"Nossir."
"Why's it my job?"
"I dunno, sir. Sorry, sir."
"You got any bunk that isn't claimed, ring's got ten sections, front number's your section-number, ten-four's a stowage, eight-four's crew quarters, section five's bridge, one-one's engineering; you see a white line on the deck you don't cross it, you don't cross it, without a direct order: sections four, five, and six are all white-lined, you got to walk the long way around. You steal, Yeager?"
"No, sir!"
"You see this deck?"
"Yessir."
"You got a job. You get your supplies from ten-two, you get on it, get it done. Crew-wise, on your shift, I'll tell you right now, Musa's all right, you're all right with him. NG, you don't mess with. That do, Yeager?"
"Yessir."
"Anything I need to know?"
"Nossir."
Bernstein stared at her long and steady. "Regulations are posted in quarters, you take a look. It's coming up 0600 right now, alterday. You get that deck clean before you go to sleep, I don't care whose shift it is. Got any problems with me, Yeager?"
"Nossir," she said.
"Good," Bernstein said. And walked off.
Put an armor-rig in working-order, take it apart and put it together again, right down to the circuitry, same with weapons, sir, probably any fire-system a spook might carry, damn right, sir.
Twenty years' seniority on Africa.
Sir.
First thing, you consulted the reg-u-la-tions.
And the reg-u-la-tions Bernstein named were official print with the Alliance seal behind them, shiny-new, behind plastic, mounted right on the wall, all about the captain's authority and how you had a right to station-law if you wanted to appeal a case off your ship; and another sheet that was Alliance military law, that said they could shoot you out of hand for mutiny or sabotage or obstructing the execution of proper orders while the ship was in a power-up condition or in an emergency; but there was another list taped on at the bottom, and those were the ones you wanted to know, the ones peculiar to this ship—like you could get on report for going onto the bridge without a permission from an exec, and if you were working with tools you damn well better have an adequate belt clip or a wall clip on every one of them and never have but one outsized number clipped to you.
That meant a ship that tended to move in a hurry. No surprise there.
So, first thing, you got around to the stowage directory and you got yourself a belt and some clips and then you got into the supply locker Bernstein had said and got to it, wiping down the burn-deck, mindless scut. You could drift and do it, you could shut your eyes and halfway sleep sometimes and just feel the tread with your fingers to know you were on, and check sometimes with your eyes to make sure the strokes didn't miss any dust.
Effin' scrub-duty.
But you got to hear a bit, like the couple saying the ship was on a sit-and-watch, like the three bitching about somebody named Orsini, somebody saying Fitch had put somebody named Simmons on report for a slow answer to a page, and Simmons was asking for a transfer to alterday, but Orsini wouldn't take him: you got a feel for the way things drifted on board.
But then the back started to ache and the arms ached, and the kneecaps got to feeling every shift of weight.
And you knew every damn doorway and every crack and crevice in the burn-deck, and you damned every foot that stepped off the mat. You got to know those prints that did it often and what size they were, and thought if you ever found that son of a bitch he was meat.
Up to the galley by noon, for tea and a Keis-roll, the hard way, quiet there, because mainday was sleeping.
All the way around through the galley and past sickbay—right next to each other; and right around to the white-line and the bridge by a/d 1800. The bridge was a swing-segment like the galley, thank God, no burn-deck to scrub at all, its cylinder-segments oriented itself whichever way the G might want to be—
And hell if she wanted to ask Fitch or the captain permission to trek through the bridge to the burn-deck on around the ring, so she gathered up her supplies and stowed them, and went on back down-ring to the galley for a sit-down supper and a plate of real food and cup of hot tea with mainday's breakfast—and she didn't want trouble with Fitch, she didn't want trouble with anybody, so she avoided looking at people, especially looking them in the eye or starting up a conversation, just stared blankly at the main-deck and all those possible footprints people were making walking back and forth—footprints had occupied her mind all day, still occupied it, in her condition—and she mentally numbed out, tasting the food and the tea down to its molecules, it was so good, and finding her hands so sore holding a fork hurt.
People stared at her. She knew they did. A few talked about her, out of earshot, masked by Loki's constant white noise. She could get scared if she let herself. So she just finished her dinner and got up without getting involved with anybody, chucked the recyclables, and went down and got the supplies out again.
That was halfway around Loki's ring.
Up the other way around the ring, this time, past downside ops and the purser's office, and Engineering, where mainday crew was getting to work and alterday had gone to rec.
Arms and knees were beyond simple hurting now. She sat to work, she inched her way along, changing hands every time she changed position to keep the shoulders and hands from cramping up, and by now it hurt so much all over she just shut the pain out as irrelevant to any one place.
Past Engineering and up toward the shop and the machine storage.
Past 2000 hours a/d, and people walked by, crew evidently on errands, occasional officers. People minded their own business, mostly. Occasional laughter grated on her nerves, maybe not even her they were talking about, but she figured it likely was: she was the new item, she was getting it from Bernstein, she'd already had it from Fitch, and probably it satisfied their souls to see somebody else sweating on a duty maybe five or six of them in some other department would be doing, otherwise. At least they were quiet enough. And no one interfered with her and nobody messed with her clean deck.
She gave the occasional kibitz-squad the eye, just enough to know who the sum-bitches were. Just enough to let them know it was war if they messed with her or put a foot near that mat. No one tried her. And she went on. Could stop for a cup of tea, she thought. Could go and put the stuff away and get a tea or a soft drink—hell, it was past mess, supposed to be her rec-time, they might let her have a soft drink on credit, and tea might be free. Bernstein hadn't said no break, the regs in galley had said there was beer for a cred, honest-to-God cold beer you could buy during your own supper hours, if you weren't on call, regs let you have that. There was that vodka in her duffle if it hadn't been stolen: regs didn't object to that either, on your own time.
But she had mof territory yet to go, she didn't want to go and plead cases with anybody tonight and her knees and her under-padded right hip were halfway numb now. She had no desire to let the bruises rest and stiffen up and start hurting all over again.
Just a quarter of the ring or less to go, not so trafficked as the crew-quarters side. Maybe she could get finished before midnight. Maybe get that cup of tea. Even a sandwich. Knees wouldn't bruise so easy, arms wouldn't shake if she got a few regular meals. Please God.
Feet strolled up. Stopped. Stood there.
No stripe. Nothing but a hash-mark and an Engineering insignia. Just the two of them in this line-of-sight in the dim systems and shop area, and her trouble-sense started going off, little alarm, a larger and larger one, as the man kept standing there.