He didn't say a thing. And NG was dangerous when he didn't.
She grabbed his hand. Hard. "You listen to me," she whispered. "You listen good. Not going to talk, here. But craziness is what Fitch wants. Hearme?"
NG didn't say anything. He tensed his hand just enough to keep the bones from grinding.
"Going to bed," Musa said, putting a hand on her back, giving her a little shove. "His bunk. Hear?"
"Yeah," she said, feeling a little tightness in the throat. She leaned over and pressed her mouth against Musa's stubbled cheek. "Love you," she said. "Love you, man."
Musa shoved her again, and she crawled out after NG, to follow him.
NG grabbed her and held her at arm's length. "He'll kill you," NG hissed at her. "He'll kill you, you understand me?"
She wobbled on her feet and hung onto him and left him nothing to do with her but get her to his bed, and get in with her, and hold onto her, clothes and all.
"I got him figured," she said into his ear, fainter than anything was likely to pick it up.
But you never knew. Fitch could even bug the damn pillow. She wrapped a leg over him, snuggled body against body until they fit together, which was the only way to be comfortable sleeping double in a bunk. Her back hurt. Her head was pounding. She said, wishing Fitch could hear, "I seen skuz before. Nothing new. Shush, they could have bugs in bed with us." She moved against him, gentle as she could, figuring he could have sore spots too, and that was one of them. But he didn't seem hurt, didn't seem interested that way either, he just kissed her face and made that kind of love to her, just real gentle, real careful, not even sex, but she liked it.
Liked it and found herself scared the way she'd never been scared for anybody in her life. You served with guys, you knew people got killed, and partners did, like Teo, sometimes real hard ways. But none of them she had lost had been her fault, and none of them had ever had to risk what NG was risking for her.
She drowsed what felt like a few minutes before the morning bell went off, before it was time to move and go up and get a change of clothes, and face stares at her face and hear the whispers behind her back.
Face NG and Musa too, with the lights on. "Pretty bad?" she asked them: Musa grimaced and shook his head, and NG said, "Damn him to hell."
She had to face Lindy Hughes, too, and Presley and Gibbs, who gave her dark stares and snickered about her looks.
"Hey, Yeager," Hughes yelled out, "your man been beating on you?"
"Hell, no," she yelled back, "Fitch did. Wanted me to kiss his boots for him. Which end did he make you kiss?"
Real quiet in the quarters, just then. A lot of stares.
"You got a mouth, bitch."
"You're allmouth, skuz. You dropped the drugs in my bunk. Or one of your skutty friends did. Funny thing, I thoughtI smelled you up there."
Deathly quiet.
"You'll get yours, bitch."
"Yeah, from the back. Same as you got NG. Tried it on me in the showers and you got your head busted, didn't you? Damn shower-crawling skuz. Looking up the stalls. That the only thing that does it for you?"
Nasty cut on Hughes' forehead. And one eye was turning black. Didn't improve his looks any at all.
A few people were walking around, going to showers, trying to ignore the shouting match.
But one of the bystanders was Gabe McKenzie, who shouldered past the gawkers and came and stood by her and NG and Musa with his hands in his pockets.
And another was Gypsy Muller, who strolled into the middle and said, "You got what you deserved, Hughes. Swallow it and choke."
Park and Figi came in, then, right beside Gabe McKenzie, and then Meech and Rossi; and Moon and Zilner, Gypsy's mates, and then, God, one of the women, Kate Williams, out of Cargo, just planted herself at the edge and stood there with her arms folded.
Nobody was moving now. Until Hughes said, "Fuck you," under his breath, shoved one and the other of his mates into motion and walked out.
"Good riddance," McKenzie said.
NotFitch's plan. Damn sure.
There were new faces in the quarters, Freeman and Walden and Battista and Slovak from mainday Engineering, Weider and Keene, too, she recognized them on the fringes of the commotion. She saw everybody staring at her and her mates and McKenzie and his, and everything still real quiet, so quiet you could hear the rumble of the ship.
"Sorry," she said, to everybody in general, "damn sorry. I hate a fight."
It was like the whole quarters drew a breath then. People moved. People discovered they were behind schedule and the shower-line wasn't full.
"Thanks," she said to a few in particular, and then she found herself with a slight case of the shakes. "Damn!"
"Time we got rid of that skuz," Park said.
Bad news for a man when people on his watch got that opinion of him. Hughes had to figure it, Hughes wasn't stupid, at least not in that department.
"Hell of a mess," Gabe McKenzie said, looking at her. She put a knuckle to her cheek, which was so swollen it pulled the eyelid.
"Yeah," she said, and figured he meant her face. She was cold sober for a second and scaredc and that wasn't the mess she was thinking of.
"He's likely headed straight for Fitch," Musa said, "and he won't even stop for breakfast."
You couldn't stand in the middle of the quarters and yell out warnings about the mofs.
The regs had a name for that kind of activity, and you didn't want to be the ringleader.
But she wanted it passed, and there were people enough in the circle who would spread it fast. "If they got the quarters bugged," she said, looking down at the deck and muttering,
-"he's already onto it."
They hadn't thought. They hadn't expected. There were traditions and there were rights and even with all the evidence of what was going on the crew hadn't thought of that—not even Musa had, and he was damned sharp.
"I got to talk," she said, "but not here and not now."
And after showers, out in rec in the fast-moving breakfast line, where the noise made specific pickup a lot less likely, she got NG and Musa up close and said, "Listen. Listen fast. Hughes isn't what's going on last night. It may have been. But it's Fitch now. I think he's tryingto make a blow-up, and not just with us."
"Bernie?" Musa wasn't slow at all.
"I think it is. He wants one of us to blow up, NG, you hear me? I pushed Hughes and I pushed Fitch some last night, and he's pushing me, trying to spook me, same as he tries to spook you. What'd he dolast night?"
NG hesitated, his mouth not working real well; Musa said, "Called us in for questions.
Kept us sitting in Ops for a couple hours. Asked questions."
"You and him together?" She hoped to hell it was together, that Fitch hadn'tput all the pressure on he could.
NG nodded. Musa did, and she drew an easier breath.
"So I'm supposed to spook," she said, "and he's not going to lay a hand on you, he wants you to blow and do something stupid, and then Bernie might."
Musa's eyes went thinking-sharp on that. NG said, a ragged, hoarse whisper: "He'll put you in that damn locker, Bet, that's the next stepc"
She felt a chill, knew he was flashing on that place, that time, knew McKenzie behind them and Williams in front of them had to be hearing it, even if some bug wasn't. "I know that. Know it real clear. But we got no choice, Fitch isn't going to give us a choice, we just got to keep our heads clear. He could grab any one of us. He can do it any time he can set us up, and that pressures Bernie, you hear? Skuts like us don't matter topside, you and me don't cross Fitch's mind one day out of thirty, it's a Bernie-Fitch fight going on, I don't know a damn thing else, but I pick that up real clear. Some of alterday bridge crew has got to be transferees like Bernie, them that want clear of Fitch; others has got to be Fitch's pets. Same as the 'decks. Hear? And Lindy Hughes is on the way out of here, but if Fitch doesn't own anybody down here now, he's going to find somebody he can spook or buy. Isn't he?"