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

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

“I trust our messages were similar,” he said, with—he hoped—not a flicker of offense. “May I suggest, sir, we present this to personnel in a quiet, positive manner. I’d suggest a joint communiqué.”

Tanzer didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, with a palpable effort: “I’d suggest we keep this quiet until we can sort it out.”

“Colonel, I appreciate the difficulties involved. FleetCom is handling approach and docking. In the meanwhile my command has its own set of procedures, primarily involving dock access at this point. I’d suggest we move your security into a secondary position and move ours into supervision of debarkation facilities.”

“I’ve no authorization to do that. You’ll wait, you’ll bloody wait!”

“I’ll wait,” he said, trying to add up in his head what all the Alpha and Beta Points on this station were, and what he could do to secure records without creating an incident he was virtually certain FleetCommand didn’t want. “On the other hand, that carrier will dock in a little less than two hours, by which time I have to have a secure perimeter, colonel, that’s mandatory under our procedures.”

They’d done it at Mariner, they’d done it at Pell, and he had no doubt, now, that it was his mandate to secure that area here, as quietly and peacefully as possible. It was only now sinking in that a transfer of command had happened, but how it had happened, he had no idea. The thought even occurred to him that it might be a lie—a final, extravagant lie—that maybe things had gone critical—on Earth or at the front, and they were pulling what they had, while they had it. That was what the whisper had been, always, that mere might not be the time they needed to build the riderships or the full number of carriers; and then they could take their choice—let the Fleet the, let Earth fall, and lose themselves hi space or in the motherwell, anonymous and helpless; or run with what they had, and gather the marines and the trainees they knew would be targets...

And run and spend their lives running—

Danger-sense had cut in, for whatever reason: his brain was suddenly doing what it did when hyperfocus was coming up, no reason, except Saito’s evasion yesterday, and the colonel’s being caught completely by surprise. If negotiations had been underway—it was a shock to Tanzer, or Tanzer acted in a way that didn’t make sense.

So he took a quiet leave, out through the anxious secretary’s office—he stopped to say, “Andrews, for your own sake, don’t spread anything you may have heard,”—and saw nervousness pass to estimation and fear.

Into the corridors, then—feeling the air currents, sampling the ambient. No panic in the clericals, nothing evident. The carrier had left Sol, presumably with notice to insystem defenses—then word had flashed via FleetCom, and presumably a UDC message from some quarter had chased that transmission to the colonel. Maybe Saito and Demas hadn’t known what was about to happen.

Or maybe they had. Maybe they always had.

He walked quietly to his office, he checked in on FleetCom and asked Saito again: “Snowball, this is 7-All, status.”

“7-Att, that’s LongJohn, we’ve got a Code Six.”

Stand down but stand by. And LongJohn wasn’t any of their crew. LongJohn was Jean-Baptiste Baudree, Carina. Mazian’s Com Two. “That’s a copy,” he said; thinking: Damn. What’s he doing here? It’s not the captain, then. What aren’t they saying? “Status,” he insisted; and got the information he next most wanted:

“7-All, that’s Jack.”

Edmund Porey?

Lieutenant Edmund Porey?

He hung up and, with a pang of real regret, stopped trusting Saito and Demas.

CHAPTER 9

LT. J-G Jurgen Albrecht Graff SB/Admin 2152h JUN24/23; FGO-5-9 Command of Sol B has been transferred to FleetOps. You ore hereby ordered to render all appropriate assistance, including securing of files and records, under direction of Comdr. Edmund Porey....

Commander. The hell!

And Jean-Baptiste? Mazian’s second-senior?

Thoughts ran down very scattered tracks since that message. Thoughts needed to, on an operational level: Tanzer was only marginally cooperative, communicating through his secretary, BaseCom was a steady stream of query and scant reply from the UDC at Sol One—one assumed: a great deal of it was going in code one assumed FleetCom couldn’t breach.

Tanzer had been blindsided, that seemed evident. And maybe FleetOps had had to keep the junior officer in the far dark to carry it off, but it was evident, at least as best he could put matters together, that the business with the committee and the general had been a flanking action—try to stir up some chaff, maybe throw a rock into the Sol One hearings. Who knew?

Certainly not the junior lieutenant. Possibly the Number Ones had. Certainly the captain had—and kept silent in spite of his repeated queries, which Saito of course had sent, the way he’d ordered Saito to do...

Damn and damn.

