Rimrunners

CHAPTER 13

Quiet night, all told. The morning bell went off and the com flooded announcements at them:

This is the captain speaking. We've passed beyond our alert parameters without incident. I'm downgrading the alert to stand-by. We're remaining on passive-scan only. We've communicated our sighting to an allied ship which made jump during the last watch…

No different than in the Fleet, Bet thought. You got your information after the fact and if you got killed it was generally a surprise to you.

So the hammocks stayed rigged, but you could get back in quarters and get a shower, which was high priority after a jump right along with other things, your skin tending to shed a bit and whatever you were wearing tending to make its seams too well acquainted with your joints, not mentioning it smelled like old laundry. So she took a fast one, changed to sweater and pants and kited on out to breakfast—no sign of Musa and NG, which meant she was running late or they were in the showers.

Chrono by the counter said a little late. So she put a little push on it, gulped her toast and tea and a cup of orange, and headed on to Engineering.

Musa was there. Musa gave her a jaw-down nod and a cut of the eyes toward Bernstein, and she wiped her hands off on her pants and went over to Bernstein's station.

"Sir."

Bernstein gave her a slow look. "You want to tell me about the com?"

"No, sir."

"You tell me about the com, Yeager."

"Yes, sir. Fell out of my ear, sir."

"Didn't hear the bell."

"No, sir. Thank you for the page, sir."

Bernstein looked at her a long few seconds.

"You stayed in there getting that fuckin' water on. You damn fool, if that line wasn't secure we could've emptied the damn tank all over rec-deck."

"Yessir. But I dunno heaters. Just pipes. Didn't want anything to blow. So I turned it on."

"That's the trouble with you damn big-ship trainees. You dunno heaters. You know pipes. Everybody's a fuckin' specialist."

"Yessir."

"What'd you do as a hire-on?"

"Sit watch, sir. Small repair. Never claimed I was more'n that when I hired on. Said I wouldn't muck with a system I didn't know, sir. But I didn't figure a galley heater was critical to the ship."

Bernstein stared at her like she was something he was thinking about stepping on.

"What condition was that line in when you got my page?"

"Just wasn't hooked on the clip-end, sir. I heard you, I hooked it up, I cut the water on, I moved, sir."

Long silence out of Bernstein. Long, deep breath. "Yeager?"

"Sir."

"You come on here with no papers, you got the spottiest damn training I ever worked with—I ought to chuck you right over to Orsini and let him put you in Services."

"Yessir."

"'Yessir.' 'Nossir.'—You got an opinion, Yeager?"

"Rather be in Engineering, sir."

"Tell me the truth, Yeager. Did you ever have papers?"

"Lost 'em in the War, sir."

"Don't lie to me."

"No, sir."

Another long silence. "Spottiest damn training I ever worked with," Bernstein said. "But you got the hands and you got the nerves. You know anything I can rely on, Yeager?"

"Hydraulics, sir. Electronics."

"What else?"

She thought fast and hard. "Small com systems. All small systems. Motors. Pumps."

Bernstein frowned. "Real specialist. What class freighters you been working on?"

"Small, sir. Some stationside work." She drew a breath, took the jump, because she wanted to establish her alibis. "Did a little stint in militia before this."

"Where?" Bernstein asked sharply.

"Pan-paris." Records were blown there. It was Union territory now. No way to check it. No way to check anything she claimed there.

"You ever worked with weapons-systems?"

"A little." The air felt too thin. She cleared her throat. "Much as a merchanter carries, sir. And station systems. Small stuff."

Bernstein sat looking at her. Looked at her up and down. Nodded slowly. "Tell you what I'm going to do, Yeager. I'm just going to keep this in mind. You just don't do any damn showoff stunt again."

"Yessir."

"Sign in."

"Yessir." The hand twitched. She didn't move it. She found her shoulders in a brace and gulped air and relaxed, walked over and did the sign-in, exchange with Jim Merrill, who was waiting with no great cheerfulness, with Ernst Freeman.

"Take your time," Merrill said.

"Sorry about that," she said.

"You got no continuances except the clean-up in shop."

"Right," she said. "Thanks, Merrill."

"Where's NG?" Freeman asked.

"I dunno," she said, and looked around, all the way around. Freeman was NG's mainday. Freeman was still standing here, not waiting on Merrill, Merrill having left. "I'll find out."

Her eye tracked to the clock. Fifteen minutes past. Her heart sped up. She went over to Musa, at the counter an aisle back. "Musa," she whispered, "—where's NG?"

Bernstein came walking from the other direction. "Either of you seen NG this morning?"

