and tried to get up, except Musa grabbed onto him. "Shut it down!" Musa had to say, too loud.
"Isn't any problem," Bet said.
She wished not. It was Fitch's watch, the tail end of Orsini's. Again.
And she hoped Musa could get a call through to Bernstein, or someone could.
"Bet!" NG yelled, mad as hell, crazy-sounding. Trying to get himself in trouble, that was what he was doing. But people must have shut him up. She was afraid to look back to see.
CHAPTER 21
SHE WAS STILL a little out-there while she was walking the corridors beside Kusan, too much beer and one of Fletcher's smaller pain-killers, which combination let her feel no real pain, but she remembered what pain was and who could cause it; and while there was certainly no reg against the 'decks drinking and gambling in rec, there damn sure was a reg against drunk and disorderly. She sneaked a tug at her jumpsuit, a rake of the fingers through her hair, a quick roll-down and snap of the safety-tuck on her sleeves, duty-like.
The beer-smell and the wide spill on her knee she couldn't do anything about, and there were probably three and four charges Fitch could think of, just looking at her.
Like beer and pills. Like spitting on the main-deck if Fitch said she'd done it, or a drunk and disorderly—real easy.
But it wasn't Fitch waiting at the step-up to the bridge, it was Orsini—and Orsini was clearly where Kusan was delivering her.
"Are you drunk, Yeager?"
"Not sober, sir, to tell God's truth." She was halfway upset—having gotten one set of ideas arranged in her head and then coming up against Orsini, who was being a fool if he thought it was safe to pull her in at this hour, where what had happened last night could happen again.
If Orsini cared about that.
Orsini looked her up and down. "Spent a lot of today in that condition, haven't you?"
What d'we got, a damn morals charge!
But it was Fletcher did it, Fletcher's Bernstein's friend— isn't she!
"Yessir, I apologize, sir."
"Come along," Orsini said, and led the way through the bridge-cylinders, past mainday ops, past Helm, past—
Fitch stood on the bridge watching them go past. He didn't challenge Orsini. She wasn't sure if he followed them, then. She couldn't hear, in the general racket two sets of footsteps made on the hollow deck, in the whisper of multiple cooling and circulation fans and other people moving around on business. She just stayed with Orsini, wondering what in hell he was after, telling herself it was all right, Bernstein hadn't acted overly upset with what she had told him—
Like they'd known already that something was wrong about me, and Bernie was still on my side—
But Orsini thought I was Mallory'sc
She did take a fast look back, to see where Fitch was. Not behind themc but Fitch undoubtedly knew where they were going, and maybe Fitch was just waiting for the shift-change, knowing that when Orsini was through, it was always his turn.
Hope to hell you got a smart notion how to stop that, Mr. Orsini, sir.
Hope to hell you got some concern about that.
Hope to hell you and Bernie came to some understanding about whatever's going onc
Orsini passed right by his own office, passed by Fitch's.
Where're we going? she thought. And: Oh, Godc
They stopped in front of a door with a stencilled: Wolfe, J. and no more designation than Fitch's office or Orsini's had.
Orsini pushed the button, the door opened on the office and the man inside, and Orsini said: "Yeager, sir."
Fancy place, carpet, panels, a big black desk and the captain sitting there waiting for her—blond, slight man in khaki. Pale eyes that didn't care shit what your excuse was for existing, just what you were doing that crossed his path for five minutes and annoyed him.
The door shut behind her. Orsini left her. Wolfe rocked his chair back, folded his arms.
Wolfe said, "Machinist, are you?"
She felt distanced from everything around her. Nothing added, except that everything she had told Bernie had spread, Orsini knew, now Wolfe knew. She thought, between one heavy heartbeat and the next: Bernie, damn you, well, you had to, didn't you?
She said, "I worked as that, sir. On Ernestine."
"Rank."
"M-Sgt. Elizabeth A. Yeager, sir." And she added, because she was a damn smartass fool, and she hated being crowded: "Retired."
Wolfe wasn't amused. Wolfe sat there looking up at her, with no expression at all.
" Africa, is it?"
"Yes, sir. Was." Nothing else to say. Bernie'd evidently said it all.
Damn sure.
And she'd had this dumb dim hope that Bernie didn't think she was a threat and that maybe all the way to top command, a ship that got its crew out of station brigs didn't give shit what it raked in for crew—
Except she'd all along discounted Wolfe.
Damn dumb, Yeager, damn dumb. So who do they think you're working for if you aren't Mallory's?
Effin' obvious, Yeager.
"You lied to me," Wolfe said.
"Nossir. Everything the way I said. Crew slot is all I wanted, it's all I want right now."
Long silence. Wolfe never had any expression. She stood there, just went away a little inside, figured past a certain point they were going to do whatever they wanted to do and if command had made up their minds to freight her off to Pell and Mallory or space her inside the hour, there was damn-all she could do about it.
But this man could. Couldhelp her, if he would, if what happened in the 'decks ever concerned him at all, if he didn't just leave crew to suffer Fitch and Orsini's private war and their maneuvering for power—
There were ships like that, in the Fleet.
"When did you leave your ship?"
"Pell, sir. When the Fleet pulled away. I was on dockside." She added, uninvited, hammering away at what she wasn't sure Wolfe had heard the first and the second time:
"Not my ship now, sir. This is."
She wasn't sure Wolfe wasn't outright crazy. She wasn't sure she ought to take one course or the other with him. Or maybe nobody was loyal to this ship, and Wolfe just didn't figure her. He had that kind of look, just the least doubt in that cold, ice-blue stare.
Maybe he would just throw her back to Fitch and Orsini and let them fight it out.
What in hell does Wolfedo on this ship? she had asked Musa. And Musa, uncomfortable in the question: He ain't a real activistc
Man had to be aware too, that he wasn't totally safe, if she wanted to commit suicide and take him with her.
But he sat there. He rocked back in his chair and looked at her a long time and said,
"What's the last contact you had with the Fleet?"
That was the question. That was the big one. "Last was my com breaking up. On Pell.
Nothing since." She could see him saying to Fitch: Find out what she knows. She said, quietly: "Decks never knew anything, no more than here, sir."
Long, long silence, Wolfe just sitting there.
"Master sergeant, was it?"
"Yessir."
"Mechanic?"
"On my own rig, sir. Some of us were."
"Tactical."
"Tac-squad, sir."
"Where before that?"