The deception shook him. You relied on a crew, you dumped all your personal chaff and trusted, that was what it came down to. You assumed, in throwing open everything you had, that you had some kind of reciprocity. Never mind the gray hair he didn’t have. The Fleet could decide he was expendable. The Fleet could use him any way it had to. But they put you in charge, you made what you thought were rational decisions and if the people who were supposed to be carrying out your orders weren’t doing that, you trusted they’d at least trust you enough to tell you—before you assumed you had a power you didn’t, and put yourself and them into a no-win.

You did the best you could in a touchy situation and they promoted Edmund Porey two ranks in the last year?

God, what did the man do? The Captains had to know Porey. Had to. Were they blind?

But Nav Two on Carina had a good head for Strategic Operations—Porey was back and forth to the Belt, Porey was ferry-captain on the carriers as they moved in for finish, which made him currently one of the most experienced with the ships, and Porey was probably working tight-in with Outsystem and Insystem Surveillance: that had to be where he got the merits. Clever man. Clever man, Edmund Porey was, and, clearly now, command-track, which he himself would never be: hyperfocus and macrofocus weren’t the same thing—not by a system diameter they weren’t.

So Porey had the stuff. Clear now how desperately they needed a mind of Porey’s essential qualities.

Clear now whose command he just might end up serving Helm for. The captain hadn’t trusted him. So they brought Porey in over his head?

He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he arranged his priorities and issued his orders, trusting they were getting through. It gave him the same surreal feeling he’d had writing his will, for the handful of personal possessions he did own—that past the time those instructions were carried out, his personal existence was going to be very much different.

He had ordered the records secured. That first. There were a lot of extremely upset UDC security personnel on the loose. There had very nearly been an armed stand-off. The UDC ordered erasure on certain files, he was quite certain. He was equally certain he had been too late to prevent that, during the time of the stand-off and queries flying back and forth between his office and Tanzer’s—he was sure UDC security had done exactly what they should have done, and that he had not been able to prevent it (although outside of going hand to hand with UDC personnel and cutting through a lock he didn’t know what he could have done) would be written down for a failure on his part.

He had not let them throw the database into confusion. That was a plus. He had not lost the library tapes. That also. He had ordered personnel in detention transferred; he had taken hospital and testing records under Fleet protection. He might order the release of detainees, but the disposition of those cases as a policy issue was not within his administrative discretion. He did not like the new commander. He, however, did not personally approve of creating administrative messes, which, counting his administrative style and Porey’s, might be the worse for the difference. He advised the UDC officers that all facilities were passing under Fleet administrative command, and personally phoned the UDC provost marshal and UDC Legal Affairs to be certain that all legal proceedings were frozen exactly where they were: no sense letting anything pass into record that need not.

Demas called, to say that the carrier was braking, directly after ceasing acceleration. Demas said that there was a contingent of marines aboard needing gravitied accommodations.

“I copy that. What’s the head count?”

“Two thousand.”

That was a carrier’s full troop complement. They wanted miracles. He called Tanzer, he listened to the shouting, he calmly requested invention, and ordered an emergency galley set up in an idle SoICorp module, ordered its power-up, ordered an Intellitron communications center linked in as FleetCom relay for the marine officers, ordered the Fleet gym given over to troop exercise, the Fleet exercise schedule combined with the UDC, on alternate days; located every class-4 storage can in Sol-2, shifted all class-4 storage to low-g and ordered station ops to consolidate the remainder and clear section D-2 for set-up as habitation. Sol-2 civil Ops bitched and moaned about access-critical supplies.

“I assure you,” he said coldly and courteously, “I appreciate the difficulty. But human beings have priority over galley supplies... That is a problem. I suggest than you move your dispenser equipment to 3-deck to handle it. There are bottles and carts available... —Then get them from maintenance, or we’ll order them. I’m sure you can solve that....”

Meanwhile, the thin nervous voice of approach control tracked the carrier’s braking, in a tone that said approach control wasn’t used to these velocities. Inner system wasn’t a place merchanters ever moved at anything like that v. Merchanters drifted into the mothersystem at a sedate, mind-numbing leisure, sir, while bored techs and mechanics did whatever repair they’d had on backlist– days and days of it, because the mothersystem with all its traffic had regulations, and a starship, which necessarily violated standard lanes, made mothersystem lawyers very anxious. The mothersystem was a dirty system. The mothersystem had a lot of critical real estate, the mothersystem had never accurately figured the astronomical chances of collision, and the Earth Company had made astronomically irritating regulations. Which they now saw Exceptioned. That was the word for it. Exceptioned, for military ships under courier or combat conditions.

