Rimrunners

CHAPTER 15

Out of the bunks and off to duty stations, theirs being the lucky watch that drew duty through this particular jump: scant time for a dance through the shower, grab the trank-pack and the c-pack off the galley counter along with a Keis-and-biscuit and a hot drink while Services was stringing the hammocks for mainday. NG was barely functioning, limping around and definitely reluctant to leave the hot shower, but Musa was next in line, and she steered NG out to the breakfast line, bleary-eyed and sullen as he was.

"I'm saying get off me," he muttered while they were going through the door. "Watch doesn't mean hanging onto me."

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

"Hell!"

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

He looked bloody awful, one eye swollen, mouth swollen, and his expression this morning made no improvement. He muttered something for an answer, limped toward the line ahead of her.

Hughes and his friends. She saw it coming before NG did, a half a second before Hughes shouldered him and knocked him off his balance.

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

"You watch where you're fucking going!" Bet hissed at Hughes, grabbing a fistful of sleeve. "You want an argument, mister, you got one."

Hughes grabbed for her wrist and ended up with nothing—not going to cut loose in a full-scale brawl, no, not here, not likely; but the whole rec-hall got quiet.

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

"May be," she said. "I dunno your quarrel with him, and I don't care, mister, but I'm on his tail on orders of the chief, who don't like his crew running into any locker door. Nothing personal."

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

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

Real quiet.

"No fighting," NG said.

"That's fine," she said. "I ain't fighting. Man's just got a little problem. Probably glandular. You want to fuck with me, mister? Take you right down to that locker, soon's this ship clears jump. You and your two bedmates there. We can straighten everything out."

"Here, Lindy—" Musa showed up, right through the audience, thank God, still damp from the shower, low-key as always. "We got a little problem?"

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

"Problem is," Bet said, loud and sharp, "we got some crossed lines here, this is the same skuz butted in yesterday while our shift was sitting down doing simple business over a beer; and beyond that I don't fucking care what his problem is, somebody took severe exception to that beer, in the dark and from the back, the way I see it. So I'm asking, was it you, Lindy Hughes?"

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

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

"Hell if it did!" she said. "I hear all to hell and gone what NG did, but I see nothing but a damn good engineer at his post ever'day doing his own job and several others', and the only time he ever missed he was lying beat half to death in the supplies locker, so don't tell me about responsibility, mister, I seen more of it in NG Ramey than I seen in whatever fool beat up our Systems man when this ship is apt to go jump any damn minute—"

Slow, measured clap of the hands from somewhere around the fringe. That nettled Hughes. "You want to fuck with him?" Hughes asked, playing to the crew at large. He made a wide gesture. "Neo comes on here and tells us what a fine, upstanding man NG Ramey is. Shit!"

"Pull off, Lindy," Musa said.

"Fucking neo."

"I said, pull off! Bernstein's orders. Somebody beat up our Systems man, and we got orders to keep him in one piece, it ain't a question of preferences, mine or hers."

"I ain't taking shit from her!"

"Shut it down, Lindy."

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

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

Musa put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her in the direction of the counter. NG was still standing there, in whatever frame of mind she didn't care to figure at the moment. She got her packs and her breakfast. Johnson the cook was there, galley staff working fast to set up for after the jump. Johnson gave her an under-the-brows look.

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

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

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

NG took them, no expression, no look directly at her, he just tucked the packs under an arm and gulped the biscuit and the tea. She swallowed hers, too much adrenaline coursing her bloodstream to afford any appetite, her stomach in a knot, but you took food when you could get it, hell with Lindy Hughes.

A couple of mainday Engineering were there, Walden and Farley having come in, maybe having been there through the ruckus. She didn't spot Hughes any longer.

Damn stupid, she thought, with her mouth full of biscuit. She was catching more attention from little confabs here and there in rec-hall than was good for anybody.

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

—Better'n some, though…

—Spent all my grown life fighting Earth's fight, and look at how they paid us. None so bad to take on one that I pick, none so bad to go out that way, if I got to.

Just give me targets, that's what Teo would say.

She looked over at NG standing there sipping tea with a sore mouth. Gave him a sort-of smile.

He glared at her like somebody cornered.

"You got a terrible attitude," she said and elbowed him in the ribs. "Cheer up, NG."

He walked off on his own, to throw the cup in the bin and head off for work. But she was on his track and she caught Musa's eye and Musa came, still gulping the last of his breakfast.

So they trailed him around to Engineering, NG half a dozen strides in the lead, Musa and herself behind, herself walking with hands in pockets and a kind of unreasonable cheerfulness while NG looked mad as hell.

But they got there the way Bernstein said, no time at all that NG was ever out of their sight: they got in, checked systems with their opposite numbers; and Bernstein came in to take over from Smith—off a general briefing for the mofs, one could guess.

Bernstein and Smith talked a moment, in the privacy ship-sound afforded, while they were going through the routine shift-change checks, she saw that out of the corner of her eye, and she felt the sweating nervousness start—

Calm down, calm down, she kept telling herself. No fire fight on the other side, just another sit. It's the way this ship works, it's all she does…

But the hands wanted to shake and the gut kept tightening up, just anxiousness to get it done.

Damn, I'm not up to this, they got NG on the boards, and he's crazy and they got me and I'm not an engineer; and besides us they got just Musa and they got Bernstein, and what in hell kind of way is that to run a ship?

Can't be a firefight, she thought, no way they'd put alter-day crew up when there was a shooting match coming.

Bernstein finished with Smith, walked over to take the stats from NG. The take-hold started ringing, the advisement of the coming engine-start. "So where are we?" she asked, being curious. "Where're we going?"

