Hellburner (37 page)

“You all right, cher?” Meg stirred beside him, massaged a shoulder. He realized the tension he had, then, probably as comfortable as a rock to be next to.

“Yeah.” He tried to relax. “Cold.”

Meg put a warm arm over his back. “Roll over, jeune fils. No questions. Do. We got sims in the morning. Big day. Relax.”

Couldn’t understand why she put up with him. Couldn’t understand why Ben did, except Sal was with Meg. He wished he could do better than he did, wished he could say they weren’t in a mess of his making. But it was. And they were. And Meg somehow didn’t care he was a fool.

The rec hall was quiet. It was a Question whether to acknowledge what had happened or ignore it; but the former, Graff decided—word having drifted his way via Reet Security via Sgt.-major Lynch. Probably word had drifted to Porey too and no orders had come. But it was Personnel’s business to take a tour, while the alterday galley staff was cleaning up. Music was still going. Most of the participants were back in barracks, hopefully.

“Quiet here?” he asked a marine on watch.

“Quiet, sir.”

“Any feeling of trouble?”

“No, sir. Not lately. Real quiet, sir.”

He made no approach toward the last few celebrants—a few UDC, a few Fleet personnel, a little the worse for drink, at opposite ends of the hall. He wasn’t there on a disciplinary. But he meant to be seen. His being there said command levels had heard, command levels were aware.

Dekker hadn’t blown it, by all he’d heard. He didn’t know where the idea had started. He didn’t know that it had done any good, but at least it had done no demonstrable harm.

Someone walked in at his back, walked up beside him.

“Tables still standing,” Villy said.

“Noted that.”

“Hope it lasts,” Villy said. “Difficult time.”

Villy had never said anything about the change in command. Like having your ship taken out of your hands, Graff thought, like watching it happen on, Villy had said, the last big project he’d ever work on.

What did you say? What, in the gulf between his reality and Villy’s, did one find to say?

“Good they did that,” he said. “I hope it takes.”

DIG empty section of the mast—you’d know where you were blindfolded, null-g with the crashes of locks and loaders and the hum of the core machinery, noises that made the blood rush with memories of flights past and anticipation of another, no helping it. Meg took a breath of cold, oil-touched air, a breath mat had the flightsuit pressing close, snug as a hardened skin, and hauled with one hand to get a rightside up view of what Dek had to show them, screen with a live camera image from, she guessed, optics far out along the mast.

Big, shadow-shape of the carrier—wouldn’t all fit in the picture—with spots on its hull picked it out in patchwork detail, all gray, and huge—

And on the hull near the bow, a flat, sleek shape clung, shining in the floods. “That’s it?” Ben asked.

“That’s it,” Dek said. “Her. Whatever you want to call it. They built three prototypes. That’s the third. That’s the one that’s make or break for us. Crew of thirty, when we - prove it out. Four can manage her—in a clean course, with set targets. Most of her mass is ordnance, ablation edge, and engine load. You’ve had the briefings.”

Meg stood by Sal’s side and got a shiver down the back that had nothing to do with the cold here. Beautiful machine, she was thinking; Sal said, Brut job, and meant the same thing, in a moment, it sounded as-if, of pure gut-deep lust. Wasn’t any miner-can, that wicked, shimmery shape.

And most imminently, in the sim chamber behind the clear observation port, the pods, one in operation, a mag-lev rush around the chamber walls, deafening as the wall beside them carried the vibration.

“Damn,” she breathed. But you wouldn’t hear it.

“The pods you see moving,” Dek said, over the fading thunder, “that’s the tame part. That rush is the dock and undock. They can take those pods more positive or neg g’s than your gut’s going to like. But that’s not the dangerous part. That pod, there, the still one—“ He pointed at one floating motionless, away from the walls. “That’s the real hellride. Could be at 3A light, what you know from inside. That’s the one they mop the seats on. That’s the one can put you in hospital—unstable as hell in that mode—screw it and you’ll pull a real sudden change.”

“Thanks,” Ben said. “I like to hear that, damn, I like to hear that.”

Meg said, “Going to be all right. No problems. Hear?”

