door—

And found his lost luggage in the middle of the darkened room.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”

The shuttle was in Servicing, the politicians, the engineers, the corporate execs and the general were tanking up in Departures, and now reality came due. Now it was back to dealing with Tanzer on a daily, post-hearing basis, and the Fleet’s independence notwithstanding, when the UDC CO sent a See Me at OSOOh, the Fleet Acting Commander had to show up.

“He’s expecting you,” the aide said. Graff said a terse Thank you, opened the door and walked into the fire zone.

“Lt. Graff,” Tanzer said.

“Colonel,” Graff said and stood there neither at ease nor at attention while Tanzer stared at him.

Tanzer rocked his chair back abruptly and said, “I expect cooperation.”

“Yes, colonel.”

“ ‘Yes, colonel,’ what?”

“Whatever’s good for the program, colonel.”

“And what do you think that is, now, would you say?”

“Colonel, you know my opinion.”

The chair banged level. “Damn your opinion! What are you trying to do to this program?”

“Trying not to lose a carrier, when its riders fail, I’ll be in it. You won’t, colonel.”

“I won’t, will I? I’m on the line here, you sonuvabiteh.”

“Not for the same stakes, colonel, forgive me.”

“You son of a bitch.”

After a sleep-short night mat opening was extremely welcome. Tanzer was angry. Tanzer wasn’t satisfied with what had gone down. That could be good news—if it wasn’t the demise of the program Tanzer was foreseeing.

Tanzer said, with a curl of his lip, “Two more of your recruits are in from the Belt, I’m sure you’ll be delighted with that. And Lendler Corp is recommending the Fleet change its security regulations with the sim tapes. And who in hell transferred Pollard into your command?”

“My command?”

“Your command, your captain’s command, your navigator’s command for all I know, who knows who’s in charge in your office? You have a UDC trainee in your program, Mr. Graff, do you want to tell me just how that happened?”

He wasn’t sure whether Tanzer was in his right mind. Or what in hell was going on. He said, “I don’t know. I’ll look into it.”

“I’m already looking into it, I’m looking into it all the way to TI and Geneva. What do you say to that, Mr. Graff?”

“I don’t know either, colonel. I’ll find out.”

Tanzer gave him a cold, silent stare. Then: “You find out and you come tell me. It’s one of those things I like to keep up with, who’s where on this station. Just a habit of mine. I think you can understand that. Hearing’s over. I’d like to clear the record, just get everything back in appropriate boxes. I think you can understand that too, can’t you, lieutenant?”

The passenger shuttle was going out, that was the maddening thing. But there was absolutely no question of Ben Pollard getting to it: it was ferrying the brass out from the hearing, the hearing was evidently over, Dekker hadn’t remembered a thing he could take to Graff and get out of here, so evidently that wasn’t his ticket out—and, dammit! he wanted to talk to Graff, wanted to ask Graff to his face what kind of a double-cross had caught him in this damned illicit transfer. But Graff had been ‘unavailable’ during the hearing, Graff’s aides had only cared to ask if he had any report yet. Of course he’d had to say no; so Lt. Graff hadn’t seen fit to return his calls yesterday; Lt. Graff wasn’t in his office this morning—

While the transfer orders he’d gotten said, Outside contact specifically denied.

So what was Outside? Sol One FSO? Sol One UDC? —Graff’s office?

In a moment of wild fantasy he thought of risking his clearance, his career and a term in the brig, getting to the Departure lounge by hook or by crook, snagging some UDC officer bound out of this station and protesting he’d been kidnapped: contact Weiter on Sol One.

But there were serious problems with that scenario. Abundant problems. Chief among which was not knowing what he was dealing with, or what Dekker was involved in, or how much of that hearing had involved Dekker specifically and how much had involved a program in trouble.

