Текст книги "Devil to the Belt (novels "Heavy Time" and "Hellburner")"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

But the company was training new techs fast as they could, and the new head of MamBitch was talking about substituting Institute hours for the experienced Shepherds’ years, requiring re-certifications every five years after you were forty.

The Shepherds had naturally told MamBitch where they’d send the cargoes the hour they did that and the company threatened to pass those re-cert rules if the Shepherds ever did it—but the company didn’t have enough pilots to plug in those slots right now that wouldn’t dump more than cargo into the Well, or fry themselves and their ships by pure accident. Yet.

So Big Mama had had to assign her shiny new tech crews to tend the ‘drivers for now, because Shepherd crews wouldn’t fly with the corp-rat cut-rate talent straight out of ‘accelerated training’—and because the military was hot on Mama’s neck about schedules. But time and the Belt were taking their natural toll and the day was coming, even a dumbass Attitudinal washout could see it ahead, when there’d be just too few of the old guard left to make a ripple in the company’s intentions: someday company was going to pass its New Rules, and she was the right age to be caught in it. She didn’t like Meg’s line of thought at all, and she couldn’t figure how it had much to do with anything present—which was what Meg had promised her.

“So?” she said. “So what’s this leading to? What’s this to do with our problem?”

“If you want to figure Bird,” Meg said, “you seriously need to understand, blue-skyers don’t know what short supply is. They don’t think by the numbers: air’s free and they got nothing but heavy time, so they give it away—they give it away even if they haven’t got it, because that’s their pride, you see? They have to say they can, even if they can’t, because natural folk can, and anything less they won’t admit to.”

“Way to starve,” Sal said. “Way to end up on a company job. That’s pure fool, Kady. And Bird isn’t.”

“Air’s free on Earth. Feet can go.”

“If you don’t mind dirt. And they got laws that say where you can go. I heard Bird say.”

“Yeah, well.” Meg walked a few more steps. Sal remembered then that, old business at Sol Station notwithstanding, Meg was a whole lot closer to blue sky than she ever could be, and she worried that maybe she’d cut Meg off with that zap about dirt.

But Meg went on as if she hadn’t taken offense: “That’s how it is for corp-rat execs, isn’t it? Air’s free wherever they are. Short for them is when they run out of their Chardonnay ‘87—I know. Hell, I used to run that freight. I know what those sons of bitches are eating, them with their Venetian antiques and their mink bedspreads.”

“Venetian?”

“Italiano. Ochin expensiv. Fragil. Minks are fuzzy live crits. You wear their skins.”

Sal looked at her. Sometimes Meg scammed you when she was in a mood. Hard to be sure.

“No shit. I used to freight it. Pearls, fancy woods, stuff like that. If you skimmed that stuff, you could black market it to starships or you could sell it right back to guess where?”

Sal lifted a brow.

“I guess the corp-rat got his apartment furnished,” Meg said. “Or he got a cheaper source. SolCorp didn’t want me going to trial, hell no. They told me I could come here and fly for myself or I could pilot some pusher back and forth off Mars for good old EC if I sincerely didn’t want to go do mining.”

That was half what Meg had said and half what she’d never said—that she had been dealing black market with some exec, and it was that guy who’d blindsided her.

Things you found out, after this many years.

She liked Meg hell and away better than she had those years ago, that was sure—understood a good deal more of her thinking; but not all of it, never all of it, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know where Meg had been or what Meg had been trained to do. Dive into a planetary well or bring a ship out of one—the thought gave a Shepherd’s daughter the chills.

“So, well, Bird’s got a little ahead at this guy’s expense, he’s short—Bird’s not going to say no, isn’t going to make this guy ask, either. Machismo. Something like. Fact is, I’vebeen where this guy is and it makes me a skosh mad, Sal. It sincerely does.”

“Well, I’d agree with you I don’t like to see the guy screwed, hell, I put it on Mitch, and they’rebizzed about it—but they’re going to do a real fast hands-off after what he did. I’ll tell you the word I don’t like, Kady, it’s what I heard from Persky—the guy yelled out about Bird and Ben knowing a ‘driver was out there—”

“Yeah, well, he was drunk.”

