Rimrunners, page 8
part #5 of Company Wars Series
"Been a problem, have you?"
"Had a problem, sir. Don't want one here."
The man stared at her a long moment like she was a contamination. Finally he put his hands on his hips. "What's your experience?"
"Freighters, sir. Machine-shop. Injection molding. Small-scale hydraulics, electronics. General maintenance. Twenty years."
"We aren't real specialized."
"Yes, sir."
"Means you do any damn thing that needs doing, at any hour around the clock. Means you do it right, Yeager, or you tell somebody you can't, you don't fuck it up."
"Yessir. No problem with that, sir."
"Name's Bernstein. Chief of Engineering, Alterday. Hear it?"
"Yessir."
"What in hell are you doing here on your butt?"
"No assignment yet, sir."
"Got a mainday crew of thirteen, alterday's down to two. We're a re-fit. That's special problems. And they give me a damn small-hydraulics mechanic." Bernstein drew breath. "With no papers."
Long silence, then.
"You screw anything up," Bernstein said, "I'll break your fingers one at a time."
"Yessir."
Another long silence. "You got a trial run on my shift, Yeager. We got a few areas you keep your nose out of, we got a few cranky systems I'm real particular about. You got a piece of property in stowage one, you get that, you get yourself checked into quarters. Somebody show you around?"
"Nossir."
"Why's it my job?"
"I dunno, sir. Sorry, sir."
"You got any bunk that isn't claimed, ring's got ten sections, front number's your section-number, ten-four's a stowage, eight-four's crew quarters, section five's bridge, one-one's engineering; you see a white line on the deck you don't cross it, you don't cross it, without a direct order: sections four, five, and six are all white-lined, you got to walk the long way around. You steal, Yeager?"
"No, sir!"
"You see this deck?"
"Yessir."
"You got a job. You get your supplies from ten-two, you get on it, get it done. Crew-wise, on your shift, I'll tell you right now, Musa's all right, you're all right with him. NG, you don't mess with. That do, Yeager?"
"Yessir."
"Anything I need to know?"
"Nossir."
Bernstein stared at her long and steady. "Regulations are posted in quarters, you take a look. It's coming up 0600 right now, alterday. You get that deck clean before you go to sleep, I don't care whose shift it is. Got any problems with me, Yeager?"
"Nossir," she said.
"Good," Bernstein said. And walked off.
Put an armor-rig in working-order, take it apart and put it together again, right down to the circuitry, same with weapons, sir, probably any fire-system a spook might carry, damn right, sir.
Twenty years' seniority on Africa.
Sir.
First thing, you consulted the reg-u-la-tions.
And the reg-u-la-tions Bernstein named were official print with the Alliance seal behind them, shiny-new, behind plastic, mounted right on the wall, all about the captain's authority and how you had a right to station-law if you wanted to appeal a case off your ship; and another sheet that was Alliance military law, that said they could shoot you out of hand for mutiny or sabotage or obstructing the execution of proper orders while the ship was in a power-up condition or in an emergency; but there was another list taped on at the bottom, and those were the ones you wanted to know, the ones peculiar to this ship—like you could get on report for going onto the bridge without a permission from an exec, and if you were working with tools you damn well better have an adequate belt clip or a wall clip on every one of them and never have but one outsized number clipped to you.
That meant a ship that tended to move in a hurry. No surprise there.
So, first thing, you got around to the stowage directory and you got yourself a belt and some clips and then you got into the supply locker Bernstein had said and got to it, wiping down the burn-deck, mindless scut. You could drift and do it, you could shut your eyes and halfway sleep sometimes and just feel the tread with your fingers to know you were on, and check sometimes with your eyes to make sure the strokes didn't miss any dust.
Effin' scrub-duty.
But you got to hear a bit, like the couple saying the ship was on a sit-and-watch, like the three bitching about somebody named Orsini, somebody saying Fitch had put somebody named Simmons on report for a slow answer to a page, and Simmons was asking for a transfer to alterday, but Orsini wouldn't take him: you got a feel for the way things drifted on board.