He didn’t unpack. He’d just looked for a change of clothes—he’d been washing clothes in hospice laundry every day, wrapped in a hospice towel while they dried, thank God he’d had his shaving kit and two changes of shirts and underwear in his carry, but, God, he was glad to get his light station boots and his pullover, and find the textcards he’d packed—

And his personal computer, which thank God hadn’t been damaged. They’d searched his luggage. They’d probably searched his computer files. Probably had to call in the station techs to read his to-do list, which now wasn’t going to get done, if he couldn’t get out of this. He entertained dark thoughts of finding a phone and using a handful of codes, but he didn’t want the output directed to any terminal he owned. Or to his barracks. He figured all he’d better do with the phone was find out what was in his file right now, which would happen the minute he used his card.

All right. But we’re not putting our only copy in, are we?

You couldn’t copy a personal datacard. Copying was supposed to screw it. EIDAT said. Writing outside your personal memo area was supposed to screw it.

But EIDAT said a lot of things about security to its customers that didn’t apply to its programmers: a few alterations to the 00 and the card would copy—if you had the Programming OS on the card, which wasn’t supposed to fit in the THEM area. But if you got creative with the allocations it would. Not that be didn’t trust the integrity of the UDC command here, not as if they just might have a watch on a Priority 10 right now mat might notice him going out to the Exchange and buying a card with his remaining vending chits. But he could certainly sacrifice the chess gamecard—even in the paperless and police-controlled Belt, Customs had never quite apprehended gamecards and vidcards as write-capable media.

Yeah.

Quick sand-down of the gamecard edge on the nailfile he carried, a little application of clear nailpolish, available locally, at certain contact points—and you could write to it quite nicely. The cheerful, bright commercial label said it was a patented gamecard, a lot of worn-at-the-edges cards were out there that did show the critical contacts. EIDAT certainly didn’t want to advertise the procedure even to the police, because people with access to EIDAT systems code didn’t ever pirate gamecards. No. Of course not.

He stuck the datacard in the second drive and had his datacard copy in a nice secure place in quarters before he went out to the wall phone in the barracks main hall. He stuck his datacard into the slot. The write-function clicked. “The new readout said CAP, MKT and MSFUNC. PRIORITY MS was blinking.

He keyed MS and the hash mark. It said, Report to Lt. Graff s office, 0900h.

And funny to say, when he tried to call over to Graff s office on a level 10, his level 10 authorization wouldn’t work. Son of a bitch, he thought, smug, amused, and furious. He had to do it on a lowly level 3. They had fried his accesses. And he was illegal as hell now, with that other card as a holdout. Question was—which service had pulled his security clearance.

So Graff wanted to talk to him. And it was 0848 right now. He had about time to get his ass over to Graff’s office, and find out such facts as Graff was willing to tell him about his transfer—

Which he was about to do when he caught sight of the two females lugging duffles into the barracks main hall— one dark-skinned, one light, one with a headful of metal-capped braids and one with a shave-strip of bright red curls.

My God...

He hung up. He had the presence of mind to take his card out of the slot. He stood there while two of the most unlikely recruits in the solar system came down the center aisle to the catcalls of the bystanders, saw them look right past him as if he was part of the landscape.

“Sal!” he called out. “Meg!” and saw two pairs of eyes fix on him, do a re-take of him and the uniform. Baggage hit the floor. The two best-looking women he’d ever slept with ran up, grabbed him, both, and kissed him breathless, one and the other.

Couldn’t hurt a man’s reputation. Whistles and howls from the gallery. He caught his breath, besieged with questions like what was he doing here, what was this about Dek, and how was he?

Questions without an easy answer. “What are you two doing here?” he asked, and got a stereo account: they’d gotten the word Dekker was in some kind of accident, they’d gotten word they were shipping a carrier out—

‘’God, that thing moves—“ Sal said.

“So we rode it in and transferred over on the shuttle,” Meg said. “And these damn MPs have got to stall us up with questions, shit! of-fi-cers and VIP’s all over the place. —How’s Dek, for God’s sake, he got all his pieces?”

“Everything you’d be interested in. —You enlisted?” That didn’t fit his expectations, didn’t fit what he’d been reading in Dekker’s letter file.

“They hail us down,” Sal said, “in Jupiter’s own lap, a carrier pulls up and says, Have you got Kady? And wants to talk to us. Wants to talk to Meg. And Meg talks to the Man, and we get this news Dek’s in hospital—some kind of crack-up, they’re saying, and they’d kindly give us a ride insystem—“

Shepherds began to ooze over. One said, “Well, well, look what pulled in. Hiya.”