“Doesn’t matter if he was drunk, Kady, dammit, I got very scarce favor points with Mitch—”

“Screw Mitch.”

“Yeah, the hell with Mitch—Mitch’ll give me a choice, get out and away from Bird, that’s what he’ll tell me.”

“Would you do it?”

“It’s all over the damn ‘deck what he said—”

“Tss. They drugged him stupid, Aboujib.”

“We got a live charge here, Kady. We can’t afford this. Theycan’t!”

“All right, I’ll tell you what Bird said to me. This is a confidence. Black-hole it.”

“Go.”

“ ‘Driver’s sitting out there right where the accident happened. Dekker gave ‘em the coordinates. Said he and his partner had found a big rock. Class B. That’s where that thing is sitting, chewing it up and spitting it at the Well, fast as it can. Few more months and it won’t be there.”

“Why in helldidn’t you tell me?”

“I amtelling you. I found it out from Bird last night. That’s what you can see on those charts you lifted.”

“Shit!—But that doesn’t make sense. Something rolls in from Out There—yeah, rocks like that happen, but wedon’t get ‘em. Those things show up on optics.”

“So somebody slipped—assigned the kids to it. MamBitch can’t make a payout like that to a freerunner. You want to know how many’d be kiting out here? Buyingpassage out here? If it wasiron, the way Dekker claimed, that’s a friggin’ national debt!”

She let a breath go between her teeth. “God.”

“You know MamBitch’s help. Some lowlevel fool in BM screws up, puts this freerunner out there and then his super finds out. And does any freerunner call in til he’s got his sample? Not the way you and I do it: we’re not having the Bitch say no, don’t pursue, and then have her hand the good stuff to her lapdogs… and give the kids credit for somesavvy about the system. They wouldn’t trust the Bitch. They’d go on and sample it—get a solid assay on that thing.”

“Dangerous as hellfor a ship their size. Maybe it wasthe rock that got ‘em, maybe they were just rushed…”

“Possible. I dunno. The jeune fils isn’t thinking so.”

“And a rock like that—untagged—where’d it come from? Thing had to have an orbit way the hell and gone. And iron?”

“We don’t know shit what it was. We do know one kid is dead and MamBitch wiped the log. But those loads are going to hit the Well any day now. Drop thaton Mitch.”

“I can drop it, for what it’s worth. But with a mouth like that—”

“Severely young, severely green, Aboujib. We can pull him in line.”

“Kady.”

“I’m telling you. Tell you something else. We haveto pull him in line: theyknow where he was last night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“ MamBitch, Aboujib. MamBitch. He camethere. He checked in. He knows Bird and Ben—”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh, God.’ I’ve beenthrough this. They’ve got a line on him. Not a short one, maybe, but that depends on what he gets into. And what are we going to tell Bird? Excuse us, Bird, but you sincerely got to pitch this guy out, on account of MamBitch is looking for trouble and on account of Sal’s slipped Ben’s charts to the Shepherds?”

“Dammit, why didn’t you say something?”

“How can I say what I didn’t know? I didn’t hear the word ‘driver.’ I didn’t see those charts. I didn’t hear the word ‘rock’ til last shift—”

“Dammit!”

“You want another thought to sleep with? We’re going out of here in a couple weeks, and what’s hegoing to be doing—or saying—while we’re out there? Can we stop him?”

“God.”

“What’s Mitch going to say about that?”

“I don’t know!”

“We could shut him up for about three months, say.”

“What are you saying? Take him with?”

They walked past a noisy bar doorway. Meg said, the other side: “Well, here’s what I’m thinking: the jeune fils needs his license back. Say he passes the ops. He’s got to have board time. Couple hundred hours. Gets him off the ‘deck. Gets him shut up.”

“Yeah, and where’s Ben in this figuring? Ben’ll killthat guy—”

“Who said Bird and Ben?”

“Oh, God. You’re out of your head, Kady.”

