Finally one of them, older man, picked it up and tossed it down toward her.
The man next to her, the unfriendly one, picked it up and gave it to her.
"Thanks," she said. She fumbled around and got the cuffs off.
No one said anything. She certainly didn't expect a You're Welcome from Fitch. She just pocketed the cuffs and the key. You didn't leave junk on the deck, and nobody asked for it.
"Hour till," Fitch said. "Yeager?"
She looked up, fought the twitch that said stand up, reminding herself this was a civ ship. "Yes, sir?"
"You like this ship?"
"Yes, sir."
"Like what you see?"
"Fine, sir."
Long silence.
"You being smart with me, Yeager?"
"No, sir. I'm glad to get off that station."
Fitch sipped his tea. And ignored her after that, thank God. Fitch left, and some of the rest did.
"Is there a place I'm supposed to pick up a trank-pack?" Bet asked the man next.
The man shrugged, pointed with a forefinger and his cup. "Galley. Right there by the hot, should be."
She got up and went and opened the cabinet, found the plastic-wrapped packs and found the c-pack in a clip beside it. "Thanks," she said, coming back to sit.
"Name's Masad," the man said, and indicated the man on his left. "Joe. Johnny." The one past that.
"Bet," she said.
Other crew came through the section. And the jump-warning sounded.
"Better get hammocked-in," Masad said. Olive skin. Fortyish. Shaved head. "You got any problems?"
"No," she said, and got up and offered a hand for other cups—hard to do, a lets-be-friends move; but she was smarter than she'd grown up: the surly brat who'd signed onto Africahad gotten hell and away smarter nowadays. And a little friendly move won things with strangers, sometimes. So they handed theirs over, she chucked them all in the galley bin, then walked with them down-ring, found herself a vacant hammock, stepped in, wrapped up and snugged the tabs closed. Then she carefully put the c-pack in her breast-pocket and took her trank-dose.
Going out of here, she told herself, while the bell kept ringing and the ship drove toward jump. She had no idea where they were going. It could even be Pell. But she felt the trank take hold and felt herself drifting, old familiar feeling, live or die, you never knew how or if you'd come out when the ship made transit.
The burn stopped. They went weightless for a few seconds, inertial. And slowly the G
started pulling her down horizontally instead of vertically. Main-deck orientation, now.
The light that had been shining in her eyes was clearly, by body-sense, truly in the overhead, and her back was to the deck.
Going out of here.
Goodbye, Thule. Goodbye, Nan and Ely. You give stationers a good name.
Blow the rest of you to hell.
CHAPTER 8
THE FOG CLEARED, the bell that signalled system-drop was ringing, but that was for the tekkies to handle, they were making their dumps.
Dark spot again. The bell had stopped, the mind kept trying to make it into Africa'scrowded lowerdeck, tried to smell the same smells and hear the same sounds and hear the major cussing them awake: not the same, with the black mesh in front of her face, the glare of light in her eyes, not Ernestine, either, with its cubbyhole cabins—
No doubt it was shipboard, everything told you that, sounds, smells, the muzzy feeling of trank downbound now, knocked her for a long, deep one, it had. She found her mental place again, remembered when and where she was, remembered—
V-dump, then. Another half-nightmare. She heard the wake-call ringing, at least she thought it was, she fumbled after her c-pack and got the foil torn. Fingernails broke doing that, three of them on the same hand, a bad sign—she lost the rest of them pulling the tube out, and sucked down the citrusy stuff in the pack bit by bit, fighting nausea, trying to get her head clear.
"Move, move, move!" someone was yelling and you never argued with a voice like that. She gulped the last, stuffed the foil in her pocket and fumbled the catch open, rolled out and held on, with the jumpsuit hanging on her and her hands like claws clutching the black netting. Steady one Gmain-deck. Lokiwas inertial now. If the bridge expected maneuvers, they wouldn't order crew up and about.
Undo the floor clip, the one that held at your butt, undo the end clips and furl the hammock in its elastic lines, into the latch-bins that were the mess-hall bench while specific crew-calls pealed out over the general com, but none of them said Yeager.
Thank God, one part of her said; and another part said: This is odd. We're star-to-star on this track, did those dumps feel light? Was I that far out, or are we still carrying that muchV in a station-zone!
And no take-hold?
Spook ship. We've short-jumped, we're nowhere near the star, and we've dumped and we must be doing a real quiet run-in, that's what we're doing.
Where in hell are we?
There was a dizzying quiet, ship-quiet, full of pumps and fans and systems cycling, heartbeat of a healthy ship. Crew passed her in a business-like hurry, some probably on call, other crew on private emergencies, things like finding the head, like getting to the galley, on a priority of duty and off-duty crew. Her own lower gut told her what her own priorities were, and she followed crew members into the first door down the corridor.
Not like Ernestine'scabin-style cubbies, but not damn bad either, she thought, looking around: plastic sheeting tight-stretched between the bunks, downside and loft with a buffer-net up there for safety—but you got the view.
And toilets downside, that was what she was interested in, fast as she could get there.
She fell in the nearest, shortest line and stood there rubbery-legged with her back against the wall, and distracted herself by cracking the rest of her fingernails off.
Every one of them brittle, breaking down to the quick. Gums were sore. Hair came out when she raked a hand through it, a web of blond hairs in her fingers.
Short rations too damn long, and the time in jump took it out of you, used up nutrients, made your knees pop and your joints brittle. She'd seen it happen. It had never happened to her. Not like this—and it scared her. The thought that a spook was prone to far, fast moves, that they might kite out of here again—that also scared her. You lost more than fingernails if you got worn down like that.
Hit the galley, pour down the c-rations if she could get them, anything to get her weight back up.
Her gut kept cramping. Another crew member came up behind her and didn't bump her out of line on privilege, which could happen to a new skut on Africa, damn likely.
You didn't get favors. You didn't get anything but hell.
All right, she decided about that man—Muller, G., was the name on him—and asked, while they were waiting: "Where are we? Venture? Bryant's?—'Dorado?"
Muller looked at her like that was some kind of privileged information, like asking made him wonder about her.
So she shut up, she ducked her head and she waited and gritted her teeth until she made it through the line.
Back up to the galley, then. She waited her turn, picked up the sandwich and hot tea the cook was handing out, and she sat down along the wall where a squat-level ell between main-deck and burn-deck made one long galley bench, sat and sipped her tea and ate the best sandwich she'd had in half a year.