The ECS4 wasn’t even at hard stretch. But station was anxious. If braking utterly failed (astronomically unlikely) that carrier would pass, probably, fifty meters in the clear. But tell them that in the corridors, where the rumor was, Security informed him, dial the carrier was aimed straight at them.

Porey, the bastard, might shave that to 25 meters, only because he hated Earth system. But Porey never said that in outside hearing.

Porey had other traits. But leave those aside. Porey was a strategist and a good one, and that, apparently, was the priority here. Not whether Edmund Porey gave a damn about the command he’d been given. Not whether he had any business commanding here, over these particular mindsets.

The Shepherds were his crews, dammit, down to the last two women the captain or someone had finagled in here.

Fingers hesitated over a keypad.

The captain. Or someone. Anyone in Sol System must have known more than he had. What in hell was going on?

He had a call from Mitch Mitchell on the wait list. He returned it only to ask, “Where are you?”

“Sir?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on? What’s—”

He said, “Where are you?”

Mitch said, “Your office in two minutes.”

“You don’t read, Mitch. Where?”

“Coffee machine in one.”

Not that long to work a carrier into dock, not the way they’d learned it in the Beyond, especially when it was a tube link and a straight grapple to a mast. The carrier used its own docking crew—marines, who simply moved the regular staff aside. More and more of them. A familiar face or two: Graff recognized them, if he couldn’t place them. Carina dockers. Mazian’s own crew. A lot of these must be.

Lynch, the sergeant-major identified himself, close-clipped, gray-haired, with no ship patch on his khaki and gray uniform, but Graff recalled the face. He returned the salute, took the report and signed it for transmission of station Secure condition.

More of them were coming off the lift. “Sgt,-major,” he said, with a misgiving nod in that direction. “We’ve had a delicate situation. Kindly don’t antagonize the UDC personnel. We’ve got a cooperation going that should make your job easier.”

“The commander said take the posts. We take ‘em, sir.”

He frowned at the sergeant-major. Darkly. Kept his hands locked behind him, so the white knuckles didn’t show. “You also have to live here, Sgt.-major. Possibly for a long while. Kindly don’t disturb the transition we have in progress. That also is an order.”

A colder face. A moment of silence. Estimation, maybe. “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. Carina man for certain. Dangerous man. Close to Mazian. Lynch moved off, shouted orders to a corporal.

Steps rang in unison. Breath steamed in the air in front of the lift. Marines were headed for the communications offices, the administrative offices, the lifesupport facilities, simultaneously.

The lift let out again. Armored Security and a scowling, close-clipped black man in a blue dress jacket.

Graff stood his ground and made his own bet whether Porey would salute or put out a hand.

It was the hand. Graff took it and said, “Commander.”

“Lieutenant. Good to see you.” He might have been remarking on the ambient temperature. “I take it the report is in our banks.”

“It should be. I take it you heard about the interservice incident. We have personnel in the brig...”

“The colonel’s office,” Porey said, shortly, and motioned him curtly to come along.

Quiet in the cell block, deathly quiet for a while. Then someone yelled: “Hey, Pauli.”

“Yeah?”

“You know that five you owe me?”

“Yeah?”

“Cancel it. You got that sumbitch.”

“That sumbitch is in here!” another voice yelled. “That sumbitch is going to whip you good, Basrami!”

“Yeah, you got a big chance of doing that, Charlie-boy. How was dessert?”

“Your guy can’t navigate an aisle! What’s he good for, him and his fe-male pi-luts? Couple of Belter whores, what I hear—”

Dekker stood at the bars, white-knuckled, Ben could see it from where he sat. From down the aisle Meg’s high, clear voice. “You a pi-lut, cher, or a mouth?”

“You come in here to save Dekker’s ass? Bed’s what you’re for, honey. It’s where you better stay.”

Ben winced. Meg’s voice:

“Fuck yourself, Charlie-boy, but don’t fuck with me. What are you, a tech or a pilot?”

“Pilot, baby, and you better stay to rock-picking. You’re out of your league.”

Chorus of derision from one side of the cell-block. Shouts from the other. Dekker hit the cross-bar with his fist, muscle standing hard in his jaw, and from down the row, Meg shouted:

“You got a bet, Charlie-boy.”

