Hellburner (17 page)

Good news. He really wanted to believe it. But he didn’t let himself sink into the fantasy all the way. He only flirted with the idea, asking warily, “How’d you get here?”

She settled her hand on his, gave his fingers a squeeze. “They sent to me in the Belt, said, You got a friend in trouble, you want to come, and I said, Sure. Why not? I could do with a change.”

So she wasn’t leveling with him. That could only mean his subconscious couldn’t think of an answer. Second question: “What about Sal?”

“Sal said she couldn’t trust me on my own, said she’d keep me honest.”

Her fingers on his felt warm and solid. She was in Shepherd civvies, she had this fondness for big earrings and he didn’t remember the ones she was wearing. He wasn’t artistic, he couldn’t make up ones he didn’t know, spiral and gold with some kind of anodized bar down the middle. He couldn’t make up the blue eyeshadow and the pink. He wouldn’t put those colors together with red hair. But it looked good. She did. And her really, truly being here was crazier than his thinking she was.

Third question. “Where’s Ben this morning?”

“Ben’s in the lieutenant’s office. Ben’s real pissed. Something about his security clearance and him supposed to be in Stockholm—didn’t altogether make sense, but he was going to go complain. —What’s this about you arguing with a simulator?”

Panic hit him. But he didn’t know why he should be afraid of Meg. Or Ben. Or why mere was a gap around his recollection of the sim room. Sounds. Mag hum and sudden motion. Ominous. Something had happened under that sound.

“There’s been a hearing,” Meg said, “senators all over the place. They’re leaving. Ben asks if you’d like to tell them anything. Says if you could tell them how you got banged up it might be a good idea.”

Senators. Mission control. Rows of instruments. Instruments on the sim panel, just the same.

“Shit,” he breathed, feeling a cold sweat come on him. But it was all right, the memory was gone again. He willed his heart to slow down, stop fluttering like that: they filled him full of drugs if they caught his pulse up, and if they caught Meg here, Meg could be in trouble—Meg might not come back. People went out the door and you didn’t know if—

the Company’d let diem back.

No. Not the Company. Tanzer. The UDC, that ran this place.... “Ben explained a skosh,” Meg said, rab-speak, long time back, it seemed now. The Inner System had changed so, even in the few years he’d been to the Belt and back. “You don’t got seriously to say: I know about the accident. But you got to get out of here, Dek, you got to get yourself straight. Ben said I should ask you the date.”

“2324,” he said, and found it suddenly worth a laugh, with what breath he could find. “2324.” Meg didn’t know why that message from Ben should be funny and he couldn’t explain, he hadn’t the coherency to explain, he kept seeing the readouts in the spex in front of him, green and red and gold, and, dammit, he could make it, he could’ve made it, but when he tried to imagine past that point the controls wouldn’t work, weren’t going to work again until he could get his hands on them and change those numbers....

Meg shook his shoulder. “Heads up, Dek. First thing you got to do, you got to get straight. Ben said you didn’t get into that pod on your own. That you should remember for him. He really needs that, Dek.”

Sim room. Noise. And the memory just stopped. Got his pulse rate up again. “Can’t. Can’t get hold of it, Meg. Meg, —“

She leaned close and whispered in his ear, “You want to go back to barracks and you and me do a little rec-time? Mmmn?”

Offer like that—from Meg—could raise a corpse. Meg’s touch on his cheek could. He thought about the barracks, had a sudden cold jolt, thinking of Meg there, and Ben and Sal; and not the faces he remembered. A whole puzzle-piece of his life just lifted out, gone, and another one clicked in, not the same shape, there were still dark spots—there’d been another puzzle-piece before that; but it was close, it was damned close. Pete and Elly and Falcone, they wouldn’t have understood Meg. Wouldn’t have gotten on with her, not easy. Might not get on with Sal or Ben. Cory either. He looked Meg in the eyes and remembered his blood pressure, realized he wasn’t wearing the sensor.

Several things clicked into place. Where he was. How he hadn’t gotten his shot this morning, either. How he was clearer-headed now than he’d been since—

More panels. Instruments red-lighting. Alarms screaming. Inner ear going crazy.

