"Just doit, Yeager."
She sat there on the floor staring up at him, too mad to shake at the moment, wondering was he after getting her logged with something, was he just being a sonuvabitch, or . .
"There some kind of problem, sir?"
"Not your worry, Yeager. Say we've got a little difference of opinion with station management."
Scratch the notion of just quietly screwing it up.
"Say we've got a real problem here," Fitch said between his teeth. "Say we need that equipment, Ms. Yeager. We need it, and we mayneed it to work."
Pulse steadied into a slow, heavy beat, trouble-sense working on more than Fitch of a sudden.
"Mind to say, sir?"
Fitch stared at her like she was a spot on the deck. She stared back, jaw set, with this notion, this sudden notion, that she might be real important to Fitchc and that Fitch didn't like that and didn't like her and didn't like anything about it, but she was what he had.
"You fondof people in this crew, Ms. Yeager?"
"Some."
"You sleeping with Ramey, Ms. Yeager?"
She gave Fitch the long, cold stare, thinking, God, what's he after? "Happens so," she said. "Yessir."
"Make you a deal, Ms. Yeager. You get me what I want, by tomorrow, we clear the file on Mr. Ramey. Do you like that idea?"
The man's an absolute crazy.
"How do you feel about that, Ms. Yeager?"
"I'd say that was a takeable deal, sir, except I'm going to need that help. I could need a good machinist, maybe just somebody to put me together a four-ply of Flexyne, to orderc" Lying, because that was what the man wanted to hear. She started ticking off the items on her fingers, thinking desperately, the while, Can I believe this sonuvabitch? Can I believe a thing he says? What's he up to and what's he trying to do?
Or what's wrong out there?
"You got Merrill."
"c plus a live body." With a gesture toward the Europerig. "For that. Sir."
"Custom fit."
"Only way it works." She opened up the tool-kit again and rammed her hand into the gauntlet, threw the manual toggle. Made a fist. "Precision fit. Or you fall on your ass or throw something. Sir.—Who's supposed to wear it?"
Long moment of quiet in the locker, just the distant heartbeat of the fueling pump.
Fitch said, "You and me, Yeager."
Pieces and facts just went off, out of reach. She looked up at him and didn't see anything but Fitch being outright crazy.
"Yessir," she said, then, with this terrible feeling that belonged with the smell and the feel of the rigs. Different than the shells you wore on ordinary business. Damn different.
Didn't have to make sense why the mofs ordered it. Didn't have to make sense why this one did. They told you go kill some sons of bitches and you went and did that, before they got you first. You didn't ask why. You didn't ask who. You just did it.
But I got friends on this station—
Crewmates out there, too, with their asses on the line.
NG downside, no knowing what Fitch had said—
"Does NG know?" she asked Fitch. "Did you tell him where I come from?"
Fitch gave her a cold stare. "Like that, would he?"
"What did you tell him?"
"That if he wants to stay alive he's going to sit that station hours on and hours off.
We've got six people left on this ship and everybody'son, twenty-four solid. Or this ship's going to die here. He is. Your friends out there. And you. Hear me?"
"Yessir," she said. "I got you clear."
"Then get it the hell fixed, Yeager."
Fitch went out the door, Fitch shut it, and she grabbed the gauntlet and the forearm and started mating up lines and shoving in push-clips, thinking how the back hurt, thinking how the back was going to hurt a damn lot more—
Wishing that was all there was to think about.
Damn it, damn it, damn it, going to die in this one, Yeager, this whole thing's got the taste of it, everybody in one big fuckin' hurry, where inhell is everybody, what kind of mess has station got us in and why is the fuckin'pump still running if we got station troubles so bad?
Fitch is lying. Fitch is fuckin'lying, when did the man ever do anything but what servedFitch?
Going to die in this one, going to die, going to die, and what in hell's NG going to think about it?
Think I screwed him over, that's what, what else is he going to think?
Dammit.
She safety-clipped the finished arm, got herself up on her knee and hauled herself up to her feet, headed out the door and through the bridge pulling her sleeve to rights.
"Yeager!" Fitch yelled at her back.
She got to the lift, pushed the button and looked back at him coming her direction.
She held up five fingers. "Five minutes. Five minutes downside. You want that fuckin' rig fixed, sir, you stay off me, stay off my friends."
While the door opened.
She walked in, she faced about. Fitch stood there with his face turning red.
The door shut and the lift engaged.
He could stop it from the bridge, she reckoned. There were a lot of things he could do from the bridge.
One of them wasn't to get those rigs operational, not by any finagle in hell.
CHAPTER 25
SHE HIT THE downside corridor running, sprinted the up-curving deck, dived into Engineering and came up onto the stairstep deck-plates with a clatter that brought NG
face-about and frightened-looking before she got to him.
"I got five minutes," she said, holding up the same hand. "Fitch gave me that much. I got to tell you—Fitch is saying the ship's in trouble, they need me to fix this stuff—"
Damn, it wasn't getting to the point. She stalled, dead, and he stood there staring at herc
Scared for her, she thought, and she halfway choked on that thought.
"Fitch give me this deal," she started to say. But that wasn't it either.
"They got this jobc"
Third bad try.
"NGc I dunno if you got any notionc Hell, I'm not merchanter, you understand me?"
Militiacame to her tongue, last desperate lie. But she didn't say it. Make a man a fool once. Not twice. Not and ever expect him to forgive you.
"c I was with Mazian."
She wanted some cue where to go next, and he didn't react, he just had this glazed-over, scared look.
She said, "Never wanted to lie to you, never wanted to load it on you, what I come from. I figure you're the most likely on this ship to want my hide, probably with good reasonc"
Maybe he'd gone away, gone out-there again. Maybe he wasn't even listening anymore. He didn't look mad, just numb.
She reached out and touched his hand. It was cold and hard as the counter it rested on.
"Want you to know," she said, "I never lied to you about anything else, never did anything I thought would hurt you. I never would, hear me?" She shook at his arm. "NG.