Bang went his head against the wall. He just rested where he’d hit and stared at Ben, Ben with this thoughtful expression he couldn’t figure out. Mad, he expected. But he didn’t want to deal with complexities or have Ben trying to con him. And Ben’s frown didn’t look as angry as Ben should. “You sick? You want the meds?”
“I’ve had ‘em.” He curled into the corner where the bunk met the wall, tucked up and tried to project a thorough Leave me alone.
Ben sat down, put a hand on his ankle and shook him. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” He jerked his leg, Ben moved his hand, and he sat there with his arms across his gut, because he felt the pieces coming apart, the one reliable guy he knew was after him in a way that didn’t mean Ben had just gone friendly—oh, no, Ben had just changed the rules; Ben was after something, maybe his neck, maybe just after using him to get what he wanted: Belters were like that, that were born there. You could partner with them. You could deal with them. But you didn’t ever take for granted they thought the way you did.
“Your mama’s in some kind of trouble, is she?”
“Her trouble.”
Ben said, “Sounds to me like Salazar.”
They’d gotten altogether too friendly one watch, on the ship, on the trip out from the Belt. Their lives had been changing. Late one night he’d told Ben a lot of things he wished now he hadn’t. Early as the next wakeup, he’d known it was a mistake. “Leave it the hell alone, Ben. It’s not your business.”
“Not my business. You are a son of a bitch, you know that, Dekker?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been told.”
“Listen, Dekker, —“
“I said let it ride!”
“What else does your mama have to do with MarsCorp?”
“She fixes the damn circuits, all over Sol One. She’s an electrician—they don’t ask her politics or her religion before they send her into an office—maybe she screwed up a jot>—“
“MarsCorp? Come on, Dekker.”
“MarsCorp, the Vatican for all I know, I don’t know what she’s into, I don’t know what’s going on, they cut the damn news off, weren’t you listening?”
“Dekker, —I want you to say nice things to the cops, I want you to use your head, I want you to say I’m sorry to the nice UDC guys and yessir to the colonel and don’t the hell get us in any more heat, you understand me?”
“Yeah,” he said. Simple demands, he could cope with. He got his back into the corner and his knees tucked up out of Ben’s convenient reach. Didn’t like guys touching him. He was sure Ben didn’t mean it any way but Pay Attention, but he didn’t like it. “It’s my fault. The whole damn thing’s my fault, I got that loud and clear, all right? I’m sorry you got involved.”
Ben hit his foot. Another Pay Attention. “Dek-ooy, you are in deep shit here, have you noticed mat? Stop thinking about your mama, you have got enough shit to occupy your time. I do not want you to screw up in front of the lieutenant, I do not want you to mouth off to the MPs, I do not want you to get us in deeper than we are. You copy that? Now, for all those watching, we are going to agree there is involved in this a Name mat they won’t want in court, no more than they did when they the hell raked you into the Service and gave me my slot at TI. That Name is, let us agree, Salazar. So we are not going to court martial, we are not going to see any outside lawyers, we are behind the thickest fuckin’ security wall in the inner system, and I think it would be a most severely good idea not to antagonize the Fleet at this point, since the UDC is for some whimsical reason not all that happy with you. Do you follow?”
Jaw wasn’t working all mat well. He nodded. He couldn’t stop thinking about his mother. He couldn’t help thinking how a lot of people would be alive if he’d never existed and how people connected to him might have better lives now if he was dead and Salazar didn’t have anybody to go after.