Dekker did look up then, shadow-eyed as if he hadn’t slept much. “I cut you off yesterday. If the offer’s still open—I’d like to talk about it.”
“Offer’s open,” Bird said. Ben thought: Hell.
Dekker didn’t say anything for a moment, just stirred his eggs around on his plate. Then a second look at Bird. “So I want my license back. What’s the time worth?”
“Depends on your work,” Bird said.
Ben did a fast calc, what Dekker had, what gave them a solid return on putting up with him. “10 k flat. With a guarantee you get the license.”
Dekker looked bewildered—maybe a little overcome at the price and not understanding the quality of what he’d just thrown in. He wasn’t exactly sure why he’d thrown it in—except he’d had this nanosecond of thinking he’d asked high and Bird was already on his tail. So it just fell out of his mouth: There you are, fancy-boy, I can fix it, I can, so you damned sure better mind your manners with me.
Bird didn’t say anything, Dekker didn’t, so Ben added, with a certain satisfaction, “Fair, isn’t it? Guaranteed, class 1.”
Bird looked a little worried. But he still didn’t say anything.
“Whose guarantee?” Dekker asked.
Ben gave him a cold stare. “Mine. On the other hand, if you ask anybody the time, Dekker, if you pull any shit on us out there, you’ll take a walk bare-assed.”
“Ben,” Bird said.
“I’m serious,” he said, and Dekker looked worried.
“Ben’s all right,” Bird said. “He really is.”
Dekker said, finally, “I haven’t got any other offers.”
“Small wonder,” Ben said, and realized that he’d broken his resolution a tick before Bird glared at him.
Dekker glared at him too. Dekker said, “I’ll pull my weight.”
Ben said, “Damn right you will. You’ll do whatever you’re told to do. And you’ll put up with whatever shit you’re handed, whatever you think of it—with no gripes.”
Bird said, “Ben,—”
Dekker glumly reached across the table. It took a moment before Ben realized he wanted his hand, that Dekker was truly calling his bluff and taking the deal.
Damn, Ben thought. He had as soon stick his hand in a grinder, but things with Bird were precarious. So he made a grimace of a smile, gave Dekker his hand and they made a limp, cheerless handshake across the plates.
No one looked convinced, not Dekker, not Bird. He certainly wasn’t. But he said, “All right, if we’re going to do this, let’s get that re-cert application in right now. I take it you haven’t done that.”
“No craters,” Meg said as they walked out into the bar. They’d come in late last shift, they’d slept late, gotten up and come out on the absolute tail end of breakfast. No Dekker, no Bird, no Ben. Meg shoved her hands into her pockets and looked at Mike over at the bar. Sal looked too, with a lift of the eyebrows.
“They kill each other?” she wondered.
Mike said, dishing up the last of the rubbery eggs, “Left like old friends, all three. Said tell you they were going up to the dock. They’re leaving you a pile of scrub-up and sanding in the shop.”
“Fun,” Sal sourly.
“Ben with Dekker?” Meg said, with a gathering worry. “Not damn likely. We got a problem here.”
Sal poured her own coffee and took the plate Mike handed her. “Kady, I think we got to use strategy.”
“What strategy? I vote we shoot Ben.”
“Na, na, he’s playing along with Bird.” Sal took the plate and the coffee back to the table and hooked a chair out, as Meg did the same. “We got, what, three weeks if we push it. If Dek’s able to pitch in. The guys are going to be trouble. Trez macho.”
“Trez pain in the ass. If Bird takes a position you need a pry-bar.”
“We can’t have Ben and Dekker in the same ship. That’s prime.”
“So Bird takes Dekker—and we take Ben.” That, come to think of it, wasn’t at all a bad idea. They’d been after Ben’s numbers for two years. That was solid and Shepherd promises were come-ons and maybes.