"No, sir," Bet said.

"Saw him in quarters," Musa said, frowning.

"Shit," Bernstein said, and yelled at Freeman: "Go on, you're relieved. I'll cover you myself."

Freeman left.

"Shit," Bernstein said again. "Musa, go look in the shop."

"Yessir," Musa said, and left.

Best they could do, Bet thought. Short shift, boards to be covered, NG missing and Musa off looking—that left herself and Bernstein.

So she grabbed the board and ran NG's checks, took down numbers and called Bernstein to look-see on a fluctuation. "Inside parameters," Bernstein said.

About that time Musa came back. "Not in the shop," Musa said.

"I'll check quarters," Bet said.

"He's not there," Bernstein said. "I already put in a call. Man's ducked into some hole, is what. Shit!"

"Let me try to find him," Musa said. "Sir."

"This department's got work to do, dammit! Get on that check, or we're going to have Orsini down here.—Damn that sonuvabitch!"

"Let me look," Bet said.

"You don't know where to look."

"I know a few places. I seen a few things on this ship. Sir. Please."

"If you find him—"

"If I can get him back here—"

"You got an hour," Bernstein said. "You try the core-access, you try the lockers, the stowages—"

Bernstein ticked off the places on his fingers, a few more than NG had named to her.

"Seen him last in quarters," Musa said. "He was dressing, nothing was wrong that I know."

"Nothing's ever wrong that anybody knows," Bernstein muttered. "Get the hell gone. Get him. Hit him over the head when you find him. Move, Yeager!"

She moved. She went back up to the shop-storage, she looked in the nook she knew to check. No luck.

Dammit.

Nothing was wrong that I know—

No way that you cut up into officers' territory, no damn way you even thought about that. There were the several accessways to core, but they were low-G and colder than a rock and no way in hell a man was going to hide out there unless he was desperate.

Lockers weren't NG's favorite place, considering, but they were the likeliest and they were on the way—past a fast check on the core-lift bay, no joy there either.

She just started opening doors, God knew what you were going to find at this hour, it being mainday's rec-time, and you hesitated to search them all the way to the back, but it was a case of desperation.

Locker one, locker two, locker three, all negative. She had a stitch in her side, caught her breath and decided a look-see in cleaning-stowage was worth it.

Dark in that slit of a place. Light came in from the open door, on somebody's legs. "Sorry," she started to say, then got the notion that somebody wasn't moving. She moved her shadow, reached and cut on the lights.

NG. Not asleep, not that twisted position.

"God. NG—"

She got down and shook at his leg. "NG?" She was afraid to try to move him. She got his pulse at his ankle, slapped at him. "NG?"

There was a twitch, then, a little movement.

"NG, dammit!"

He drew the leg up, moved, slowly, until she could see the mess he was, his face all over blood, blood on the deck—

"Oh, my God." She took his arm, kept him from falling on his face. "Stay put. I'll get Bernstein."

"'M all right," he said, reaching for a locker-handle—grabbed her arm when she started to get up. "No! I'm all right!"

"What in hell, you're all right? Who did this?"

He shook his head, hauled himself up to his knees, just held onto the lockers a moment.

"I'm getting Bernstein," she said.

"No!"

"Bernstein's after your ass, dammit, I got to tell him, you just don't do anything stupid till I get back, hear me?"

"No!" He hauled himself to his feet and staggered. She grabbed him. "Can't go to the meds," NG said, grabbed a locker handle and held on. "Just go to Bernstein, tell him I'm going to clean up. I'll get there soon as I can."

"Hell, you will! Stay there!"

She ducked out, went to the first general com station and punched in Engineering. "Mr. Bernstein, sir, this is Yeager. I found him."

"Where?" the chiefs voice came back—instantly: he must be sitting over the com. Or wearing one.

"Supplies locker, sir. Somebody beat hell out of him."

"Get med on it."

"He doesn't want that."

"Get a med on it, Yeager, you going to be a problem?"

"He says—"

"I don't care what he says, Yeager. Do it!"

"Yessir. What's the number?"

Bernstein said, she keyed it, made the call, went back inside to find NG into the cleaning cabinet and trying to wash up at the utility sink. The water was running red.

"Med's coming," she said. "Bernstein's orders. I tried to talk him out of it."

"Shit," he said, and leaned on the sink.

"Who did this? Did you see them?"

NG shook his head.

"Why'd they do it? You start it?"

"Last night," he said thickly. "Tried to tell you."

"You mean your sitting with us?"

NG just shook his head. "Don't get into it."

"Was it Hughes?"

