Rimrunners

"What do I do about shift-change?" she asked Bernstein via com.

Bernstein said, "Call it luck. I'll skin you next shift. Tell Jim Merrill get his butt up here on call."

"I got to tell him?" she protested. Merrill probably reckoned that her presence here in rec having a sandwich meant she'd been half-shift on a temp, and that Jim Merrill was therefore going to skip a little duty-time.

"He can bring your stuff up," Bernstein said.

So she had to go to Merrill, over on the bench contentedly having his sandwich, and say, "We're complete on the galley plumbing job. I got a call from Bernstein says tell you report on the change and bring the gear up."

"Shit!" Merrill said. She unbelted the tools, took off the com and turned it and the duty over to him.

But before she could get back to the counter she had Liu-the-bitch on her, telling her she was low man in Engineering and she was pleading off on Bernstein, getting special privileges like a half-shift and that sandwich and by implications too vague to prosecute, fraternizing with some u

You didn't argue with Liu, the word was. Liu was senior on mainday Engineering, a small, almond-eyed, black-haired woman who carried a knife, at least on dockside. Bet looked down at the shoulder-high attack, Bet listened patiently to the high-decibel shouting, then said: "I got no quarrel with your worrying about it, mate. But I spent down to jump under that damn galley cabinet, and she's all fixed and you got hot water and the sandwich was free, so I'm not going to turn it down. Matter of fact, Iwas up there handing out packs and hauling out sandwiches with Cook, it being my shift. Don't tell me about lay-abouts."

Liu fumed. Merrill sulked. Other crew stared, a whole shift of people she didn't know—a scary lot of people she didn't know, who had themselves a shouting controversy to entertain them instead of the chance of a take-hold and another jump.

She got speculative stares, caught a little edge of a whisper to the effect that: "That's Yeager. Liu better watch herself. Want to lay a bet?"

The other man made the obvious pun.

She'd heard that one since she was eight. Fu

" Shift-change! No loitering and no talking!"Fitch's voice went straight to the bone.

" Inverse order of seniority, sign-off protocols are word of mouth! Go, go, go!

Everybody made it, mainday to stations, alterday back to quarters, at least to the corridor where mainday had rigged the hammocks. She saw Musa and NG come in and she treated herself to a beer, since Cook said her credit had come through, and she bought them both one, no question about her being polite to her whole shift, and getting briefed while she was doing it. "Go on, sit down," she said, to both of them, while they were drawing the beers, "I can buy my mates a drink, f'God's sake, NG, you don't have to be such an effin' stand-off—" I

And: "Yeah, NG, sit down," Musa said. "Woman wants to buy you a beer, you better be polite about it."

NG sat down, worried-looking, on Musa's other side, in the crowded goings-on in rec, people so busy getting fed and settled, Bet thought, nobody was going to notice.

"Everything come through all right?" she asked.

"Damn press was ru

Liu was Musa's opposite number. Bet gri

And NG, quietly, never looking exactly at her while he ate: "Bernie couldn't raise you." With the implication of no little worry around Engineering.

"Damn compressor going in my ear," Bet said. "I never heard the bell. Bernstein wants to see me, I got an idea I'm going to catch hell."

"Well, lookit what we got," a tech named Linden jeered at NG's back, sitting down with a couple of his buddies, and NG heard it, Bet figured, since she did; but Musa leaned over to look past NG, and said, loudly:

"Is that Linden Hughes down there? H'lo, Lindy! How's it going?"

"How you doin', Musa?" the answer came back, man leaning to see who that was, a whole lot more polite.

"Not so bad." Musa leaned back again, and Linden Hughes leaned back, avoiding conversation. NG, between, swallowed a last gulp of his sandwich and washed it down, fast, finishing the beer.

"Going to my hammock," NG said. "Thanks."

"Damn mouth," Bet said. "NG—"

"Let it go," Musa said, putting a hand on her knee; and NG just went to wash up and turn in.

"It's not damn right," she said.

"Shut up," Musa said.

So she shut up, Musa's advice generally seeming worth listening to.

CHAPTER 13

QUIET NIGHT, all told. The morning bell went off and the com flooded a

This is the captain speaking. We've passed beyond our alert parameters without incident. I'm downgrading the alert to stand-by. We're remaining on passive-scan only.

We've communicated our sighting to an allied ship which made jump during the last watchc

No different than in the Fleet, Bet thought. You got your information after the fact and if you got killed it was generally a surprise to you.

So the hammocks stayed rigged, but you could get back in quarters and get a shower, which was high priority after a jump right along with other things, your skin tending to shed a bit and whatever you were wearing tending to make its seams too well acquainted with your joints, not mentioning it smelled like old laundry. So she took a fast one, changed to sweater and pants and kited on out to breakfast—no sign of Musa and NG, which meant she was ru

Chrono by the counter said a little late. So she put a little push on it, gulped her toast and tea and a cup of orange, and headed on to Engineering.

Musa was there. Musa gave her a jaw-down nod and a cut of the eyes toward Bernstein, and she wiped her hands off on her pants and went over to Bernstein's station.

"Sir."

Bernstein gave her a slow look. "You want to tell me about the com?"

"No, sir."

"You tellme about the com, Yeager."

"Yes, sir. Fell out of my ear, sir."

"Didn't hear the bell."

"No, sir. Thank you for the page, sir."

Bernstein looked at her a long few seconds.

"You stayed in there getting that fuckin' water on. You damn fool, if that line wasn't secure we could've emptied the damn tank all over rec-deck."

"Yessir. But I du

"That's the trouble with you damn big-ship trainees. You du

"Yessir."

"What'd you doas a hire-on?"

"Sit watch, sir. Small repair. Never claimed I was more'n that when I hired on. Said I wouldn't muck with a system I didn't know, sir. But I didn't figure a galley heater was critical to the ship."

Bernstein stared at her like she was something he was thinking about stepping on.

"What condition was that line in when you got my page?"

"Just wasn't hooked on the clip-end, sir. I heard you, I hooked it up, I cut the water on, I moved, sir."