"Classified," Bernstein said.

A body tried.

"We don't fight," Bernstein said. "We just stay ready to run. That's all."

"Yessir," she said.

"No different than we've been doing," Bernstein said. "We got a half hour. Burn's about to go. Take the number three chair.—How're you doing, NG?"

"No problem," NG said, cold and preoccupied, flipping switches.

She was the one with the upset at her stomach as she settled into her place and set herself up, trank-pack and c-pack and earplug and all, nothing else to do, since mainday had been good enough to sign the shop sealed and secure.

The burn cut in, an authoritative shove of the engines that built fast and hard. The deck shook and the whole swing-section of Engineering command rumbled on its tracks as it reoriented, a quiver deep in bones and nerves.

Here we go.

"You watch this readout," Bernstein said over the complug in her ear, and brought the station three screens live. "You got the panic button there and you push it if any display starts flashing, you push the panic button and the system will route it to me and Musa, you got it, Yeager?"

"Yessir."

"You know the parameters on the containment?"

Her heart jumped. "Yessir."

"That's your number one, there. On your right. If you get a sudden trend in the numbers you don't like, you push your number one red button and the panic button together. That sends it to me, got it?"

"I got it, sir, but f'God's sake tell me I'm not the only one on that."

"You're not. I like more than one pair of eyes on it. Watch your screens, Yeager, and don't bother me, I got my hands full.—We're on count now. Start your trank."

She grabbed the pack and squeezed it, felt the sting in her hand and the old tension in her gut. She could see NG's station from where she sat, she could see NG reach after the trank and take his. His face was still calm, but sweat stained his jumpsuit and beaded on his skin.

Hard push now.

"Five minutes," Bernstein said.

Her thoughts wanted to scatter. Hughes; and NG; and Musa last night; and the containment readouts and the numbers; and the chance of trouble otherside.

Watch the damn numbers.

Only time for so. much.

Is NG all right?

How long's it been since he sat station on a jump?

Flash of the space behind the cans in the stowage; NG tripping wild, hand in the middle of her, hand bashing her lip—

He do that often?

And she thought, just as the final bell rang and they were bound for jump:

Does Bernstein know what he's doing putting a load on NG? Expecting him to work in jump?

Man could kill all of us—

Down again. She heard electronic chatter in her ear.

She tried to focus, sorted after the numbers in her recollection, remembered to watch the rate on number one. Saw the numbers falling away.

My God.

She hit the buttons, heart pounding.

"Got that," Bernstein said, "got it. She does that."

Sweat poured. She slumped, feeling the flutter in her muscles head to foot.

NG said: "Doing all right, Bet. Little slippage in one of the arms."

She felt like fainting. Breath came short for a little and she felt a cramp in her gut she hadn't felt in years, like maybe the treatment was wearing off.

Or it was advancing age, maybe.

V-dump, then. She felt the pulse through the ebbing trank, felt them come down again.

She fumbled after the c-pack, kept her eye on the screens while she pulled the tube out and got a sip.

Second dump, hard, God—hard…

The numbers—

"We got that drift again!" She had the button punched.

"Got it, got it," Musa said.

God!

She wiped sweat and took another sip, reminded herself they were used to doing this with one fewer. Old game of Scare the neo. Never a time that they weren't onto that system. But, damn! it was all tekkie problems, it was all garble, she didn't know what damn arm NG was talking about or what it had to do with the magnetics or what in hell somebody was doing just then that pulled the numbers back to safety.

The ship just worked, dammit, tekkies made it work, you never thought about the ship just blowing up or losing its braking because of some damn numbers on a screen.

She was shaking. She wanted a drink. She wanted a shower. She wanted to get to the head. She sat there watching numbers till her eyes ached. And NG just talked back and forth with Musa and Bernstein, calm and cold, until Bernstein said, "Bridge is giving us an all-clear to unbelt. Yeager, you want to take a five minute break?"

"Yessir." She had to pry herself out of the chair. She headed straight for the outside and the E-section head, between Engineering and the purser's office, not half scared about the ship changing its mind and moving, and making a Yeager-shaped dent in the paneling—not half the scare those damn numbers put in her, flowing away like the ship was bleeding to death right through her fingers and she didn't have a patch for it.

Damn, damn, if everybody else could sit there like that, so cold, if NG could sit there like that, just pick up and go on working with the shakes and all—

Damned if she couldn't.

Thirty-seven years old and starting over as a neo. So she got the shakes.

That was just adrenaline you didn't know what to do with. But you learned, damned if you didn't, you learned what to do with that charge-up nature gave you, and you got your head to working and you just did it, that was all, whatever it was. Bernstein wasn't going to hand her a damn thing real without checking her on it, and at least nobody was shooting at her while she was learning it.

Please God he wasn't going to hand her anything real and on her own.

What do I say if he does? I don't know what the hell you're talking about?

Questions about her papers, all the way to the captain's office, that was what honesty got her. They might forgive her being stupid, might just put her on plain scutwork; but then Bernstein could tell the captain she was too damn good at some things and too damn stupid at others and things didn't add up right, that was where it could go once the questions started.

You learned, was all you could do, and you said no when you had to, and you never agreed to anything you couldn't fix.

"Shakes?" Bernstein asked her, stopping by.

"Nossir," she said.

He patted the top of the chair. "Did all right. We just got a little play in a servo, always wanders a little when we drop out. You know why?"

She gave him a desperate look.

"Nossir."

"Suggest you ask somebody real soon, Yeager."

"Yessir," she said. "Thank you, sir."

Bernstein patted the chair back again and walked off on his business, and she just sat there a second. While her heart settled.