Hadn't taken Fletcher's pills, evidently.
"Been a real quiet day," Bernstein said then, and looked at Freeman. "Why don't you take off early?"
She might be zee'd. She wasn'tstupid. She stood there holding to the seat-back, a little pain in her back, a general rubbery feeling about her legs that said a long walk wouldn't be a good idea—and figured it wasn't out of simple muddled priorities that Bernstein let an Africatrooper drug-case sit his boards all day and sent a healthy Systems man back to quarters.
There was some talking going on, dammit, stuff was flying between alterday Engineering and Liu's team, on one level and another—Musa had had a go at Liu, Freeman was going back early, it didn't look like there'd been any bar-brawls in Engineering during the shift, and Bernstein wasn't pissed at anything—she knew him when he was, and this wasn't that kind of day, not at all.
Isn't what Fitch wanted, she thought, and thought with a little sense of things delicately balanced, that Fitch being out asleep all their day, he was going to wake up and find out things that wouldn't make him happy.
Then they were going to go to sleep and Fitch was going to be awake thinking of ways to fix that.
Hell of a way to carry on a war, she thought, and stood there watching Freeman check out and head back to quarters, doubtless, where he was going to be in time for breakfast with his proper mates.
"Feeling any pain?" Bernstein asked her, as if she was all right with him, as if everything was.
"Not much," she said slowly, wondering what the hell Bernstein was up to. But Bernstein wasn't about to say and she wasn't going to upset things with questions, hell, no.
She sat down again, she didn't bother anything, mostly she ran the sims and watched the colored lights, still phasing out a little—still with a little numbness about the common sense and feeling that she ought to be more spooked than she was.
She wasn't too bad by rec time, all right enough to have a beer or two, sitting with the new guys on the bench, with NG and Musa and McKenzie and Park and Figi; and NG
wasn't too bad either, a little tranked and placid on Fletcher's stuff—
Fletcher had herself an official scan record of a back that justified the happy-stuff she had dosed her with, no matter it didn't halfway hurt until Fletcher started messing with it, and Fletcher had poured enough different kinds of stuff into her to make it real unlikely a test would prove a damned thing. Her andNGc
God, NG was kind of pitiful, relaxed as he was, sitting on the bench between her and Figi and leaning against the wall—eyes large-pupilled and this sort of happy look on his face, like he was finally just gone, people could do what they wanted with him, hell if he cared.
"You doing all right?" she asked him, and he mumbled that he was, and took another sip of beer.
Not much for him, in that condition. She was getting his drinks for him and no way was he getting any more alcohol, beyond the one, just soft drinks. Probably wouldn't notice. Didn't remember to drink very often.
They sat, they talked, people came by to meet Freeman and his mates and say a welcome-in, and to say how happy NG looked—
Meech, the son of a bitch, even went so far as to reach over and shake NG by the shoulder, with a "Pleasantest I ever saw 'im," at which NG, conscious, might have gone for him, but NG took it with a kind of bewildered look.
Never trust a prescription with just one pill in it.
"He all right?" Gypsy asked.
"Fletch give him a relaxer," Musa said. "Prescription."
No sight of Hughes and his pair of skuz since dinner. Watching the vid, maybe. Not so easy to transfer, when it was the whole effing alterday longscan tekkie crew asking: that was what Musa said—bridge tekkies got used to their operators and vice versa, and mainday was higher rank than alter-day, and there was no way in hell the mainday operators were going to take Hughes and crew and no way they were going to shift-trade with alterday just because Lindy Hughes went and pulled a skutty trick.
So Lindy Hughes was somewhere being real quiet this evening, and it was absolutely amazing how nice people were being, just absolutely amazing, people like Liu and Freeman and all, having every right to be mad, being so friendly it could give you a sugar overload—
Because—it didn't take much brains to figure it—alterday had been hassled, alterday had been rousted and the mofs had come busting into quarters on what just had to be a tip—
—and beat hell out of somebody they couldn't prove a damned thing on.
And that, in the humble estimation of the 'decks, was just a step too far.
Now, I'm not saying what would be illegal to say, Musa's line had been, she heard him in action, but I do say if somebody's got the idea to roust us or any one of us we got to take a real firm position on that problemc nothing against the rules, no, but we ain't just the machinery on this ship, that you can kick and cuss, and maybe we got to make that clear for people that've gotten a little far from that fact—
So the Lius and the Musas and the McKenzies and the Gypsy Mullers of the 'decks were smiling and telling their mates to smile and be nice, and Bernie was being nice to Freeman and just bending double and twisting sideways to welcome them in, ditto Musa, and the beers were being bought and people were just walking around being deliberately, cussedly po-lite with each other. So it wasfunny, people startedhaving a good time and being in a good mood, like it was a joke going around—and NG being as tranked as he was, people came by just to look at him.
NG being as tranked as he was, he was going from bewildered to having a tolerably good time, especially when a delegation headed by Meech and Rossi bought him the second beer, the one she wasn't going to let him have. Rossi put it into his hands, got his attention with a little pop on the side of the face and said he looked like he needed another beer and a bunch of the bridge techs had gotten together and decided he should have one on them.
NG just stared at Rossi open-mouthed, Rossi walked off, and finally NG started drinking that one, totally glazed.
"Hey," she said, "sips."
She took it down a bit, enough to keep him from passing out where he sat, maybe, and Figi was on his other side—if he fell that way, Figi was built like a rock, probably wouldn't even notice.
You couldn't sit on the rec-deck. You could squat. In case somebody needed through in a hurry. Meech and Rossi and some guys brought some dice, and they squatted and they gambled for cred-points, dece a round.
Damn, even Freeman and his mates were in it, beyond loose, all the way to blown—
Battista and Keane headed off to bunks or a locker party, God knew, it was all getting noisy enough in rec nobody heard the first mof-alert.
But the noise fell off fast—real fast, when bridge crew showed up, small, dark fellow, and the squatters stood up and cleared the through-way.
"Kusan," Musa said under his breath.
Helm 2 himself, alterday command.
Kusan looked around him, Kusan scanned faces and said: "Yeager."
It was real, real quiet of a sudden, just noise from down at the end of rec and out of the quarters where the vid was going.
And there was damn-all to do but hand the rest of her beer to Musa and nudge NG
over upright so he wouldn't look as crashed as he was, and get up and say, "Yessir, I'm Yeager."
"Ms. Yeager," Helm 2 said, beckoning her to come, and to everybody at large: "As you were."
There wasn't a sound. Not a sound, except of a sudden NG said, "What's going on?"