Besides which, if there was anybody who could keep Dekker in line—
Sal ducked her head, checked in her pocket a beat—God, smooth move, there, Meg thought, with a knot in her stomach; and Sal looked up with the devil’s own ideas in her eyes. “I’ll tell you what we do, Kady, we apply to go out tandem. All of us. I’ll tell you why.” A jab of Sal’s finger on the tabletop. “Because Bird doesn’t want Dekker sliced and stacked. Because Bird’s had one trip with Ben and Dekker already and if we give him the out to break that up—we ask for even split on the board time, just to make him believe it, we set it up with the Bitch, and we get Ben and his numbers and access to Dekker.”
“Hell, we have got a ship coming out of refit. Shakedown run.”
“That’s the grounds. Only reason they’ll do it.”
“A skosh noisy. Do we need MamBitch’s special attention on us? I don’t think a special app is a good idea.”
“Kady, we got the Bitch’s attention. I’ll ask my friends, but I don’t know what worse we can do. And if they say do it, and if She’ll let us—hell, if we can get out there tandem, we can just do our job, just ride it out while the shit flies, as may, and figure things are getting taken care of—they’re not going to arrange anything on the way out, not unless they’re pushed, and if the Association brings it up as an issue, damn sure the Bitch isn’t going to run us into a rock on the way back. There’s coincidences and there’s coincidences. They’re just a little from having the EC down their throats.”
You had to wonder whether more understandings might have passed in that little encounter at Scorpio’s than Sal had even yet admitted: and MamBitch beaming them up to v on a heading MamBitch picked—on charts that might have a little technical drop-out right in their path—hadn’t helped her sleep at all. MamBitch was finally admitting in the news how she might go grievance procedures with the Shepherds to settle the outstanding complaints and patch up the sore spots—MamBitch having this severely important production schedule to meet, because the Fleet High Command was breathing down her neck.
That was the public posture. Behind the doors in management there were careers on the line.
There was the Shepherds’ whole existence on the line.
“I tell you,” she said to Sal over the eggs, “I’d sincerely like to know if you know anything additional—now or in future.”
“If I know you’ll know.” A solemn look. “I swear.”
“Thanks,” she said. She did try to believe it.
A berth with the Shepherds, Sal said. It was already an endangered species. And they themselves were fools to think otherwise: you got out of the habit of longterm thinking—when the only out you had was a break in a business that was already taking the deep dive to hell. Freerunners weren’t going to last forever. Go with the lease deal or go for broke Sal’s way—see if the Shepherds kept their bargains, or if there was a bargain—or if the Shepherds were still independents when the shakeout came.
Sal had wanted this break, God, she’d chased it for years—blew it once, by what she knew, and those sons of bitches relatives of hers had kept Sal on a string for near six years, sure, let the kid be eyes and ears on helldeck, let Aboujib run their errands and risk arrest, let Aboujib sweat long enough to be sure she took orders—
Aboujib had gotten a severe warn-off from the Shepherd Association when she’d taken up with her—and being Aboujib, she’d locked on to her mistake and damned the consequences. Her high and mighty friends had said, Drop Kady, and Sal had gone to talk to some officer or other—God only what she’d said in that meeting, or what they’d said or threatened, but Sal had stormed out of their exclusive club and not talked about a berth with the Shepherds for the better part of a month.
They’d survived the ups and down since, gotten hell and away better than they’d started—things had looked so clear and so possible, til yesterday,
til the Association dangled Sal’s dream in front of her, the bastards—
She’d said yes to Sal last night. She had the sinking feeling this morning she’d been a chronic fool, and committed herself to something she wouldn’t have, except for those two margarits. But she hadn’t exactly come up with an effective No this morning, either, both of them sitting here betting their necks on that little green light—Sal was dead set.
She still couldn’t open her mouth and say, Sal, no deal. We’re going with the lease.
Didn’t know if you’d call it friendship. Didn’t know what was wrong with her head—but the way things were getting to be on R2, the freerunners didn’t have that many more years. She could worry about Bird—you couldn’t call it romance, what she had with Bird. Mutual good time. And a guy she’d no desire to see run up against a rock, dammit: if Dekker was the problem… they were all tagged, as the Shepherd had put it: Bird, Ben, all of them. The Association might be using them—but the Association might be the only protection a handful of miners had—the Shepherds were the only independents with any kind of leverage.
