“Teena,” I asked, “how do I tip that juggler five dollars?”
“It’s done, Morgan,” Teena said in my ears. “I’ve debited your account. His name is Christopher Micah.”
He began a new routine involving what seemed to be razor-sharp knives. I didn’t see how he could deal with knives with his feet—and didn’t get to find out that day, because just then there was a small disturbance behind me. Kirra and I turned to look. Micah kept on working, properly ignoring the distraction.
Fat Humphrey was drifting just outside one of the opaqued bubble booths, talking softly to someone inside, who was answering him in too loud a voice. It seemed to be the second-oldest argument in history: the customer wanted more booze and Fat was cutting her off, politely and firmly. I started to turn back to catch Micah’s knife act, when all at once I recognized the voice. It was Sulke.
Everyone else had returned their attention to the show. Kirra and I exchanged a glance and quietly slipped over to see if we could be of help, taking our drinks and munchies with us.
We were. Fat was handicapped somewhat by being an old friend of hers, but because Kirra and I were her students we were able to cheerfully bully her into quieting down. We swarmed into her booth with her, winked at Fat, and sealed the door to keep the noise inside.
“S’not fair, gahdammit,” she complained. “I’m not even near drunk enough.”
Kirra sent a peanut toward her in slow motion. “Catch that.”
She missed in three grabs, then tried to catch it in her mouth and muffed that too. It went up her nose, and she blasted it clear with a loud snort. “I didn’t say I wasn’t drunk. Said I wasn’t drunk enough.”
“For what?” I asked soothingly.
“To fall asleep, gahdammit. This is my one day off a week, the day I catch up on all the sleep I missed, an’ if I fuck up and miss any I’ll never get caught up.”
“How come you gotta be drunker’n this to fall asleep?” Kirra asked.
“Because I’m scared.” She heard the words come out and frowned. “No, I’m not, gahdammit, I’m pissed off is what I am! I’m not scared of anything. But I’m mad as hell.”
“About what?”
She sneered. “Hmmph! How would you know? You groundhogs. You freebreathers. Never paid for an hour’s air in your life, either of you. Where’d you come from, McLeod, North America somewhere, right? Worst come to worst, you could always go on welfare. Kirr’, you could always jungle up and live off the land. There’s no fuckin’ land to live off up here.”
“Rough,” Kirra agreed.
“You don’t know the half of it! Nineteen friggin’ outfits in space I can work for, and eighteen of ’em suck wind. The only place that doesn’t treat you like shit is this one…and now crazy bastards are shootin’ at it.”
“Shooting at it!” I exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“Aw fer chrissake, you really think the air plant went down last night by accident? You have any idea how many different systems have to fail in cascade before that can happen? You probably think it was space junk put a hole in your Elevator on the way up here, huh?”
I was shocked. “What makes you think it wasn’t?”
“You were there. Did you see the object that hulled you?”
“Well, no. I think it ended up in the Steward’s head.”
She shook her head. “There was nothin’ in Henderson’s head but burned meat. It was a laser. They’re keepin’ it quiet, but a frenna mine saw the hull.”
“But who the hell would want to hurt Top Step?”
She stared. “You serious? Religious fanatics, wanna pull down the false angels and their wicked cosmic orgy. Shiites, Catholics, Fundamentalists, take your pick. Then you got the Chinese, since old Chen Ten Li got tossed out on his ear. Then there’s the other eighteen sonofabitch outfits I tol’ you ’bout, and their parent corporations dirtside. Top Step could outcompete any one of them at what they do, and the only reason it doesn’t is because the Starseed Foundation chooses not to. How could they not all hate this place?”
I thought of the epidemic of food poisoning that had run through Suit Camp just before takeoff. “Jesus.”
She was frowning hugely. “Gahdammit. Not supposed to talk about this shit with you people. Prob’ly get shit for it. Bad for morale. Might get scared an’ go home, kilobucks down’a tube. Forget I said anything, okay?”
“Sure,” Kirra said soothingly.
“Thanks,” Sulke said. “You’re okay, for a freebreather.” She reached out and snatched Kirra’s beer, finished it in a single squeeze.
I placed my own drink unobtrusively behind me, and hoped it would stay there. “Sulke, tell me something. If being a free-lance spacer is really so bad—and I believe you—then why not opt out? Take that last step and become a Stardancer like us? Then you could tell Skyfac and Lunindustries and all the rest to go take a hike.”
She boiled over. “You outa your gahdamn mind? You people are all assholes. Worse than assholes, you’re cowards: solving your problems by runnin’ away from them. You won’t catch me doin’ that shit. Maybe I can’t ever go home again, but at least I’m human! I’ve hung around Stardancers a long time, and by Jesus they ain’t human, and I can’t understand how in hell a human bein’ could deliberately stop being a human bein’. I’ll teach you fools how to swim, but I got nothing but contempt for ya. Nobody gets inside Sulke Drager’s head but Sulke Drager, an’ don’ you forget it, see?”
Like all true spacers, she was a rugged individualist. She was certainly paying a high price to be one in space.
“Do you have to go EVA to get home, Sulke?”
“Crash here on my day off,” she said, eyes beginning to cross. “And even if I did, I can navigate safely in free space when I’m dree times trunker than this. That’s why it’s not fair that fat bastard cut me off.”
“Well, since he did,” Kirra said reasonably, “what do we want to stay around here and class up his place for him, then?”
“Damn right,” I agreed. “Sleep’s too precious to miss on his account. Let’s quit this program.”