“Look. Bird’s got this debt—and wecan pay it for him. We make it like a favor. Then Bird’s got karma for us. So does this guy—who’s also from the motherwell.”

“Who’s also bent. And we get tagged with him!”

“Tell Mitch what we’re doing. Tell him we’re going to bend this guy around the right way. Do theywant him now? I don’t think so. We can solve Dekker’s problem, solve Bird’s problem, solve Mitch’s problem. Ourrep can’t get too badly bent. That’s where we’re useful. We get this jeune fils’ sober attention and he’s no problem.”

Sal rolled her eyes. Hellof a situation wrapped around that ship that they were so close to—

Decorative is one thing, she thought. But where’s the payout?—Meg hands out this air-is-free and everybody-works-partners stuff, like the preacher folk. But what’s this guy really bring us?

They walked along, looking at displays in spex windows, in the deep bass rhythm of music blasting from the speakers, bouncing off the girders overhead.

She said to Meg: “I’ll tell you one thing, that chelovek better not have been skimming. Wegot rep enough. And he damnsure better not come into The Hole on drugs again. He really better not be that kind.”

“Couldn’t say that this morning,” Meg said.

“Couldn’t say he was on the beam, either. I hate those quiet types. No joke, Meg, if we get out there and he does go schitz—what in hell are we going to do? We don’t know we canget him straight. That guy could get severely strange out there. Then what do we do?”

“Keep him tied to the pipes, the way the guys did? I could go for that.”

She caught a breath. “Warped, Kady!”

“Well, hey,—he isn’t useless, is he?”

“Hell!”

“Gives Mitch three whole months. Do you want this jeune fils loose on the ‘deck the way he is, talking about Bird and Ben and ‘driver ships?”

“Point.”

“So we just got to figure how to sign him in with MamBitch.”

“What the hell do we call him? Ballast?”

Lascivious grin. “Systems redundancy?”

“Rude, Kady.”

“Yeah.” Meg grinned, with a sideways glance.

“Don’t con me! We got more than a small problem here. Say we get this guy straight, we stillgot him in the middle of things—we got Ben, who’s seriously put out, here… Ben’s notgoing to go easy on this, he’s notgoing to go shares with this guy.”

“Ben better not push Bird on this. Don’t expect him to figure it, just he shouldn’t push. Everybody needs some room sometime.”

“Serious room, here. Major with Ben, too.”

“He doesn’t have to work with Ben.”

“Who’s going to work with him? We got guys starving on the list, and any numbers man needing a pilot wants one who doesn’t see eetees, f’ God’s sake. That jeune fils made himself a rep yesterday that he’s got to live down a longtime before they forget that—”

“There’s always Yoji Carpajias.”

“God.” Yoji was a great numbers man. But he didn’t bathe. “We’d have to steam and vac all over.”

“Yeah. But there is Yoji. There’s others. Leave Ben on prime with Trinidad. Us on prime with Way Out. If MamBitch lets Dekker re-certify, then quiet is exactly what she wants. And Dekker with his license back—is a whole lot more credible, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, and how do we keep a line on him? He’s poison right now. But we don’t know him. We don’t know whatway he’s going to turn.”

“Dekker’s from Sol. He’s a lot more like Bird. You got to take into account he’ll do things for Bird-type reasons. He’s stuck by his partner, hasn’t he? He’ll owe us. Major karma.”

The idea got through to her then, what Meg was saying. “Karma, hell. If Bird gives that sumbitch board-time, he can charge for it. Take it out of his hide, he can. Either Dekker’s got finance to pay that time or Bird’s for sure got a pilot on a string. That old sonuvabitch!”

“I don’t think that’s why Bird’s doing this.”

