Текст книги "Rimrunners "
Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh
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Musa was all right in bed too, during the vid, when the bad guys and the good guys were noisily shooting hell out of each other on the screen at the end of the quarters, to the cheers of the drunks and heavy breathing from the couples behind the privacy screens.
NG was in neither category. NG was sleeping, if he could. More likely he was hurting, but at least he was safe—right next to the bed both of them were in, NG's being endmost toward the vid, Musa's being next over.
It was something Musa had bargained his way into at Bernstein's instigation, back when NG had first come onto alterday shift—Musa having a favored mid-quarters bunk that Muller had been all too glad to trade for, and nobody but Musa being on speaking terms with NG.
That was the way Musa explained it, anyway.
Which was how Musa with all his seniority ended up next to the vid, with cheering drunks sitting on the deck at the foot of the bunk he was sharing at the moment—good question now and again whether it was the vid they were cheering.
"Damn fools," Musa said between breaths.
"'S all right," Bet said, and laughed, because it was funny, laughed and got Musa to laughing, quietly, under the blankets they had thrown over themselves.
"You're a good woman," Musa said– Musa smelled of perfumed soap, no less, Musa had clean sheets, Musa had hauled out an old bottle of real honest-to-Mother-Earth whiskey and poured her a big hit on it. It was something she had only heard about, from Africatroopers old enough to remember it.
Where'd you get this? she had asked, and Musa, pleased, had said, Taste of home.
So Musa was from Earth. The Fleet had fought for Earth. Africahad gone back to fight there. It was kind of an obscure connection that formed, not even a friendly one most of the time, but it made her think what a tangled lot of things it took to get an Africatrooper and a man like Musa into the same bed.
Lot of places that led.
The vid reached a series of explosions, the drunks yelled. Musa voice-overed the next lines from memory, funnier than hell, at least drunk as she was getting, and poured her another drink.
The vid went quiet of a sudden. The drunks groaned into a disappointed silence.
" This is the captain speaking," the com thundered out. " This ship will make jump at 0600 mainday."
Then the vid started up again, but the talk was quiet then.
"Damn," Bet said, "gone again. Where now?"
"Easy to answer," Musa said.
"Where, then?"
"Wherever they got us put."
"Damn," she said, and hit him a gentle punch.
"Actually," Musa said, settling down to be comfortable a while, "not too hard to guess. The Fleet's got its ass kicked twice now, back at Earth, they popped out again, nobody knows where—they say maybe old Beta Station—"
That could put a chill into you. There had always been rumors in the Fleet that Mazian had a hole-card, and the name of abandoned Beta, old Alpha Cent, had come up—the bad-luck station, second star humankind ever parked a pusher-can at and set up to live there—and, the story ran, it had just gone transmission-silent one day, the constant data-flow to other stations had just—stopped, no reason, no explanation, and not a scrap of a clue left behind when a ship finally got there—sublight—to investigate. Beta Station had systematically shut down, and the pusher-module that could have gotten the people off was gone—
But no wisp of wreckage or electronic ghost of a transmission ever told what had happened.
"They'd be fools," she said, and thought to herself it was the kind of rumor Mazian himself might have started, just to confuse things.
"They jumped to some point in that direction," Musa said. "That's what I hear."
"So maybe they know some point of mass nobody else does."
"Could be. Or maybe they just jumped out to old Beta and laid real quiet. Beta would be good for them, all that old mining and biomass gear, antiquated as hell, but if the dust ain't got it it's still there. Could be what he's done."
"Is that where we're going?"
"Not us. No."
"Then what are we doing?"
"Keeping the lanes open. Not letting that sum-bitch cut us off from Earth. Not letting him peel off the Hinder Stars. He could start the whole war up again, get Earth cut off, force Pell into Union or force Pell to deal with him, one way or the other. Sure as hell Pell can't hold out independent if Earth goes into his pocket. Sure as hell the Hinder Stars are nothing but a damn human warehouse. You found that out."
"Found that out," she said.
The vid never did get as noisy again, not what was going on-screen, not the crowd that was watching. A lot of people left to go out to rec and get a beer and talk, and a lot of people just sat around on bunks to drink and talk.
"I got to check on NG," she said, and leaned down off the edge of the bunk to put her head below the level of the privacy screen.
"He all right?" Musa asked.
"Looks to be asleep. 'Scuse."
She crawled out and ducked under, and sat down again on NG's bunk, beside him.
Half-asleep, all right. Pills had a kick to them. He gave her a bleary look.
"You hear that?" she said. "We got jump in the morning."
"Got to wake up," he muttered.
"No, you sleep. Musa and I'll pour you into your hammock in the morning. No problem. You can trust us." She squeezed his hand. "G'night. All right?"
No answer. The fingers didn't twitch. But he was all right. She and Musa had custody of the pills—in case. And if Lokiwas going somewhere tomorrow, wherever that was, then at least they were starting out in good order this time, no surprises.
She ducked back under, crawled back into Musa's bed, cold and shivering.
Man who didn't mind that was a gentleman, she thought.
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.
" Youwatch 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."