Meg looked. Sal did. Ben didn’t know the face, but Sal struck an attitude and said, “Well, well, look at familiar faces—they let you in, Fly-by?”

Laughter from all about. Not a nickname Fly-by seemed to favor. “God, how’d you get past?” Belter accent, Shepherd flash. “I thought they had criteria.”

“You skuz,” Sal said, but it didn’t have the edge of trouble. Sal put a hand on the skuz’s shoulder, gave his arm a squeeze. “Jamil’s a sumbitch, but he’s an all right sumbitch. This is Ben Pollard.”

“Got the whole team, but Morrie,” another said. “Damn on!”

“Ben, where d’ we sleep?” Meg asked. There were immediately other offers. “Take you up later,” Meg said. “I got a date at the hospital, if I can get the pass they said I had—“

“Get you to the room,” Ben said, and, catching two elbows, hauled them along to 10-A. Good-natured protest followed from the rear, but it died, and a couple of guys, Jamil included, overtook them at the door, set down the baggage and made themselves absent. “Thanks,” he said; discretion was not dead here. “Thanks,” Meg called back, while he was opening the door. He put a hand on Sal’s back, got Meg’s arm and got them inside, into privacy.

“What’ve we got?” Sal said. “Is my radar working, or what?”

“It’s working,” he said. “We got a sumbitch in charge, same damn sumbitch switched Dekker out and some guy in on a test run and cracked up Dekker’s crew, Dek-baby minks he’s in the fuckin’ Belt looking for Cory, and / got a meeting with Fleet Lieutenant J. Graff right on the hour.” He had a sudden idea, fished his temp hospital card out of his uniform pocket, and held it up in front of Meg. “This is a pass. You’re me, just put it in the slot at the main desk, won’t trigger an alarm and in the remote chance they should ask, tell ‘em Graff sent you. Dekker’s hi room 114. They pulled him out of a simulator beat to hell and concussed and there’s some chance he didn’t climb in there on his own, by what I can guess. Tell him straighten up. Tell him where he is, tell him I said so, tell him I’m going to break his neck next time I see him—I’ve got five minutes to make the lieutenant’s office....”

“Somebody did it to him?” Meg asked.

“Hey. You know Dek. There’s got to be a waiting list.” He recalled the atmosphere outside, and said, “We got to talk. Fast. Sit. The lieutenant can wait five.”

The sounds came and went. 2324. 2324. Dekker tried to remember. He said it to himself to remember. And maybe he was losing track of time, but it seemed to him breakfast had come and gone and Ben hadn’t come this morning. That upset him. Ben kept saying he couldn’t stay, and maybe he’d just gone wherever Ben had to go to. He didn’t even want to know where that was. He just wanted to go back into the dark if they’d let him alone, if there wasn’t anybody going to come but doctors with tests and interns and if there was nothing to do but lie here and listen to the halls outside.

“Dek?” Female voice. “Dek?”

Voice he knew. Voice that shouldn’t be here. So he was losing it. But if he was starting to hallucinate again maybe Ben wasn’t gone. He came up out of the dark to see.

She was scarily real, Meg was, leaning over him. “How you doing?” she asked, and he said, “Dunno,” because he didn’t. She smelled real, she looked real, she sounded real. She asked him, “Anything wrong with the jaw?”

“No,” he said, wondering why she asked, and Meg leaned down and kissed him the way she’d kissed him goodbye once, which caught him short of breath and half-smothered and no little dizzy as it went on, but if this was going to turn into one of those dreams, he didn’t mind, he’d go out cold this way.

He got a breath, finally, he had Meg up close to his face, running a finger down his cheek, saying, “You been through some severely bad business, Dek. But it won’t happen again. I’m here. Sal’s here. Ben’s here. We won’t let the bastards get to you.”

Good news. He really wanted to believe it. But he didn’t let himself sink into the fantasy all the way. He only flirted with the idea, asking warily, “How’d you get here?”

