CHAPTER 8
The fog cleared, the bell that signalled system-drop was ringing, but that was for the tekkies to handle, they were making their dumps.
Dark spot again. The bell had stopped, the mind kept trying to make it into Africa's crowded lowerdeck, tried to smell the same smells and hear the same sounds and hear the major cussing them awake: not the same, with the black mesh in front of her face, the glare of light in her eyes, not Ernestine, either, with its cubbyhole cabins—
No doubt it was shipboard, everything told you that, sounds, smells, the muzzy feeling of trank downbound now, knocked her for a long, deep one, it had. She found her mental place again, remembered when and where she was, remembered—
V-dump, then. Another half-nightmare. She heard the wake-call ringing, at least she thought it was, she fumbled after her c-pack and got the foil torn. Fingernails broke doing that, three of them on the same hand, a bad sign—she lost the rest of them pulling the tube out, and sucked down the citrusy stuff in the pack bit by bit, fighting nausea, trying to get her head clear.
"Move, move, move!" someone was yelling and you never argued with a voice like that. She gulped the last, stuffed the foil in her pocket and fumbled the catch open, rolled out and held on, with the jumpsuit hanging on her and her hands like claws clutching the black netting. Steady one G main-deck. Loki was inertial now. If the bridge expected maneuvers, they wouldn't order crew up and about.
Undo the floor clip, the one that held at your butt, undo the end clips and furl the hammock in its elastic lines, into the latch-bins that were the mess-hall bench while specific crew-calls pealed out over the general com, but none of them said Yeager.
Thank God, one part of her said; and another part said: This is odd. We're star-to-star on this track, did those dumps feel light? Was I that far out, or are we still carrying that much V in a station-zone!
And no take-hold?
Spook ship. We've short-jumped, we're nowhere near the star, and we've dumped and we must be doing a real quiet run-in, that's what we're doing.
Where in hell are we?
There was a dizzying quiet, ship-quiet, full of pumps and fans and systems cycling, heartbeat of a healthy ship. Crew passed her in a business-like hurry, some probably on call, other crew on private emergencies, things like finding the head, like getting to the galley, on a priority of duty and off-duty crew. Her own lower gut told her what her own priorities were, and she followed crew members into the first door down the corridor.
Not like Ernestine's cabin-style cubbies, but not damn bad either, she thought, looking around: plastic sheeting tight-stretched between the bunks, downside and loft with a buffer-net up there for safety—but you got the view.
And toilets downside, that was what she was interested in, fast as she could get there. She fell in the nearest, shortest line and stood there rubbery-legged with her back against the wall, and distracted herself by cracking the rest of her fingernails off.
Every one of them brittle, breaking down to the quick. Gums were sore. Hair came out when she raked a hand through it, a web of blond hairs in her fingers.
Short rations too damn long, and the time in jump took it out of you, used up nutrients, made your knees pop and your joints brittle. She'd seen it happen. It had never happened to her. Not like this—and it scared her. The thought that a spook was prone to far, fast moves, that they might kite out of here again—that also scared her. You lost more than fingernails if you got worn down like that.
Hit the galley, pour down the c-rations if she could get them, anything to get her weight back up.
Her gut kept cramping. Another crew member came up behind her and didn't bump her out of line on privilege, which could happen to a new skut on Africa, damn likely. You didn't get favors. You didn't get anything but hell.
All right, she decided about that man—Muller, G., was the name on him—and asked, while they were waiting: "Where are we? Venture? Bryant's?—'Dorado?"
Muller looked at her like that was some kind of privileged information, like asking made him wonder about her.
So she shut up, she ducked her head and she waited and gritted her teeth until she made it through the line.
Back up to the galley, then. She waited her turn, picked up the sandwich and hot tea the cook was handing out, and she sat down along the wall where a squat-level ell between main-deck and burn-deck made one long galley bench, sat and sipped her tea and ate the best sandwich she'd had in half a year.
Better than the vending machines on Thule, damn sure.
She sat there, no idea where she was assigned; no real hurry about matters, she figured, the ship must be on some kind of sit-and-wait, spook-like, maybe at Venture, maybe at Bryant's, wherever. She left the whereabouts of the ship as a whole to the mofs and just wished she knew if she dared go back to the lockers and see where her duffle was; she wished she knew if she had a bunk or whatever, and if she let herself think as far as the other prospects of settling in, her stomach got upset. But she figured she was on somebody's list, sooner or later, and somebody was going to tell her. Muller's reaction told her it was a nervous ship and experience told her staying low and quiet was the best thing to do for the time being.
Especially if it got her fed and got her a sit-down, long enough to get the wobbles out, before some mof showed up with a duty-list.
Damn sure.
Damn near a med case, with teeth sore and the bones showing in her hands till she hardly recognized them for hers—but she was afraid to go to the meds and complain, afraid to start out her sign-up on this ship with a med report, afraid to go anywhere near officers and people who might take a close look at her and then start watching her more than they needed to.
But a man came by, stopped and stood in front of her.
"Yeager."
She looked up, did a fast scan from the boots to the faded collar with the three black bands of a civ ship's officer and the circle-and-circuit of Engineering on the sleeve.
"Sir," she said, "Bet Yeager, sir." She would have gotten up, but the man was in the way.
"Been a problem, have you?"
"Had a problem, sir. Don't want one here."
The man stared at her a long moment like she was a contamination. Finally he put his hands on his hips. "What's your experience?"
"Freighters, sir. Machine-shop. Injection molding. Small-scale hydraulics, electronics. General maintenance. Twenty years."
"We aren't real specialized."
"Yes, sir."
"Means you do any damn thing that needs doing, at any hour around the clock. Means you do it right, Yeager, or you tell somebody you can't, you don't fuck it up."
"Yessir. No problem with that, sir."
"Name's Bernstein. Chief of Engineering, Alterday. Hear it?"
"Yessir."
"What in hell are you doing here on your butt?"
"No assignment yet, sir."
"Got a mainday crew of thirteen, alterday's down to two. We're a re-fit. That's special problems. And they give me a damn small-hydraulics mechanic." Bernstein drew breath. "With no papers."
Long silence, then.
"You screw anything up," Bernstein said, "I'll break your fingers one at a time."
"Yessir."
Another long silence. "You got a trial run on my shift, Yeager. We got a few areas you keep your nose out of, we got a few cranky systems I'm real particular about. You got a piece of property in stowage one, you get that, you get yourself checked into quarters. Somebody show you around?"