Sal gave Meg a look, thinking that through the loop a couple of times, wondering if she was following Meg through everything she’d been saying. “Yeah, but are wethat crazy? Bird owns Way Out—but weown our time. We log that guy’s board-time, and we own him til he can pay his charges with us—that’s the law, that’s the only damn useful thing the Institute ever taught me. We debt that guy to us for time, weget him re-certified, and the company won’t friggin’ get him, how’s that for charitable?” She came to dead stop on the decking, hands in pockets, with a whole new idea taking shape. Mitch, and Way Out, and a deal higher-value cards to deal with. “Maybe that’s why MamBitch left the preacher-stuff out of pilot training, you think?”

Bad business, working null, floating around for hours on end compromising everything your heavy time was supposed to mend, but, hell, the meds who made the health and safety regulations hadn’t priced help these days. Zero unemployment, the company claimed, or near enough as didn’t count: and you could hire some real zeroes to come up and scrub, all right, but they’d play off on you and steal what wasn’t bolted on, and to Bird’s way of thinking and Ben’s as well, it was better to take the extra dock time, do the steam and vac themselves and see what damaged systems they could fudge past the inspectors that really could be repaired instead of replaced—turn it over to a refitter like Towney Brothers, and you’d have a one hell of a bill, not least because Towney was in the pocket of half a dozen suppliers.

A-men.

So they didn’t replace the shower, they just unbolted the panels and took them to the rent-a-shop on 3-deck where they could sand down the edges—no way you could tell it from new, once you screwed it back together. They took things apart and ported it down to 3, cleaned it and reassembled it, right down to the electronics. And you steamed and you vacced, and steamed and vacced and took apart and put together. Likely Ben was learning more about a ship’s works than he’d ever opted for.

That was where Ben was right now, porting a big load of work down to 3 for the gals to handle or for them to do when they got down there after lunch.

Maybe they could put Dekker on time and board, if he could keep straight and if he was physically able: a miner pilot worth anything at all had to be a fair mechanic. Meanwhile—

“Bird?” Meg said out of the ambient noise of the core. He missed his purchase on a bolt and caught his finger with the power driver. He said something he didn’t ordinarily say and sucked the wounded finger, looking around at the open hatch, which they had half shut and plastic sheeted to keep the warm air in and the dock noise out.

“Sorry.” Meg drifted in, held the plastic aside, pretty sight in that lacy blue sweater. She turned herself so they were looking at each other right side up. “I’m sorry, Bird.—You want some help with that?”

“Doing fine,” he said. He turned around again, seated the driver and put the screw home on the board he was re-installing. He took the next off the tacky-strip. “Aren’t you cold, woman? And who’s watching Dekker?”

“Sal and I got this idea,” Meg said.

Which said it was something halfway serious. He wasn’t sure he was going to like this. He reached over and snapped the tacky-strip out of the air before air currents that blew and drew from the plastic Meg was holding sent it somewhere inconvenient.

“We got this idea,” Meg began again, “a kind of a partnership deal.”

He heard it out. He didn’t say a word while Meg was telling it: he slept with this woman and he figured he was going to hear it all night if he didn’t hear it now. It moderately upset his stomach.

Meg said, “Can’t help but make money, Bird.”

“Yeah, saying this guy is fit to go out this soon. Saying he canget his license back. Put you and Sal off in a ship with him for three months? Bad enough with Ben and me. You gals—all alone out there—”

Meg blinked and said in a considerate way: “Yeah, but we won’t take advantage of him.”

“Be serious, Meg.”

“We’re major serious.”

“You’re letting out the heat, Meg.”

“Listen to me. We can make this contract with him, Sal says it’s perfectly legal: we charge him his board-time for training, he’ll pay us in cash or he’ll pay us in time—”

“Indenture.”

“Huh?”

“It’s called indenture. I read about it. When we friggin’ hadpaper, before they made the toilet tissue fall apart. You’re talking about indenture. We got the guy’s ship. Ben wanted to put a lien on his bank account. Now you want him? That stinks, Meg.”

Meg got quiet then. Offended, he was sure. He picked off another screw and drove it into the hole.

“So what other chance has he got?” Meg asked. “Bird?—Who but us gives a damn what happens to that guy?”

He drove it in and looked around at Meg, suspicious now—it was worth suspicion when Meg Kady started talking about her fellow man.

