—iii—
RUMORS MULTIPLIED ON LOWER deck once mainday tech crew had hit the galley line in numbers, and the incoming detail gathered form as informants from various ops posts got together at the tables and fact and speculation intersected: Fact: the ship out there was Silver Dream, it was a closed-hold hauler, you couldn’t tell whether or what it had in its holds. Fact: it had a large engine pack, which was always suspicious on a non-Family ship. Observation: Christian and the second chief navigator were uneasy about it, and: Speculation, were sure it wasn’t hauling, and when they cleared the slow zones they were going to light out of Pell like a bat.
That much, Tom picked up just passing around the tables, refilling table coffee and tea pots. Heads were together, the galley was uncommonly quiet, voices were subdued and urgent. Dockers clustered apart from the techs, at their tables at the end of the galley zone… the questions in that corner were slightly different, no less urgent: What are we going to do, skip through the Point? And the answer: Can’t offload. No way we can offload.
Somebody wondered, then, whether they’d still get their pay, in that event. The rest, apparently old hands on Corinthian, said Shut up, don’t be a fool, being alive to spend it was the issue, and the captain would make it up, the captain never shorted you for what wasn’t your fault.
Tom collected plates, grabbed them as fast as they emptied, folded up the tables and the seats, fast as he could. Heard names like Mallory, and Porey, and Edger, names of captains of the dismembered Fleet. Talk about ambushes. And a dump, whether v-dump, meaning whether they were going to slow down, or supply dump… it sounded like the latter. Rendezvous, of some kind? he asked himself.
“What do we regularly do out there?” he asked Tink. “Level with me. What’s the ordinary scenario?”
“There’s a place,” Tink said, but someone came near, just then, and Tink didn’t feel comfortable talking, it was clear. Jamal frowned at both of them.
“Tink, get some help, that cart’s ready for the bridge, Medical’s ready to roll.”
“Yeah, I’m on it,” Tink said, grabbed a couple of offduty maintenance techs and dragooned them into cart-transport, while he folded tables and secured safety latches, wanting not to think about Mazianni weapons bearing down on them.
Mazianni operating at Pell, free and open, for God’s sake? And following them out of port?
Where did they get undock clearance? Who assigned them dockers to get them out that fast, to follow Corinthian? Nothing fit with what he knew unless it was Mallory on their tail… but Mazianni didn’t above all describe Mallory, who did operate out of Pell. Mallory was semi-legitimate. Had total station cooperation—it could be some ship working for her, and Pell authorities, to arrest them… or get evidence on them, but there were warrants for that, easier to do at dock.
“Tom!”
Tone of a man who’d been trying to get his attention. He looked at Jamal, blank of what the man had been saying.
“Hell, I’ll get it,” Jamal said. “No damn brain on duty anywhere. Stay here! Pull the delivery slips, check it off. If you screw up, Hawkins, somebody’s without trank. Can you manage that?”
“Got it. “ He went back to the paperwork desk, laid Jamal’s handheld on the communication plate, punched the requisite code for the deliveries, DDAT, to transfer, 1 plus T, no mystery in the software. The handheld registered File Complete, meaning it had read an end-of-file,—and a furtive, stupid thought sprang up. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he said to himself, system’s guarded, all kinds of partitions. He looked longingly at that console, then, hell, shook his head and let it alone.
He’d done the checklist when Jamal came back with what looked like the stuff from Medical. Jamal took the list he’d vetted, left, with: “Stow everything behind doors. Don’t trust counter-mounts. We don’t know what we’re into. Turn the water off, under the sink. Lock the drain down. You know how to do that?”
“Yessir,” he said. Tink was still out on deliveries. He flipped the lever to dismount the mixer and the processor, stowed them below, secured oven latches, washers, cabinets, put the pans behind solid doors and latched them in. Got the water shut off, put the anti-vacuum lock on the drain. He’d never used one, but he’d heard about whole sections voided of air through a pipe breach.
Cast another, longing look at the computer. Looked at the door. Edged closer, then flipped it on just to see what program would come up.
Screen showed: MES>94.
He hit 01, keyed: Your message software’s a dinosaur. I could access. I didn’t. T. Hawkins.
Austin had a lot else on his mind. The whole ship rang with urgency. Stupid to do. Distracting to Austin. To… God knew who… but, dammit, things were happening up there he didn’t have a clue to judge. He had skills he wasn’t using. Somebody was after them, and he had to sit down here, being shot at, keeping pans from falling out of cabinets, getting rumors from the walk-ins… his stomach was in a knot.
It might make Austin know he restrained himself. Might get him at least access physically where he could access electronically. Software was a dinosaur. God knew what other was.
But, damn, no, ship was at risk. Wasn’t a time for personal stuff. He ran a delete. Flipped the switch. Killed it.
Could be the militia after them. And here he was. Wrong side of Marie’s quarrel. Wrong side of everything.
The ship was growing so quiet. He’d never heard anything the like on Sprite before they went to jump. On Sprite there were so many Family, there were so many kids running up and down, people yelling information at each other. Here… just quiet. Somebody walked outside the partition that divided the galley from general passage. Somebody shouted, far off in the ring. Somewhere, sounding sections away, a cart rattled. He made himself move away from the console, get to work, the last few table-seat units to fold up, thunderous, appalling crashes in the silence.
Jamal came back, started running checks on the cabinets. “You’re L14.”
“Yes.”
“Left your stuff there. Trank and all. You ever get sheets?”
“I… no. I didn’t. “ Sheets were the farthest thing from his mind. “I can do without. It’s all right. “ In the crisis at hand, he regretted his protestations to Saby about his own quarters. Didn’t want to be alone. Desperately didn’t want to be alone, but he’d taken that position… didn’t see how to talk to her now.
“Freeze your ass off,” Jamal said. “I tossed some blankets in. Put your trank on the bunk. Sheets are down in Medical, you got to do that yourself.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a crazy trip. Hope we see the other side of it.”
Cart rattled and thumped somewhere, growing closer. Tink coming back, he thought, and Jamal said, “We’re shut down here. You want to go get those sheets? I’ll sign you out.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. “ Jamal was down furnishing his quarters while he was sneaking access on the galley computer. Didn’t make him feel better. He went for the exit toward lower main, dodged Tink and the inbound cart.
“We done?” Tink asked cheerfully.
“Seems so,” he said. He tried cheerfulness. It didn’t take.
But Tink bumped him on the arm with a tattooed fist. “Hey. We’re all right. Seen us sail through the damnedest stuff. Pieces rattling off the hull. We come through. We always come through. Can’t scratch this ship.”
“You been aboard that long?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tink said. “You just belt in good. Hear? Hope you secured those cabinets, or we’ll have pans clear to Engineering.”