“Damn,” she breathed. But you wouldn’t hear it.
“The pods you see moving,” Dek said, over the fading thunder, “that’s the tame part. That rush is the dock and undock. They can take those pods more positive or neg g’s than your gut’s going to like. But that’s not the dangerous part. That pod, there, the still one—“ He pointed at one floating motionless, away from the walls. “That’s the real hellride. Could be at 3A light, what you know from inside. That’s the one they mop the seats on. That’s the one can put you in hospital—unstable as hell in that mode—screw it and you’ll pull a real sudden change.”
“Thanks,” Ben said. “I like to hear that, damn, I like to hear that.”
Meg said, “Going to be all right. No problems. Hear?”
But Dek looked up at that pod in a way she kept seeing after he’d turned away and told them it was up the lines to the pod access—like an addict looking at his addiction, and a guy scared as hell.
“Take you on the ride of your life,” was the way he put it.
“Now wait a minute,” Ben said. But Dek took out on the handlines and Sal snagged Ben’s arm with: “Now, cher, if we don’t keep with Dek and Meg here, they’ll assign us some sheer fool pi-lut we don’t know the hell who… Do you want to go boom on a rock? No. Not. So soyez gentle and don’t distract the jeune fils.”
“No,” Graff said, “no, colonel, I don’t know—I’ve got a meeting with him…”
“He’s got no right,” was the burden of Tanzer’s phone call. Which didn’t over all help Graff’s headache. Neither did the prospect of dealing with Comdr. Porey face to face.
“I’ll pose him the question,” he told Tanzer. Couldn’t honestly blame the colonel this morning—discovering that his carefully constructed sims schedule was in revision, that Villanueva’s team had been opted straight off test systems into the priority sims schedule and three others of the test systems crews had been bumped off the sims schedule entirely, in favor of Dekker and three raw recruits, who’d been given access-on-demand, on any shift.
The officer in charge of Personnel ought to know what was happening. One would logically think so.
The officer in charge of Personnel hung up the receiver, put on his coat and took his hangover headache down the corridor to the CO’s office.
Marine guards let him in. Porey was all smiling, smooth congeniality.
“Jurgen,” it was. And an offered hand as Porey got up from his desk. One had to take it or declare war. “I’ve been going through the reports. Excellent job you’ve done, getting us settled into station. I don’t find a thing I’d change. Sit down, sit down…”
“Thank you,” Graff said, and sat, wondering whose name those actions had gone out under in the report to FleetCommand—wonder, hell, he knew what games Porey was playing, with the reports, with his smiling good grace: Porey’s aides never knew what they’d meet when they walked into his office, the smiling bastard or the shouting, desk-pounding sumbitch, but either one would knife you. It was, knowing your career could hinge on Porey’s approval, damned easy for a staffer to start twitching to Porey’s cues.
He could see it working in Carina junior crew out there, in the marine guard—he could see it going on all around him, suggesting that it might be wise for him to play Porey’s game too; suggesting that this man, clearly on his way to a captaincy, and certainly in Mazian’s good graces, could be a valuable contact…
Except that he’d seen this game going on since they were both junior lieutenants, and he felt the urge to puke.
He said, with a fixed smile, “Edmund, do you think your staff could possibly give Personnel any sims schedule changes a day in advance? Tanzer is not happy. I could have minimized the disturbance.”
“Didn’t that come to you?” Porey was all amazement.
“No, it didn’t come to me. I had to hear it from Tanzer. I don’t like dealing with the UDC when I don’t know what’s going on. It makes me feel like a fool. And I don’t like that, Edmund, I truly don’t.”