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The Belt was like that. It was always like that. The rules changed, the company tried to screw you, but Cory always did the figuring, Cory had had college, Cory knew the numbers, and he didn’t.
He wished they had never taken him off that ship. He wished they had never found him. Or maybe he was dreaming. He had no idea now what was real.
Dekker was off his head again, mumbling to himself, just under the noise of the pumps and the fans. Ben put a hand over that ear and tried to concentrate on the charts, feeding in info that was going to come in handy, because Big Mama didn’t like to tell freeru
So you paid close attention while you were ru
“We’re not real easy to stop,” he had said to Bird, among other things.
“We could brake,” Bird had said.
And he: “Yeah, yeah, and we’re carrying more mass than those cables are rated for.”
“Won’t happen,” Bird said.
Thinking like that infuriated him. The thought of the rigging failing, the thought of, at best, a walk outside for repairs, at worst, the whole sail failing beyond repair— Trinidadtaking, at this heading, the long, long fall into the Well—made him crazy. He was already holding on to his temper with his fingernails and Bird came out with It won’t happen.
He had fantasies of killing Dekker.
Maybe Bird.
But that was as crazy as Dekker was. . He kept feeding in the information. He kept building and refining his portable record. He ignored Dekker as much as possible. Thing about null-g, you couldn’t get your finger to stay in your ear. Not easily. He thought about his earplugs, over in the cabinet, but those worked too well for his peace of mind.
He cast a glance askance at Bird sleeping so quiet in his net, where they had strung it between the galley and the number one workstation, Dekker being just too close to the spin cylinders. Dekker might have been crazy long before this—and Bird just might be soft enough to let the guy loose on his watch. That was all it took, let Dekker near a wrench or, God forbid, get his hands on something sharp.
All that blood in the ship, all those little red splatters on the suits—did a cut on the forehead bleed like that?
He had to have it agreed with Bird. They had to keep that guy confined—somehow, someway. They couldn’t sleep in nets for a month, they needed the spi
And, damn, he intended to keep every move logged, everything they did, everything this Dekker did, every spate of What time is it?
Dekker would get the time, all right. Logged on and logged off.
He’d get the expenses written down, too, exactly the way he knew how to do it in a record Management would accept—because Benjamin J. Pollard wasn’t letting an old man’s softheadedness rob them of a break like this. Hell. No.
CHAPTER 4
REFINERY Two was only slightly prettier than a rock, but it did come welcome—that k-plus wide sooty ring that you only caught sight of on camera—and most to Bird’s knowledge were eager to see it, and did turn the optics on, long before it was regulation that you had to get visual contact. There she hung, magnified in the long lens, spi
A lot of the fitting inside Refinery Two was a lot like Trinidad, too, except, one supposed, if you got down to corporate residence levels, and there was about the same chance of freeru
Belters lived and Belters died and Refinery Two just rolled on, this big factory-hearted ring which was the only close to g-1place miners and tenders in R2 zone ever got back to. She swallowed down what the Shepherds gathered in, she hiccuped methane and she shat ingots and beams and sheet and foam steel. She used her own plastics and textiles or she spat them at Mars, in this year when Jupiter was as convenient to that world as Sol Station was. But nobody knew what went to Mimas. Some said what was down there repaired itself and had more heart than any company exec—but that was rumor and you didn’t want to know. Some said it wasn’t really the ops center it was reputed to be, in case of something major going wrong at the Well: some said it was the ultimate bunker for the execs—but you didn’t say warin polite society either and you didn’t think too much about the big frame that sat out there aswarm with tenders and construction craft, a metal-spined monster that took rough shape here at the source of steel and plastics before it moved on to final rigging at Sol. You called what was going on out in the Beyond a job action or you called it a tax strike or you called it damned stupid, but if you were smart you didn’t discuss it or that ship out there and you didn’t even think about it where Mama might hear.
A-men.
“Well,” he sighed, “she’s still here. Kept the porch light on and the door open.”
Ben didn’t say, What’s a porch light? You never could get a rise out of him like that.
“Used to sit outside at night,” Bird said, “look up at the stars—you know what a shooting star is, Ben, lad?”
“No.” Ben’s tone said he was not at the moment interested to know. He was working approach, as close as his second-class license would let him. “I’m about ready to hand off. You got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Dockmaster advises they copy on the request for meds. They’re on their way.”
“Good on that.” He saw Ben furiously ticking away at the comp. “—I got your handoff. Take it easy.”