Ben said it right—Salazar couldn’t get a message to him through ordinary channels, so she sent one on the news. I’m here. I’m still waiting. I’ll get what you care about until I can get you….
He didn’t track on everything Ben said—but that, that, he understood. He wanted to get to a phone. He wanted permission from someone to get a call out.
Which was exactly what Salazar wanted. So he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t, dammit. Not without thinking more clearly than he was right now….
Let her have him, maybe, do something so the Fleet would throw him out and all the Belter and Shepherd types who’d protected him wouldn’t want to, wouldn’t give a damn if he went to trial….
Then, if they ever let him testify, he could tell mama Salazar to her face she’d killed her own kid. Only revenge Cory would ever have—unless you counted a few execs out of jobs. But they’d find others. The Company always found a place for the fools. Ben said so. And he believed it. They just promoted them sideways, somewhere they hadn’t a rep—yet. The Company took care of its own.
“Severe mess,” Sal said with a shake of her braids. Meg concurred with that.
“Sloppy place,” she said, looking around at a scarred, dirty cell. “The tank over at One is ever so nicer.” She felt a draft from a torn coat sleeve, and leaned her back against the wall, one leg tucked. They weren’t in prison coveralls. The Es-tab-lish-ment was still trying to figure what to do with them, she supposed, on grounds of her previous experience with such places. “D’ you s’pose the lieutenant has got a plan, or what-all?”
“I sincerely do hope,” Sal said. Sal had an eye trying to swell shut. A cut lip. Sal did not look happy with her situation. Sal looked, in fact, intensely scared, now the adrenaline rush was gone and they were sitting in a cell with a riot charge over their heads.
“It was a set-up,” Meg said. “Don’t you smell set-up? I never saw a room blow so fast. Just a skosh peculiar, they let Dek out and they run him back in, and MS so seriously important and all? We’re the ones they shagged a carrier to get here. Are they going to forget us? Nyet. Non.”
Sal was still frowning. “Amnesia’s been known. Strikes people in office, most often. I hear they got no vaccine.”
“Faith, Aboujib. Believe in justice.”
Sal snorted. Almost laughed.
“I believe, Kady, I believe we are in un beau de fuck-up here….”
Truth was, she was scared too. But scared didn’t profit you anything when it came to judges and courts, and she’d said it to Sal—the Fleet hadn’t gone to all this trouble to invite them to a messhall brawl.
“I believe in they hauled our asses a long, long way to haul Dek in out of the dark. That is a truly remarkable altruism, Aboujib.”
“Des bugs.”
“Bien certain they would. Bien certain someone’s playing games. Dekker’s mama lost her job. Does this rate news? Does this rate the peace movement lawyers giving interviews in front of the MarsCorp logo? Nyet. But there it was.”
“You think somebody made it up? Faked it?”
“Nyet. Peace movement, Aboujib. Peace movement is involved. Does not the antenna go up? Does not an old rab ask herself why and what if?”
There was a spark of interest in Sal’s dark eye. The one that showed. Sal didn’t say a thing, but: “Rab is. The Corp is. Amen.”
“That chelovek in the suit, that lawyer? That’s a plastic. You mark.”
‘’Why’s he with Dekker’s mama?”
Scary to think on. Truly scary. Sal looked at her. Sal as Belter as they came, and Shepherd; and how did you say the mother-well’s mind in Sal’s terms?
“Think of helldeck. Think of all those preachers, them mat want to save your soul. And they each got a different way.”
Another snort. “Crazies.”
“On Earth they got their right. That’s why they got it still on helldeck. On Earth you got a right to say and do. So they say and do. On Earth you can say a straight-line rock won’t hit you. And maybe it won’t. It might be too heavy. Might fell. You understand?”