But then the back started to ache and the arms ached, and the kneecaps got to feeling every shift of weight.
And you knew every damn doorway and every crack and crevice in the burn-deck, and you damned every foot that stepped off the mat. You got to know those prints that did it often and what size they were, and thought if you ever found that son of a bitch he was meat.
Up to the galley by noon, for tea and a Keis-roll, the hard way, quiet there, because mainday was sleeping.
All the way around through the galley and past sickbay—right next to each other; and right around to the white-line and the bridge by a/d 1800. The bridge was a swing-segment like the galley, thank God, no burn-deck to scrub at all, its cylinder-segments oriented itself whichever way the G might want to be—
And hell if she wanted to ask Fitch or the captain permission to trek through the bridge to the burn-deck on around the ring, so she gathered up her supplies and stowed them, and went on back down-ring to the galley for a sit-down supper and a plate of real food and cup of hot tea with mainday's breakfast—and she didn't want trouble with Fitch, she didn't want trouble with anybody, so she avoided looking at people, especially looking them in the eye or starting up a conversation, just stared blankly at the main-deck and all those possible footprints people were making walking back and forth—footprints had occupied her mind all day, still occupied it, in her condition—and she mentally numbed out, tasting the food and the tea down to its molecules, it was so good, and finding her hands so sore holding a fork hurt.
People stared at her. She knew they did. A few talked about her, out of earshot, masked by Loki's constant white noise. She could get scared if she let herself. So she just finished her dinner and got up without getting involved with anybody, chucked the recyclables, and went down and got the supplies out again.
That was halfway around Loki's ring.
Up the other way around the ring, this time, past downside ops and the purser's office, and Engineering, where mainday crew was getting to work and alterday had gone to rec.
Arms and knees were beyond simple hurting now. She sat to work, she inched her way along, changing hands every time she changed position to keep the shoulders and hands from cramping up, and by now it hurt so much all over she just shut the pain out as irrelevant to any one place.
Past Engineering and up toward the shop and the machine storage.
Past 2000 hours a/d, and people walked by, crew evidently on errands, occasional officers. People minded their own business, mostly. Occasional laughter grated on her nerves, maybe not even her they were talking about, but she figured it likely was: she was the new item, she was getting it from Bernstein, she'd already had it from Fitch, and probably it satisfied their souls to see somebody else sweating on a duty maybe five or six of them in some other department would be doing, otherwise. At least they were quiet enough. And no one interfered with her and nobody messed with her clean deck.
She gave the occasional kibitz-squad the eye, just enough to know who the sum-bitches were. Just enough to let them know it was war if they messed with her or put a foot near that mat. No one tried her. And she went on. Could stop for a cup of tea, she thought. Could go and put the stuff away and get a tea or a soft drink—hell, it was past mess, supposed to be her rec-time, they might let her have a soft drink on credit, and tea might be free. Bernstein hadn't said no break, the regs in galley had said there was beer for a cred, honest-to-God cold beer you could buy during your own supper hours, if you weren't on call, regs let you have that. There was that vodka in her duffle if it hadn't been stolen: regs didn't object to that either, on your own time.
But she had mof territory yet to go, she didn't want to go and plead cases with anybody tonight and her knees and her under-padded right hip were halfway numb now. She had no desire to let the bruises rest and stiffen up and start hurting all over again.
Just a quarter of the ring or less to go, not so trafficked as the crew-quarters side. Maybe she could get finished before midnight. Maybe get that cup of tea. Even a sandwich. Knees wouldn't bruise so easy, arms wouldn't shake if she got a few regular meals. Please God.
Feet strolled up. Stopped. Stood there.
No stripe. Nothing but a hash-mark and an Engineering insignia. Just the two of them in this line-of-sight in the dim systems and shop area, and her trouble-sense started going off, little alarm, a larger and larger one, as the man kept standing there.
She edged forward on her track. Another arm's-reach.
"One of Bernie's ship-tours, huh?"
