Rimrunners

"That's my arm, mister."

The grip lightened up. He was standing close, pushing her into the corner. "NG the appointment you were talking about?"

"What if it was?"

"You'd be damn stupid. Damnstupid." Another jerk when she started to move. "Listen to me! The man's going to get you killed. People are trying to warn you—"

"You in with Hughes?"

"I didn't have a damn thing to do with it. I'm trying to warn a fool. You don't know this ship."

She pulled to get her arm free. He eased up again, and she might get all the way loose, but there was a note of something honest in the things McKenzie was saying.

"I got my orders," she said.

"That include sleeping with him?"

"Is thatyour problem?"

"Go to hell," he said, and shoved her loose. "Go straight to hell if you're set on it."

She grabbed his arm then, before he could get out the door. "McKenzie. You heard anything?"

"I'm telling you there's ways things get done on this ship and ways things come back at you on this ship and you're being a damn fool, woman. Don't be playing games."

"Appreciated," she said, quietly. "Appreciated. What's your percentage?"

No answer.

"Yeah," she said.

"Don't be stupid. I'm telling you, I'm just telling you, is all. You can take it any way you like."

The man confused her. Bad feelings to start with, man suddenly coming at her like this—

"Damn few women on this ship," McKenzie said reasonably. "Hell of a waste, Yeager."

"Me with him?"

"That too."

She suddenly liked McKenzie a lot better than she had— a little too eager to start with, maybe, but saner than she had looked for. She touched him on the arm with the back of her hand. "I tell you," she said, "you might be all right, Gabe. I hope so."

He put his hand on her hip. God! she thought, nettled. He said, "I'm telling you—you go around making cases where everything was quiet and things can happen to you."

"That a threat?"

"No." He took the hand back. "Damn, I told you—

"You made me nervous as hell, friend. I'll tell you that. But I could have been wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"About you being in with Hughes."

"Damn, I'm not!"

"What's Hughes' game?"

"He's a sum-bitch," McKenzie said. "Just a plain sum-bitch, no percentage in it. Got his little clique. He may be under Bernstein, but he's got ties on the bridge. He's got Goddard on his side. Navcomp. Goddard's a poker partner of Kusan's and Orsini's, you follow?"

"I know Orsini."

"Goddard's a—" McKenzie shut it down. "You just watch it. I'm giving you good advice."

"I'm listening."

"That's all. Just get clear of it. Figi and Park and me, and Rossi and Meech, we just stay the hell out of it."

"You scared of Hughes? You got the same pull, topside, what about the scan-ops?"

"I'm not scared of Hughes. I'm just not interested in borrowing somebody else's trouble. I'm telling you get clear of it before you mark yourself with this, you already got people talking."

"Saying what?"

"Saying you're a damn fool. Come in here, cross the lines, stir up the whole damn watch on old business—I don't know what Musa's game is, maybe you got him going the same as you got half the men in this watch—but I don't say I don't believe it about Bernstein—he hauled NG's ass out of the cold or he wouldn't be here. And maybe there's people on this ship don't like what happened to him, but that won't buy a thing. They won't be there when it comes head-on against you."

"You?"

"I'm not a fool either. I'm telling you, you're setting yourself up for some bad hurt. I don't like to see that. Damn, I don't like to see that."

"I appreciate it. I do." She patted him on the arm. "You got yourself on my good list for that. Tell you what you cando cheap, that's be eyes for me and Musa where we can't."

McKenzie scowled. "What percentage?"

"Favor-points with me. Maybe with Bernstein, who knows?"

"Bernie's favor-points don't spend on mainday bridge, I'm telling you. You go on, you're in for it."

"I got you clear. I got you absolutely clear."

Fitch.

"Just so you do." He came up close against her, gave her a nice little pass of the hands she didn't mind at all. "Damn,", he said, and she said,

"You know where I bunk? Got a bottle, got some picture-stuff. Make free of it.

Anytime. You and Park and Figi."

"What else comes with it?"

"Lot else might. You want to party? I bring my mates."

Long silence.

"You're buying trouble."

"Get a few other guys. Get some bottles. We got no push on us, we got no likelihood of an alert I know of—What d'you think?"

"Dammit—"

"Nice pictures. Got a viewer too. Tell you what, I get NG up there for about half an hour, then you just happen by, everybody else happens by—one at a time—"

"You're crazy as he is."

"Vodka."

"Damn. All right."

She gri

CHAPTER 17

WE GOT A LITTLE trouble," was what she told NG when she caught up to him, in the dim light down by his bunk, down by the vid. "Don't ask questions. Come on. Fast."

And when she got him as far as the ladder to the loft: "Come on, it's all right."

"Dammit," he said, confused-sounding.

But he went in front of her up the ladder—a lot of trust, she figured, from a man who had lately been ambushed.

She caught him up, grabbed him by the arm and steered him right for her bunk—got him that far and then he started pulling back.

"Where's Musa?" he asked.

"Musa's right where he needs to be. Just shut up, stay put, don't make me trouble." She edged between him and the privacy screen, tilted up her bunk in the dim light and pulled out a bottle, the viewer, and Ritterman's pictures, and set them on the floor. She let the bunk down then, said, "Sit down. Don't be so damn conspicuous," and when NG did that, sat down beside him, reached after the bottle, uncapped it and took a drink. "Here."

He took one. She took one. He took a second; she snuggled up close, swung around on one knee on the bunk and settled with a leg in his lap. "Dammit," he said, catching on. He made to give her the bottle back and get up, she got her knee in the way, got her arms around his neck and said very close to his ear:

"Didn't say we couldn't entertain ourselves. Just keep it quiet, all right, and don't spill my bottle."

He stayed put. In half a dozen seconds he was warming up a lot, went back on the bunk, she did, and somehow they managed not to spill the vodka.

"Where's Musa?" he asked while clothes were coming askew.

"Oh, I du

"Dammit, dammit—" he mumbled, and after that not much.

Man always did have a primary problem with sex and priorities, or maybe life just got cheap. So he was occupied when McKenzie showed up, McKenzie with a "Mind?"