Devil to the Belt (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Meg and Sal do just fine. We don’t know about this guy. And we’d have had two pair of hands today if Meg and Sal weren’t out spending money on this guy. He’s trouble, Bird, he’s been trouble from the first we laid eyes on him.”

  “We can always say no, if he turns out to be trouble. We got time yet at least to find it out. Let’s just put him to work, see how he gets along.”

  “You can’t say no, Bird, you got this severe problem with saying no. You crawl ass-backwards into what’s going to cost you money. If I didn’t—”

  “I can say no real good, Ben, if you recall. I said no to Meg and I said no to quite a few would-be’s before I took you on. Now, you and me being partners, I give you a lot I wouldn’t give just anybody—but being partners goes both ways. And right now I’m asking you to just give me a little more line.”

  “To do what? Wait until his money comes through? Then he’ll pay for his own bills? That’s real convenient, Bird, that’s real damned convenient. He doesn’t get to pay anything, he doesn’t do anything, and we’re buying his meals!”

  “Ben,—”

  “I don’t know why you believe him over me, that’s all!”

  “Ben,—I dunno whether the gals are right about this deal: they could be. Here I am trying to figure whether I trust Dekker, and you’re acting so damn crazy I end up defending him. I can’t hardly take your side, without having him off down the ‘deck in a fit now, can I?”

  “It’d be good riddance!”

  “Yeah, and what if the gals are right and this guy’s a good steady prospect?”

  “Steady, hell! Bird, who are we going to get to go out with Dekker? ‘What time is it? What time is it?’ Who’s going to put up with that?”

  “The guy really got to you out there, didn’t he?”

  He hated being patronized. “He didn’t get to me.”

  “Good,” Bird said. “Good.”

  “Dammit, don’t—”

  “—don’t what?”

  Cut me off like that, Ben thought blackly. But what he said was, “All right, all right. We’ll see how he does the next week or so.” He took a pretzel out of the bowl. “Guy didn’t take ‘em.” Wasteful habit. It was like somebody who had money, who was used to having it. And on the thought of the 47 k Dekker claimed to have: “If he’s got the funds he claims, he’s a damned walking bank. Where’d he get it, except this rich college girl? He had a lot to gain by her dying, you know.”

  “Yeah, looked like he was having a real good time out there, didn’t it?”

  He hated it when Bird got surly with him. It made him figure maybe he wasn’t being reasonable.

  Bird said: “The Nouri thing, you know, changed a lot. Cops with warrants to do anything they wanted, the news full of friends informing on friends… I don’t think there was half the under the table stuff going on that the company claimed—like we were some major leak in the company accounts. We weren’t. We were making it. You understand? People used to help each other, that’s what was going on, then. If you got in trouble and you needed a part, you didn’t go to the bank, you went to a friend. You could borrow under bank rates, if you kept your promises, if you ran a good operation and paid your debts—and damn sure people knew if you did. We were making it, and the company wasn’t. Now you tell me who’s the better businessmen.” Bird lifted a shoulder and took a sip of a dying beer. “Now we’ve got a generation coming off Earth with the Attitudes. We got a generation coming out of the Institute that never heard of Shakespeare—”

  “God, so give me a tape, Bird! I swear I’ll listen to the sumbitch.”

  Bird looked at him oddly, then reached across the table, took hold of his hand, man/woman-like, which was odder still, scarily odd, coming from Bird, from the guy he shared a ship with. Bird said, “Ben, you’re a good guy. You really are. Stay that way.”

  Ben rescued his hand, shaken. “What’s that mean?”

  Bird only said, in that same peculiar way, “Ben-me-lad, I’ll look you up that tape.”

  Dekker stared at the ceiling and thought about a sleeping pill, thought about the whole damned bottle—but hell if he’d give the company the satisfaction.

  Ben wasn’t going to let him alone. That was the way it was, that was the way it was going to be. Ben didn’t like him, and with Belters, that well could be the final word on it. Ben had taken his ship and now Ben had him down as trouble—that was the way it was going to be, too.

