“What in hell are they asking me to do with these people?”
“Mazian sets the priorities. Porey carries them out. You keep the crews sane.”
“You mean I promise them anything. Have I got a shred of authority to carry it out?”
For the second time, Demas evaded eye contact. “I’d say it’s more than we can do. But, no, in effect, you don’t.”
“Is he asleep?” Ben asked quietly—made a trip to the bathroom while Sal was drowsing and stopped for a look-see. Dekker looked skuzzed, thoroughly, face down in the pillows. Meg was using his reader, scanning through Dekker’s manuals—there was a lot of study going on in the barracks, over cold dead hamburgers and breaded fish. The smell out there could gag you. And the atmosphere was crazed. Guys glad they were going to fly this thing—the pilots and the lunatic lead techs who made up the core crew.
He should have counted, he told himself. He’d been a numbers man. He should have added it—and panicked when the number of him and Dekker and Meg and Sal tallied four, same as the other core crew units out there.
“He’s out,” Meg said. “Cold. Thank God. Man’s seriously needing his sleep.”
He came and sank down on the edge of the other bunk, said, ever so quietly, “You like this guy?”
Meg shrugged. You never got unequivocal out of her or Sal. But she was here. She’d risked her neck and her license for him. Partner, yeah. But Meg didn’t do things for one
reason, or even two. A solid part of it was in that datacard, was in the way Meg looked right now, sharp and serious and On as he’d ever seen her.
He didn’t say what he’d sat down to say: Flunk that damn test. He slid a glance at Dekker and back and said, “You know, you better carry a pocket wrench.”
Any Belter knew what a wrench was for, on helldeck. Meg’s mouth quirked.
“The CO’s crazy,” he said very quietly. “I flew out here with that guy.”
“So did we.”
“That where they got him? Belt garrison?”
She shook her head. Whispered, “That carrier came in from deep. We dunno where. All the time we were on there, we saw crew, never but once saw him.”
“What’d you think?”
Meg frowned. “Didn’t like the signals.”
He said, under his breath, “We got a serious warning. Don’t know what that guy’s problem is, but it is. We saw him far more than once. Just watching us. The body language. He wants his space, he wants yours. Smiles and laughs but he doesn’t smile, you know what I mean? He watched Dek real close. Dek didn’t like him.”
“Grounds?”
“Just that.” He didn’t think the place was bugged. Events hadn’t proven it and it was too egocentric to mink Polrey’s security had made a straight line to their quarters. But he got uneasy with the topic. He said, “Helldeck radar, maybe. Guys you’d insist do the EVA, if it was the two of you in a miner can, you know what 1 mean?”
Meg got real dead grim. “Ask Sal about that kind.” And then bit her lip like she’d said too much of Sal’s business. “Yeah. Same signals. You ever ship with Sammy Wynn?”
Awful thought. Guy with some serious personality faults, mat wouldn’t get better on a long, lonely haul. “I wouldn’t share a bar table with Sammy Wynn. Whatever happened to him?”
“Spaced by now, I hope.” She stopped and looked aside as Dekker turned over and buried his head in a pillow. Time to go, Ben decided, before they woke Ens. Moonbeam. He stood up, stood still til he knew Dekker wasn’t going to wake up.
“You going to take the Aptitudes?” Meg asked him.
Sore spot, that. “Yeah,” he admitted. And went back into the room with Sal. He had signed the assignment roster out there. He hadn’t intended to tell them. But what had happened here, with the UDC CO busted out of command, himself being caught behind a Fleet Security wall… he didn’t give a real thought to a transfer right now. He could test into something administrative. Damned sure the Fleet wouldn’t want him going back under the UDC curtain with what he’d witnessed here, if by any means they could finagle hanging on to him—and it certainly looked as if they had the clout. He didn’t have the instincts or the nerves for combat, he’d proved that before, and that was bound to show. Drugged you down, they did, even for the basic test. Hooked you up to a machine and read your responses and your answers. You couldn’t fake this one. They said.