Rimrunners

"Son of a bitch"! Hughes said, blotting his forehead.

Not a sound from anybody then, except Presley helped Hughes get up.

And Gypsy said, after Hughes was on his feet: "Looked like a slip to me. Nobody needs any damn trouble, Lindy."

"Yeah," Davies said.

Hughes glowered, blotted his forehead with the back of his hand—he was dripping red on the tiles.

And he shoved Presley out ahead of him and left.

Bet let go her breath.

"Thanks," she said; and looked at them—Gypsy who stood there in the altogether and Davies who was grabbing after his towel.

"Late," Davies said. "Damn, we're going to be late."

Gypsy just stared at her. Then he nodded, once, decisively, and didn't look unhappy.

She went and rinsed the soap off before it ate her skin, washed the blood off the shower floor, grabbed her clean clothes and tossed the old ones in the bin.

Not a drop of blood on those.

Mainday crewman opened the outside door, first of the incoming shift. "Evenin'," she said, uncomfortable in his staring at her.

But about half a dozen mainday crew were out there, and she got more than one stare on her way out, felt them uncomfortably close against her backbone from there to the door and out.

CHAPTER 18

LATE FOR SURE. She came kiting into Engineering, said, "I'm here, sir," to Bernstein, and Bernstein gave her a moment's glowering attention that upset her stomach.

"Everybody gets one," he said.

"Yessir," she said, fast and sharp, and went to check the duty board.

Not to socialize for a while, NG and Musa both being on the rounds and on the reports: no shop-jobs, no fix-ups, a real conspicuous shortage of fix-ups lately on alterday shift, main-day doing the scut-work, since it had three times the perso

So she did.

"He ain'thappy," Musa said, meaning, she thought, notBernstein.

"Yeah, well," she said, with this little sinking feeling, then got down to ship business, figuring NG could keep and Bernstein's good will was real important just then.

"Calibrations Check Assist. List says that's you."

"Show you," Musa said, and bringing her over to station three boards: "Man's mad,"

Musa said under his breath. "I tried to talk to him, he's not talking, notreal reasonable.

Bernie's onto it that something happened, I said give me some room with it—Bernie said all right, but he give me this look, understand, I du

"I got you," Bet said, and: "Hughes grabbed at me in the showers, man had an accident this morning."

"Damn."

"Nothing broke. Gypsy was there, and Davies. Ever'body says he must've hit some soap and fell."

"Going to stick by that?"

"Du

Damn. Wishshe hadn't used that word. For a moment Musa was looking at her real fu

"Yeah," Musa said. "I'll talk to Gypsy tonight."

Musa showed her the routine, mostly computer-stuff: you just got the Calibrationsprogram up and you told it which system and it ran checks for a few minutes and then told you if it found things outside pre-set parameters.

That was all as easy as filter-changes.

Except NG was walking around like he had murder on his mind and he wasn't looking at anybody.

And Hughes was off in infirmary telling whatever damn lies Hughes could think up.

And she could hear Orsini asking the chief med, that morning when it was NG getting patched up, Anybody else have trouble with that door? And the med saying, with a deadpan face, Not yet.

So she got the CCA run, because mainday was busy with the shop-scut and the plain maintenance—and the core-crawl and the sync-check and the dozen other nasty jobs for reason of which mainday had to be wanting to cut their throats about now—

—while a dumb skut whose only real expertise was field-stripping arms and armor was trying to learn which board was which, never mind qualifying for a license. Bernie wasn't pushing anybodyon his understaffed shift, wasn't having anyone on alterday turn a hand on anything but at-the-boards Engineering Ops and absolute on-deck or in-shop maintenance—and damn sure wasn't doing anything that could send one of his crew out alone and unwatched.

Which told you something, she was afraid, first because the ship just might not be tendingto routine maintenance in any major way, which could have any of several reasons, like being close to a docking; or like being in chancy space.

Or maybe Bernie had a deal with Smith on mainday, because Bernie didn't want any more accidents like NG's.

Till when? she wondered. How long is Bernie going to keep this up? How long canhe? And she remembered what NG had said—that sooner or later Bernie was going to get pressed or Musa was going to get tired of shepherding him around, and Hughes or somebody was going to get him.

But NG didn't know what had happened to Hughes this morning and he needed to know that. So she found an excuse, seeing NG was over to the end of the main console, where there was a nook, while Bernstein and Musa were talking urgently about something—which, she had this uncomfortable feeling, could be Musa explaining something other than readouts.

To a mof. But a mof you could trust—one you'd better trust, if that mof really, actually wantedto know what had happened in the showers.

"Musa says you're mad at me," she said coming up on NG. She reached out to his arm and he twitched her hand off, instantly.

"Hell, no," he said. "Why should I be?"

She had meant to warn him about Hughes right off. It didn't seem the moment. "You got along fine."

He had trouble breathing for a second. Then he shoved her hard with his elbow, turning away, but she got in front of him and it was a wonder with a look like that, that he didn't swing on her.

"You were all rightlast night," she hissed, under the white noise of the ship.

"Everybody took it all right, everybody saw youtake it all right, more's the point. You were downright human last night."

Didn't go well, no. He got this absolutely crazy look, and he was going to shove past her or hit her, she was set for it.

But he didn't. He just stood there until his breaths came wider and slower. "Yeah," he said, "well, I'm glad."

"You don't figure it," she said.

He couldn't talk, then, she saw it, he didn't want to crack with her and he couldn't get himself together to talk about what had happened; and that hurt look of his got her in the gut.

"People were doing fine with you last night, you understand me?"

No, he didn't, he didn't understand a damned thing—embarrassed, she thought, more than the offended merchanter sensibilities he knew he couldn't afford on this ship; he knew and if he was getting eetee about that, she wasn't even going to acknowledge it.

No, what was bothering him was a damn sight more than that, she thought, recalling how he'd spooked-out for a minute last night, just gone, complete panic; and he didn't ever want people to see him like that.

But, dammit, they hadto see that, that was part of it, people had to see what was going on with him and most important, they had to see him recover and handle things.