“What’s this ‘us’?”

“Earthers.”

It was at least the third time he’d heard Meg change her planet of origin. He was polite and didn’t say that.

Meg said: “Dekker’s out of the motherwell too, isn’t he? Same as us.”

“Sol, the way he talks.”

“So you figure it, Bird—a greenie like him, paired up with another kid—she must have been. They never, ever got it scoped out, what the rules were. Worst kind of pairing he could make, nobody to show him the way—the guy didn’t set out to screw up. He just didn’t have any advice.”

There’d be soft music next. What there was, was the heater going and money bleeding out onto the cold dock. “You want to close that plastic, woman?”

Meg ducked back and closed it. It gave him time to think there had to be something major in it for Meg and Sal. It didn’t give him time to figure what it was.

“All right,” he said. “We’ve heard the hard sell. Now what’s the deal?”

Meg hesitated, rolled her eyes in a pass around that meant, We’d better not talk here,—and said, “Bird, what’re you doing for lunch?”

CHAPTER 12

DEKKER drowsed in the muted music-noise of the bar outside, lay in a .9– gbed half awake, having convinced himself that there wasn’t anybody going to come through the door with hypos or tests or accusations. That was all the ambition he had: he was safe in this place and maybe if he just stayed very quiet there wasn’t going to be anybody interested in him for a while, including Bird and including Ben. Please God.

He got hungry, and hungrier—breakfast hadn’t been much. Finally he looked at his watch, just looked at it awhile—didn’t know the right hour, Bird had told him it had been off. But it was August 16th. It stayed August 16th. He knew where he’d gone off, and how absolutely unhinged he’d come—would never have thought he was capable of going off that far, would have hoped better of himself, at least. He’d kept a sort of routine on the ship once he’d slowed the tumble with the docking jets—enough to move about a little, do necessary things—irrational things, he thought now. Some of them completely inane, because Cory would have. God, he’d near killed himself doing housekeeping routines—because Cory would have.

He wasn’t sure how much he’d forgotten. There were some holes he never seemed likely to patch. Other memories—weren’t in any kind of order. He was scared to try to sort them—afraid he’d find some other memory to leap up and grab him by the throat, like that damned flash on the shower wall, the watch—he couldn’t even remember if he’d had a shower the day of the accident. No, he thought, there’d been too much going on—

Hole there. Deep hole. Scary one. His heart was thumping. It was just the green wall, the place aboard Bird’s ship that looked exactly like his own. That was where he’d gotten lost—but there were so many other places. The bar outside, the ‘deck, the people he didn’t know—he was hungry and he didn’t want to go out and face people and questions and strangers. So he lay still a long while and listened to the beat of the music, and finally took his pills when he figured it must be time.

Then his stomach began to be upset in earnest: he figured he should go get something to eat to cushion the pills, so he ventured out as far as the bar—no one out there that he remembered but the owner, who didn’t meet him with any friendliness—

No, they didn’t serve lunch. There were chips. Dollar fifty a package. Want any?

He took a package and a soft drink—wanted them on his card, but the owner said he was on Bird’s, and wouldn’t take no.

He didn’t want a fight. He took his card back and moused back to his room, upset, he didn’t know why, except he didn’t know what the terms were or why he was too scared to demand the damn chips go on his card—but he was, and he was ashamed of himself. He ate the chips with a lump in his throat, sat there on the bed and thought about taking a sleeping pill and just numbing out for a few hours, because he’d been dislocated out there, nothing and no one out there was familiar. He couldn’t sit here and go around and around in mental circles all day, he hadn’tthe routines that had kept him sane, he was sitting here waiting for something he didn’t know what, and he couldn’t keep out of mental loops.

He took out the sack of pills—looked at the size of the bottle that was sleeping pills—God, he thought. What are they doing? How many of these are there?

In which curiosity, he poured the pills out on the counter and counted them.

212 pills.

Didn’t intend for me to want refills on that one for a while.