" Screwingwith him on the chief's orders too."
" That'spersonal 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 andyour 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."
" Problemis," 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 carewhat 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, thoughc
–Spent all my grown life fighting Earth's fight, and look at how they paid us. None so bad to take on one that Ipick, 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 doesc
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.
Hardpush 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—hardc
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 NGcould 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 nowhen 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.
CHAPTER 16
QUIET EVENING in rec, vid going in the quarters, a lot of the shift just collapsed in their bunks.
There was a large run on beers in rec, but just quiet drinking: lot of headaches for tomorrow.
And their own little group of three collected at the end of the bench next the galley, nobody bothering them, while two good Systems engineers drew diagrams on a slate and tried to get what they knew through a dumb skut's head.
It made half sense. "Why's it do that?" she asked.
"God does it," NG said, exasperated. "Just believe it happens."
"No, no," Musa said, "fair answer, now."
NG erased the slate and started re-drawing his schematic of little labeled circles, patiently, meticulously.
"Boy's damn smart," Musa said, hunkering closer. "Never did get this part myself."
"The hell," NG muttered, giving Musa a dirty look, and went through it again, how and why the flare-off worked when a ship dumped V.
It made her sick at her stomach when she started figuring it in terms of what could go wrong. Or of what that number-drain was and what could happen if things just failed to go right.
"Well, are we going to fixthat damn thing?"
"First chance we get."
"We got to put in for a fill soon," she said.
"Where we put in," Musa said, "they got no facilities. And we can't afford the sit."
"We can't afford to lose the—"
Musa shushed her. "Business, business don't go in rec. Drink your beer."
She took a sip. NG took a big one.
And seeing the look on NG's face she wished she hadn't said that about losing the ship in hyperspace.
Seeing the look on his face—
And beyond it, where Lindy Hughes and his couple of friends were sitting, talking, momentarily staring this way.
"Hughes is down there," she said with a second cold chill in her stomach.
"Hughes is on this shift," Musa said. "He's got a right."
"He's shit." She picked up the slate, she cleared it off and she gave it to Musa, thinking that if it wasn't so traceable and so likely to land on NG, a simple accident could account for Lindy Hughes.
"He's damn stupid," Musa said. "Bernstein's over all the techs. Man's got a real problem. If he's real damn smart he'll transfer."
NG just sat there.
"Going to take this man to bed," she said to Musa, putting her hand on NG's knee.
"No," NG said, and got up and went and threw his cup in the bin.
And went to the quarters by himself, past Hughes' stare.
"Man's upset," she said.
"Yeah," Musa said.
"I got to see to him," she said, worried about NG, worried about Musa—damn, she'd had enough crazy men. But Musa turned his callused hand up and took hers, and squeezed it.
"You be careful of Hughes. Hear? Some things I can't pull you out of."
"Yeah."
"Get."
She got. She tossed the cup, walked back to the dim quarters, heard a little catcall from Hughes' company, and found herself face to face with McKenzie in the doorway.
Shit! she thought, and flinched when McKenzie grabbed her arm, pulled her inside, and said he had to talk to her.
"I got business."
"You got trouble," McKenzie said, and his hand hurt her arm. "You got major trouble." He shoved her over against the first privacy screen, right by the door. "Listen here."
"That's my arm, mister."
The grip lightened up. He was standing close, pushing her into the corner. "NG the appointment you were talking about?"
"What if it was?"
"You'd be damn stupid. Damnstupid." Another jerk when she started to move. "Listen to me! The man's going to get you killed. People are trying to warn you—"
"You in with Hughes?"
"I didn't have a damn thing to do with it. I'm trying to warn a fool. You don't know this ship."
She pulled to get her arm free. He eased up again, and she might get all the way loose, but there was a note of something honest in the things McKenzie was saying.
"I got my orders," she said.
"That include sleeping with him?"
"Is thatyour problem?"
"Go to hell," he said, and shoved her loose. "Go straight to hell if you're set on it."
She grabbed his arm then, before he could get out the door. "McKenzie. You heard anything?"
"I'm telling you there's ways things get done on this ship and ways things come back at you on this ship and you're being a damn fool, woman. Don't be playing games."
"Appreciated," she said, quietly. "Appreciated. What's your percentage?"
No answer.
"Yeah," she said.
"Don't be stupid. I'm telling you, I'm just telling you, is all. You can take it any way you like."
The man confused her. Bad feelings to start with, man suddenly coming at her like this—
"Damn few women on this ship," McKenzie said reasonably. "Hell of a waste, Yeager."
"Me with him?"
"That too."
She suddenly liked McKenzie a lot better than she had– a little too eager to start with, maybe, but saner than she had looked for. She touched him on the arm with the back of her hand. "I tell you," she said, "you might be all right, Gabe. I hope so."
He put his hand on her hip. God! she thought, nettled. He said, "I'm telling you—you go around making cases where everything was quiet and things can happen to you."
"That a threat?"
"No." He took the hand back. "Damn, I told you—
"You made me nervous as hell, friend. I'll tell you that. But I could have been wrong."
"Wrong about what?"