She settled her hand on his, gave his fingers a squeeze. “They sent to me in the Belt, said, You got a friend in trouble, you want to come, and I said, Sure. Why not? I could do with a change.”

So she wasn’t leveling with him. That could only mean his subconscious couldn’t think of an answer. Second question: “What about Sal?”

“Sal said she couldn’t trust me on my own, said she’d keep me honest.”

Her fingers on his felt warm and solid. She was in Shepherd civvies, she had this fondness for big earrings and he didn’t remember the ones she was wearing. He wasn’t artistic, he couldn’t make up ones he didn’t know, spiral and gold with some kind of anodized bar down the middle. He couldn’t make up the blue eyeshadow and the pink. He wouldn’t put those colors together with red hair. But it looked good. She did. And her really, truly being here was crazier than his thinking she was.

Third question. “Where’s Ben this morning?”

“Ben’s in the lieutenant’s office. Ben’s real pissed. Something about his security clearance and him supposed to be in Stockholm—didn’t altogether make sense, but he was going to go complain. —What’s this about you arguing with a simulator?”

Panic hit him. But he didn’t know why he should be afraid of Meg. Or Ben. Or why mere was a gap around his recollection of the sim room. Sounds. Mag hum and sudden motion. Ominous. Something had happened under that sound.

“There’s been a hearing,” Meg said, “senators all over the place. They’re leaving. Ben asks if you’d like to tell them anything. Says if you could tell them how you got banged up it might be a good idea.”

Senators. Mission control. Rows of instruments. Instruments on the sim panel, just the same.

“Shit,” he breathed, feeling a cold sweat come on him. But it was all right, the memory was gone again. He willed his heart to slow down, stop fluttering like that: they filled him full of drugs if they caught his pulse up, and if they caught Meg here, Meg could be in trouble—Meg might not come back. People went out the door and you didn’t know if—

the Company’d let diem back.

No. Not the Company. Tanzer. The UDC, that ran this place.... “Ben explained a skosh,” Meg said, rab-speak, long time back, it seemed now. The Inner System had changed so, even in the few years he’d been to the Belt and back. “You don’t got seriously to say: I know about the accident. But you got to get out of here, Dek, you got to get yourself straight. Ben said I should ask you the date.”

“2324,” he said, and found it suddenly worth a laugh, with what breath he could find. “2324.” Meg didn’t know why that message from Ben should be funny and he couldn’t explain, he hadn’t the coherency to explain, he kept seeing the readouts in the spex in front of him, green and red and gold, and, dammit, he could make it, he could’ve made it, but when he tried to imagine past that point the controls wouldn’t work, weren’t going to work again until he could get his hands on them and change those numbers....

Meg shook his shoulder. “Heads up, Dek. First thing you got to do, you got to get straight. Ben said you didn’t get into that pod on your own. That you should remember for him. He really needs that, Dek.”

Sim room. Noise. And the memory just stopped. Got his pulse rate up again. “Can’t. Can’t get hold of it, Meg. Meg, —“

She leaned close and whispered in his ear, “You want to go back to barracks and you and me do a little rec-time? Mmmn?”

Offer like that—from Meg—could raise a corpse. Meg’s touch on his cheek could. He thought about the barracks, had a sudden cold jolt, thinking of Meg there, and Ben and Sal; and not the faces he remembered. A whole puzzle-piece of his life just lifted out, gone, and another one clicked in, not the same shape, there were still dark spots—there’d been another puzzle-piece before that; but it was close, it was damned close. Pete and Elly and Falcone, they wouldn’t have understood Meg. Wouldn’t have gotten on with her, not easy. Might not get on with Sal or Ben. Cory either. He looked Meg in the eyes and remembered his blood pressure, realized he wasn’t wearing the sensor.

Several things clicked into place. Where he was. How he hadn’t gotten his shot this morning, either. How he was clearer-headed now than he’d been since—

More panels. Instruments red-lighting. Alarms screaming. Inner ear going crazy.

“You all right, Dek?” Finger along his cheek. “You’re white. You want me to call a doctor? Dek?”

