Rimrunners

Where'd you get this? she had asked, and Musa, pleased, had said, Taste of home.

So Musa was from Earth. The Fleet had fought for Earth. Africahad gone back to fight there. It was kind of an obscure co

Lot of places that led.

The vid reached a series of explosions, the drunks yelled. Musa voice-overed the next lines from memory, fu

The vid went quiet of a sudden. The drunks groaned into a disappointed silence.

" This is the captain speaking," the com thundered out. " This ship will make jump at 0600 mainday."

Then the vid started up again, but the talk was quiet then.

"Damn," Bet said, "gone again. Where now?"

"Easy to answer," Musa said.

"Where, then?"

"Wherever they got us put."

"Damn," she said, and hit him a gentle punch.

"Actually," Musa said, settling down to be comfortable a while, "not too hard to guess. The Fleet's got its ass kicked twice now, back at Earth, they popped out again, nobody knows where—they say maybe old Beta Station—"

That could put a chill into you. There had always been rumors in the Fleet that Mazian had a hole-card, and the name of abandoned Beta, old Alpha Cent, had come up—the bad-luck station, second star humankind ever parked a pusher-can at and set up to live there—and, the story ran, it had just gone transmission-silent one day, the constant data-flow to other stations had just—stopped, no reason, no explanation, and not a scrap of a clue left behind when a ship finally got there—sublight—to investigate. Beta Station had systematically shut down, and the pusher-module that could have gotten the people off was gone—

But no wisp of wreckage or electronic ghost of a transmission ever told what had happened.

"They'd be fools," she said, and thought to herself it was the kind of rumor Mazian himself might have started, just to confuse things.

"They jumped to some point in that direction," Musa said. "That's what I hear."

"So maybe they know some point of mass nobody else does."

"Could be. Or maybe they just jumped out to old Beta and laid real quiet. Beta would be good for them, all that old mining and biomass gear, antiquated as hell, but if the dust ain't got it it's still there. Could be what he's done."

"Is that where we're going?"

"Not us. No."

"Then what are we doing?"

"Keeping the lanes open. Not letting that sum-bitch cut us off from Earth. Not letting him peel off the Hinder Stars. He could start the whole war up again, get Earth cut off, force Pell into Union or force Pell to deal with him, one way or the other. Sure as hell Pell can't hold out independent if Earth goes into his pocket. Sure as hell the Hinder Stars are nothing but a damn human warehouse. You found that out."

"Found that out," she said.

The vid never did get as noisy again, not what was going on-screen, not the crowd that was watching. A lot of people left to go out to rec and get a beer and talk, and a lot of people just sat around on bunks to drink and talk.

"I got to check on NG," she said, and leaned down off the edge of the bunk to put her head below the level of the privacy screen.

"He all right?" Musa asked.

"Looks to be asleep. 'Scuse."

She crawled out and ducked under, and sat down again on NG's bunk, beside him.

Half-asleep, all right. Pills had a kick to them. He gave her a bleary look.

"You hear that?" she said. "We got jump in the morning."

"Got to wake up," he muttered.

"No, you sleep. Musa and I'll pour you into your hammock in the morning. No problem. You can trust us." She squeezed his hand. "G'night. All right?"

No answer. The fingers didn't twitch. But he was all right. She and Musa had custody of the pills—in case. And if Lokiwas going somewhere tomorrow, wherever that was, then at least they were starting out in good order this time, no surprises.

She ducked back under, crawled back into Musa's bed, cold and shivering.

Man who didn't mind that was a gentleman, she thought.

CHAPTER 15

OUT OF THE bunks and off to duty stations, theirs being the lucky watch that drew duty through this particular jump: scant time for a dance through the shower, grab the trank-pack and the c-pack off the galley counter along with a Keis-and-biscuit and a hot drink while Services was stringing the hammocks for mainday. NG was barely functioning, limping around and definitely reluctant to leave the hot shower, but Musa was next in line, and she steered NG out to the breakfast line, bleary-eyed and sullen as he was.

"I'm saying get off me," he muttered while they were going through the door. "Watch doesn't mean hanging onto me."

"Hey, you're not put out about me and Musa, are you?"

"Hell!"

"So go on." She nudged him with her elbow. "Get your breakfast."

He looked bloody awful, one eye swollen, mouth swollen, and his expression this morning made no improvement. He muttered something for an answer, limped toward the line ahead of her.

Hughes and his friends. She saw it coming before NG did, a half a second before Hughes shouldered him and knocked him off his balance.

"Watch where you're going!" Hughes said.

" Youwatch where you're fucking going!" Bet hissed at Hughes, grabbing a fistful of sleeve. "You want an argument, mister, you got one."

Hughes grabbed for her wrist and ended up with nothing—not going to cut loose in a full-scale brawl, no, not here, not likely; but the whole rec-hall got quiet.

"You a friend of his?" Hughes said, and there was just ship-sound in the hall.

"May be," she said. "I du

Nothing personal."

" Screwingwith him on the chief's orders too."

" That'spersonal and that's shit. Don't give me shit, mister. I'll give it back."

Real quiet.

"No fighting," NG said.

"That's fine," she said. "I ain't fighting. Man's just got a little problem. Probably glandular. You want to fuck with me, mister? Take you right down to that locker, soon's this ship clears jump. You andyour two bedmates there. We can straighten everything out."

"Here, Lindy—" Musa showed up, right through the audience, thank God, still damp from the shower, low-key as always. "We got a little problem?"

"Problem's your new girl," Hughes said. "Problem's this piece of garbage on our deck."

" Problemis," Bet said, loud and sharp, "we got some crossed lines here, this is the same skuz butted in yesterday while our shift was sitting down doing simple business over a beer; and beyond that I don't fucking carewhat his problem is, somebody took severe exception to that beer, in the dark and from the back, the way I see it. So I'm asking, was it you, Lindy Hughes?"

Lot of quiet, then. Some more mainday crew had strayed in from duty, and their voices got quiet too, more spectators.