She was upbeat, cheerful, talking about the game, not a single question who that had been or why—must have gotten her information on her own, because Meg didn’t favor ignorance, depend on it: she got him to bed, was willing to go slow if he’d had the inclination: he didn’t; and wrapped herself around him after and snuggled down to keep him warm, about the time Ben and Sal came trooping through.
“Shhh,” Meg hissed, and they were immediately quiet, quiet coming and going to the bathroom—the front room had its drawbacks; but he was on the edge of falling asleep, suddenly exhausted.
Glad he’d made some sort of peace, he decided. Even if their move had put him on the spot and forced what he wasn’t ready for.
Likely they weren’t the ones who’d ambushed him. He hadn’t been sure of mat when he’d taken Rob’s hand; and even if he was somewhat sure now, he couldn’t come to peace with it, couldn’t forgive them, could he, if there was nothing to forgive in the first place, if they were innocent and it was somebody else he saw every day in the corridors, ate with in the mess hall. Maybe whoever had put him in hospital had been in the crowd getting a further kick out of his confusion.
He’d lost an argument or two when he was a kid—he’d lived through the chaff he had to take, he’d faced the guys again—they’d been two years older: he’d lived in fear and gotten hell beaten out of him a couple of times by the same guys before he’d made them believe they were going to take so much damage doing it they didn’t want to keep on his case—not the ideal outcome he’d have wanted, but at least he could believe he’d settled it, at least he’d made a point on them and at least they didn’t give him any more trouble.
But out there in front of everybody, they’d put him directly on the spot, damn them—yeah, he could have acted the touchy son of a bitch Ben said he was, told them go to hell and had the program in a mess and the lieutenant ready to kill him. He’d had an attack of responsibility, he decided finally. Mature judgment or something. His mother had sworn he’d never live that long.
But it didn’t solve his own problem. Just theirs. He was still walking around not knowing, still a target for another try, God only when, or on what provocation. In the meanwhile he knew those he’d trust with his life, and those he just didn’t know. In the meantime somebody was off scot free and probably laughing about it.
“You all right, cher?” Meg stirred beside him, massaged a shoulder. He realized the tension he had, then, probably as comfortable as a rock to be next to.
“Yeah.” He tried to relax. “Cold.”
Meg put a warm arm over his back. “Roll over, jeune fils. No questions. Do. We got sims in the morning. Big day. Relax.”
Couldn’t understand why she put up with him. Couldn’t understand why Ben did, except Sal was with Meg. He wished he could do better than he did, wished he could say they weren’t in a mess of his making. But it was. And they were. And Meg somehow didn’t care he was a fool.
The rec hall was quiet. It was a Question whether to acknowledge what had happened or ignore it; but the former, Graff decided—word having drifted his way via Reet Security via Sgt.-major Lynch. Probably word had drifted to Porey too and no orders had come. But it was Personnel’s business to take a tour, while the alterday galley staff was cleaning up. Music was still going. Most of the participants were back in barracks, hopefully.
“Quiet here?” he asked a marine on watch.
“Quiet, sir.”
“Any feeling of trouble?”
“No, sir. Not lately. Real quiet, sir.”
He made no approach toward the last few celebrants—a few UDC, a few Fleet personnel, a little the worse for drink, at opposite ends of the hall. He wasn’t there on a disciplinary. But he meant to be seen. His being there said command levels had heard, command levels were aware.
Dekker hadn’t blown it, by all he’d heard. He didn’t know where the idea had started. He didn’t know that it had done any good, but at least it had done no demonstrable harm.
Someone walked in at his back, walked up beside him.
“Tables still standing,” Villy said.
“Noted that.”
“Hope it lasts,” Villy said. “Difficult time.”
Villy had never said anything about the change in command. Like having your ship taken out of your hands, Graff thought, like watching it happen on, Villy had said, the last big project he’d ever work on.
What did you say? What, in the gulf between his reality and Villy’s, did one find to say?
“Good they did that,” he said. “I hope it takes.”
Chapter 13
DIG empty section of the mast—you’d know where you were blindfolded, null-g with the crashes of locks and loaders and the hum of the core machinery, noises that made the blood rush with memories of flights past and anticipation of another, no helping it. Meg took a breath of cold, oil-touched air, a breath mat had the flightsuit pressing close, snug as a hardened skin, and hauled with one hand to get a rightside up view of what Dek had to show them, screen with a live camera image from, she guessed, optics far out along the mast.
Big, shadow-shape of the carrier—wouldn’t all fit in the picture—with spots on its hull picked it out in patchwork detail, all gray, and huge—
And on the hull near the bow, a flat, sleek shape clung, shining in the floods. “That’s it?” Ben asked.
“That’s it,” Dek said. “Her. Whatever you want to call it. They built three prototypes. That’s the third. That’s the one that’s make or break for us. Crew of thirty, when we - prove it out. Four can manage her—in a clean course, with set targets. Most of her mass is ordnance, ablation edge, and engine load. You’ve had the briefings.”
Meg stood by Sal’s side and got a shiver down the back that had nothing to do with the cold here. Beautiful machine, she was thinking; Sal said, Brut job, and meant the same thing, in a moment, it sounded as-if, of pure gut-deep lust. Wasn’t any miner-can, that wicked, shimmery shape.
And most imminently, in the sim chamber behind the clear observation port, the pods, one in operation, a mag-lev rush around the chamber walls, deafening as the wall beside them carried the vibration.
“Damn,” she breathed. But you wouldn’t hear it.
“The pods you see moving,” Dek said, over the fading thunder, “that’s the tame part. That rush is the dock and undock. They can take those pods more positive or neg g’s than your gut’s going to like. But that’s not the dangerous part. That pod, there, the still one—“ He pointed at one floating motionless, away from the walls. “That’s the real hellride. Could be at 3A light, what you know from inside. That’s the one they mop the seats on. That’s the one can put you in hospital—unstable as hell in that mode—screw it and you’ll pull a real sudden change.”
“Thanks,” Ben said. “I like to hear that, damn, I like to hear that.”
Meg said, “Going to be all right. No problems. Hear?”
But Dek looked up at that pod in a way she kept seeing after he’d turned away and told them it was up the lines to the pod access—like an addict looking at his addiction, and a guy scared as hell.
“Take you on the ride of your life,” was the way he put it.
“Now wait a minute,” Ben said. But Dek took out on the handlines and Sal snagged Ben’s arm with: “Now, cher, if we don’t keep with Dek and Meg here, they’ll assign us some sheer fool pi-lut we don’t know the hell who... Do you want to go boom on a rock? No. Not. So soyez gentle and don’t distract the jeune fils.”
“No,” Graff said, “no, colonel, I don’t know—I’ve got a meeting with him...”
“He’s got no right,” was the burden of Tanzer’s phone call. Which didn’t over all help Graff’s headache. Neither did the prospect of dealing with Comdr. Porey face to face.