"Yeah," she said. "Go to hell."
He didn't go anywhere. She kept wiping, edged forward another hitch.
"Real clean job," he said.
She said nothing, just kept her head down. It could start like this, you could get killed. And if you killed the bastard you could end up taking a long cold walk. The bastard, of course, knew it.
"Name's Ramey," the bastard said.
"Yeah. Fine."
"Friendly."
"Yeah. Real. You want to stand out of my light?"
The bastard moved around behind her. "View ain't bad."
"Thanks."
"A little skinny."
"Go to hell."
"Now, I was going to offer you a beer."
She looked around at the pair of feet, looked up at a not-at-all bad face. Younger than herself, ragged black hair, not-at-all bad rest of him. What in hell! she thought, squinted to unfuzz her tired eyes, and recollected Bernstein talking about an all-right type on her shift, name of Musa.
So she got painfully to her feet, trailing clip-lines, wiped her hands on her legs and gave him a good look-over. "Beer, I could stand, but the way I'm going, doesn't look likely tonight."
"I can wait." He leaned his hand up against the wall, up real close. She had this defense-twitch, a gut-deep he-could-use-a-knee twitch, but it wasn't the way he was going, shift of his body that put her up against the wall—Oh, good God, she thought with a little wilting sigh and an urge to put her knee up, hard. She was disgusted, annoyed he was going to be a son of a bitch, and stood there a breath or two thinking really hard about doing something about it, except that being In with somebody was safer than trying to lone-it, except, point two, that he was too good-looking for a move like this and he was probably trying to have a laugh at her expense. So she leaned up against him, soapy hands and sweat and all and still felt little jolts where his hands touched, damn difficult to ignore.
He got warm real fast. Breathing a little heavy. So it wasn't all a set-up: he was really interested. And he asked: "You want that beer tonight?"
"Anything come with it?"
"Yeah," he said. "No one's in the shop stowage right now."
Mmmn. There was the set-up. Nice little trap to catch her breaking a dozen regs and start off real fine, that was. She made a little move of her hip. "Nice, but I don't see my beer. You let me get finished. Hear?"
She figured that would cool it down, whoever put him up to this was going to be disappointed. But the man was downright having trouble with that no-go, hell if he wasn't. It was enough to make a woman feel a little better-looking than she knew she was—or feel like she was hallucinating.
Man's weird, she thought when he backed off and muttered something about getting her the beer, about meeting her in crew-quarters. Man's real weird.
Another Ritterman, that's what I got. Don't tell me that face can't get a come-ahead any time he wants it.
She wiped her neck when he walked off. Hell if she wasn't a lot warmer herself than she had been.
Hell if she wasn't thinking about him and that beer all the way down the corridor, right through the mofs' section, all the pretty little officer-quarters, so much that she ran right up on Fitch himself—bright, shiny pair of boots standing there for-a full second before she looked up.
"Yessir," she said, and started to get up, but he waved a permission and stood there scowling.
And Fitch walked off without finding anything to bitch about. Which from Fitch, she reckoned, was some kind of compliment.
Damn prig, she thought. Mainday, middle of his morning. Her watch-officer was that Orsini the skuts had been cussing, she'd heard enough so far to figure that. She hadn't seen Orsini. Didn't expect to see him out supervising a deck-scrub. Didn't expect him to come 'round and introduce himself. Fitch seemed to be definitely, worrisomely curious about her.
She leaned into it and scrubbed that burn-deck all the way to the bridge again, swearing that it was a basic law, officers had dustier feet than the skuts who knew they were going to have to scrub it up.
But she lived to get to the white line on the other side of the bridge, after which she got up on her feet again, straightened her aching back and walked down to stowage, put up the scrub-gear exactly the way she'd found it, coiled and put up all the clip-lines, exactly so, and got her duffle out of the stowage locker where Bernstein had told her it was. Then she hiked up-ring, with a major thirst for that promised beer by now, and telling herself all the while that pretty-boy wasn't going to be waiting, or if he was, it was going to be some damn bit of trouble, maybe a damn lot of trouble: on Africa you got hazed and it got rough, it got to be real rough, and if that was the way it was going to be, then smart and cool was the only way you lived through it.