  He didn’t know why Ben set him off like that. He didn’t know why he’d said what he had, he didn’t know why he’d talked about Cory’s business, or whether he had a chance left with them, under any terms now he’d walked out—and he didn’t know what Bird might be thinking.

  If nothing else—that he and Ben together were a problem: he had no question which way Bird would go if Ben wanted him out.

  And Ben talked about getting his license back, with no dollar figure on it. Everything he had, he was sure—if they still took him after the blow-up out there. Ben thought he was crazy, Ben thought he’d crack if he got out there again, and, honestly speaking, he wasn’t sure of himself. The deep Belt was no place to discover you’d grown scared of the dark; and handling a ship making a tag was no time to have a memory lapse, to find the next move wasn’t there—or not to remember where you were in a sequence or what you’d already done. You didn’t get other chances. The Belt didn’t give them.

  He didn’t know himself what would happen when the hatch shut behind him, whether he’d panic, whether he’d be all right—whether he’d think he was all right and, the longer he was out in that ship, slowly unravel between past and present, the way he had in the shower—that shower, the same surroundings, nothing but his current partners’ presence to anchor him in time.

  Everybody seemed to be asking him to collect himself, get on with his life as if nothing had happened. It seemed to be the way everybody got by—they numbed themselves to feeling, made themselves deaf and blind to what the company got away with, just kept their mouths shut, chased what money they could get, and got used to seeing a lying sonuvabitch in the mirror every morning, because that was the only kind that had a chance in this place.

  He didn’t know whether he could do that. He didn’t even know whether he could keep out of that pill drawer and stay alive tonight, or whether the gain was even worth it anymore.

  Cory, he’d said that time they’d had the argument, maybe I don’t want to go. What in hell am I going to do on a starship? I failed math. I failed physics. I don’t have your brains, Cory, it was your idea all along. They won’t have work for me, I’ll be dead mass, the rest of my life, Cory. What kind of life is that?

  She’d set him down, told him plain as plain he hadn’t any chance in staying, she’d told him the company was crooked, the company was screwing the freerunners, screwing the pilots, screwing everybody that worked for them. Cory had handled big money, she knew how banks worked with the big operations. She’d told him what ASTEX was doing with their electronic datacards and their policies on finds. She’d tried to explain to him exactly what that direct-deduct stuff on LOSes did to accounts and interest, and how they were skimming on the freerunners in ways that had nothing to do with rocks.

  She’d said, Dek, don’t be a fool, you’ve no future here. They’re killing the freerunners, they’ll get the Shepherds in not too many years—there’s no hope here.

  She’d said, Don’t ever think I’ll leave you behind…

  Sal sipped her drink in the blue neon of Scorpio’s—the vid had been not-too-bad, chop and slash, the way Meg said, but not a long one, and as she had put it, it was way too early to chance walking in on the boys, besides which she had a word to drop on some friends next door. It was her favorite lounge—Shepherd territory, right next to the Association club—pricey, spif: you got the usual traffic of office types who went anywhere au courant on the edge of helldeck, but the Shepherd relationship with Scorpio’s was longstanding: Shepherds got the tables in the nook past the glass
pillars, and Shepherd glasses came filled to the brim, no shorting and no extra water, either.

  Not a place they could afford as a steady habit, damn sure, not unless they picked up some guys with Shepherd-level finance, and they weren’t shopping to do that this time.

  No danger of walk-up offers this side of those pillars either, thank God: the women to men ratio on helldeck meant Shepherds were used to being courted, not the other way around, and two women who weren’t signaling didn’t get the pests that made sane conversation impossible in a lot of the cheaper bars, God, you got ‘em in restaurants, in vid show doorways—this shift some R&R bunch was in from the shipyard, and the soldier-boys on leave down at the vid were the damn-all worst. They’d had a glut of male fools for the last few hours and Scorpio’s was a refuge worth the tab, in her own considered opinion.

  “I tell you,” she said over an absolutely genuine margarit, “my instinct would be to take this Dek a tour before we go out, you know, personal, just friendly. Rattle him and see what shakes. I think that’s a serious safety question. But we got Ben in the gears, damn ‘im.”