He shook his head, suddenly sure of that. He sucked in a breath and got an elbow up under him, to see if his head was going to spin. Weak, God. Meg was trying to help him, saying he should lie down. But he didn’t think so, he had a bad feeling about lying down and letting Meg call a doctor, they’d give him shots again and he’d go to sleep and go on sleeping—

He shoved up onto his hands, swung his feet over tile edge. The room was tilting, felt like the pod, but he kept his eyes on the line where the wall met the floor. He sat there getting his breath and making the room stay steady.

“You sure you better not get back in that bed?”

He moved his arm. That shoulder had hurt. Didn’t now, as much. He kept his eyes on that line and said, “Want to get up, Meg. Just give me a hand.”

She did that. He didn’t need it to lean on. He just needed it steady. Second reference point. He made it to his feet, risked a blink, then shut his eyes and stood there a moment. He opened them and took a step, with Meg’s help. “Shot to hell,” he muttered. “Too much zero g.”

“Does that to you,” Meg agreed. “Going back to it?”

“Inner ear’s playing me tricks.” Another step. A third. He took a breath, let go her hand and took a fourth.

“They ought to have had you walking. Especially a spacer. Especially you. What’re the doctors worth in this place?”

A moment of vertigo. He got it back again. “Meg, how in hell’d you get here?” Months to get in from the Belt. They’d told her he was in trouble? Time threatened to unravel again. Except—

“Just caught a passing carrier. You got people real worried about you, Dek. Important people.”

Carrier could make that passage in a handful of days. Better than that, the rumor was. And a carrier pulled Meg out of the Belt? Out of a berth she’d risked her neck to get? “Meg, make ‘em send you back, don’t get mixed up in this, I don’t want you, I don’t want you here—“

“Hell if, boy-doll. Anyway, I signed the papers. Going to make me an officer—“

“Oh, shit. Shit, Meg!” The room went spinning. He just stared at Meg’s face for a reference point and kept his feet and knees from moving. “You were where you wanted.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not all al-tru-istic. —You want to sit down, Dek?”

“No.” A shake of his head that risked his balance. “No. I’m all right. I need to stand up. They won’t let me stand up. Have I got any clothes in mat locker?”

Meg looked. He didn’t dare track on her. She said, “No.”

“Meg, I want you to go to the lieutenant....”

“Graff?”

“Graff. I want you to go to him—“ The place could be bugged. But there was nothing else to do. “I want you to tell him I need help. I don’t trust what they’re giving me. I want out of here.”

“This then or now, Dek? Who’s doing this?”

He tried a step and another one. His heart was pounding. Sounds came distant and strange. He walked as far as the door, opened it, and gambled his stability on a look at Meg. “You remember your way out of here?”

“Yeah.”

“1’11 walk you to the door. Five on ten I don’t get that far. But you’ll know, then, won’t you?”

“Shit, Dek.”

“Yeah.” He took her arm. She grabbed his hand. “Let’s

walk, huh?”

‘ ‘ ‘

“Aboujib,” Graff said, and put out his hand for a non-reg handshake. Dark-skinned, exotic as they came to Inner System eyes, and by Ben Pollard’s recommendation and the enlistment records, a Company-educated disciplinary washout who’d gotten another kind of rep among the Shepherds. Jamil had been by to give him a quick word. Pollard had shown up for his appointment with Aboujib in tow—one Meg Kady was ‘visiting Dekker’ on Pollard’s pass (“It’ll work in the lock,” Pollard had said, with airy disregard of UDC security, but Pollard was not unconcerned, Pollard had just smiled, put a thoroughly stripped personal card on his desk and said, “I’m screwed, sir. Do you think you could just possibly get somebody to do something about this? They just put me in your command, sir, I’m UDC, and I’m mortally worried the colonel’s going to want to talk to me,”)

Hell in a handbasket. As the Earthers said. And here was file rest of Dekker’s former crew, in on the Sol One shuttle without a word of explanation, warning, or advice what to do with them?

He wasn’t highly pleased with the captain right now. Not pleased with Tanzer, not pleased with the situation, and not pleased to know one of the pair was loose in hospital on somebody else’s Fleet pass.