But Dek looked up at that pod in a way she kept seeing after he’d turned away and told them it was up the lines to the pod access—like an addict looking at his addiction, and a guy scared as hell.

“Take you on the ride of your life,” was the way he put it.

“Now wait a minute,” Ben said. But Dek took out on the handlines and Sal snagged Ben’s arm with: “Now, cher, if we don’t keep with Dek and Meg here, they’ll assign us some sheer fool pi-lut we don’t know the hell who... Do you want to go boom on a rock? No. Not. So soyez gentle and don’t distract the jeune fils.”

“No,” Graff said, “no, colonel, I don’t know—I’ve got a meeting with him...”

“He’s got no right,” was the burden of Tanzer’s phone call. Which didn’t over all help Graff’s headache. Neither did the prospect of dealing with Comdr. Porey face to face.

“I’ll pose him the question,” he told Tanzer. Couldn’t honestly blame the colonel this morning—discovering that his carefully constructed sims schedule was in revision, that Villanueva’s team had been opted straight off test systems into the priority sims schedule and three others of the test systems crews had been bumped off the sims schedule entirely, in favor of Dekker and three raw recruits, who’d been given access-on-demand, on any shift.

The officer in charge of Personnel ought to know what was happening. One would logically think so.

The officer in charge of Personnel hung up the receiver, put on his coat and took his hangover headache down the corridor to the CO’s office.

Marine guards let him in. Porey was all smiling, smooth congeniality.

“Jurgen,” it was. And an offered hand as Porey got up from his desk. One had to take it or declare war. “I’ve been going through the reports. Excellent job you’ve done, getting us settled into station. I don’t find a thing I’d change. Sit down, sit down...”

“Thank you,” Graff said, and sat, wondering whose name those actions had gone out under in the report to FleetCommand—wonder, hell, he knew what games Porey was playing, with the reports, with his smiling good grace: Porey’s aides never knew what they’d meet when they walked into his office, the smiling bastard or the shouting, desk-pounding sumbitch, but either one would knife you. It was, knowing your career could hinge on Porey’s approval, damned easy for a staffer to start twitching to Porey’s cues.

He could see it working in Carina junior crew out there, in the marine guard—he could see it going on all around him, suggesting that it might be wise for him to play Porey’s game too; suggesting that this man, clearly on his way to a captaincy, and certainly in Mazian’s good graces, could be a valuable contact...

Except that he’d seen this game going on since they were both junior lieutenants, and he felt the urge to puke.

He said, with a fixed smile, “Edmund, do you think your staff could possibly give Personnel any sims schedule changes a day in advance? Tanzer is not happy. I could have minimized the disturbance.”

“Didn’t that come to you?” Porey was all amazement.

“No, it didn’t come to me. I had to hear it from Tanzer. I don’t like dealing with the UDC when I don’t know what’s going on. It makes me feel like a fool. And I don’t like that, Edmund, I truly don’t.”

Satire on Porey’s own style wasn’t what Porey was used to meeting. Porey had a thinking frown as he sat down, guarded amusement at the edges of his mouth: everything for effect, most especially the expressions on his face. Peel Porey layer by layer and you never got to center.

“Matters of policy,” Porey said, rotating a paperweight in his fingers, “are handled in this office. Tanzer has no power that you don’t give him. If you choose to coddle him, that’s your decision. Not mine.” The paperweight stopped moving. “The assignment of personnel and priorities, however, is mine. Relations with the UDC—use your talents at diplomacy. I’m sure you’re up to it.”

Distraction and a shot across the bow. “By the Procedures, Personnel involves health and welfare, neither of which works when my office has no say in reassignments or systems changes.” Attack on his own. “In consideration of which, I want a briefing on the tape-learning procedures from the techs that came in with you. I don’t have time to read science reports.”

“Jurgen, my staff hasn’t time to handle delicate egos, Tanzer’s or yours.”

