“Effin’ right I passed, Dek-boy. No question I’d pass if I wanted to. Ap-ti-tuded, hell, they put me in armscomp, are you satisfied?”
Dekker wasn’t. He sincerely didn’t want that. He watched Ben shaving in this dormitory the labs afforded their test subjects and kept his chilled hands in his pockets.
“Sorry doesn’t cover it. I know. But—“
Ben looked around at him. “You’re worried, Dek-boy. Tell me why you’re worried.”
He wasn’t sure he ought to say that either—since Ben didn’t know; since self-doubt was the deadliest creature you could take into the program. The program was full of egos. Ben’s was fairly healthy.
“So what’s the matter?” Ben prodded him.
He had to say something—because somebody would, back in barracks. “Say the Fleet has that new program—say they came up with this tape stuff...”
“You mean what they gave us wasn’t reg?”
He was supposed to be a fast thinker. He wasn’t doing well this morning. Mute as a rock, he was.
“Look, Moonbeam, what in hell are they up to? Gives a guy a real uneasy feeling, that look of yours, and you’re the lousiest Har I know of.”
“It’s supposed to work, that’s all I know.”
Ben gave him a long, suspicious stare.
“All I know,” Dekker said; and Ben said,
“Hell if. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing but they want results. Fast. And the heat’s on my tail. But it doesn’t get to you guys. It doesn’t.”
“Yeah? They put you in command, did they, of the whole friggin’ Fleet?”
“No. Porey said it. They don’t want to lose another ship. And I swear to you, —I won’t lose another crew.”
Chapter 12
GLOVING lines converged. Dekker blinked sweat and the simulator manufactured an uncharted rock on split second Imminent for the carrier. Missed the bastard and redirect to take it out on the fly-Got it, got the beta target before the bloodflow caught up with his knees. Targets coming.
Carrier showed up on the scope. That was the priority— your carrier showed and you got the come-home, and you were done, far as you could clear it a path, granted you could get through the effect shield without glitching.
Soft and smooth—you got the slight buffet as you came through the shield, momentary LOS of everything on the boards and you had to know its v, the extent of those shields, how close you were going to be when you came through the envelope—damned close, damned close. Touch. Slight mismatch. Within tolerance. Probe caught. Mate.
Power down.
Good run, solid run. Not flashy, except that UO and making that shot. He could cut the sim, meltdown and unbelt, he’d earned it and a hot shower. Fine control when you’d been hyped was hell, and switch-off was the copilot’s job, if there’d been a co-pilot this sim—he wouldn’t lose points on that. But he was a fussy sumbitch. He set his switches. He set every effin’ one.
Damn, it felt good. Felt solid.
Home again.
He shifted his legs as the pod opened and he could unbelt and drift out. Breath frosted, while sweat still ran under the flightsuit.
Take that in your stats, Tanzer.
Card game went on, Ben and Sal running up favor points on Almarshad’s and Mitch’s guys, and the spectators drifted down there. “Hey, Dek,” came back, but Dekker tried to ignore it and concentrate on his math and his set-targets for tomorrow’s run.
Conversation floating back from the table said, “It’s one thing in sims. Live fire’s going to be something else.”
“You just hit ‘em,” Ben said, and took a card. “Dots is dots.”
“No way,” Wilson said. “Ask Wilhelmsen.”
“They don’t have to,” Mitch said, and a chill ran through Dekker’s bones. He was thinking what to say to shut that up when Meg said, acidly, “Dunno a thing about Pete Fowler, mister. Nice guy, I s’pose, and I highly ‘predate his help, but he’s not the one does the thinking.”
“Still not live fire, Kady.”
“Ease off,” Dekker said, and shoved his chair back.
“Hey,” Mitch said. “No offense.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Meg said, and dealt out cards. “Testosterone’s not the only asset going. Shepherds seriously got to rethink that.”
“Meg,” Sal said.
“Hey. I’m easy.”
“You been easy, Kady.”
Meg pursed her lips. “You a virgin, Mitch? I swear I don’t know.”
“Hold it, hold it,” Ben said.
“The program’s making a serious mistake,” Mitch said, “putting you girls in here. Tape can’t give you the wiring, Kady, there’s a reason they never pulled women in on this program—“
“Yeah,” Meg said acidly. “Look at the scores, Mitch.”
“Meg,” Dekker said.
“Tape off a real pi-tut, Kady.”
That tore it. “Mitch,” Dekker said.
“No, no,” Meg said coolly, “not a problem, Dek. Man’s just upset.”
“Bitch.”
“Yo,” Sal said. “You want to match score- and score, Mitchell?” -
“Just hold it,” Dekker said into the rising mutter from Mitch’s crew and Almarshad’s. “We don’t need this.”
“We don’t need any damn tape,” Mitch said, “and we damn sure don’t need any tape off any women. Reactions aren’t there. You’re never going to see a female pilot on this ship, Kady, you don’t see ‘em in the carriers, you don’t see ‘em in the riders, and you’re never going to. You’ll crack under fire, you’re going to screw this whole damned program, on a rep you didn’t earn.”
Meg said, with a riffle of cards, “Cher, you got a truly basic misconception, there. Ship’s aren’t shes, they’re hes— you got to make love to them the right way, got to keep ‘em collected so you both get there...”
Laugh from some of the guys, thank God. Wasn’t funny at the table. Mitch was pissed. Mitch was being a son of a bloody bitch, was what he was being, hurt feelings, and a mouth that made you want to knock him sideways.
But Mitch gathered up the cards Meg dealt. “You’re in over your head, Kady.”
“Cher, I had a shuttle go dead once, lost a motor on lift, landed in the Seychelles, and that was a bitch. I haven’t sweated since.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah. Tell me yours.”
Mitch glowered a moment, then laid down a card and said, “Well-divers are fools.”
“You got that,” Meg said. “I resigned it.”
“Didn’t resign it,” Sal said. “They threw you out.”
“Huh. I was getting tired of it. Too much same stuff. You seen Luna once, you’ve seen it. Big damn rock.”
“Smug bitch,” Mitch said, in better humor. Dekker eased back and found himself shaking, he was so wound up. But Meg wasn’t. Cold as ice, or she hadn’t any nerves between her hands and her head. Couldn’t tell she might want to knife Mitch Mitchell—
But he’d lay odds Mitch knew.
“Damn, damn. You got a rhythm in this thing.”
See those programs, see how that infodump selected for the human operator, and how it prioritized—that, that was a serious question. They’d had a problem like mat in TI, putting a human into the supercomputer neural-net, without letting it take over infoselection. This one sampled the human needs as well as the environment and it wasn’t doing all it could. The data behind it was fiatline. He pushed it, and it gave him the same input.