But Jamil had been damned cheerful, saying, “We got us a couple of recruits, lieutenant. —Mitch is going to the.”

It could give a man the feeling something was passing by him. And that things were careening out of control. “Welcome in, Aboujib. Scan-tech, is it?”

“Yessir.” Aboujib had a solid grip, a steady eye, a distractingly quirky dimple beside a pretty mouth—and she was outside his crew and off limits, end it, right there. Not many women among the Shepherds and a consequent shortage of women in the program; and one of Dekker’s former partners?

The captain had put Dekker’s unit together again. That was what was happening. Keu wasn’t saying a thing—so FleetCom wasn’t secure: the captain was just doing it, case by case: somebody had moved a carrier in from the Belt, for God’s sake, or Victoria was back in-system: no other way to ferry Aboujib and Kady here since the accident.

Which could mean the captain hadn’t been on Sol One for the last week; could mean Mazian had interrupted his diplomatic receptions to take a hand; or it might mean Keu had help: cooperative command in action—Col. Tanzer, sir.

He said, “Very glad to have you aboard, Aboujib....” and the phone beeped. His calls were routing through the carrier’s board and that wasn’t to be ignored. He picked up the receiver, said, “Graff here,” and heard:

“Lieutenant?” Thin voice. Strained. “Dekker. Need some help, sir.”

“Shove it!” he heard in the background. Female voice. And something happened.

A hand came under Dekker’s arm. Pulled. The nurse took hold of Meg’s arm and lost that grip. Fast.

“You want those fingers, mister, you keep ‘em the fuck off my arm.”

The nurse had hit an alarm, or something: a light was flashing. But Dekker knew where he was, he knew who was keeping his balance for him and he’d trust Meg in the black deep of space. He said, “Door, Meg. Now.”

“He’s not released,” the nurse said. Other meds showed up. Higgins arrived at the desk, looked at Meg and said, “Who are you?”

“Ben Pollard right now,” Meg said. “Ben’s getting my pass straightened out.”

“Get security,” Higgins said to someone in the hall. “Lt. Dekker, they’ll take you to your room.”

“No such.” He held his feet. “I’m going.” Head was killing him. But standing was easier. “Where’s my uniform?”

Security showed up, MPs, UDC. An MP grabbed for Meg, and next thing he knew he’d grabbed the MP—the guy looked at him, he looked at the guy with his fist doubled, but the MP with a fistful of his pajamas wasn’t about to hit a hospital case. So he kept his hold on the MP, the MP kept his hold on him, and they stared at each other while the interns tried to drag him away. “You tell Tanzer fuck himself. Hear? —Meg? Get. Get out of here.”

They told her, “You’re under arrest. You’re not going anywhere,” and Meg said,

“Hell if. Spiel on, chelovek, a judge is going to hear every word of this. You seriously better not bruise him.”

“Now wait a minute.” Higgins pulled the MP off—tried to: he wasn’t about to let go his only anchor, and Higgins was upset. “All right, all right, calm down. Everybody calm down. Lt. Dekker, let go of him.”

Things were graying out. But he got a breath and held on, said, rationally, he hoped, “I’m walking out of here and I’m going back to my barracks.”

Meg said, “Dek, calm down.”

Her, he listened to. Kept his grip the way the MP held on to him and listened to Meg say, “He had a seriously bad time with Company doctors. Fed him full of prescription drugs, while he was spaced. You let him go. He’ll be all right.”

“I’m not a damn mental case, Meg.”

Higgins said, smooth as silk, “We’re not maintaining that. He’s had concussion and broken bones. If you’re a friend of his, persuade him back to bed.”

“I’ve been in bed too damned long. Won’t let me up, won’t let me walk—“

“You’ve been to therapy, lieutenant. Don’t you remember?”

Scared him. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t argue with what they might be able to prove. Or fake records for. He was afraid he was going to pass out, and end the argument that way. “I want my release. Now.”

Higgins frowned, bit his lip. Finally, “I’ll release you to your CO. Personally. If he wants you. Ms. —?”

