Rimrunners

So nothing got loaded out there, nothing got signed, moved, done, anywhere on the docks until maindawn brought the lights up. Thule was dying. The Earth trade opened up again after the War, but Thule had turned out to be superfluous, the run had drawn a few big new super-freighters like Dublin Again, that could short-cut right past the Hinder Stars, and the discovery of a new dark mass further on from Bryant's meant a bypass for Thule, Venture, Glory and Beta, which was over half the re-opened stations at one stroke.

A route straight to Earth via Bryant's, straight past the place Ernestinehad left her, the Old Man apologetic, saying, "Don't be a fool, Bet. We've got to go back to Pell, is all.

We'll be short, but we can make it. It's no good here and further on is worse."

Hope you made it, she thought to old Kato. But she knew Ernestine'schances, a little ship, ru

But Pell wasn't where Bet Yeager wanted to go.

"Not me," she'd said, "not me."

Ernestinecrew had argued with her, they'd known her chances too. The free-hands other ships let off found berths here and went on. Jim Belloni had tried to give her a third of his sign-up money when he left on the Polly Freas. He'd gotten her royally drunk. He'd left it in her bed.

So she'd gotten drunk again. She still didn't regret that extravagance. Not even when her belly cramped up. It was the times like that kept you warm on nights like these.

She catnapped a while more, waked hearing the sound of the outside door.

Her heart jumped. It was unusual, alterday, main-night, for somebody to be in this particular nook to need this particular restroom. Maintenance, maybe. Plumber or something, to fix that sink.

She tucked her knees up in her arms, just stayed where she was, shivering a little in the cold. It was a man's step that came on in. Rude bastard. No advisement to any possible occupant.

She heard the door close. Heard him breathing. Smelled the alcohol. So it wasn't a plumber.

You got the wrong door, mate. Go on. Figure it out.

She heard the steps go the little distance to the door and stop.

Go on, mate. G'way. Please.

She heard the door close. She dropped her head against her knees.

And still heard the breathing.

God.

She shivered. She did not move otherwise.

The steps came back to the stall. She saw black boots, blue coveralls.

He tried the door. Rattled it.

"Get the hell out of here!" she said.

"Security," he said. "Come on out of there."

Oh, hell.

"Out!"

It was wrong. It was damned indelicate. And he stank of alcohol.

"Hell if you're security," she said. "I'm spacer, on layover. You get your ass out of this restroom, stationer, before you get more than you bargained for."

"No ship in, skuz." He bent down. She saw an unshaven, bentnosed face. "C'mon.

C'mon out of there."

She sighed. Looked at him wearily. Waved a hand. "Look, station-man. You want it, you owe me a drink and a sleep-over, then you got it all night, otherwise I ain't buying any."

A toothy grin. "Sure. Sure I'll give you a good time. You come out of there."

"All right." She took a deep breath. She put her feet down.

She saw it coming. She knew it, she tried to clear the sudden grab after her ankle, but the knees wobbled, she staggered and he tried again, under the door.

She smashed a foot down, bashed his head into the tiles, but he twisted over and got a hold on her ankle and twisted, and there was no place to step but him, and he was pulling.

She staggered against the stall, felt his fingers close, tried to keep from falling and went down against the toilet seat, a crack of pain on one side, pain in her cheek as she rebounded and hit the wall and then the floor beside the toilet. His hands were all over her, he was crawling under the stall door onto her, arms wrapping around her, and everything was a blur of lights and his face. He hit her, cracked her head back against the tiles once and twice, and for a while it was exploding color, alcoholic breath, his weight, his hands tearing at her clothes.

Damn mess, she thought, and tried to stay limp, just plain limp, while he ripped her jumpsuit open and pawed her, which she couldn't stop: he had her pi

Just a little more breath. Just a little time for the stars to stop exploding.

He started choking her then. And there was damned little she could do except struggle. Except get her right hand to her pocket, while his stubbly mouth was on hers and he was choking the sense out of her.

She got the razorblade. She kept her fingers clenched despite the pain and the fog in her brain and she got it out and slashed him down the leg. He reared up, howling, his back against the stall door. She nailed him dead-on with her boot-heel and he gasped and fell down onto her, so she got him with the razor again.

Then he was mostly trying to slither out of the stall, and she let him. She got an elbow over the toilet and heaved herself up and got the stall unlatched while he was throwing up outside.

He was on his knees. She caught her balance against the row of stalls and kicked him up under the jaw. When he hit the sink and went down on his back with his leg under him, she waited until he tried to get up again and then kicked him in the throat.

After that he was a dead man. She could finish it, while he lay there choking to death, but she just stared at him with her skull pounding and her vision going gray—she came to with the water ru

So he was dead. A dizzy wave came over her. She threw cold water on him to be sure he wasn't shamming, but there was no blink or twitch.

Another wave. She remembered he'd yelled. Somebody could have heard the shouting outside. She looked herself over for marks. There were scratches all down her chest and on her throat. There was blood on her jumpsuit, blood soaked one knee. So she peeled down and washed that leg of the jumpsuit in the sink until the water ran pale pink and the jumpsuit was mostly clean; and she almost blacked out, so she leaned her elbows against the sink to scrub, and she wrung out the jumpsuit and got it on again, one leg and a lot of spots all over it icy cold. So she used the blower to dry them. It was dangerous while the docks were this quiet. Security might hear.

But she wanted to go on leaning there in the warm air, wanted to stay there the rest of the night. She pushed the blower switch again and again, legs braced, staring at the man on the floor, while the gray and the red came and went in her vision. There was a trail of blood from the stall to where he'd died. She remembered the razor, but she had that in her pocket again, she found it there. Along with two cred chits.

She was walking outside on the docks. She couldn't remember how she had gotten there. She remembered the restroom, that was all. She remembered the man on the floor.