He might be a little microfocused. He tended to do that lately. Maybe it was brain damage. But his amusements had gotten very narrow in hospital—bitter, constant harassment. Move, and counter. They moved. You moved. You didn’t trust them. They never made consistent sense.

He spilled pills out onto the nightstand and started counting. Vitamin pills, potassium, 30 or so each. The calcitropin stuff, enough for a month… Big bottle labeled: Stomach Distress: As needed. Another labeled: For Pain: 1 every 4 hours. 40 of those. Decongestant: 45 pills: 1 every 4 hours. Diuretic: 60 pills: 1 daily. Drink plenty of liquid. Anti-inflammatory: 40 pills, Take 2 before meals. Depression: 60 pills: Alcohol contraindicated.

He sat there with those piles of pills, the one of them making this towering great heap on the counter, and he stared at it, and he stared, and he thought: 212 sleeping pills?

What did they do, misread the prescription?

No.

That’s not it, is it?

Cory’s dead, they tell me I’m crazy, they take my ship and take my license and tell me I won’t fly again, and they give me 60 uppers and 212 sleeping pills?

They really don’t want me to screw up my exit.

He hadn’t known where he was going or what he was doing until he’d stared at that heap of pills a while.

He thought: First they kill Cory. Then they want me dead—

The hell with that.

He raked the pills into the appropriate bottles, wondering if there was a way to get into the corporation level—

No, that wascrazy: really crazy people went into places and killed people who didn’t have anything to do with their problems. Some innocent little keypusher or some smooth corp-rat bastard—neither one was going to get to the people responsible—

Somebody was outside; somebody knocked on his door and cold panic shot through him.

“Dekker?”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Dekker?” A woman’s voice—one of Bird’s friends: he didn’t know why his hands were shaking, he didn’t know what he’d just been doing or thinking that deserved it, but his heart went double-time and reason had nothing to do with it. “It’s Meg Kady. You want to open the door?”

He raked the pill bottles into the plastic bag, the bag into the drawer. Not all of it fit. He made it.

“Dekker?”

Severe spook, Sal had called him, and face to face with him, Meg was very much afraid Sal might be right. He opened the door a crack, listened with a dead cold expression while she explained she and Sal wanted to buy him a drink. “Thought you might be tired of the walls. Come on. Get some air. Have a drink or two.”

He looked as if at any second he was going to slam that door and lock it in her face—maybe with reason, Meg thought: the man must know Ben didn’t like him, and he might have real suspicion about the rest of Bird’s friends.

“Hey,” she said, and gave him her friendliest grin. “You’re not afraid of us?”

If that and the sweater she was wearing didn’t get a man out of his room she hadn’t got a backup.

Dekker muttered under his breath, looked rattled, and felt over his pockets. “This place safe to leave stuff?”

“Yeah. Anybody boosts stuff from The Hole, he’s Mike’s breakfast sausage.—How’re you feeling?”

“All right.”

Dead tone: All right. Dekker came out, let his door lock, walked with her down the hall to the bar like he was primed and ready to jump.

Severe spook. Yeah. Or suspicious of them and their motives.

Sal was waiting. Easy to capture a table with space around it—traffic at this hour was real light, most people being about their business. They went through the social dance, Hello there, good looking, how’re you feeling? Sal pulled a chair out, got up, he sat down, she sat down, Meg sat. Mike, thank God, got right over for the orders.

“Spiced rum?” Dekker asked.

“Premium price,” Mike said.

Dekker hesitated, reached for his card. Meg put a hand in the way. “Let us buy.”

Upset him. He slowly put his card on the table. “Put it on mine. All of it. Rum and whatever they’re having.”

Meg shot a look at Sal, and gave Mike a shrug. “What the man wants,” she said, thinking: Pricey tastes he’s got.

Mike took the card. Dekker started to lean back, arm over the chair back—like it was a fortified corner he wasn’t going to be pried out of; but the hand was shaking. He put it on the tabletop.

Sal said, “What do you go by?”

“Dek—to friends.”

“Dek.” Sal reached out across the table. “Sal. Aboujib, if you got to find me.”