Wasn’t any way she wouldn’t take a challenge like that. Her and Sal. Ben felt his gut in a knot, saw Dekker lean his head against the bars, not saying anything, that was the danger signal in Dekker. And somebody down the row yelled, “Hey, Dekker! You hearing this?”

Shouting over the top of it. Dekker had to answer, had to, way the rules worked, and Ben held his breath and crawled off the bunk, not sure what he was going to do if Dekker blew.

“Dekker? You hear?”

Man couldn’t talk. Ben added those numbers fast, yelled out: “He’s ignoring you, mouth! You’re boring.”

“Funny he had a lot to say when Chad bought it! That right, Dekker? That right?”

Ben shoved his arm, not hard. Dekker was frozen. Hard as ice. Staring into nothing. Other guys were yelling. Something hit the middle of the aisle and rattled to a stop. And Dekker looked like a guy hit in the gut, wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t defending himself, was letting others do it. Another shove wasn’t going to push him into thinking. God only knew what it might do. He had the look of a man on the edge of cracking and Ben didn’t know what to do with him, he didn’t know how to answer the catcalls and the shouting that was going on, he hoped to hell for the MPs to come in and break it up. Wasn’t any more from Meg. He could hear Sal’s voice in the middle of it, but he had a desperate feeling he was in a cell with half a problem and Sal had the other half...

“Hey, Custard Charlie,” somebody yelled. “You want to run the sims full hours? Take you on.”

That was a hit. Belters tagged you and you stayed tagged until you burned it off—and then it could come back years later.

“Take you on, take Dekker and his women on, any day, any day—what about it, Dekker? You got a voice, pretty-boy? Where’s your ladies?”

‘Ladies’ included one UDC shave-head in the mix, Ben figured, but he wasn’t going to get into it, wasn’t his business, wasn’t going to win a thing.

But Dekker came alive then, shouting, “We got enough of that Attitude, mister, we got too damn many dead with that Attitude. I liked Chad, you hear me, you son of a bitch? I liked him all right, it was your own CO set him up.” Dekker’s voice cracked. He wasn’t doing highly well right now, but at least the jaw had come unwired. He hit his fist on the bars, turned around and said to the ceiling or the walls, Ben didn’t think it was to him, “God, they’re making me crazy—they’re trying to make me crazy.”

Wouldn’t touch that line, Ben told himself, and held his breath, just stood out of the way while Dekker walked the length of the cell and back.

“Hey, Dekker,” another voice yelled. “You son of a bitch, was that your mama on the news?”

Shit. Dekker was at the bars and that knot was back in his jaw. “You want to discuss it? Is that Sook?”

“No way,” another voice yelled out. “Sook’s not guilty. That was J. Bob.”

Catcalls went one way and the other. Shouting racketed up and down the hall, until starting with the far end, it got suddenly quiet. Quiet traveled. Ben leaned against the bars and tried to see what was going on, and all he could make out was UDC uniforms and MPs.

“That’s better,” someone said. “Keep it quiet. Fleet personnel are being released—” A cheer went up.

“—to Fleet Security, for your own officers to sort out. You’ll file outside, you’ll give the officers your full name, your serial number, your rank, in that order. You’ll be checked out and checked off...”

“Where do / go?” Ben muttered, suddenly with the notion he didn’t necessarily want to go into a pool of UDC detainees with a grudge. “Shit, where do / go?”

“You go with me,” Dekker said. “You’re in our barracks, you go with me.”

Doors had started opening. You could hear the clicks and the guys moving out.

Their door clicked. Dekker shoved it and they both walked out. Walked down the hall toward the MPs and it was only UDC guys left in the cells on the right, staring at them. They’re not going to let me out, Ben kept thinking, they’re not going to let me out of here...

“Wrong flock, aren’t you?” an MP asked him; but the other said, “That’s all right, that’s Pollard.”

It wasn’t highly all right. Hell if it was. He was all but shaking when they got through the doors and out of the cell block, into the outer hall where sure enough, a couple of Fleet Security officers were waiting with a checklist. “Dekker,” Dekker muttered, “Paul F....” and didn’t get further than that before the senior officer said, “Dekker, go with the man. You Pollard?”

Ben nodded. Saw one of the Security officers motion Dekker toward another set of doors, saw Dekker look at him and had this panicked sudden notion that if he let Dekker off alone something stupid was bound to happen—Keu and the lieutenant had tagged him with Dekker, and the only way to ensure Dekker didn’t drag him into worse trouble was to stay with him. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I have orders to keep an eye on him—lieutenant’s orders ...” Highest card he knew.

