The captain moved restlessly. “I don't believe that. Everything I've seen shows me I can't depend on the Demarchy. You can't even depend on each other. Even if you meant every word you said, someone else would make it a lie and attack us.… I'm not blind, Abdhiamal, I can see what's happened here, and I know it's true that you need help. If I'd only had some sign to prove to me that at least the Demarchy was worthy of our trust. But I haven't. We can't help you; you won't let us. It's impossible.”
“Captain, I—”
“The matter is closed.” Something in her voice told him that it was closed, irrevocably, and that the reason went much deeper than a simple betrayal of trust.
Not understanding, he only nodded, his own fatigue and exasperation leaving him defeated. “To what end am I your hostage then. Captain?”
Her eyes shifted, clouding. “I don't know. Whatever end we come to, for better or worse … will be yours too, I suppose. You helped us out of a tight spot, Abdhiamal. Inadvertently, but you did help us. I'll try to be as fair to you. If we get the hydrogen we need, I'll find a way to get you back to the Demarchy before we leave the system. It will only be a—temporary inconvenience.” She looked at him strangely for a moment; turning away, she reached for the old man's arm. “Oh, Christ, Pappy, I'm so tired. So glad to be back.” He pulled her close, too close; held her until she broke away, kissing him once, tenderly.
Old enough to be her father … Surprise let a grimace of distaste pull his own mouth down; he covered it as they looked back at him. Only four, in this large, empty room; and two of them were Belters. Too empty. “Where's the rest of your crew?”
The old man glanced at the captain; she shook her head. “It doesn't matter; he'll find out soon enough, I suppose.” Her hand gestured at the screen and knotted into a fist. “They all died at Discus. And we're going back. Pappy, get started on a course for Discus. We can't risk staying here any longer. We're going to take what we need from the Ringers, Abdhiamal, any way we can, and that's going to suit me fine.” She threw it at him, defiant, before she turned to Shadow Jack and the girl. “I'm going to get us out of here as fast as I can. I want to be sure no one from the Demarchy can touch us. We'll be doing one gee for five or six days, again, to get us back to the Rings.”
“It'll be worth it.” Shadow Jack cracked his knuckles. The girl's mouth set in a line; she nodded. She moved closer to Shadow Jack, stroking his bare arm lightly. He glanced down at her, irritated, but didn't pull away.
“Thirsty?” she said. He straightened out of his drifting slouch, smiled suddenly, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Yeah!” He pushed off from the wall and they left the room.
The old man was strapped into a seat, working at the panel. The captain moved out into the air to collect a pencil and an unidentifiable metal cube. She pushed the cat into a compartment in the wall.
“Captain.”
She started back toward the control board. “What?”
“I'd like permission to use your radio.”
“Refused.” She reached a chair, maneuvered herself down.
“But I need to—”
“Refused.” She turned her back, cutting him off as she began her work at the board. He waited, studying the tasteless combination of pale-blue walls and green carpet. He noticed a stripe of deeper blue on the wall, an arrow, and the word DOWN.
“The Lansing ship is secure. Are the co-ords in, Pappy?”
“They're in. Ready when you are.”
“Right. Ignition … thirty seconds. Feet on the ground, all of you!” The last of it went over an intercom, rattling off the walls through the empty heart of the ship. Wadie watched her hands move through a sequence on the panel, felt the light, familiar hand of gravity settle on his shoulders. And begin to bear down: His feet touched the floor, the drag against his legs continued, increasing past the point of familiarity, past the point of comfort. He backed up, caught hold of a bar along the wall, remembering thirty seconds of one gee on a Ringer ship, and realizing what it would be like for the next five hundred thousand seconds. Pain wrenched his muscles; the blue-on-blue streaked wall filled his vision DOWN.… His hands tightened, and he stood, enduring the pain, ignoring the heart that beat against his ribs like a fist.
He stood—and moved tentatively away from the wall, as the pressure bearing down on him stabilized. Dizziness made him sway, but he controlled it, balanced precariously as the captain and the old man rose from their seats. They looked toward him with expectant pity; the cat struggled out of the wall through a plastic porthole, made a circuit of his legs, licked his booted foot consolingly with her tongue. He folded his arms; looked down, and back at them across the room. He smiled, blandly.
The captain turned and walked out of the room. The cat bounded after her, tail flying like a banner.
“Abdhiamal, is it?” The old man came over to him, held out a hand. “My name's Welkin, navigator on the Ranger.”
Wadie nodded, shook his hand, wondered at his motive in offering it. He noticed that Welkin's hand was bright with golden rings, like Betha Torgussen's; and that his grip was strong and firm.… But the old man must be tough, if he could take one gee—ten meters per second squared, the gravity of Old Earth. This was what it had been like to live on Earth. A crash and Shadow Jack's pained “Hell!” rose from somewhere below them. No wonder we called this system Heaven.
Ranger (in transit, Demarchy to Discus)
+2.25 megaseconds
Fifty kiloseconds later Wadie climbed the empty stairwell, one step and then another—wanting to crawl and knowing there was no one to see it, but determined that he would keep control over something, if only his own dignity. He had investigated the lower levels of the ship's living area: the crew's quarters; the alien lushness of a hydroponics lab adapted to one gravity; the workshop—the last memory was almost a hunger. He had seen everything but the section on the second level, behind a sealed doorway where a warning light blinked red. And everywhere he had been stunned by the incredible waste—of water, of air, of living space—in a matrix of drab austerity that was primitive compared to the Demarchy's sophistication. He contemplated the irony in the idea that the Morningsiders considered themselves poor, when in some ways they were the richest people he had ever seen.
He reached the top of the stairs, leaned against the railing until the dizziness passed and his heartbeat slowed. His muscles ached dully when he stood, and when he moved pain burned in his trembling legs like a hot wire. He did his best to put his new clothes in order before he entered the control room.
The others were already there, watching something on the viewscreen. The captain and Welkin sat in chairs. Shadow Jack and the girl lay on the carpet, spreading their weight over the greatest area. The girl was trying to do pushups, her body rigid from the knees, as he looked in. He saw her elbows tremble, watched her collapse facedown on the cushion. She lay spread-eagled on the floor, defeated. “I can't.”
“Then don't,” Shadow Jack said, and more gently, “It'll be over soon, Bird Alyn; we don't have to get used to it.” He flipped playing cards out into the air, watching their incredibly swift plummet to the rug. “Look who finally woke up.” He looked back over his shoulder; the cat sidled past his head and sat down on the cards.
Wadie bowed casually, carefully keeping his balance. No one moved in return, and indignation rose in him until he remembered that he couldn't expect civility here. Pirates … He almost smiled, struck by the memory of what it had meant to be called a Belter, once, in the time when the only Asteroid Belt was Sol's. He studied the captain's face, clean now like her fair cropped hair; met something in her eyes that startled him. She glanced down, lighting a pipe. The tangy sweetness of whatever burned stirred memories in him, instinctive, of things he had never seen.