Meg shook his shoulder. “Heads up, Dek. First thing you got to do, you got to get straight. Ben said you didn’t get into that pod on your own. That you should remember for him. He really needs that, Dek.”
Sim room. Noise. And the memory just stopped. Got his pulse rate up again. “Can’t. Can’t get hold of it, Meg. Meg, —“
She leaned close and whispered in his ear, “You want to go back to barracks and you and me do a little rec-time? Mmmn?”
Offer like that—from Meg—could raise a corpse. Meg’s touch on his cheek could. He thought about the barracks, had a sudden cold jolt, thinking of Meg there, and Ben and Sal; and not the faces he remembered. A whole puzzle-piece of his life just lifted out, gone, and another one clicked in, not the same shape, there were still dark spots—there’d been another puzzle-piece before that; but it was close, it was damned close. Pete and Elly and Falcone, they wouldn’t have understood Meg. Wouldn’t have gotten on with her, not easy. Might not get on with Sal or Ben. Cory either. He looked Meg in the eyes and remembered his blood pressure, realized he wasn’t wearing the sensor.
Several things clicked into place. Where he was. How he hadn’t gotten his shot this morning, either. How he was clearer-headed now than he’d been since—
More panels. Instruments red-lighting. Alarms screaming. Inner ear going crazy.
“You all right, Dek?” Finger along his cheek. “You’re white. You want me to call a doctor? Dek?”
He shook his head, suddenly sure of that. He sucked in a breath and got an elbow up under him, to see if his head was going to spin. Weak, God. Meg was trying to help him, saying he should lie down. But he didn’t think so, he had a bad feeling about lying down and letting Meg call a doctor, they’d give him shots again and he’d go to sleep and go on sleeping—
He shoved up onto his hands, swung his feet over tile edge. The room was tilting, felt like the pod, but he kept his eyes on the line where the wall met the floor. He sat there getting his breath and making the room stay steady.
“You sure you better not get back in that bed?”
He moved his arm. That shoulder had hurt. Didn’t now, as much. He kept his eyes on that line and said, “Want to get up, Meg. Just give me a hand.”
She did that. He didn’t need it to lean on. He just needed it steady. Second reference point. He made it to his feet, risked a blink, then shut his eyes and stood there a moment. He opened them and took a step, with Meg’s help. “Shot to hell,” he muttered. “Too much zero g.”
“Does that to you,” Meg agreed. “Going back to it?”
“Inner ear’s playing me tricks.” Another step. A third. He took a breath, let go her hand and took a fourth.
“They ought to have had you walking. Especially a spacer. Especially you. What’re the doctors worth in this place?”
A moment of vertigo. He got it back again. “Meg, how in hell’d you get here?” Months to get in from the Belt. They’d told her he was in trouble? Time threatened to unravel again. Except—
“Just caught a passing carrier. You got people real worried about you, Dek. Important people.”
Carrier could make that passage in a handful of days. Better than that, the rumor was. And a carrier pulled Meg out of the Belt? Out of a berth she’d risked her neck to get? “Meg, make ‘em send you back, don’t get mixed up in this, I don’t want you, I don’t want you here—“
“Hell if, boy-doll. Anyway, I signed the papers. Going to make me an officer—“
“Oh, shit. Shit, Meg!” The room went spinning. He just stared at Meg’s face for a reference point and kept his feet and knees from moving. “You were where you wanted.”
“Yeah, well. It’s not all al-tru-istic. —You want to sit down, Dek?”
“No.” A shake of his head that risked his balance. “No. I’m all right. I need to stand up. They won’t let me stand up. Have I got any clothes in mat locker?”