Dammit, what am I supposed to do with this damn card? Why didn’t Graff give this stuff to the psych?
Sub in another pilot, did they? Why, if not Dekker’s attitude? And who did it,” if not the CO who’s supposed to want this stuff from Dekker? Real brand-new ship, Dekker said once. That’s why the Fleet had wanted him. He’d been real excited about it—wanted it more than anything in his life—
And a crew’s dead and Dekker’s screwed like that?
He sat there on the side of the bed desperately, urgently, wanting off Sol Two, he didn’t at the moment care where. This whole deal had the stink of death about it
Serious death, Sal would say.
No shit. Sal. What do I do with the guy?
CHAPTER 3
MR. Graff, urgent word with you. Down the hall. Sir. Please.” 0645 and the breakfast line in the green room was backed up to the door. Hardly time for coffee in the fifteen minutes before he was due in Tanzer’s office and Jurgen Albrecht Graff punched white coffee instead of Mack for his stomach’s sake. “Can it wait?” he asked without looking at Mitch, and caught the cup that tilted sideways and straightened it in time. Held it while it filled. “No, sir. A number of us want to talk, sir. Urgent business.”
Spit and polish. From Mitch. There was no one else in the rec nook of the mess hall and no reasonable chance of being overheard in the clatter of trays. “Tanzer wants to talk, too. I have an appointment in fifteen.”
“Hell.” Mitch was Shepherd, aggressively Shepherd, shaved up the sides, couple of earrings. Bracelet. “I swore you’d be there. Sir.”
Graff lifted out the cup, said, “All right, five,” and stole ‘ -07- a sip as he walked with Mitch out the main door and down the hall to the conference rooms. Door to 6a was open. Mitch’s tech crew was there, Pauli and Jacoby, Jamil and his long scanner, Trace. Graff recognized a delegation when he saw it. Tanzer had said, Don’t discuss the hearings. Patently that was not the intention here.
Mitch shut the door. “Sir. We’re asking you to get one of us in front of the committee.”
“Won’t happen,” Graff said. “No chance. You want to get a haircut, Mitch?”
“Hell if.”
“That’s an Earth committee. Blue-sky as they come. They won’t communicate.”
“Yeah,” Jacoby said. “Is that why Tanzer killed Pete and Elly? Couldn’t let a Belter pull it off?”
“Ease off, Jacoby.”
“They won’t let us in hospital. You seen Dekker? You seen him, lieutenant?”
Pauli muttered: “Wouldn’t be surprised if Tanzer ordered him put in that machine. Didn’t want him at the hearings.”
“Shut that down,” Graff said. “Right now.”
Mitch folded his arms, set a foot on a chair, and said, “Somebody better hear it. They didn’t want any Belter son of a bitch in front of the cameras. Dekker couldn’t fly it? Then why didn’t they sub the crew, ask them that!”
“Mitch, I hope somebody does have the brains to ask it. But there’s nothing I can do. They’re not going to ask me that.”
“Hell if, sir! Tanzer’s pets are killing us. You want me to shave up like a—“ Mitch looked at him—him and his regulation trim, and shut the epithet off unsaid. “You get me in front of that hearing and I’ll look like a UDC accountant.”
“Mitch, I’m in a position.”
“You’re in a position. You’re running safe behind shields— sir. We’re the ones with our ass on the line.”
Pauli said: “And they can’t automate these sumbitches any further. Why don’t they ask somebody who knows?”
‘•The designers will. Staatentek’s here. They’ll ask. That much I’ll get a chance to tell them.”
“Ask ‘em about the sim!”
Female voice: Trace. “They’re not interested. This is going to be a whitewash start to finish.”
“The designers have to talk to us, Trace. We’ll get our word in.”
Mitch said: “The engineers have to talk to us. The execs and the politicrats won’t and they have the say.”
“Mitch, I can’t listen to this.”
“Tanzer is a hidebound blue-skyer son of a bitch who thinks because he grew up with a rulebook up his ass is a reason to try to tell any spacer his business or to think that the salute-the-logo dumbasses they’ve pulled in off the Guard and the system test programs could do the job with these ships—“