Rimrunners

She found her hands in fists, tasted blood and swallowed it; and knew if Fitch so much as stopped her in the corridor after this she was going to be shaking head to foot.

Shake like hell suiting up, she thought, flashing on what it felt like, with your body cased in ceramics, with the servos whining when you moved and the pressure of the bands on your body that told the suit what the body wanted. And the damn servos got confused as hell if you started shaking and everybody knew it, because they stuttered and chattered—

Embarrassing as hell. So you developed a sense of humor about it, since you did it every damn time—

Adrenaline charge. Stutter and rattle.

Smell of oil and metal and plastics. Human sweat and your own breath inside the helmet.

You were machine, then. Human gut inside a human-shaped machine. And it took a damn lucky shot to damage you.

Sure missed that rig, sometimes. Sure hated to leave it, in that corridor on Pell.

Shakes stopped after you got going. Servos smoothed out and you floated, like nothing was effort, and nothing could stop you.

But armor's got no thinking brain, armor's got no guts.— That'syou, skut, you're the Operating System. It'll walk after you're dead, but it don't fight worth shit in that condition. You're the brain and the guts. Remember it.

Damn right, Junker Phillips.

Somebody bumped the bed. She woke up with her heart thumping, knew right off that she was in quarters, and in Musa's bunk, waiting on her mates, and that there were two men, shadowed against the night-glow, one with Musa's shape and Musa's smell, and one with NG's, touching her, gathering her up when she tried to move, hugging her so everything hurt.

"I'm all right," she said. "You?"

"Fine," NG said, or something like that, and she just held onto them a while, not caring that it hurt. NG felt over her face, and the way his fingers stopped at her lip and her right cheek, and the way the spots were both sore and a little numb from swelling she got a mental picture the same as he had to, what she had to look like.

He didn't say a thing. And NG was dangerous when he didn't.

She grabbed his hand. Hard. "You listen to me," she whispered. "You listen good. Not going to talk, here. But craziness is what Fitch wants. Hearme?"

NG didn't say anything. He tensed his hand just enough to keep the bones from grinding.

"Going to bed," Musa said, putting a hand on her back, giving her a little shove. "His bunk. Hear?"

"Yeah," she said, feeling a little tightness in the throat. She leaned over and pressed her mouth against Musa's stubbled cheek. "Love you," she said. "Love you, man."

Musa shoved her again, and she crawled out after NG, to follow him.

NG grabbed her and held her at arm's length. "He'll kill you," NG hissed at her. "He'll kill you, you understand me?"

She wobbled on her feet and hung onto him and left him nothing to do with her but get her to his bed, and get in with her, and hold onto her, clothes and all.

"I got him figured," she said into his ear, fainter than anything was likely to pick it up.

But you never knew. Fitch could even bug the damn pillow. She wrapped a leg over him, snuggled body against body until they fit together, which was the only way to be comfortable sleeping double in a bunk. Her back hurt. Her head was pounding. She said, wishing Fitch could hear, "I seen skuz before. Nothing new. Shush, they could have bugs in bed with us." She moved against him, gentle as she could, figuring he could have sore spots too, and that was one of them. But he didn't seem hurt, didn't seem interested that way either, he just kissed her face and made that kind of love to her, just real gentle, real careful, not even sex, but she liked it.

Liked it and found herself scared the way she'd never been scared for anybody in her life. You served with guys, you knew people got killed, and partners did, like Teo, sometimes real hard ways. But none of them she had lost had been her fault, and none of them had ever had to risk what NG was risking for her.

She drowsed what felt like a few minutes before the morning bell went off, before it was time to move and go up and get a change of clothes, and face stares at her face and hear the whispers behind her back.

Face NG and Musa too, with the lights on. "Pretty bad?" she asked them: Musa grimaced and shook his head, and NG said, "Damn him to hell."

She had to face Lindy Hughes, too, and Presley and Gibbs, who gave her dark stares and snickered about her looks.

"Hey, Yeager," Hughes yelled out, "your man been beating on you?"

"Hell, no," she yelled back, "Fitch did. Wanted me to kiss his boots for him. Which end did he make you kiss?"

Real quiet in the quarters, just then. A lot of stares.

"You got a mouth, bitch."

"You're allmouth, skuz. You dropped the drugs in my bunk. Or one of your skutty friends did. Fu

Deathly quiet.

"You'll get yours, bitch."

"Yeah, from the back. Same as you got NG. Tried it on me in the showers and you got your head busted, didn't you? Damn shower-crawling skuz. Looking up the stalls. That the only thing that does it for you?"

Nasty cut on Hughes' forehead. And one eye was turning black. Didn't improve his looks any at all.

A few people were walking around, going to showers, trying to ignore the shouting match.

But one of the bystanders was Gabe McKenzie, who shouldered past the gawkers and came and stood by her and NG and Musa with his hands in his pockets.

And another was Gypsy Muller, who strolled into the middle and said, "You got what you deserved, Hughes. Swallow it and choke."

Park and Figi came in, then, right beside Gabe McKenzie, and then Meech and Rossi; and Moon and Zilner, Gypsy's mates, and then, God, one of the women, Kate Williams, out of Cargo, just planted herself at the edge and stood there with her arms folded.

Nobody was moving now. Until Hughes said, "Fuck you," under his breath, shoved one and the other of his mates into motion and walked out.

"Good riddance," McKenzie said.

NotFitch's plan. Damn sure.

There were new faces in the quarters, Freeman and Walden and Battista and Slovak from mainday Engineering, Weider and Keene, too, she recognized them on the fringes of the commotion. She saw everybody staring at her and her mates and McKenzie and his, and everything still real quiet, so quiet you could hear the rumble of the ship.

"Sorry," she said, to everybody in general, "damn sorry. I hate a fight."

It was like the whole quarters drew a breath then. People moved. People discovered they were behind schedule and the shower-line wasn't full.

"Thanks," she said to a few in particular, and then she found herself with a slight case of the shakes. "Damn!"

"Time we got rid of that skuz," Park said.

Bad news for a man when people on his watch got that opinion of him. Hughes had to figure it, Hughes wasn't stupid, at least not in that department.

"Hell of a mess," Gabe McKenzie said, looking at her. She put a knuckle to her cheek, which was so swollen it pulled the eyelid.

"Yeah," she said, and figured he meant her face. She was cold sober for a second and scaredc and that wasn't the mess she was thinking of.

"He's likely headed straight for Fitch," Musa said, "and he won't even stop for breakfast."