"About you being in with Hughes."
"Damn, I'm not!"
"What's Hughes' game?"
"He's a sum-bitch," McKenzie said. "Just a plain sum-bitch, no percentage in it. Got his little clique. He may be under Bernstein, but he's got ties on the bridge. He's got Goddard on his side. Navcomp. Goddard's a poker partner of Kusan's and Orsini's, you follow?"
"I know Orsini."
"Goddard's a—" McKenzie shut it down. "You just watch it. I'm giving you good advice."
"I'm listening."
"That's all. Just get clear of it. Figi and Park and me, and Rossi and Meech, we just stay the hell out of it."
"You scared of Hughes? You got the same pull, topside, what about the scan-ops?"
"I'm not scared of Hughes. I'm just not interested in borrowing somebody else's trouble. I'm telling you get clear of it before you mark yourself with this, you already got people talking."
"Saying what?"
"Saying you're a damn fool. Come in here, cross the lines, stir up the whole damn watch on old business—I don't know what Musa's game is, maybe you got him going the same as you got half the men in this watch—but I don't say I don't believe it about Bernstein—he hauled NG's ass out of the cold or he wouldn't be here. And maybe there's people on this ship don't like what happened to him, but that won't buy a thing. They won't be there when it comes head-on against you."
"You?"
"I'm not a fool either. I'm telling you, you're setting yourself up for some bad hurt. I don't like to see that. Damn, I don't like to see that."
"I appreciate it. I do." She patted him on the arm. "You got yourself on my good list for that. Tell you what you cando cheap, that's be eyes for me and Musa where we can't."
McKenzie scowled. "What percentage?"
"Favor-points with me. Maybe with Bernstein, who knows?"
"Bernie's favor-points don't spend on mainday bridge, I'm telling you. You go on, you're in for it."
"I got you clear. I got you absolutely clear."
Fitch.
"Just so you do." He came up close against her, gave her a nice little pass of the hands she didn't mind at all. "Damn,", he said, and she said,
"You know where I bunk? Got a bottle, got some picture-stuff. Make free of it.
Anytime. You and Park and Figi."
"What else comes with it?"
"Lot else might. You want to party? I bring my mates."
Long silence.
"You're buying trouble."
"Get a few other guys. Get some bottles. We got no push on us, we got no likelihood of an alert I know of—What d'you think?"
"Dammit—"
"Nice pictures. Got a viewer too. Tell you what, I get NG up there for about half an hour, then you just happen by, everybody else happens by—one at a time—"
"You're crazy as he is."
"Vodka."
"Damn. All right."
She grinned, gave Gabe a peck on the cheek and a pat on backside and took out down the aisle.
CHAPTER 17
WE GOT A LITTLE trouble," was what she told NG when she caught up to him, in the dim light down by his bunk, down by the vid. "Don't ask questions. Come on. Fast."
And when she got him as far as the ladder to the loft: "Come on, it's all right."
"Dammit," he said, confused-sounding.
But he went in front of her up the ladder—a lot of trust, she figured, from a man who had lately been ambushed.
She caught him up, grabbed him by the arm and steered him right for her bunk—got him that far and then he started pulling back.
"Where's Musa?" he asked.
"Musa's right where he needs to be. Just shut up, stay put, don't make me trouble." She edged between him and the privacy screen, tilted up her bunk in the dim light and pulled out a bottle, the viewer, and Ritterman's pictures, and set them on the floor. She let the bunk down then, said, "Sit down. Don't be so damn conspicuous," and when NG did that, sat down beside him, reached after the bottle, uncapped it and took a drink. "Here."
He took one. She took one. He took a second; she snuggled up close, swung around on one knee on the bunk and settled with a leg in his lap. "Dammit," he said, catching on. He made to give her the bottle back and get up, she got her knee in the way, got her arms around his neck and said very close to his ear:
"Didn't say we couldn't entertain ourselves. Just keep it quiet, all right, and don't spill my bottle."
He stayed put. In half a dozen seconds he was warming up a lot, went back on the bunk, she did, and somehow they managed not to spill the vodka.
"Where's Musa?" he asked while clothes were coming askew.
"Oh, I dunno," she said. "He's taking care of stuff. I'm just keeping you where you can't get into trouble."
"Dammit, dammit—" he mumbled, and after that not much.
Man always did have a primary problem with sex and priorities, or maybe life just got cheap. So he was occupied when McKenzie showed up, McKenzie with a "Mind?"
"Help yourself," she said, and held onto NG, while NG was trying to scramble up off the bunk. "It's all right, McKenzie was going to borrow the viewer."
"Hell!" NG said.
"It's all right," McKenzie said, and got the viewer and sat down on the bed. "That vodka you got?"
"Sure."
"Excuse me," NG said, gone all cold, but Bet snagged him with an arm before he could escape.
"No, no," she said, "NG, Gabe's a friend."
"Dammitall!"
"No problem," McKenzie said, all easy, and Bet hooked a knee over NG's to keep him sitting. McKenzie thumbed the power on the hand-viewer, popped a fiche in and took a look.