“Or three hundred fifty-six Shepherds who’ve been rooked out of their seniority, lied to by the UDC, shafted by the legislature and killed out there on the course because nobody’s ever damn listened to them. Edmund, we have tempers at critical overload here, and a blow-up isn’t going to look any better on your record than it looks on Tanzer’s. If you want a riot, these are the ones that will do it. They’re not kids, they’ve had too many fools in command over them here and in the Belt to trust anybody now on credit. They don’t reject authority: they’re looking for it, they want h—but don’t expect them to follow orders til they know the ultimate source is sane.”

Porey didn’t say anything for a moment. He wasn’t stupid and he cared about his own survival. That was one thing you could believe in.

Porey said softly, “You’re an honest man, Jurgen. How do you plan to get out of Earth system alive?” “By keeping my CO from making mistakes.” Long, cold stare. A slow smile. “You don’t have any resentment, do you, for my being installed here?” “I’m not command track. 1 never pretended to be.” Still the stare. “You think I’m pretending?” ‘‘I don’t think you’re pretending anything. I know you.” Feed the fantasy—and the anxiety. Porey didn’t like to be known, but he liked to be respected. The man did have an ego. A parsec wide. Porey smiled slowly, in a way that almost touched the eyes. “Good. A vote of confidence from you, I appreciate, Jurgen. I truly do.”

Odd chill of unease as the pod cruised up to the access. Thump of the pressure seals. Hydraulics as it opened and offered its dark, screen-lit interior. Ordinary sounds. Shadows moved on the white plastic of the control console as Dekker put the tape in and he felt an irrational urge to look behind him, as if his crew wouldn’t be there.

No damned reason to get nerves. But it had been Pete on the line beside him, all the times before. It wasn’t now. It wasn’t Elly, it wasn’t Falcone. It was Meg, on Pete’s tape, and Ben and Sal—they belonged here. He made himself believe that, stop remembering what had been...

For no reason, a piece of the puzzle snapped in, unbidden. Null-g. Shadows on the console. He felt the blow at the base of his skull. He knew where he had been—at the entry. Knew where they’d been. Shadows. Two of them...

Dammit. Not the time to be woolgathering. He looked back at Ben—Ben looked scared, but Ben looked On, tracking wide and fast on the pod, taking in everything, the same as Meg and Sal. All business—the way they were when the jokes stopped and they were thinking and absorbing. He gave them the lecture tour, the buttons on the console, the read-out window, the authorizations procedure— “Card and tape in the slot for a check-out. It reads your ID, takes your personal numbers and sets, and double-checks the tape for authorizations. Ready?”

“Are you serious?” Ben said. Then: “Yeah. Yeah. Go.”

He caught the handholds on either side of the entry, angled his feet for inside and eeled into his station. “Sal,” he called back, over the hum of a passing pod, caught her by the arm as she sailed into the dark, shadow against the lights, a glitter of braids tied into a cluster, for safety’s sake. He aimed her for the far side of the four-wide cockpit. “Ben.” Same as Ben came feet-first through the hatch, for the seat between him and Sal. Meg came last, for the seat between him and the hatch, settled in. Green-lit gold on plain stud earrings. Green dyed her side-shaved profile, green turned her red curls black. Ringed fingers found the belts and buckled in, eyes glowed wide and busy in the light of the screens, assessing the instruments.

He drew his own belt over—he waked reaching for them at night, with a recurring nightmare of drifting free. Suit braces powered up as he plugged in, and the helmet cut off side vision. It was deep-field V-HUD now. Switches on, power up. “Comfortable?”

“Yeah,” from Meg. “As possible,” from Ben.

Belts were tight. Second tug, to be sure. Orientation run. Starting over, primer stuff—only he wasn’t the neo this run. There was something surreal in the moment, in the familiar lights, in the ordinary sounds of the pod, the dark masquerading as routine. They were On. Anxious. Wanting to be right. But he kept expecting other voices.

“This thing got any differences?” Meg asked, last-minute.

He shoved the tape into the console, pushed LOAD. “One. See that yellow ABORT, upper left? Doesn’t exist on the real boards. It’ll stop the pod—if you don’t get a response from me, or if you detect anyone in trouble, you hit that. Takes you right back to the bay.”

“Cher,” came Meg’s low voice, “you just do. I got confidence in us.”