That—was enough to advise keeping one’s mouth shut. And not to say No.
Couldn’t tell Bird. Bird wasn’t good at secrets. Damn sure not Ben.
What had the Shepherd said? The problem’s major? The problem’s gone major?
Something had shifted. Ben’s charts? Something the company had done?
The dumbasses in the fire zone didn’t get that kind of information.
Turn in the re-cert application, Ben had said. Move on it. Way Out was headed for soon-as-possible launch, dock time cost, Ben swore he had friends who could get the test scheduled within the week, and Dekker decided, in Bird’s lack of comment, that Ben might be telling the truth.
So it was a good idea to do that, Dekker supposed: and found himself sitting in a Trans car between Bird and Ben, nervous as a kid headed for the dentist—only beginning to calm down and accept the idea of taking an ops test before he’d gotten the shakes out of his knees. Ten days was soon enough, Bird said. Give him a little time. Ten days to get his nerves together, ten days til he had to prove to BM that he still had it—that was still time enough to get the class 3 license pushed through, Ben said, which he had to have before he could count any time at Way Out’s boards.
God, he couldn’t blow this.
Bird said: “After we get this done, we thought we’d take you up to the docks, show you the ship, all right?”
“All right,” he said, in the same numb panic, asking himself what they were up to—show you the ship…
Maybe they wanted to see if he could take it. Maybe they were pushing him to find out if he would go off the edge—
Sudden memory of that fouled, cold interior, the suit drifting against the counter—the arm moving. He’d waked in the near-dark and imagined it was Cory beckoning to him.
Bird talked into his ear, talked about some of the damage on the ship, talked about what they’d done—
But the ship in his mind was the one he remembered. The stink, and the cold, and the fear—
“Admin,” Ben said as the Trans pulled into a stop. “Here we are.”
He got up, he got off with them into an office zone, all beige and gray, with the musty cold electronics smell offices had. They went into the one that said ECSAA Certifications, and Ben and Bird walked up to the counter with him.
“I want to apply for a license,” he said.
“Recertification,” Ben said, leaning his elbows on the desk beside him.
“Just let me do it.” He couldn’t think with Ben putting words in his mouth; he felt shivers coming on—he’d caught a chill in the Trans—and he didn’t want to be filling in applications with his hands shaking. Fine impression that was in this office.
The clerk went away, came back with a datacard, directed him to a side table and a reader.
He went over to it and his entourage came with him, one on either side as he put the card in the slot and made three mistakes entering his name.
“Look, you’re making me nervous.”
“That’s all right,” Ben said. And when he tried to answer the next question, about reason for revocation: “Uh-uh,” Ben said. “Neg. Say, ‘Hospitalization.’ “
“Look, the reason is a damned stupid doctor—”
“They don’t want the detail.” Ben reached over and moved the cursor back. “Don’t explain. The only answer any department wants in its blanks is the wording in its rule books. Don’t volunteer anything, don’t get helpful, and if you don’t know, N/A the bastard or shade it in your favor. Remember it’s clerks you’re talking to, not pilots. Say: ‘Hospitalization.’ “
That made clear sense to him. He only wished it hadn’t come from Ben.
“ ‘Reason for application’?” Ben read off the form, and pointed: “Say: ‘Change in medical status.’ “
He hadn’t thought of having to pass the physical again. The idea of doctors upset his stomach. But he typed what Ben said.
“Sign it,” Ben said. “Put your card in. That’s all there is to it.”
It left a lot of blank lines. “What about ‘Are there any other circumstances…?’ “
“This is a 839-RC,” Ben said, and tapped the top of the display, where it had that number. “An 839-RC applies, that’s all it does. It doesn’t explain. It’s not a part of the exam. Just send it.”
“Have you ever filled out one of these?”
“Doesn’t matter. I worked in Assay. Answer by catch-phrases. Don’t pose the clerks a problem or it’ll go right to the bottom to the Do Pile. Don’t be a problem. Send the bastard.”