“You all right, Dek?” Finger along his cheek. “You’re white. You want me to call a doctor? Dek?”

He shook his head, suddenly sure of that. He sucked in a breath and got an elbow up under him, to see if his head was going to spin. Weak, God. Meg was trying to help him, saying he should lie down. But he didn’t think so, he had a bad feeling about lying down and letting Meg call a doctor, they’d give him shots again and he’d go to sleep and go on sleeping—

He shoved up onto his hands, swung his feet over tile edge. The room was tilting, felt like the pod, but he kept his eyes on the line where the wall met the floor. He sat there getting his breath and making the room stay steady.

“You sure you better not get back in that bed?”

He moved his arm. That shoulder had hurt. Didn’t now, as much. He kept his eyes on that line and said, “Want to get up, Meg. Just give me a hand.”

She did that. He didn’t need it to lean on. He just needed it steady. Second reference point. He made it to his feet, risked a blink, then shut his eyes and stood there a moment. He opened them and took a step, with Meg’s help. “Shot to hell,” he muttered. “Too much zero g.”

“Does that to you,” Meg agreed. “Going back to it?”

“Inner ear’s playing me tricks.” Another step. A third. He took a breath, let go her hand and took a fourth.

“They ought to have had you walking. Especially a spacer. Especially you. What’re the doctors worth in this place?”

A moment of vertigo. He got it back again. “Meg, how in hell’d you get here?” Months to get in from the Belt. They’d told her he was in trouble? Time threatened to unravel again. Except—

“Just caught a passing carrier. You got people real worried about you, Dek. Important people.”

Carrier could make that passage in a handful of days. Better than that, the rumor was. And a carrier pulled Meg out of the Belt? Out of a berth she’d risked her neck to get? “Meg, make ‘em send you back, don’t get mixed up in this, I don’t want you, I don’t want you here—“

“Hell if, boy-doll. Anyway, I signed the papers. Going to make me an officer—“

“Oh, shit. Shit, Meg!” The room went spinning. He just stared at Meg’s face for a reference point and kept his feet and knees from moving. “You were where you wanted.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not all al-tru-istic. —You want to sit down, Dek?”

“No.” A shake of his head that risked his balance. “No. I’m all right. I need to stand up. They won’t let me stand up. Have I got any clothes in mat locker?”

Meg looked. He didn’t dare track on her. She said, “No.”

“Meg, I want you to go to the lieutenant....”

“Graff?”

“Graff. I want you to go to him—“ The place could be bugged. But there was nothing else to do. “I want you to tell him I need help. I don’t trust what they’re giving me. I want out of here.”

“This then or now, Dek? Who’s doing this?”

He tried a step and another one. His heart was pounding. Sounds came distant and strange. He walked as far as the door, opened it, and gambled his stability on a look at Meg. “You remember your way out of here?”

“Yeah.”

“1’11 walk you to the door. Five on ten I don’t get that far. But you’ll know, then, won’t you?”

“Shit, Dek.”

“Yeah.” He took her arm. She grabbed his hand. “Let’s

walk, huh?”

‘
  
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“Aboujib,” Graff said, and put out his hand for a non-reg handshake. Dark-skinned, exotic as they came to Inner System eyes, and by Ben Pollard’s recommendation and the enlistment records, a Company-educated disciplinary washout who’d gotten another kind of rep among the Shepherds. Jamil had been by to give him a quick word. Pollard had shown up for his appointment with Aboujib in tow—one Meg Kady was ‘visiting Dekker’ on Pollard’s pass (“It’ll work in the lock,” Pollard had said, with airy disregard of UDC security, but Pollard was not unconcerned, Pollard had just smiled, put a thoroughly stripped personal card on his desk and said, “I’m screwed, sir. Do you think you could just possibly get somebody to do something about this? They just put me in your command, sir, I’m UDC, and I’m mortally worried the colonel’s going to want to talk to me,”)

Hell in a handbasket. As the Earthers said. And here was file rest of Dekker’s former crew, in on the Sol One shuttle without a word of explanation, warning, or advice what to do with them?