"Don't get into it! Don't get into it, how many times do I have to say it? Call medical, tell them it was a mistake, I just hit my head on a locker, for God's sake—"

"Bernstein won't have it. I tried."

"You were on general com," NG muttered slowly. "Dammit."

"Nothing broken," the med said to her, the other side of NG, NG on the table between them, with the med shining lights in NG's eyes, probing after places NG had as soon not have public; but the cubbyhole of a surgery offered no privacy but a sheet. "He's got a mild concussion. Locker door, was it?"

''S right," NG said.

"Hell of a locker," the med said. Fletcher was the name, older woman. A doctor, no less. "Don't argue with it again."

"Yes, ma'am," NG said. "Want to go back to duty."

"I can give you a medical."

"No, ma'am."

Fletcher frowned—her mouth was made for it—and ticked off some notes on a keypad. "You got a painkiller, muscle relaxer, pick it up in galley this evening, one with meals. I shot a little local into those spots, should carry you till then. No alcohol with the pills. Hear?"

"Yes, 'm," NG said, meekly, and slowly sat up, between her help and Fletcher's.

And stopped, frozen, looking toward the doorway.

Khaki shirt, command stripes. Not Fitch: a tall, blackballed man with a permanent beard-shadow.

"I hear we have an injury," the mof said: Orsini. The voice left no doubt.

"Sir," NG said, and slid off the table and kept his feet.

"How did that happen?" Orsini asked NG.

"Accident, sir."

"Are you a witness?" Orsini asked, looking at Bet.

"No, sir. Mr. Bernstein asked me bring him in, sir."

"Accident in Engineering, then."

"In quarters, sir," NG said. "Locker door sprung on me."

Long silence. "Any others victims of this door, Fletcher?"

"Not yet," Fletcher said.

Orsini nodded slowly, hands behind him. He walked around to the end of the table while NG pulled his bloody clothes together. "I'll want a copy of the write-up."

"Working on it," Fletcher said. "I'll send it over."

"Released to duty?"

"His request," Fletcher said.

Orsini looked NG's way. "You're dismissed. Go clean up. You too, Yeager."

"Yessir," NG said. "Sir," Bet said; and NG walked on his own getting out of there, walked on his own in the corridor, still fastening up his jumpsuit.

"It's all right," Bet said. "It's going to be all right."

"It's not all right," NG said. "It's not going to be all right. Keep away from me. Hear me?"

"No way in hell, mister."

NG said nothing. He walked back to quarters, he slipped in, where mainday crew was asleep, he changed clothes while she waited by the door and came back again.

So she walked with him.

All the way to Engineering.

"Hell," Bernstein said, getting a look at him, and shook his head.

Musa didn't say anything. Maybe Musa had told Bernstein, maybe Musa hadn't. She figured Musa would have done what was smart.

NG just checked in on the sheet, made no arguments when Bernstein put him to paperwork.

"Fill out your own damn accident report," Bernstein said. "It's not my job."

But Bernstein caught her apart and said: "Who did it?"

"I dunno, sir, I got my suspicions. Sir—Orsini was up there, in sickbay."

"I got the call. Listen to me, Yeager. If somebody else comes into sickbay banged up, he's got a problem. Fighting's a serious charge on this ship. You hear me?"

"Know that, sir."

"How much do you know?"

"Musa filled me in. About NG. About what happened."

"You better be smart, Yeager. You better be damn smart. You better listen to Musa.—You better know what you're buying when you buy NG any beers, hear me? Because this crew knows what's new on this ship, this crew knows whose idea it is, and you're going to make trouble if you get independent ideas, Yeager, have you got the shape of that?"

"Yessir. I got it."

Bernstein took a deep breath. "You got it. I've been trying to save this man's life, Yeager, and keep him sane. Now this has happened. Worse can happen. This is friendly, compared to what can happen. All they have to do is lie. They can still do that. You understand? They can call it self-defense."

"I can lie, too, sir. This Hughes bastard jumped me, NG stepped in. Exactly how it happened, sir. If it has to."

"Don't be a fool!"

"Yessir."

"Was it Hughes?"

"Dunno, sir."

Bernstein gave her a long, cold look. "You armed, Yeager?"

"Not right now, sir."

"What's in your pockets?"

She fished up her card. And a fat bolt.

"What're you doing with that?"

"Going to put it up, sir."

"You do that. And you and Musa—just kind of walk behind him when he goes places. Not one of you. Both. Hear me?"

"Real clear, sir."

Bernstein walked off. And talked to Musa. She exhaled a long, shaky breath. Game I know, sir. Damn nasty one. But I do know the game, sir.