But the guy said, “You have the commander’s orders to go to your barracks and stay put until further notice. The lieutenant’s not in command now. Comdr. Porey is.”

He must have done a take. He felt his heart stop and start. “Commander Porey?”

“Follow orders, mister. This whole station’s under the commander’s orders. The UDC’s command’s been set aside.”

He wasn’t the only one in the area now. Mason and Pauli had shown up under escort. “Hot damn,” Mason said.

But Ben thought, with a sinking feeling, Oh, my God....

Graff was extremely glad he didn’t have to hear what happened inside what had, until an hour ago, been his office. Occasional words came through the closed door, while he stood outside in the hall with Tanzer’s aide Andrews, neither of them looking at each other, with MPs and Fleet Security at their respective ends of the corridor.

It was not a happy situation. He didn’t like Tanzer. But he felt only discomfort in seeing the man finally walk out of the office white-lipped and red-faced. Tanzer swept up Andrews and walked back the way he had come, with, as Graff understood Porey’s intentions, no transfer out of here, no resignation accepted, and a hardcopy of an order from Geneva that in effect put Edmund Porey in charge of Tanzer’s office and Tanzer’s program.

He still didn’t know how it had happened, or what might have shifted in the halls of power, as the captain would put it. He hadn’t talked to Demas or Saito in any informality, hadn’t exchanged anything with them but ops messages as they coordinated internal security with the marine details and Porey’s own Fleet Security force.

And not a word even yet from the captain. Which might be because he didn’t rate one in their list of priorities. But which left him wondering again—what wasn’t perhaps wise to wonder.

Since Porey had issued no request for him, since Andrews and Tanzer were gone, he walked down to the intersection of corridors and to the messhall, only observing the temper of things. There were very few out and about, but Security, and aides.

Tone down the dress, he’d advised Mitch. Between you and me; but pass it on—things are going to shift. Minimum flash. Minimum noise for the next few days. Observe this man before you make any push at him. Do you read me? I’m not supposed to be telling you this. If it gets out that I did, it will be to my damage. Do you understand me?

Longest solemn silence he’d ever gotten out of Mitch. Then Mitch had tried to ask him specifics—who is this guy? What in hell—excuse me, lieutenant, —but what in hell’s going on with the program?

Apparently, he’d thought to himself, politics of a very disturbing bent. But he’d said to Mitch, I don’t know yet. It’s a wait-see. For all of us.

He went to the messhall, as the most likely place to find anyone out of pocket, anyone who had missed the barracks order, or thought he was the universal exception—an attitude more likely with Belters than with UDC or merchanters, and he was resolved none of his trainees was going to get swept up by Security—

None of his had met Porey’s idea of Security. None of his own Security people got nervous at a joke. Ease off, they’d say. That’s enough. They’d call the Belter in question by name or nickname, like as not, and get a generally good-natured compliance—

Not now. Not with these men, not with Lynch. He didn’t know where they’d pulled this particular batch of marines in from, but they didn’t have the look of basic training—Fleet Command had pulled something in from the initial set-up squads, he’d bet on it, though he’d have to get into Fleet Records to find out, but these weren’t eighteen-year-olds, they weren’t green and they sized up an officer they didn’t know before they even thought about following his orders.. ..

Merchanters, maybe. But serving as line troops—when the Fleet needed every skilled spacer they could recruit? His stomach was upset. He carded a soft drink out of the machine and spotted a pair of marines at the administrative entrance, the galley office. What did they think, the cooks were going to take the cutlery to the corridors?

Exactly why those guards were standing there. Damned right. Tell it to Porey that the guys weren’t going to go for the knives. Tell it to Lynch. A sight too much real combat readiness and overreaction in the ambient, thank you. A sight too much readiness in these troopers for any feeling that things were safe or under control.

“J-G.”

Demas. Behind him. He took a breath and a drink, and disconnected expression from his face before he turned around. “We’re on standby,” he said, disapproving Demas’ leaving the ship unofficered, before he so much as realized they weren’t the primary ship at station any longer; Demas said, “LongJohn’s on. We’ve got a while.”

He nodded, tried to think of somewhere pressing to go, or something he had else to do, rather than discuss the situation with Nav One.

“You all right, Helm?”

As if he were a child. Or a friend.

