So she did.
"He ain'thappy," Musa said, meaning, she thought, notBernstein.
"Yeah, well," she said, with this little sinking feeling, then got down to ship business, figuring NG could keep and Bernstein's good will was real important just then.
"Calibrations Check Assist. List says that's you."
"Show you," Musa said, and bringing her over to station three boards: "Man's mad,"
Musa said under his breath. "I tried to talk to him, he's not talking, notreal reasonable.
Bernie's onto it that something happened, I said give me some room with it—Bernie said all right, but he give me this look, understand, I dunno how long he's good for."
"I got you," Bet said, and: "Hughes grabbed at me in the showers, man had an accident this morning."
"Damn."
"Nothing broke. Gypsy was there, and Davies. Ever'body says he must've hit some soap and fell."
"Going to stick by that?"
"Dunno how he couldn't. I was stark naked, he was dressed, we got three stalls, we was four in there, me and him and Gypsy and Davies. Even mofs can count."
Damn. Wishshe hadn't used that word. For a moment Musa was looking at her real funny.
"Yeah," Musa said. "I'll talk to Gypsy tonight."
Musa showed her the routine, mostly computer-stuff: you just got the Calibrationsprogram up and you told it which system and it ran checks for a few minutes and then told you if it found things outside pre-set parameters.
That was all as easy as filter-changes.
Except NG was walking around like he had murder on his mind and he wasn't looking at anybody.
And Hughes was off in infirmary telling whatever damn lies Hughes could think up.
And she could hear Orsini asking the chief med, that morning when it was NG getting patched up, Anybody else have trouble with that door? And the med saying, with a deadpan face, Not yet.
So she got the CCA run, because mainday was busy with the shop-scut and the plain maintenance—and the core-crawl and the sync-check and the dozen other nasty jobs for reason of which mainday had to be wanting to cut their throats about now—
—while a dumb skut whose only real expertise was field-stripping arms and armor was trying to learn which board was which, never mind qualifying for a license. Bernie wasn't pushing anybodyon his understaffed shift, wasn't having anyone on alterday turn a hand on anything but at-the-boards Engineering Ops and absolute on-deck or in-shop maintenance—and damn sure wasn't doing anything that could send one of his crew out alone and unwatched.
Which told you something, she was afraid, first because the ship just might not be tendingto routine maintenance in any major way, which could have any of several reasons, like being close to a docking; or like being in chancy space.
Or maybe Bernie had a deal with Smith on mainday, because Bernie didn't want any more accidents like NG's.
Till when? she wondered. How long is Bernie going to keep this up? How long canhe? And she remembered what NG had said—that sooner or later Bernie was going to get pressed or Musa was going to get tired of shepherding him around, and Hughes or somebody was going to get him.
But NG didn't know what had happened to Hughes this morning and he needed to know that. So she found an excuse, seeing NG was over to the end of the main console, where there was a nook, while Bernstein and Musa were talking urgently about something—which, she had this uncomfortable feeling, could be Musa explaining something other than readouts.
To a mof. But a mof you could trust—one you'd better trust, if that mof really, actually wantedto know what had happened in the showers.
"Musa says you're mad at me," she said coming up on NG. She reached out to his arm and he twitched her hand off, instantly.
"Hell, no," he said. "Why should I be?"
She had meant to warn him about Hughes right off. It didn't seem the moment. "You got along fine."
He had trouble breathing for a second. Then he shoved her hard with his elbow, turning away, but she got in front of him and it was a wonder with a look like that, that he didn't swing on her.
"You were all rightlast night," she hissed, under the white noise of the ship.
"Everybody took it all right, everybody saw youtake it all right, more's the point. You were downright human last night."
Didn't go well, no. He got this absolutely crazy look, and he was going to shove past her or hit her, she was set for it.
But he didn't. He just stood there until his breaths came wider and slower. "Yeah," he said, "well, I'm glad."
"You don't figure it," she said.
He couldn't talk, then, she saw it, he didn't want to crack with her and he couldn't get himself together to talk about what had happened; and that hurt look of his got her in the gut.
"People were doing fine with you last night, you understand me?"
No, he didn't, he didn't understand a damned thing—embarrassed, she thought, more than the offended merchanter sensibilities he knew he couldn't afford on this ship; he knew and if he was getting eetee about that, she wasn't even going to acknowledge it.
No, what was bothering him was a damn sight more than that, she thought, recalling how he'd spooked-out for a minute last night, just gone, complete panic; and he didn't ever want people to see him like that.
But, dammit, they hadto see that, that was part of it, people had to see what was going on with him and most important, they had to see him recover and handle things.
She couldn't fix that part of it. She didn't want to.
"I gotto talk to you," she said, and moved him—she wasn't sure he was going to move—into that corner where there was about a meter square of privacy from where Bernstein and Musa were. "You got a problemwith what happened?"
No answer.
"You were all right," she said. "Wasn't anybody made any trouble, people were saying something just being there, you understand me? McKenzie and Park and Figi, they were all rightwith you, they come in on my cue, they were there all the time, and they were real solid from the start, or I'd've stopped it cold before it got where it did, trust me I got some sense. There was McKenzie and there was Park and Figi and there was Musa, wasn't anybody got past them, wasn't anybody even tried, they just drank the booze and looked at the pictures—they ain'ta half-bad lot, NG, I imagine it was Gypsy and maybe Davies and six, eight others up there. I told McKenzie ask a few friends, and McKenzie knew you were going to be there when he asked 'em, so people knew, or if they didn't, you can damn well bet they found out; and they stayed anyhow. So there was five mates, all the time, between you and anybody who started trouble. All the time. You think I'm fool enough to start a thing like that without knowing my parameters?"
He just stood there.
"NG, you were all right, you did fine last night."
It was still like everything was garble to him. At least he looked confused as well as upset. At least he seemed to know he wasn't understanding.
Or maybe, at bottom, he just didn't remember who there had been and how many; or he was scared thinking of what could have happened: he'd been out cold, no question; and he'd been isolated too long to trust himself drunk with anybody, even somebody he halfway trusted when he was sober. "Didn't let anybody touch you," she said. "Wouldn't do that. Promise you."