"Give it time. It'll come to the top. No matter what they hope, they can't keep everything hidden forever."
"Can it. Amy's coming." Curious, he thought. Mouse did not seem interested in Starfisher motives at all.
BenRabi's first week did have its rough edges. Every encounter with the Sangaree woman became a crisis. And she could not be avoided. Her team, repairing air ducting, was working the same service passages as his.
She would not leave Mouse alone. And the certainty of purpose which made Mouse's responses predictable taunted benRabi with worries about his own incompleteness.
She did not bait him. She knew that he would do nothing but look at her soulfully, reflecting the pain-giving back at her.
She appeared from a cross-passage only seconds behind Amy.
"Damn!" Moyshe swore. "Her again."
"Restrain me, Moyshe."
"You got it, partner. Be my ass in the fire, too."
"Well, the Rat again." The Sangaree woman stood with her hands on her hips, defying him to act. Backing her were several idealistic youngsters. She had sold them a simpleminded anti-spy package. "What an unpleasant surprise. Butchered anyone lately, spy? There're lots of non-Confies aboard. You ought to be as happy as a hog knee-deep in slop."
A curious metaphor, benRabi thought. She must have chosen it especially for the Tregorgarthian kids.
The youths looked at one another, embarrassed. They shared her views, and were a rather rude bunch themselves, but their society had taught them that too much bluntness could get a person killed. Tregorgarth was a rough world.
"You could start with me. You know what I think about your fascist military dictatorship. Or don't you have the guts?"
She knew damned well that he had, but assumed that he would not respond in front of witnesses—or that she could take him if he did. She was fooling herself there, benRabi thought. She believed Mouse strictly a strike-from-behind man. He was a lot more. Two decades of training and several thousand years of combat experience had gone into making him the perfect organic killing machine.
Moyshe did not know of a weapon, or a system of close combat, that Mouse did not know as well as any man who had ever lived. Short of pulling guns, there was little she and her whole crowd could have done were he to lose his temper.
BenRabi could sense the aching in Mouse, could feel Mouse's need to show her. But his partner controlled himself. That, too, had been part of his training.
BenRabi had to exercise some self-control himself. The woman's behavior had eroded his compassion.
She was playing a more dangerous game than she suspected. It would backfire on her if she did not ease up.
BenRabi was sure the woman was working to some carefully prepared plan. Her acting had not improved. Her easy confidence betrayed.
But she was vulnerable. Her Achilles Heel was her hatred. BenRabi was sure Mouse would exploit it...
"Miss Gonzalez," Amy said. "If you're quite finished? We have work to do. And I suggest you return to yours before there's cause for an inquiry into the absence of your supervisor."
The Sangaree woman backed down. She was not ready to jeopardize her mission.
"I feel like a fool," benRabi muttered.
Eyes downcast, Mouse said, "So do I. I can't take it forever, Moyshe."
Then Amy told them, "I'm glad you restrained yourselves. Things are ugly enough without our getting physical."
She intrigued benRabi. He watched her a lot when she was not looking. He was glad she did not go for chest-pounders. He was not the type, and in the back of his mind he had begun formulating designs upon her.
Over a flow chart thick with black X's indicating trouble spots, while Amy was off requisitioning a special wrench, Mouse muttered, "It's getting hard, Moyshe. I know what she's doing, but... She's trying to make us take ourselves out of the play."
"Hang on."
"One of these nights... "
Indefatigable Mouse. When benRabi finished work he had barely enough energy to eat, then tumble into bed. But Mouse got out and mingled, made new acquaintances (mostly female), and found new interests. He sponged up every bit of information that crossed his path.
His latest thing was the Middle American football popular with Seiners. They had arrived just in time for the pre-season excitement. His interest gave him an excuse to move around.
Moyshe was afraid. Having established his pattern of mobility, Mouse might arrange a fatal encounter with Marya somewhere far from the usual groundling stomping ground.
Moyshe wondered if he should catch her alone and try to make her understand.
He remembered The Broken Wings.
He was her primary target. She was trying to get at him through Mouse. The hurt he had done her was more personal, more ego-slashing than what Mouse had done. By her reasoning, what had happened to the children could be laid at his doorstep. He could have prevented it.
He would have to watch his back. Mouse was not the only one who could arrange an accident.
"Is she alone?" Mouse asked. "They like lots of backup."
"I haven't spotted anybody yet. They could be playing it close. What I want to know is, why is she here? Everybody else has tried something. But she just keeps on being obnoxious."
"She's waiting."
"For what?"
Mouse shrugged. "We'll find out the hard way, I guess."
"Here's a notion," Moyshe said. "It just came to me. A way to warn her."
"How?"
"Tomorrow's recreation day, right?" They had been promised one day off a week. This would be the first.
"And?"
"Those kids. You know how Tregorgarthians are. They're challenging everybody to meet them in a martial arts elimination tournament. Think you could manage them? Without hurting anybody?"
Mouse thought. "I don't know if I can pull the punches anymore."
"It would be good for the boys, too."
Tregorgarthians away from home tended to become bullies. Their homeworld schooled them to believe that those who did not fight at the drop of a hat were cowards. Smacked around a little, they civilized fast.
"Might give them second thoughts about letting her suck them in," benRabi mused. "They've got to know she's up to something."
"They'd back off if they knew I was dangerous, eh?"
"I'm hoping. Sex seems to be her main hold on them. I see one sneaking out of her room almost every morning."
"Who's sneaking out of whose cabin?"
Amy had returned. "Just gossiping," Moyshe replied. "One of the girls has an assembly line going."
She bit. "Landsmen! They're right about you being immoral."
Moyshe forbore observing that the Seiners seemed to be just as loose as his own people. Amy's priggishness was personal, not cultural. She was the only Starfisher he knew who talked that morality nonsense.
Mouse did not forbear. "When did you lose yours, Miss Morality?"
"Huh? My what?"
"Your cherry. You're no more pure than Old Earth air."
She sputtered, reddened, mumbled something about all landsmen being alike.
"You're right. Satyrs and nymphs, the lot of us." Mouse licked his lips, winked, asked, "What're you doing tonight?"
BenRabi grinned. Mouse was teasing her, as he had been all week long, but she did not realize it. He used a subtler approach when he really wanted a woman.
Something within her clicked, as it did each time Mouse put her on the defensive. A different, colder personality surfaced long enough to carry her past the rough spot. "Sleeping. Alone. Did you decide where you want to cut that water main?" Then another quick change of subject. "Oh. Jarl said to tell you to sharpen your teeth. He's bringing some people to play you tomorrow. You too, Moyshe."