She walked into the dark crew-quarters, where a vid was playing. Lot of noise that direction. She looked around in the dim light trying to figure what bunk might really be vacant on this shift, and where people might just be sharing-up. Pick the wrong one and you could get hell; and she wasn't entirely convinced she was going to get through the first night without getting jumped by somebody in one sense or the other. Some sum-bitch in the lot had to have a sense of humor, and maybe half a dozen of them. Maybe the whole damn lot. Her stomach was upset. Memories again. Twenty years on Africa and she'd gotten seniority enough so she could hand it out instead of taking it. It wasn't the case here.
Somebody came down the aisle to intercept her, a single dark-haired somebody who said: "Want that beer?"
"Yeah," she said, once her heart had settled. She still didn't trust it entirely, but it was a scary kind of night and she was fuzzy-tired enough to hope she was being alarmist, that it was a civ ship even if it was a spook, and the whole thing was just a good-looking younger man who for some fool reason thought skinny, sweaty and almost forty was attractive. Or who was just appointed to find out what she was and report on her to the rest of the crew.
So she snubbed the safety-tie of her duffle to a temp-ring by the door, and they went out to crew rec, up by the galley: he logged himself a double tag on the keyboard there on the counter, drew a couple beers from the tap, and handed her one.
"How d'you earn extras?" she asked.
"You get fifteen cred a week, shipboard," he said. "Use 'em on beer, use 'em on food, save 'em for liberty, they don't care."
"Thanks, then," she said, figuring to buy him one on her tab, if she liked him, which looked likely, except she still couldn't figure him. He put his hand on her back. She twitched it off, because it was bad business if any mofs walked through here and caught you hands-on. She stood there like a kid with her first boy-interest and drank her beer while he drank his.
"You're Engineering," she commented, for an opener.
He nodded.
"Guess you know that's my assignment."
Another nod.
Spooky man, she thought. Talks about as much as everybody else on this ship.
So she tried again, on something you couldn't answer without talking.,"How long've you been on this ship?"
"Three years."
"You mind to say where from?"
"Hire-on. General. What about you?"
Not a question she wanted, that one. She shrugged. "Same thing. Last hire was Ernestine."
"Kato," he said.
She nodded. But she didn't want to talk down that line either.
"Bernstein easy to-work for?" she asked.
"He's all right."
"Fitch?"
"Bastard."
"Guessed that," she said, and saw him toss off the rest of his beer.
"Come on," he said.
Nervous man. Real nervous. Steps were echoing in the corridor, somebody walking in from down-ring. "I dunno," she said, annoyed, a little anxious herself with that sudden hurry-up he wanted. "Minute. I'm still drinking."
"Come on."
"Hell. You can wait a damn minute!"
The steps got closer. It was Muller—who gave them both a frown, a halfway pleasant nod to her, and a second frown at her company while he logged himself a beer.
"'Evening, NG," Muller said.
She took another look at the man she was with.
"'Evening," her company said, not friendly, and laid a hand on her shoulder to steer her out.
NG. The one Bernstein had included on his watch-it list.
"I'm not through yet," she said, with a swallow left in the bottom of her cup, and NG dropped his hand.
"You been introduced?" Muller asked, and NG said: "Shut up, Gypsy."
"No, I haven't," Bet said. "Man introduced himself."
Muller gave her a thinking-look. NG stood there outside her vision, a shadow whose reactions she couldn't see.
"You watch this one," Muller said, dead grim, and turned to the counter again, got a cup and drew his beer.
Trouble. She felt her heart thumping, instinctively backed up a step between her company and this Gypsy, touched NG's arm to distract him and saw very clearly nobody was joking.
"Come on," she said, and he came away with her, put an arm around her and she let him for a few steps, no matter it could get them on report.
