You didn't look at a perspective like the core as down, no way, or you could heave everything in your stomach.
Especially with a hangover.
Damn him.
"Musa."
"Yeah."
"You mind to tell me something?—Is anybody going to monitor us?"
"Not real likely. Can. What d'you want?"
"What's the story on NG?"
"Who you been talking to?"
"Muller."
Long silence, just the hiss of the airflow and the ping of the sniffer-readout. Then: "What'd Muller say?"
"Just he was on the outs. That he had some bad shit with the crew, didn't say what."
Another long silence. "He give you trouble?"
"No. What's his problem?"
"At-ti-tude, mate. I told him.—I tell him that now and again. What he did, he killed a man."
"Law didn't get him?"
"Wasn't like that. Just wasn't where he was supposed to be, wasn't watching what he was supposed to be watching. Damn pipe blew, killed a man, name of Cassel. Good man. NG—just had that habit of ducking out when he wanted to, Cassel tried to cover for him. That's how he paid Cassel."
"Hell of a tag."
"Not only the one thing that won it for him. I'm fair with him, I don't pick any fights, I don't make trouble, and Bernstein's his last chance. Fitch had him up on charges, last time he ducked out. Fitch was going to space him, no shit. Those rules and rights in quarters?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't you believe 'em… And NG, he was done, but Bernstein got him off, Bernstein threw a fit with the captain and said put him on alterday crew, and move this other chap, he'd take him. Or NG'd have gone the walk, damn sure."
Lot to think about in that, she thought.
"He thank Bernstein?"
"I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not.—I tell you, I tell you something. That man's not altogether here. But he never run out on duty again. Never gives Bernstein any trouble, never gives me any. You just don't cross him." Another long silence, Musa rising above the level of the pipe, arcing over toward her. Musa grabbed her hand and pulled her close until their helmets touched. He cut his com off. She understood that game and cut hers. "I tell you something else, Yeager." Musa's voice came strange and distant. She could see his face inside the helmet, underlit in the readout-glows. "I think one time this ship went jump and NG was in the brig—I'm not real sure Fitch saw he got his trank. I'm not sure, understand, but that time Bernstein got him off—maybe it was just one time too often in the brig, maybe it was just that jump and looking that spacewalk in the face—but I'm not real sure that didn't happen, just the way I said: Fitch hates his guts, we had an emergency, we had to go for jump, NG was dead, the way Fitch had to figure. But once Bernstein got him reprieved, the other side of jump—no way was Fitch going to tell the captain what he'd done. Can't prove it. NG don't talk. I'm not real sure all of him came back from that trip."
"God…"
"Not saying it's so, understand. No way to prove it. Don't even think about it. We're legitimate now. We're Alliance. There's rights and there's laws, and the captain's signed to 'em. But they aren't on this ship, woman, and you don't get off this ship, no way you ever get a discharge from this crew, I hope you figured that when you signed your name. You skip on a dockside, Fitch'll find you, you go complain to station law, Fitch'll lie and get you back, and you'll go a cold walk, that's sure. Fitch tell you that?"
"No. But I'm not real surprised."
"You got the right of it, then."
"NG a volunteer?"
"Dunno. Fitch gets 'em. NG never has said. Unless he told Cassel. Doesn't matter. He's on this ship, he'll die on this ship, and so will all of us." Musa pushed her adrift and turned his com back on. She flipped the switch on hers.
"Let's make a little time," Musa said, motioning along the ship spine with a shine of his lamp. "I hate this effin' core-crawl, damn if I don't."
CHAPTER 11
She peeled the suit, she checked back with Bernstein along with Musa, a long, long day, a chill set deep in the bones. "Just go on," Bernstein said. "Quiet day, only an hour till shift end, NG's on and you're off, get."
She was willing to swear, then, that Bernstein was human. But she hung around reading the duty sheet while Musa was already checking out, and she dropped by NG's work-station on her way, while Musa was leaving and Bernstein was busy with his back turned.
NG didn't turn his head, NG kept on with his keyboard and his readouts, and she came up close and brushed her fingers across the back of NG's neck. "Want to see you," she said. He swatted at the nuisance, and looked around at her with an expression—
. Mad, maybe; disturbed, confused, scared—all of that in a second's blink, then a scowl and a furious set of his jaw.
She said, "Where?"
He kept scowling at her.
"Front of the lockers?" she said cheerfully. " 'Bout 2100?"
"Shop-stowage," he said with no change of expression.
"You'll get us—" —spaced, she almost said, but that wasn't a good idea.
He didn't say anything. He didn't look happier, either.
"All right," she said, and walked on out before Bernstein could turn around and notice anything.
So she picked up her laundry from Services, walked on up-ring to rec, sat down on the bench and had a cup of tea with Musa during mainday shift's breakfast, waiting on mainday crew to clear the showers, then very purposefully dawdled through cleanup and through dinner—
Because McKenzie had more notions. She saw the look he gave her when he spotted her, and she was dodging him. She took a seat close between two women, nodded a pleasant hello to two stony silences, then paid absolute attention to the stew; but McKenzie walked over and asked her how she was doing.
"Oh, fine," she said, thinking fast, "except I got to get Services straightened out, damn screw-up with my laundry—"
"What about tonight?"
"I dunno," she said, in the friendliest possible way. She saw NG walk in, down at the down-ring end of rec—dammit! And McKenzie could properly feel insulted if a woman turned cold after a first-time sleepover… especially if man number two from last night was going around telling how she'd left McKenzie and come up to his bunk because McKenzie had given out. God!
So she smiled at McKenzie, wrinkled her nose in a sweet expression. "I tell you, I really want to take you up on that." She got up with her tray in hand, tried just to shake him, but at least the retreat moved McKenzie over where she could talk to him without the two women in earshot. "I owe you the truth, Gabe. Fact is, I got an appointment tonight—well, actually a couple of nights ahead, right now, and I don't think I ought to do any different—but you're on my good-list, you really are. I'm just not ready to go single, first off. Never been my policy."
Damn man was entirely out of line, coming on her twice in a row like that, putting her to it in public, making her defend herself when there was no wrong on her side. Damn! she could pick them.
"After that," he said.
"Hey," she said, "I got to be politic, Gabe."
"Nothing you don't want," he said.
"Did you hear don't want? I didn't hear that. But I just got this bad feeling about singularity first and right-off. Bad business. But I do make my favorites after the new wears off." She patted him on the arm, chucked the dishes and the tray, turned around and winked at him. "See you, luv."
She escaped. She didn't know how McKenzie felt about it, but he looked at least a little mollified. She got back to quarters, she ducked into the head for a bit in the case McKenzie was following her or one of his friends was, then ducked out again and escaped out the door of the quarters in the other direction without even turning her head, well down the corridor before she slowed down.