Tech One turned the key on the button, hesitated.
Punched it.
Whereafter the lights went out and the fans went off in rec hall, and the party died. More accurately—with sirens sounding, most of the party went staggering out the doors and down the corridor, down the emergency slides and wherever inspiration and panic took three hundred twenty-eight techs, service personnel, cooks, clericals, and crew on liberty—all, that was, except Spec. Amir Jefferson, who sat in a corner seat behind a truly impressive stack of whiskey glasses, watching a host of floating bar glasses describing interesting orbits under the red emergency lights.
If one squinted his eyes just so—one could see a shadowy shape or two, now that the lights were down. That was truly remarkable.
"Hey, who's that?" somebody said, and it did occur to Amir Jefferson that it was very peculiar that so many people had run out and so many were left, all drinking and laughing and ignoring the alarm—
Only reasonable, he thought. Systems-problems third alert this shift, damn right. Probably the spooks again, same spooks that had gotten into the vendors and sailed drinks around. First time he'd ever seen a thing like that, he'd panicked.
But a guy got used to it. Things turned up. Oranges. Wrenches and such. Assorted antiques. You spaced 'em or you ate 'em.
"New guy," somebody said, and put a drink into his hand.
Amir looked him up and down—odd type, funny clothes, leather jacket and white scarf. Lot of that in this party. Brown leather caps and goggles. Guys in pressure rigs of some kind—maybe Maintenance had showed.
Aristocratic type in uniform, too—sipping his drink, talking to a couple or three in blue fatigues with patches Amir didn't recognize.
A gal with bobbed hair, white scarf and leather jacket, talking to a guy in plaid knee-pants, for God's sake.
Spec. Amir stared at them, looked a little suspiciously at the drink, realized he was on his feet and looked back at the guy in the chair in the corner.
Then he panicked.
"Get Security on it!" the chief yelled at her aide. "Cut that damn alarm!" Some fool had tripped a security door.
"Number two," the comm said. "Chief, it's Udale. He says he's got one of the auditors on his hands—seems he—was propositioned and terrorized by a hallful of drunken dockers."
"God."
"What does Udale do with the auditor?"
Babbs thought of several things. Most of them were felonious. She gritted her teeth and said, "I'll see him. Assure him we apologize."
"I—" the aide said. Then: "Oh, my God."
" What?"
"They're saying the fire alarm went. The whole section just blew out." Being dead was a considerable shock, even fortified as Amir was. He peered at his body, which sat there quite placidly behind a stack of glasses.
Someone clapped him on the shoulder. He was relieved he could feel that. He looked around at a white-haired officer type, who said, "Son, you just joined the squadron." The officer took him 'round, him, a lowly spec, and named him names—Byrd and Rogers, Smith and Earhart, name after name right out of the history books, faces too long-ago for holos, uniforms and insignia from atoms to airplanes—
And Spec. 2nd Class Amir Jefferson, who had mostly, in the first moments of knowing he was dead, thought about how his friends were going to take it and what in hell was he going to do about his date with Marcy Todd on Saturday night—began to feel a good deal more cold and lost and scared.
What'm I doing here? was what he kept thinking, having his hand shaken by one after another of the crowd—important people, names— God, legends, all out of ancient history, fliers and astronauts, pioneers and explorers—
He was embarrassed, terribly embarrassed, having gotten himself killed in the middle of these people's private party, and them trying to make the best of it and treat him as if he belonged there.
"I'm really sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be here." People laughed. If a dead guy could blush, he was blushing, and he looked at the floor. "Excuse me," he said, and headed for the door; but Rogers grabbed his arm and said,
"Hey, no offense . . ."
"No offense," he said, and the others crowded 'round, one offering him a drink.
"Here's to the new guy!" somebody said, and glasses clinked all over the room, after which a cheer, and Amir gulped and mumbled, "Thank you. . . ." He took a large gulp—somehow, dead, the alcohol seemed to have worn off, and looking around at all these great people looking at him as if he was somebody, he suffered another crisis of wondering what he was going to do about Marcy Todd and what they were going to do about his shift. "Excuse me, I got all this stuff—" That sounded sort of stupid. It really began to come to him that he was not going to meet those schedules. "What'm I going to do?"
"About what?" Smith asked.
"I mean, there's people I—there's a job—there's these auditors I was supposed to guide around—"
Smith shook his head definitively. "Won't do that."
"What do ghosts do?"
There was a long silence. Finally somebody he hadn't been introduced to said, solemnly, "Things. Whatever. Some just can't deal with it. Some just sort of hang around."
"Doing what? Haunting places?"
"Them that can't turn loose, yes, some do."
"Well—" Amir thought about all these oranges and old engine parts. "Why here? Why did all you guys come here?"
"Ships."
"Ships?"
"Like he said," said Byrd, "some fellows just can't turn loose. And some can. So we got this far."
"We can get as far as this," Earhart said. "Easy."
"Further than this takes ships," Byrd said. "That's what we're here for. That's what we're looking for."
"You wouldn't be a flier yourself," Earhart asked, "would you?"
"I've got a short-hop license," Amir said.
A couple of hands landed on his shoulders. He looked from one young face to the other—guys in blue coveralls, who grinned at him. "We got us a pilot," one said, and the other: "A modernpilot—"
"One dead," Station Chief Babbs heard, and dropped her head into her hands, shaking it slowly.
"Glasses and spilled drinks all over," the aide continued remorselessly. "The meds think he was just passed out drunk when the alarm went, just never heard it—"
"God," Babbs said, and reached for a bottle of pills, fumbling the lid off.
"The chief auditor's asking to see you," the comm said. "He's pretty upset." Pills spilled. Babbs popped a couple, started gathering up the rest.
"Chief?"
"Send him in."
Babbs capped the bottle again, shoved it in the desk, looked up as the white-haired Auditor General stormed into the office, and shoved herself to her feet, leaning on the desk with her knuckles.
"It's your damn staff!" she yelled before the auditor got a word out. "Your damn staff was occupying mine when an emergency broke out, which is why we have a fatality, mister, which is what's going on my report."
The auditor shouted back, "What's going on mine is a station riddled with security problems, communication problems, and staff incompetency! I'm finishing our work on our ship, which thank God! is under our own lock and key, withits data, withenough evidence to see you broken, Station Chief Babbs! When we send what we've documented down to Earth, I assure you, there's quite enough there to file charges on you and eleven other culpable parties on this station—"
"Chief?" the comm said. "Chief? Can you come out here?"
"I'm in conference!" Babbs yelled at the comm. .
"Chief. . ." the aide said, his voice hushed and agitated.
"Excuse me," Babbs said with a small exhalation of breath, and went out to the anteroom; closed the door behind her.