“Kady. Magritte Kady. Meg, to whoever.” She stuck out her hand. Higgins looked confused and angry. “Higgins, is it?”

He ignored the hand, “Do you mind explaining who the hell you are and where you came from?’’

“Manners,” Dekker said. Still with his grip on the MP, he looked the man close in the eyes and said, “You want to let go? I want to let go.”

Man wasn’t amused. Man said, “Doctor?”

“Let him go.”

Took a bit just to get his hand unclenched. The MP’s uniform had a circle of sweaty wrinkles. The MP refused to straighten it. Man was cold and thin-lipped, and mad as hell. UDC was full of those types. He reached for Meg’s hand and said, “Let’s go.”

“There are forms to fill out,” Higgins said. “And a physical.”

“Had one,” he said, walking—he hoped Meg knew where the door was: he didn’t. He halfway expected the MP was going to have his way after all. He remembered he was in pajamas when he saw the door. He didn’t know any way back to the barracks but the Trans. Didn’t know how he was going to stay conscious through that ride. Little bit of g it pulled would wipe him out.

But Meg steered him for a bench by the door and set him down. “You just stay mere a minute. I’m going to go back there and call your CO. Isn’t anybody coming near you. —Is your CO going to pull you out?”

“Yeah, yeah, I mink he’s already got somebody coming.”

“Then I’ll stand here and wait. If you’re sure. —You going to be all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. His teeth had started to chatter. He was barefoot. The pajamas weren’t worm much. Meg took off her coat, put it around his shoulders, and made him hold on to it. She left him a moment and came back with a blanket, God knew how.

She said, “Higgins is severely pissed. He’s on the phone.

But the nurse is all right. Nurse asked if you wanted a chair.”

Nurse was the one he’d hit. More than once. He shook his head, with some remorse for that—and regret for missing his chance at Higgins. Meg tucked the blanket around him, and under his bare feet, and sat down and offered him a warmer place to lean. They’d never been to bed together, had just been letter writers, at 830 million k remote from each other. They’d discovered they were attracted to each other too late to do anything about it, except that goodbye kiss. And now a hello one, a hug and a place to lean on, when he’d gotten to the absolute bottom of his strength. Meg never found him but what he was a mess. And here she was, he’d no idea how. She hadn’t come straight with him. And maybe sitting here with her like this was all another hallucination. If he was hallucinating this time he didn’t want to come back again, didn’t want to fight them, didn’t want to get even, didn’t want to prove anything to anybody. Just sit, long as he could, long as he could hold himself awake.

Meg said, “Well, well, blue uniforms, this time. That us?”

He focused stupidly on figures the other side of the glass. On one young, fair-haired.. .Graff, for God’s sake. With Fleet Security.

He bit his lip til it hurt enough. He said, “Don’t let me fall, Meg,” and stood up, letting go the blanket, as Graff came through the Perspex doors. “Lt. Graff, sir.”

Graff looked at him, up and down, Graff frowned—you could never tell what Graff was thinking. Could have been of skinning him alive, for all he could read.

Meg said, “They’ve been drugging him to the gills, sir. He never did do well with that.”

Graff said to the MPs, “Take him to the ship.”

“Barracks,” Dekker said, then was sorry he’d objected. He’d take anywhere but here. But he didn’t know the ship.

He wanted somewhere he knew. He wanted people he knew, namely Meg, and Sal, and Ben.

“Just long enough for a check-up,” Graff said. “I want you on record, Dekker. From the outside in. You behave yourself, hear? No nonsense.”

“Yessir,” he said. He let Security take hold of him, he sat down and they said they were going to borrow a chair; he heard Graff tell Meg Welcome in; and: “Hereafter, don’t start a war. Wait for the UN to declare it.”

“Yessir,” Meg said. Which wasn’t a word he ever recalled from Meg Kady. But Meg had enlisted. The fool. The absolute fool, if that was the price of Meg’s ticket here. He felt tears in his eyes, thinking about that.

But damned if he could figure out how she’d managed it, all in all.

Time had gotten away from him again. It kept doing that. So maybe he was, the way Ben said, crazy.