“Do it,” Bird said.
He keyed Send. In a moment the screen blinked, notified him his account had been debited 250.00 for the application and told him he had to pass the basic operationals within sixty days, after which he had to log 200 hours in the sims or at the main boards of a working ship, by sworn affidavit of a class 1 pilot—
And take a written exam.
Someone had as well have hit him in the gut. He stood there staring at the message til Bird laid a hand on his shoulder and said they’d go on to the core now.
He was down to 95 dollars in his account, he hadn’t yet paid his bill at The Hole, and he’d never taken the writtens, he’d come up from the cargo pushers to the short-hop beam haulers to a miner-craft; but he’d never had to take the written exams.
Ben elbowed him in the back. “Come on, moonbeam. Don’t forget your card.”
He took it out of the slate, he walked out of the offices with them, in a complete haze. They got to the Transstation as the Trans pulled in and the doors opened.
“Come on,” Ben said, and Ben taking his arm was the last straw. He snarled, “Let go of me,” and shook free, wanting just to go on around the helldeck, wanting to go back to his room, lock the door, take a pill and not give a damn for the rest of the day; or maybe three or four days.
“Come on.” Bird got his arm and pulled at him. The Trans doors were about to close in their faces, the robot voice was advising them to get clear. “Oh, hell,” he said; and let them pull him aboard, because otherwise they were going to miss their ride and stand there til the next Trans came, asking him why he was a darned fool.
They fell into seats as the doors shut and the Trans started moving. “What in hell’s the matter with you?” Ben asked. “Are you being a spook again, Dekker?”
“No,” he said, and slouched down into the seat, staring at a point between them.
“You have some trouble about going onto the ship?” Bird asked him.
“No.” He set his jaw and got mad, lifelong habit when people who ran his life crowded him.
Ben said: “You’re being a spook, Dekker.”
Probably he was, he thought. And a kid might keep his mouth shut, but a grown man in debt up to his ears and about to end up on a heavyside job had finally to realize who he owed, and how much. He swallowed against the knot in his throat and mutter
ed, “I can’t pass tests.”
Bird tilted an ear and said, louder: “What?”
So he had to repeat it: “I can’t take tests.”
“What do you mean you can’t take tests?” Ben objected, loudly enough for people around them to hear. “You had a license, didn’t you?”
Screw you, he wanted to yell at Ben. Let me alone! But he said quietly: “I had a license.”
“Without an exam?”
“You can do that,” Bird said to Ben. “Construction work lets you do that. You can jump from class to class that way, just the operationals and a few questions. Same as I did. Not everybody comes through the Institute.”
“Well, then,” Ben said, “—you’ve been a class 1. You claim you were good. You know the answers. What’s a test?”
Ben made him mad. Ben could make him mad by breathing. He tried to be calm. “Because I can’t pass written questions!”
“God,” Ben said, sliding down in his seat. “One of those. Can you read?”
He didn’t want to know what “those” Ben was talking about. He didn’t want to talk about it right now. He wanted to break Ben’s neck. He stared off at the corner, past Ben’s shoulder. He’d go to the ship, all right, he’d restrain himself from acting like a crazy man; he’d pass the operationals and put in his hours in Bird’s ship and he’d come back and fail the damned test.
But meanwhile he’d have gotten fed. He’d have gotten in with Bird. Maybe he could get a limited license to push freight, work up through ops again, on the ship construction out there: he didn’t know, he didn’t even know if it was possible out in the Belt. He didn’t want to worry about it right now, just take it as far as he could, and not think about the mess he was in.
Bird and Ben talked in low voices and he was the topic: he could catch snatches of it over the noise. It was two more stops til the core lift. He wanted this ride over with—wanted to get up to the dock, the ship, anywhere, to get them on to some other subject.
“Look,” Ben said, leaning forward, “on this test business, it’s easy done. It’s a system, there’s a technique—”
“Easy for you!”
“You a halfway good pilot?”