  “You want my opinion, Aboujib?”

  “Po-sess-ive?”

  “Vir-gin, Aboujib. You’re probably the first that ever asked him.”

  “Hell, he’s that way with Bird!”

  “Yeah.”

  She saw what Meg was saying, then. “That way about a lot of things, isn’t he?”

  Meg stirred her drink with the little plastic straw. “Man’s got a serious problem. Hasn’t cost us yet. But it’s to worry about. Ni-kulturny, what he pulled on Bird tonight.”

  “Ochin,” Sal agreed with an uncomfortable twitch of her shoulders, sipping her margarit, thinking how they weren’t doing as ordinaire with Ben, how if it was anybody else but the best numbers man on R2, she’d have handed him off to Meg—switch and dump, the old disconnection technique. But, dammit, Ben was special, the absolute best, and Meg with Ben didn’t do them any good. Meg didn’t know the right questions and she didn’t do the calc as well.

  Besides which it wasn’t Meg who made Ben crazy enough to show her things the Institute hadn’t, that he’d figured, that he wouldn’t hand out to anybody. She’d never met a case like Ben—you felt simpatico with him one minute and the next you wanted to break his neck. She’d never met anybody she trusted the way she did Ben—except Meg and Bird; Ben was the only one but Meg and Bird she’d feel safe going EV with—and, counting his crazy behavior, she couldn’t figure that out.

  At least he wasn’t like the greasy sumbitch who’d threatened not to let her back in the ship unless she did him special favors. Numbers men were always at a disadvantage, always got the problems until you were as good as Ben, that nobody wanted to lose. Meg had never been through that particular trouble—a numbers man didn’t dare antagonize his pilot, if he had any sense; and he didn’t send his pilot walkabout either—but a numbers man definitely could get out with some severely strange people in this business; and if you had some few partners you were sure of, you didn’t let them go—didn’t try to run their lives for them, not if you wanted all your fingers back, but hell if you wouldn’t go to any length to hold on to them, to keep things the way they were.

  Kill somebody? If it came to it, if you ever would—then you would. And trying to keep two tallish young guys from killing each other out there…

  “What are we going to do, Kady?”

  Meg pursed her lips. “Just what we’re doing. Let Bird handle it.”

  Someone brushed by their table. Touched her shoulder. “Aboujib?”

  God. A walk-up? Meg’s frown was instant. Sal looked around and up an expensive jacket at a Shepherd—one of Sunderland’s crew, friend of Mitch’s—she didn’t know the name. He said, very quickly, slipping something into her pocket, “That question you left?”

  “Yeah,” she said—different problem. Same problem. She held her breath. Felt something flat and round and plastic in her pocket, her heart going doubletime.

  “This is Kady?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You can say.”

  “Word is, problem’s gone major. You’re tagged with it. Go with it the way you said. Time’s welcome. But when you get your launch date… you let us know. Very seriously.”

  The guy walked off then.

  God.

  “What the hell?” Meg asked.

  “I dunno,” she said, thinking about a shadowy ‘driver sitting out there spitting chunks at the Well. And MamBitch, who prepared the charts and their courses, and shoved them up to v and braked them. “I dunno.” Her stomach felt, of a sudden, as if she’d swallowed something very cold.

  “Is that what I think I heard?” Meg asked. “They think we could be in some kind of danger?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, God, great!”

  “Let’s not panic.”

  “Of course let’s not panic. I don’t effin’ like the stakes all of a sudden.”

  She leaned forward on the table, pitched her voice as low as would still carry. “Meg. They’re not going to let us run into trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Meg whispered back. “Let’s not hear ‘run into.’ I don’t like the words I’m hearing. I don’t like this ‘Go with it.’ Maybe I want a little more information than we’re getting into.”

  “They’re saying we’re doing the right thing—”

  “Yeah, doing the right thing. We can be fuckin’ martyrs out there, is that what they want?”

  She reached across the table and grabbed Meg’s hand, scared Meg would bolt on her. “We got a real chance here—”

  “What real chance? Chance your high and mighty friends are going to hold us a nice funeral? Chance we can collect the karma and they stay clean?”

  “Meg, I can get you in.”

  “Screw that.” Meg jerked her hand back. “I don’t take their charity.”

  “Meg. For God’s sake don’t blow it.”

  Meg set her jaw. Took several slow breaths, the way she would when she was mad. “What’s their guarantee? Shit, we could be bugged here—”

  Sal took the flat plastic out of her coat pocket, which had a little green light showing. Palmed it, fast.

  “God,” Meg groaned.

  “They’re ahead of the game. They’re not going to let us walk into it.”

  “Oh, you’ve got a lot of faith in them. That’s contraband, dammit!”

  “Meg, they’re not fools.”

  “They must think we are.”

  “We made them an offer, Meg, they’re saying they’re agreeing. They’re warning us.”

  “Yeah,’tagged with him.’ I like that. I really like that.”

  “Meg.” She couldn’t lay it out better than Meg already knew it. Meg looked like murder.

  But Meg said finally: “So we’re tagged with him.—Are we talking about giving up that lease?”

  The answer was yes. Meg knew it. Meg knew it upside and down.

  “Shit,” Meg said.

  “We’ve got what they want. They want him. They paid their debts. That’s what they’re saying. They’re asking us take a risk, and we’re in, Meg, they’re making us an offer. If we screw ‘em on this—or if we back out now—”

  She was down to begging. There were pulls in too many directions if Meg skitted out on this one. God, everything she wanted, everything. “A Shepherd berth, Meg. One last run. We get Dek out in the big quiet for a few months and that’s it. Ben and Bird set up with those ships. Karma paid. We’re getting out of here, Meg. A chance at a real ship. Both of us.”

  That scored with Meg. Only thing that could. Meg’s face got madder. Finally Meg said: “Hell if. Wake up, Aboujib.”

  “Hell if not. This is big, Meg, dammit, this is it.”

  Meg shook her head. But it meant yes. All right. We’re going to be fools.

  “You better be right, Aboujib.—And that jeune fils damn well better get his bearings. Fast. If they’re going to make a case on him—he sincerely better not b
e crazy.”

  CHAPTER 14

  SPENDING his sleeptime with Bird wasn’t exactly what Ben had planned. Breakfast with Dekker wasn’t his idea of a good time either, but Bird insisted.

  So here they were, himself and Bird at the table and Dekker in line—Meg and Sal were sleep-ins: they’d gotten in late last shift, up to what Ben didn’t try to imagine. Dekker hadn’t seemed enthusiastic about their company from his side either: Dekker had answered his door, said Yeah, he’d be there, and arrived late—clipped up the sides and all.

  “All he needs is a couple of earrings,” Ben muttered.

  “Be nice,” Bird chided him, over the sausage and unidentifiable eggs.

  Ben looked at him, lifted a chilled shoulder. “Hey, did I do anything?” But he reminded himself he had better bite his tongue and keep criticisms of Bird’s precious pretty-boy to himself, the way he’d made up his mind yesterday that since the insanity had gotten to Meg and Sal he had as well go along with it.

  Bird shot him a look that said he didn’t trust him not to knife Dekker in his bed. That was the level things had gotten to. That was the primary reason he figured he had better go along with it.

  Until Dekker slipped up. Then he was even going to be charitable about “I told you so,” he sincerely was—so long as Bird saw it clear when it happened and came to his senses.

  So Dekker walked up with his cup of coffee and his eggs, not quite looking at either of them, kicked back a chair and sat down.

  “I have to apologize,” Dekker said first off, still without looking at them.

  Ben manfully kept his mouth shut.

  “I sort of wandered off yesterday,” Dekker said.

  Bird shrugged, but Dekker wasn’t going to see that gesture, looking at his plate like the zee-out he was. Bird said, “Pills will do that.”

  “I’m going off them,” Dekker said. His hand with the fork was shaking. Badly.—A real mess, Ben thought. Wonderful. We’re supposed to go out with this guy. This is going to be at the controls out there.