Bonner said, “Lieutenant, tell me, what do you care if Earth ceases to exist?”
He said, halfway into it before he remembered whose quote it was, “ ‘If Earth didn’t exist, we’d have to create one.’ “
Emory of Cyteen had said, a now-famous remark: “We all need to be from somewhere. We need a context for the genome. Lose that and we lose all common reference as a species.”
But the committee didn’t seem to recognize the source. Likely they couldn’t recall the name of Cyteen’s Councilor of Science—or conceive of the immense arrogance in that statement. Cyteen was terraforming, hand over fist. Ripping a world apart. Killing a native ecology, replacing it—and humanity—with its own chosen design. He’d seen the classified reports. And he wasn’t sure Bonner had. Mazian was taking those records to the highest levels of the Company and the UN.
A senator said, “We’re here to discuss technology. The fitness of a machine.”
“The fitness of the men who fly it,” Bonner said, “is also at issue.”
The pod reoriented. Flesh met plastics. Dekker tried to defend himself, but something grabbed his collar, held him. Someone shook him, and said, “Straighten up, you damned fool, or I’ll hit you again.”
“Trying to,” he told Ben’s hazy image, and tasted blood in his mouth.
“Why in hell?” Ben asked him. “Why in hell did you have to ask for me?”
“Dunno, dunno, Ben.” Blood tasted awful. He tried to get his breath and Ben shoved him back against the pillows. Ben looked like hell.
Ben still had his fist wrapped in his collar. Ben gave him another shove. “I can’t blame whoever shoved you in that simulator. You’re a pain in the ass, you know that? You’re a damned recurring pain in the ass!”
“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t want his lips to tremble, but they did, and tears stung his eyes. A long, long time he’d been alone. There’d been others, but they’d died, and Ben hadn’t, Ben wouldn’t, Ben was too hard to catch and Ben wouldn’t get himself killed for anybody. He trusted Ben that way. Ben was too slippery for the sons of bitches.
Someone shadowed the doorway.
“Need to check his blood pressure, sir.”
Somebody had said something about Have a nice trip. Someone who’d told him go to hell….
He caught at the bed. Caught at Ben’s arm as Ben started to get up and turn him over to the nurse. “No.”
“Your blood pressure’s getting up, Mr. Dekker.”
“Screw it. —Ben, —“
“Lieutenant.”
He swung his legs off the bed, made a try at getting up and the room went upside down. The nurse made a grab after him, he saw the blue uniform, and he elbowed it aside. He caught himself with a grip on the edge of the bed.
But Ben was gone. Ben had left him, and the nurse got a hand on his shoulder and his arm. “Just lie down, Mr. Dekker. Lie down. How’d he get in here, anyway? Visitors aren’t supposed to be in here.”
He didn’t know either. But a lot of things happened here mat shouldn’t. And he hadn’t been dreaming. Ben had been there. He had a cut inside his lip and a coppery taste in his mouth that proved it, no matter what the nurse said about visitors. He lay down and ran his tongue over that sore spot, thinking, through the shot and everything, Ben’s here, Ben’s here… and knowing it was Sol Two where Ben had found him: Ben hated him; but Ben had got here, Ben talked sense to him and didn’t confuse him. Even if Ben wanted to beat bell out of him. He liked that about Ben—that for all ; Ben wanted to go on beating hell out of him, Ben hadn’t. Ben had held on to him. Ben had shaken him and told him where right side up was and told him to get there. Only advice he’d trusted in days. Only voice he’d wanted to come back to, since— since his crew died. Died in a fireball he wasn’t in. Couldn’t have been in, since he wasn’t vapor.
Somebody’d said, later, Enjoy the ride, Dekker.