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“Ms. Dekker, what specifically are you alleging?”
God. It was. She looked—
“Dek?” Meg asked, and turned around to look where he was looking, at the vid, at a woman in a crowd of reporters. Blond hair was faded. Face was lined. She didn’t look good, she didn’t look at all good...
Something about MarsCorp, something about threats, an investigation into phone calls ... Some organization backing a suit—
Sal said: “What’s going on?” and Meg: “Shhh.”
He couldn’t track on it. Didn’t make sense. Something about losing her job, some civil rights organization launching a lawsuit in her name—
“It’s his mother,” Ben said; he said, “Shut up, dammit, I can’t hear—” But he could see the background, see the MarsCorp logo, he knew that one—MarsCorp offices on Sol Station, police, reporters, some guy who said he was a lawyer—something about her son—
Picture jumped, tore up. The local station cut in with the cha
“They cut it off!” He shoved the chair around to get up, get to a phone, saw the shadow of the tray and the sense of balance wasn’t there. He staggered, hit it, food went everywhere, cup bounced—”Shit!” He was flat off his balance, elbowed the guy trying to hold his feet, guy grabbed at him and he didn’t want a fight, he just wanted the phone. “Get out of my way!”
“You son of a bitch!” The guy had his arm. Ben and Meg and Sal grabbed for him, Ben saying something about Let him go, the man’s upset; but the guy wasn’t letting him go, the guy swung him and he grabbed for a handhold on the UDC uniform, about the time there were a whole lot of other chairs clearing, and Fleet was all around them. A high voice yelled, “You damn fools, stop it—”
Wasn’t any stopping it. The UDC guy hit him, and he hit the guy with everything he had, figuring it was the only blow he was going to get in—couldn’t hear anything, with guys coming over the tables, guys pushing and shoving and punches flying past his head—he didn’t want to be here, he wanted the damned phone, wanted the truth out of the station, that was all—
Lights were flashing on and off, shouting filled his ears, fist rattled his skull and gray and red shot across his vision as arms came around him and hauled him out of it.
He wasn’t breathing real well, couldn’t half see: he yelled after Meg and Sal in the melee, couldn’t tell who he was hitting when he tried to break free—
“Dekker!” That was the lieutenant. So he was in deeper shit; but more imminently of a sudden, he had his wind cut off as they bent him over a table. Something cold clicked shut around his wrists. That scared him: he’d felt that before... and it got through to his brain that the guys holding him were the cops, and Graff s voice made him understand that help was here, the fight was over, and the lieutenant wanted him to stand still. He tried to; which meant they got the other wrist, locked the cuff on, and at least pulled him back off the table so he could get a breath...
“The guy shoved him.” Meg’s voice rang out loud and dear. “Wasn’t Dek’s fault, he was just trying to get up — it was an emergency, f God’s sake. This ass wanted to argue right of way!”
Guys started shouting all around, one side calling the other the liars.
“Clear back!” Voice he knew but couldn’t place. His nose was ru
“What happened here?” the Voice asked — he blinked the haze mostly clear and saw a lot of MPs, a lot of angry guys standing along the wall with more MPs and soldiers. What Happened Here? drew shouting from all around, Meg and Sal profane and high-pitched in the middle of it, how the guy’d bumped him, how his mother was in some kind of trouble on the news . . .
Had to talk about his mother, God, he didn’t want an audience, didn’t want to talk about his mother in front of everybody. He tried to look elsewhere, and meanwhile the lieutenant was saying they’d better move this out of here, he’d take him in custody —
Please God. Anywhere, fast.
The other voice said: “I think we’d both better get this moved out of here,” and he made out the blurry face now for Captain Villy, with a knot of UDC MPs and a whole lot of trouble. They were holding Meg, and Sal, and Ben, among a dozen mixed others. “Move ‘em,” Villy said, and there were Fleet Security uniforms among the lot. He started to argue for Meg and Sal and Ben; but: “Dekker,” Graff said sharply, and said, “Do it.”
He did it. He kept his head down and walked where they wanted him to, he heard Graff at the top of his lungs chewing out the rest of the guys in the messhall and Villanueva doing the same, telling them they were all du
Yeah, he thought. Yeah. Tell ‘em that, lieutenant.
Himself, he didn’t want to think what was going on back at Sol Station, didn’t want to think what he’d just done back there in the messhall; he kept his mouth shut all the way to the MP post, and inside; him, and Ben and a whole crowd of their guys and the UDC arrestees; but when they tried to take Meg and Sal into the back rooms:
“I want Fleet Security—laissez, laissez, you sumbitch —ow!”
And Sal screamed how she was going to file complaints for rape and brutality....
The MPs got real anxious then. “Where’s Cathy?” one asked, and a guy got on the phone and started trying to scare up a female officer, while Meg argued with them about holding on to him, “Dammit, let him go, he’s just out of hospital, for God’s sake—man got up and bumped a tray, his mother was on the news—”
God. “Meg, shut up. It doesn’t matter!”
“That sumbitch shoved you!”
At which the sumbitch with the custard all over him started yelling at Meg, somebody shoved, Sal started yelling, and he couldn’t do anything, he was cuffed, same as Ben was, same as the UDC guy was, except they’d made the mistake of not doing that with Meg and Sal.
“Meg,” he yelled, “Afeg!”
They got rough with Meg, they got rough with Sal, he kicked a guy where he saw a prime exposed target and they shoved him up against the wall, grabbed him by the hair and by the collar and shoved him into a chair.
“She didn’t do anything,” he said, but nobody was listening to him. He said, “None of them did anything....”
They got Meg and Sal out of the room. Ben and the other guy, too, and left one guy to stand and watch him. He was dizzy, the adrenaline still had his head going around, and his nose dripped a widening circle on his shirt. He tried to sniff it back, breathing alternate with that disgusting sensation; and in his head kept replaying as much as he’d heard on the vid about what was going on with his mother....
A lawsuit, for God’s sake—but she wasn’t anybody to show up on vid, with lawyers from—what the hell organization was it?
The Civil Liberty Association? He didn’t know who they were, but she’d looked like hell, hair stringing around her ears, makeup a mess. He kept seeing her blinking at the strong lights and looking lost and angry. He knew that look. She’d worn it the last time she’d bailed him out of juvenile court.
.../ don’t need any more trouble, she’d written him. Stop sending me money, I don’t want any more ties to you. I don’t want any more letters....
He had never taken leave back to Sol One: there was a serious question, Legal Affairs had warned him from the begi