He hesitated, then made a snatch forward and solemnly shook Sal’s hand.

Meg reached hers out. “Magritte Kady.” Cold fingers. Scared spitless. “Meg’ll page me anywhere. There’s only one on R2.—You been out of that room today?”

“Lunch,” he said.

“Any good?”

He shrugged.

Mike got the drinks over, fast, thank God, a merciful few beats without conversation. Dekker picked up his drink. Meg lifted her glass with a flourish.

“Welcome to R2, Dek.”

“Thanks,” he said faintly.

“Thanks for the drinks.—You remember us at all?”

He nodded.

Sal said, “We’d better say, before anything else, we’re the ones that have Way Outleased.”

He didn’t react at all to that, just kept looking at Sal.

“I’m the pilot,” Meg said. “Sal’s my numbers man. You were the primary license on your team, right?”

Dekker nodded glumly, watching them, every move. He held the rum in one hand, the other arm over the chair back. “Yeah. I was.”

“Excuse.” She leaned her elbows on the table and cut down the distance. “Let’s be frank here. They busted your license. Bird and Ben claimed your ship—but they haven’t cut you off cold, either. They risked their financial asses saving your life. Understand? Lot of expenses.”

“Yeah.”

“So we got a lease on what used to be your ship, and probably you aren’t real happy with us.”

Dekker said tonelessly: “Yeah, well. Not your fault. No hard feelings.”

“But,” Sal butted in, “we got to thinking how we could do you and us both some good.”

Meg said, quickly: “We figure you want your license reinstated. Which you got to have board time for. Which could be expensive, if you had to get it from the company—and you still might need some help to get past the bureaucrats.”

Dekker gave her a quick, plain, a what-in-hell-are-you-up-to stare.

“Chelovek,” she said quietly, because even in the bar, even with the music going, you had to worry about bugs lately, since the cops had searched the place, “you ran into real trouble—got ground up in the gears entirely, you andyour partner.—Where are you from? Sol Station?”

Dekker nodded.

“Neo out here?”

“Two years.” His jaw was set, not going to say a syllable more than he had to. Improvement on yesterday, she thought.

“Brut put, Dek, you got yourself in one helluva mess, and there’s beaucou’ guys on R2 who’d pick your pocket the rest of the way. But as happens we’re not them, and Bird’s a blue-skyer, so he knows where you come from.—Not that we owe you, mind. But Bird doesn’t like to take advantage. There’s some things we can’t fix. But suppose we could—what’s prime business on your mind right now? What can we do most for you?”

He shook his head, staring elsewhere.

“Mad, I don’t blame you, jeune fils. But are you going to spite yourself? What can we do to even things up? Anything you need?”

Another shake of the head.

“Yeah, well. You know what the corp-rats want, don’t you?”

That got a look, a nasty one.

“They want you all theirs, jeune fils. They really don’t like the independents. Their charter makes ‘em have to accept us, but they got you right down to signing with the company.”

“They won’t sign me with the company. I haven’t got a license.”

“Oh, they’ll give it backto you, jeune fils. When you’re theirs. ASTEX regulations screwing you over and ASBANK ready to lend you money. What are you running on now? Mind my asking?”

“Yeah, I mind.”

“Good. Do mind. But do you want to get that license without them?”

A little reaction there. Not a word.

“We got a deal for you. You get time at our boards, you take our help, you, me, Sal, Bird and Ben, we all make our own little arrangement that gets you working again, gets you fed, boarded, and eventually reinstated. How’s that?”

Interest, at last. Hostility. “Why? Goodness of your heart, rab?”

“You pay us cash for our time if you can pay us, or you pay us a share plus lease after that—that’s Bird’s word on it, ifyou pass muster by Sal and me.”

He looked somewhere else. She let the silence hang there a moment, then said: “We’re not hard to get along with, Dek. We’re fair good company.”

“My partner’s dead, do you bloody mind?”

Sal said, “She fond of you starving? Cold bitchjeune rab.”

Dekker looked bloody death at her but Sal sailed right on: