Meg didn’t look real happy. Meg was about as white and as tight-lipped as he’d ever seen her. Meg shoved his hands off. “You got a problem, mister? You got a problem with me not being good enough, that’s one thing, you got a problem about setting me on any damn shelf to look at— that’s another. You say I’m shit at the boards, that’s all right, that’s your damned opinion, let’s see how the Aptitudes come out. I’ll find a team and I’ll fly with somebody, we’ll sleep together sometimes, fine. Or I’ll wash out of here. But you don’t set me on any damn shelf!”
After which Meg walked off alone down the hall, sound of boots on the decking, head down. Not happy. Hell, Ben thought, with a view of Dekker’s back, Dekker just standing there. Sal was with him—he wondered that Sal didn’t go with Meg; he was still wondering when Dekker lit out after Meg, walking fast and wobbling a little.
“You make sense out of either one of ‘em?” he asked Sal.
“Yeah,” Sal said. “Both.”
Surprised him. Most things came down to Belter and Inner-systemer. So maybe this was something he just wasn’t tracking. He asked, for his own self-preservation: “Yeah? I know why he’s following. I don’t know why she’s pissed.”
Sal said, “Told you last night.”
“He didn’t say she couldn’t fly. He said—“
“He said not with him. Not on his ship. She’ll beat his ass. That’s what he’s asking for.”
Talking was going on down the hall, near the exit. Looked hot and heavy.
Sal said, “She’ll pass those Aptitudes. You never seen Meg mad.”
He thought he had. Maybe not, on the other hand. Meg was still lighting into Dekker—boy was a day out of hospital, shaky on his feet, and he didn’t look as if he was holding his own down there.
Then Dekker must’ve said something, because Meg eased off a little.
Probably it was Yes. Probably. Meg was still standing there. Meg and Dekker walked off together toward the security door, so he figured they’d better catch up.
The other side of the door, Meg said, “We got it worked out.”
Ben said, “Not fair, man’s not up to this.” Dekker looked as if he wanted holding on his feet, as was. But Dekker said,
“Going to try for that tape, Ben. You want to test in?”
He threw a shocked look back at the doors, where roomfuls of walking dead were flying nonexistent ships. ‘To that? No way in hell. Non-com-ba-tant, do you read? No way the UDC is risking my talent in a damn missile. I’ll test for data entry before I do that—“
“What’s Stockholm got?” Sal asked. “They say Pell’s got a helldeck puts Sol to shame. Got eetees and everything.”
“Yeah?” He was unmoved. “I’ve seen pictures. Can’t be mat good in bed.”
“Got real biostuffs, just like Earth. There’s Pell, there’s Mariner Station—“
“Yeah, there’s Cyteen going to blow us to hell or turn us into robots. Don’t need to go to Cyteen—our own service is trying to do it to us...”
Seriously gave him the willies, mat did. Get into his mind and teach him which keys to push, would it?
A programmer didn’t need any damned help like that.
No answer, no answer, and no answer. Graff was beyond worrying. He was getting damned mad. And there was no place to trust but the carrier’s bridge, with the security systems engaged—but workmen had been everywhere, the UDC had very adept personnel as capable of screwing up a system as their own techs were of unscrewing it—and it was always a question, even here, who was one up on whom. “I know the captain knows about Dekker,” he said to Saito and Demas and Thieu—age-marked faces all; and the only reassurance he had. “Pollard, Aboujib, Kady all shipped in here—you’d think if he is moving them, they’d be couriering something, a message, two words from the captain—“
“Possibly,” Saito said, over the rim of her coffee cup, “he feared some shift of loyalty. Dekker is the key point. None of them have met in over a year. Friends and lovers fall out. And Pollard is UDC.”
“They came. Dekker’s leavetaking with Kady was— passionate to say the least. Pollard joined him here. Protocol says none of this is significant?”
“They’re not merchanter. That’s not what’s forming here.”
Puzzles, at the depth of things. Silence from the captain, when a word would have come profoundly welcome. He looked at Demas, he looked at Armsmaster Thieu, he looked at Saito. Com One. If Victoria spoke officially, it was Saito’s voice. If the Fleet spoke to Union or to blue-skyers, it was Saito, who made a study of words, and customs, and foreign exactitudes—and psychologies and expectations.
“What is forming?”
Saito shrugged. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I only point out—you can’t take our social structure as the end point of their evolution. Blue-skyers and Belters alike— their loyalties are immensely complex. Ship and Family don’t occur here. Only the basis for them. Difficult to say what they’d become.’’
“Prehistory,” Demas murmured.
“Prejudice?” Saito asked softly.
“Not prejudice: just there’s no bridge between the cultures. The change was total. Their institutions are seminal to ours. But they don’t need kinships, they don’t need to function in that context. Their ancestors did. We’ve pulled our resource out of the cultural matrix—“
“Matrices. Wallingsfordian matrices.”
God, they were off on one of their arguments, splitting theoretical hairs. Demas was a hobbyist, and the carrier’s bulletin board had a growing collection of Demas’ and Saito’s observations on insystem cultures. He hadn’t come shipside for Wallingsfordians versus Kiimer or Emory.
“Saito. Is the captain setting up something you know about?”
A very opaque stare. “I’d tell you.”
“Unless you had other orders. Has the captain been in contact with you? Am I being set up?”
A moment more that Saito looked at him and never a flinch. “Of course not.”
Chapter 8
HARD day?” Villanueva asked, at the dessert bar, “Could say.” The one claim you could make for Earth’s vicinity was more varieties of sweet and spice than a man could run through in a year. And Graff personally intended to try during his tenure here—a tenure in which combat was beginning to look preferable. “What’s this one?” he asked of the line worker, but Villy said, “Raisin cake. Allspice, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg—“ “You have it down,” Graff was fencing. He was sure Villy wasn’t here entirely for the dessert. He didn’t want the lecture. He didn’t want the inquiry. He was, however, amazed at Villy’s culinary expertise.
Villy shrugged. “You guys always ask. —How’s Dekker doing?”
“All right till the colonel clipped him.” He weighed asking. He couldn’t stand the suspense. “Did he send you?”
Hesitation. “Could say that.” “What’s he after?”
“He’s saying put the boy back into lower levels. Use Mitchell’s crew, use me and mine. He says he takes your point, no command substitutions, no crew subs until we get this thing operating.”
“Why doesn’t he make his own offers?”
“Seems us pi-luts talk better to each other, at least where it concerns capabilities. You want the truth—I suggested he lay off the substitutions.”
“Wish you could have done that earlier.”
Villanueva gave him a look back. “Truth is, I did.”
Graff picked up his tray and tracked Villy to the tables in the officers’ mess, said, “Do you mind?” and sat down opposite him before he had an answer.
“Be my guest,” Villy said.
There had to be looks from other tables, assessing their expressions, the length of their converse. Graff said, urgently, “It’s no deal, Villy. I can’t. Your colonel’s got no right to pull him—“