He wasn’t highly pleased with the captain right now. Not pleased with Tanzer, not pleased with the situation, and not pleased to know one of the pair was loose in hospital on somebody else’s Fleet pass.

But Jamil had been damned cheerful, saying, “We got us a couple of recruits, lieutenant. —Mitch is going to the.”

It could give a man the feeling something was passing by him. And that things were careening out of control. “Welcome in, Aboujib. Scan-tech, is it?”

“Yessir.” Aboujib had a solid grip, a steady eye, a distractingly quirky dimple beside a pretty mouth—and she was outside his crew and off limits, end it, right there. Not many women among the Shepherds and a consequent shortage of women in the program; and one of Dekker’s former partners?

The captain had put Dekker’s unit together again. That was what was happening. Keu wasn’t saying a thing—so FleetCom wasn’t secure: the captain was just doing it, case by case: somebody had moved a carrier in from the Belt, for God’s sake, or Victoria was back in-system: no other way to ferry Aboujib and Kady here since the accident.

Which could mean the captain hadn’t been on Sol One for the last week; could mean Mazian had interrupted his diplomatic receptions to take a hand; or it might mean Keu had help: cooperative command in action—Col. Tanzer, sir.

He said, “Very glad to have you aboard, Aboujib....” and the phone beeped. His calls were routing through the carrier’s board and that wasn’t to be ignored. He picked up the receiver, said, “Graff here,” and heard:

“Lieutenant?” Thin voice. Strained. “Dekker. Need some help, sir.”

“Shove it!” he heard in the background. Female voice. And something happened.

A hand came under Dekker’s arm. Pulled. The nurse took hold of Meg’s arm and lost that grip. Fast.

“You want those fingers, mister, you keep ‘em the fuck off my arm.”

The nurse had hit an alarm, or something: a light was flashing. But Dekker knew where he was, he knew who was keeping his balance for him and he’d trust Meg in the black deep of space. He said, “Door, Meg. Now.”

“He’s not released,” the nurse said. Other meds showed up. Higgins arrived at the desk, looked at Meg and said, “Who are you?”

“Ben Pollard right now,” Meg said. “Ben’s getting my pass straightened out.”

“Get security,” Higgins said to someone in the hall. “Lt. Dekker, they’ll take you to your room.”

“No such.” He held his feet. “I’m going.” Head was killing him. But standing was easier. “Where’s my uniform?”

Security showed up, MPs, UDC. An MP grabbed for Meg, and next thing he knew he’d grabbed the MP—the guy looked at him, he looked at the guy with his fist doubled, but the MP with a fistful of his pajamas wasn’t about to hit a hospital case. So he kept his hold on the MP, the MP kept his hold on him, and they stared at each other while the interns tried to drag him away. “You tell Tanzer fuck himself. Hear? —Meg? Get. Get out of here.”

They told her, “You’re under arrest. You’re not going anywhere,” and Meg said,

“Hell if. Spiel on, chelovek, a judge is going to hear every word of this. You seriously better not bruise him.”

“Now wait a minute.” Higgins pulled the MP off—tried to: he wasn’t about to let go his only anchor, and Higgins was upset. “All right, all right, calm down. Everybody calm down. Lt. Dekker, let go of him.”

Things were graying out. But he got a breath and held on, said, rationally, he hoped, “I’m walking out of here and I’m going back to my barracks.”

Meg said, “Dek, calm down.”

Her, he listened to. Kept his grip the way the MP held on to him and listened to Meg say, “He had a seriously bad time with Company doctors. Fed him full of prescription drugs, while he was spaced. You let him go. He’ll be all right.”

“I’m not a damn mental case, Meg.”

Higgins said, smooth as silk, “We’re not maintaining that. He’s had concussion and broken bones. If you’re a friend of his, persuade him back to bed.”

“I’ve been in bed too damned long. Won’t let me up, won’t let me walk—“

“You’ve been to therapy, lieutenant. Don’t you remember?”

Scared him. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t argue with what they might be able to prove. Or fake records for. He was afraid he was going to pass out, and end the argument that way. “I want my release. Now.”