Hellburner

Neither did Dekker sitting on his bedside. He’d come here to sit with Dekker. He wasn’t in the hospital. He was in the sims lab and Dekker, with this scared look on his face, was holding him by the wrist.

“Ben.”

“Yeah?” He began to think he’d better wake up.

“Ben. You all right?”

Dekker asking really worried him.

“Don’t agitate him,” somebody else said. “You know the rules.”

“Trying to give him a heart attack, what’s the damn hurry?”

There wasn’t any answer. Dekker took hold of his hand. Said, “Shit…”

Dekker holding his hand? He’d really rather not. Unless he was dying. He didn’t feel like he was dying. He stared at Dekker, made his fingers bend and his hand draw back and decided in this moment of clarity that he wanted his foot on the floor.

“Ben. Ben, —don’t do that.”

Froze right there. Face down in the bend of Dekker’s arm. And couldn’t think how to get out of that situation.

“Skuzzed,” Dekker said. Light came back. Dekker swore at nothing in particular. That was all right. Saved him the bother.

“Aboujib did pass,” he wanted to know.

“Yeah.”

“Meg?”

“Yeah. I got three of you. Same condition.” With which Dekker got up and stalked out.

That was Dekker, all right. Boy had a lousy temper.

“Shit!” he heard from the hall.

Chapter 11

2345h and all Dekker wanted was his own bed, didn’t want to talk to anybody, just skuzzed through the door into a darkened barracks, went straight to his quarters around the corner and down the corridor, and got undressed on autopilot—wasn’t even thinking clearly when he heard the stir outside. A knock came at his door and he stared at it and blinked.

Second knock. He thought, What in hell? and opened it, on Mitch and Pauli and Trace and God-only who else the shadows behind them were.

“Want to talk to you,” Mitch said, and Dekker leaned his forearm on the doorframe and reasoned that even if he could talk them into leaving him alone now, it was too late, the adrenaline he thought he’d run out of was up again, sleep was gone, leaving just caffeine-ragged nerves and a body shaking with chill and exhaustion. Didn’t have a shred of embarrassment left, Trace there and all—he just said hoarsely, “What?”

“The rest of your guys didn’t come in?”

“No.”

“Dek. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know any more than the rest of you guys.” Struck him then, though, that a lot of the aforesaid guys had risen to his defense in the messhalI, a couple of them had gone to hospital and a lot of them had suffered serious inconvenience on his account—so they had some right to knock on his door in the middle of his sleep and want a piece of his hide.

Mitch asked: “Is it true they’re going to bust your guys right into active? They’re going to put Pollard and Kady and Aboujib straight in?”

Wasn’t hiding any damn thing around here. He’d been trying to get the same admission out of Testing and he couldn’t do it, or find out who the order came from that had shoved his crew straight out of Aptitudes into the board-sims—he stared at Mitch a beat or two, muttered, “Something like.”

“ ‘Something like.’ They’re going to take Kady’s hours for legit?”

“Mitch, I don’t know what they’re taking for anything, nobody’s told me a damn thing, I don’t know what your source is, but it’s more than I know…”

“So where are they right now?”

“In the labs sleeping it off. They started in at 0600 and they got through somewhere around 2200, that’s all I know, except they’re Aptituded in, that’s the only official word I have on anything.” He got short. His temper was on the edge. But he hadn’t reassured anybody. And maybe they’d heard something: he hadn’t been in the rumor mill all day, he’d been chasing around in places rumors didn’t get to— back and forth between offices and Evaluations. And rumor was evidently saying for fact what he suspected and couldn’t get the labs or the techs to admit to….