“7-All, this is Snowball, C-2-6, on it, that’s 03 to you, dammit, seat that door!”
Saito was on com. Saito must be lurking over Dan Washington’s shoulder and the pocket com was wide open now and logging to files on the carrier. Saito wasn’t as accepting of harebrained excursions as Dan was, Saito must have gotten uneasy, and, onto Helm Two’s side excursion, was probably calling Demas in, besides having Security closer than he’d set them. But they would or wouldn’t come in, depending on what Saito heard. Meanwhile he watched the hand-line quiver along the side of the lighted tube. Someone was on it, now, below the curve of the tube. Several someones, by the feel as he touched it.
First figure showed in the serpentine of lights, monkeying along the line. Not UDC. Their own. Flash of jewelry, light behind blond hair.
Friendly fire incoming, then. Not UDC: Mitch. He drew a breath, focused down off the adrenaline rush toward a different kind of self-protection, said to the com, “Snowball, easy on,” before Security came in hard. More of them behind Mitch: Jamil, Almarshad.. .Pauli. A delegation. The Shepherds didn’t have access to query over com. Saito was sure to give him hell; the Shepherds had tracked him, never mind Tanzer’s ‘boys’ might have—it wasn’t a good time he was having right now; and he hoped it wasn’t a breaking problem that had brought them here. He couldn’t take another.
He held his position as the Shepherds gathered in front of the open door, drifting hands-off on the short tether of their safety-clips, in the frosty-breathed chill and the low rhythmic hum of the mags. “Hear it was bloody,” Mitch said.
“How did you hear? What’s security worth in this place?”
Jamil shrugged, tugged at the line to maintain his orientation. “2-level bar. Aerospattale guys with a few under their belts. Saying Bonner’s pissed. Tanzer’s pissed. Bonner told some female committee member it wasn’t really important she understand the technicals of the accident, or the tetralogic, she should just recommend the system go AI.”
“Damn,” he said, but Jamil was grinning.
“Happens Bonner mixed up his women and his Asians. Turned out she’s Aerospatiale’s number two engineer.”
He had to be amused. He grinned. And he knew that via his open com, Bonner’s little faux pas was flying through the carrier out there, for all it was worth. So the J-G wasn’t the only one who could talk his way into trouble.
But mat was one engineer and one company, with no part of its contract at issue: Aerospatiale was the engines, and they weren’t in question.
The Belter trash, as they called themselves, wanted to know how it had gone. Correction, they knew how it had gone. He didn’t know how they’d found him, didn’t know what they expected him to say. He hadn’t delivered. Not really. They couldn’t think he had.
“What are you guys doing here?”
They didn’t know how to answer, evidently: they didn’t quite look him in the eye. But maybe he halfway understood what was in their minds—a feeling they’d been collectively screwed, the way the Belters would say. And that together was better than separate right now.
“How did you find me?”
Mitch said, “Phoned Fleet Security. They knew.”
CHAPTER 5
2-DECK 229 was a tacky little hallway in a tacky little facility that met you with a security-locked, plastic-protected bulletin board that said things like
NO ALCOHOL IN QUARTERS and REMEMBER THE 24-HR
RESTRICTIONS, along with SIM SCHEDUUE and LOST CARD,
DESPERATE, BILL H. SMITH.
Humanitarian transfer, hell. You couldn’t shoot a Fleet officer. Wasn’t legal. Couldn’t even kill Dekker, who didn’t know what was going on, who just looked at you and said, Yeah, Ben. All right, Ben. Like you could do anything you wanted to him, the worse had already happened.
Bloody hell.
He found Barracks C. He walked in, where a handful of guys with a vid-game looked up and got up and stared at him, a solid wall of hostility.
“Lost?” one of them asked.
“I’m fuckin’ assigned here,” he muttered, and got dismay and frowns.
“No such,” one said, Belter accent thick and surly. “UDC shave-head? You got the wrong barracks, loo-tenant.”