“I’m tired,” he said, which might cover his mood; but it sounded too much like a whimper. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like Demas conning him. He said, point-blank: “How much of this did you know?”

Demas’ face went very sober, very quickly. It took a moment before he said, “Not who.”

He hadn’t expected honesty. He hadn’t expected that answer. So Demas wasn’t happy with the new CO either. And Demas was indisputably the captain’s man. That came clear of a sudden.

He asked, under the noise of the heat pumps, “When did this get arranged?” and watched Demas avoid his eyes. Or look anxiously toward the marines—who might have Security audio, he realized that of a sudden. Damn, he wasn’t thinking in terms of hostile action, it was their own damned side, for God’s sake. But Demas was clearly thinking about it.

And Demas was the captain’s man.

Demas said, in a low, low voice, “The Company pulled every string it had, in every congress on the planet. You want to go out to the ship, J-G?”

Of a sudden he had a totally paranoid notion, that Demas and Saito might be reeling him in for good, getting him where he couldn’t get into trouble—where he couldn’t cause trouble. Arrest? he asked himself. —Have I done that badly—or been that completely a fool?

“Hear this,” the com said suddenly. “This station and all station facilities, civilian and military, have passed under Fleet Tactical Operations, by action of the Joint Legislative Committee. Military command has been transferred as of 1400H this date to the ranking Fleet Officer.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Comdr. Edmund Porey. I am not pursuing the interservice incident that marred the station’s record this afternoon. I am releasing all personnel from detention with a reprimand for conduct unbecoming...”

The glove first.

“... but let me serve notice that that is the only amnesty I will ever issue in this command. There are no excuses for failure and there is no award for half-right. If you want to kill yourselves, use a gun, not a multibillion-dollar machine. If you want to fight hand to hand, we can ship you where you can do that. And if you want to meet hell, gentlemen, break one of my rules and you will find it in my office.

“Senior officers of both services meet at 2100 hours in Briefing Room A. This facility is back on full schedules as of 0100 hours in the upcoming watch. Your officers will brief you at that time. Expect to do catch-up. If there are problems with this, report them through chain of command. This concludes the announcement.”

He looked at Demas, saw misgiving. Saw worry.

He thought about that request to go up to the ship, and said, “Nav, I understand these people. I’ve worked with them. You understand? I don’t want any mistake here.”

Demas looked at him a long moment—frowned, maybe reading him, maybe thinking over his options, under whatever orders he had, from the captain, from—God only knew.

“J-G, —” Demas started to say. But there were the guards, who might well be miked. Demas put a hand on his arm, urged him toward the door, toward the corridor, and there wasn’t an office to go back to, unless he could get one through Porey’s staff. Demas’ hand stayed on his arm. He had a half-drunk cup in his other hand. He finished it, shoved it in the nearest receptacle as they passed.

Demas said, in a low voice, “Helm, be careful.” Squeezed his arm til fingers bit to the bone. “Too much to lose here.”

“The Shepherds’11 blow. One of them’s going to end up his example. If you want to lose the program, Nav—”

“Too much to lose,” Demas repeated; and a man would be a fool to ignore that cryptic a warning. He let go a breath, walked with less resistance, but no more cheerfully; and after a moment Demas dropped his hand and trusted his arrestee to walk beside him.

“Ens. Dekker,” the man said, letting him into Graff’s office. But it wasn’t Graff at the desk. It was Porey, for God’s sake—with a commander’s insignia. Didn’t know how Porey was here, didn’t know why it wasn’t Graff standing there, but it was Fleet, it was brass and he saluted it, lacking other cues. He’d dealt with Porey before, had had a two-minute interview with the man on the carrier coming out from the Belt and he didn’t forget the feeling Porey had given him men; didn’t find it different now. Like he was somehow interesting to a man whose attention you just didn’t want.

“Ens. Dekker,” Porey said, with his flat, dark stare. “How are you?”

“Fine, sir.”

“That’s good.” Somehow nothing could register good in that deep, bone-reaching voice. “Hear you had a run-in with the sims.”

“Yes, sir.”

Long silence then, while Porey looked him up and down, with a skin-crawling slowness a man couldn’t be comfortable with. Then: “Bother you?”

“I’m not anybody’s target, sir.”

“And you lost your crew.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hear they were good. Hear Wilhelmsen was.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So what are you?”

Nerves recently shaken, shook. He didn’t know what the answer was, now. He said, “I want to fly. Sir.”