Devil to the Belt (novels "Heavy Time" and "Hellburner")

So that was what was bothering Meg. Meg and Sal had to be looking for a lease for their next run, if that ship wasn’t going to come through—or if they were only going to sell it to the company. Meg and Sal hadn’t been betting elsewhere: that was what he suddenly figured, and they were down to decisions. “There isn’t going to be any court. I promise you. You know what Bird’s problem is? He’s scared he’s going to make money. Every time you get to talking about it—he just looks off the other way. If I hadn’t filed on that ship, you think he’d ever have done it? Hell, no. He’d have waited till he got his legs. Then he’d have said, well, it’s too late, there’d be other creditors—you tell me what goes through his head, Meg. I swear I don’t know.”

“Dirtsider.”

“So?” One of Meg’s stories had her born on Earth, too. But that didn’t seem to be the version Meg was using today. “Are they all like that? Is it something in the water?”

“Bird grew up poor.”

“So I grew up an orphan. So what’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s habit with him: when he gets enough—that’s all. That’s all he wants from life. He doesn’t want to be rich. He just wants enough.”

It didn’t make any sense—not at least the why of it. He held the thought a moment, turned it over, looked at its underside, and decided he wasn’t going to understand. “Well, it’s not enough for me. Damn well not enough for me.”

Meg sighed. “Haven’t ever seen enough to know what enough is.”

“Damned short rations,” he said. “That’s what Bird’s ‘enough’ comes to. And it doesn’t keep you fed when your legs and your back give out. Doesn’t get you insurance.”

“Insurance,” Meg chuckled. “God, jeune fils…”

“That’s a necessity, dammit! Ask me where I’d have been if my mama hadn’t had it.”

“Yeah, well.—She was a company pilot, wasn’t she?”

“Tech.” He rolled over. He didn’t like to talk about things that were done with or people that didn’t come back. They didn’t matter. But the example did. “You don’t get any damn where halfass protected. Insurance—my company schooling—Bird’s knowing who to lease to—”

“Like us?”

Oh, then, herewas the approach. Meg was looking at him, chin on hands, putting it to him dead-on, with no Bird for a back-up. He didn’t want to alienate Meg and Sal—especially Sal. They weren’t the best miners in the Belt, but they had other benefits—not all of them in bed. And he kept asking himself if he was using good sense, but the answer kept coming up that there might be miners better at their job, but if you wanted a couple of stick-to-a-deal, ca

Some of Bird’s friends, now—had his affliction. And they were going broke or had gone.

Meg said, “You suppose you could put in a word with Bird, explain how we’d be reasonable. We’d work shares.”

Not every day somebody as tough and ca

He said, he hoped after not too long a pause: “I could talk to him. What are friends for?”

“Wake up.” Someone shook at Dekker’s shoulder. “Come on, Dekker. Come on. Come out of it.”

He didn’t want to come back this time. It was more white coats. He could see that with his eyes half shut. But there was dark green, too, and the gleam of silver. That didn’t match.

A light slap at his face. “Come on, Dekker. That’s fine.—Do you want an orange juice?”

It never was. It was a cousin of that damned Citrisal. But his mouth was dry and he sipped it when they put a straw between his lips and elevated his bed. Gfelt heavier here. He thought: This isn’t the same place. We’re deeper in.

“How are you feeling?” his doctor asked him.

But he was looking suddenly at the company police, realizing what that uniform was.

“Paul Dekker?” the head cop said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”

He heard that beep again. That was him. That was the cops listening to his heartbeat, and it was scared and rapid.

“Have you found her?” he asked. Cops always came with bad news. He didn’t want to hear what they might have to say to him.

But one of them sat down on the side of his bed. That man said, “What did you do with the body?”

“Whose body?” For a moment he honestly didn’t know what they were talking about, and the monitor stayed relatively quiet. Then his pulse picked up. “Whose body?”

“Your partner’s.”

The beeps became hysterical. He hauled the rate back down again, saying calmly, “I couldn’t find her. They hit us. I couldn’t find her afterward.”

“Mr. Dekker, don’t play us for fools. We’ll level with you. Don’t you think it’s time you leveled with us?”

“This ship ran us down—”

“—and it wasn’t on the charts. Come now, Mr. Dekker, you know and I know you had a motive. College girl comes out here with her whole life savings, and here you are—not a steady job in your life, no schooling, not a cent to your name. How’d you get here? How’d you get passage?”

“Cory and I were friends. From way back.”

“So she puts up the equity, she just insists the ship go down as joint ownership, with a death provision in there—”

“No.”

“Or was that your idea?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“You signed it. We’ve got your signature right at the bottom.”

“I didn’t read it. Cory said sign, I just signed it!”

The officer had reached for a slate the other cop had.

He pressed buttons. “We have here a deposition from your port of origin, from one Natalie R. Frye, to the effect that you and Ms. Salazar quarreled over finances the week you left…”

“Hell if we did!”

“Quote: ‘Cory was mad about a bill for a jacket or something—’”

“I bought a jacket. She thought I paid too much. Cory’d wear a thing til it fell apart…”

“So you quarreled over money.”

“Over a jacket. A damn 38-dollar jacket. We fought, all right, we fought, doesn’t everybody?”

“Ms. Frye continues: ‘Cory had been sleeping around. Dek didn’t like that.’”

“Screw Natalie! She wasn’t a friend of ours. Cory wouldn’t spit on her.”

“ DidMs. Salazar’sleep around’?”

“She slept where she wanted to. So did I, what the hell?”

“Well, that wouldn’t matter to anyone, Mr. Dekker, except that she never got back.”

The beeps accelerated, not from shock: a fool could see where this was going. He was shaking, he was so mad, and if he went for the bastard’s throat they’d trank him and write thatdown, too.

“Cory’s lost out there,” he said doggedly. “A ship ran us down—”

“Mr. Dekker, there was no other ship in that sector.”

“That’s a lie. That’s a damn lie.” He reached frantically for things they couldn’t deny. “Bird knew it was there. Ben knew. We talked about it. It was a ‘driver, was what it was—it wasn’t on my charts—”

The officer said, dead calm: “Bird and Ben?”

“The guys that picked me up!” He was scared they were going to tell him thatnever happened either. But someonehad brought him in. “I called that sonuvabitch, I told it we were there, I told it my partner was outside—”

“Are you sure the rock didn’t block the signal?”

“No!—Yes, I’m sure! I had it on radar. Why in hell didn’t it see me?”

“We don’t know, Mr. Dekker. We’re just asking. So you did see it coming. And did you advise your partner?”

They made him crazy, changing the rules on him. One moment they accused him. Then they believed him. Sometimes he seemed to lose things.

“Didn’t you say you’d hit a rock? Wasn’t that your story at one point?”