Rimrunners

He's trying to get to us. Whatever he does, whatever he says, remember what the game is.

All right?"

He stared at her.

She eeled past and out the door again, ducked fast into the machine-shop entry, hitting the lights on the way.

Cold, God, your breath frosted. You got the cold right through your boots, off the tilting deck-plates, and the air bit bare skin and clothed parts alike. She cut the heat on, cursing the sum-bitches who'd decided to powersave, and hurried, grabbed a few extra clip-lines, typed, Flexyne? on the terminal, and got inventory and location of tubing and sheets.

Flexbond?

Location of that, too. She blew on her fingers, entered six clip-lines and wondered what was going on next door, wondered whether she just ought to walk back in, whether it was Fitch at all, whether he was next door with NG, what in hell was going on over therec

God knew what she'd babbled, sounded like a fool, or worse .

You got to trust me—

God! If that won't make a man check his pockets—

She took her lip between her teeth and stood there shivering a second, then made up her mind and ducked out into the corridor again, down the curve past Engineering. The door was open and Fitch wasthere, all right, she saw him talking to NG, NG standing there paying all his attention, the way you better do with Fitch—

She couldn't hear anything, couldn't read lips: NG wasn't saying anything and she couldn't see Fitch's face. She just went on past, down to the lift and up again the long ride to the bridge.

Her coming up here got a bare turn of the head from the officer on duty—not even sure who it was. She had a momentary, desperate thought about going straight to the captain and telling him how Fitch was pushing them—but that might not be a good idea.

She stopped, turned, took a deep breath.

"'Scuse, sir, is Mr. Bernstein or Mr. Orsini aboard?"

"Not at the moment," the officer said.

"Would you mind, sir, putting out a call? I've got a problem with the fix."

"Mr. Fitch is on duty."

"Yessir, but Mr. Orsini said call him specifically."

"I'll advise Mr. Fitch of that."

Shit.

She said, "Thank you, sir," restrained the hand from a salute, and walked off very politely, down to the locker.

Not real smart to try to talk to Wolfe, right after the man had said a solid no. Better get back to work, long enough to make it look like she did have a problem, then try to get downside again.

No probability that Wolfe was aboard, unless he had been in downside ops and just not advertising the fact. But the stowage and sickbay were the only topside areas that were swing-sectioned like the bridge, only places you could get to up here, only places you'd wantto get to up here, the mofs' quarters being all upside down or sideways as long as the ship was in dock and the ring was locked down, which meant ordinary doors were upside down and a step beyond the swing sections would put your foot on the overhead.

Wolfe might have a cot downside, in ops or the purser's office, captains not tending to stay in dockside sleepovers like ordinary mortals, captains usually spending their dock time in places like the Station Residency, where service was fancy and the high and the mighty didn't have to rub up against their crews on liberty.

And if Wolfe was on his own liberty-tour, off having pork and real whiskey or whatever captains ate that the 'decks never saw, well, hell if that cold bastard was going to want to hear that Bet Yeager had the willies about Mr. Fitch.

Dammit, Orsiniknows Fitch is on-ship right now, Bernie's got to know— Bernie's got to carec Bernie's got to be smart enough to figure what can happenc

Probably a stupid panic, Fitch never pushes anything that'll get shit on him, he's smarter than that, that's always the trouble. If Bernie was smart enough to get a hands-off and a no-talk order down from Wolfe, then Fitch won't dare open his mouth to NG—

Please God.

She shut the locker door again, attached the clips to the nearest ring, and sat down to work on the damn rig again, familiar feel, familiar smell that set off memories just handling it, waked up old ways of dealing with things—fond thoughts of how Fitch could just turn up dead somewhere—except, dammit, ask anybody on the ship who'd have most reason to want Fitch dead and the answer would always come up NG Ramey; and even if nobody gave a damn about Fitch taking a long fall, you couldn't axe somebody that high up unless you could really make it credibly an accident that just couldn't be anything else.

God, isn't Fitch going to come back topside?

What's going on down there?

While she sat there adjusting little damn tension screwsc

And hell if that sonuvabitch mof on the bridge had ever called Orsini, just count herself lucky if maybe he wouldn't even bother to call Fitch.

Oh, God, Bernie, check back in, youknow Fitch is out for blood—get your ass back on this ship, get Orsini back here—

Nothing. Just nothing, while she adjusted screws and took pieces off and put them on again, sick at her stomach, thinking and thinking of ways to get at Fitch.

Get him to hit her, maybe, get him somewhere near the safety limit in the corridor out there—

Sorry, captain, he was shoving me and I just moved—

What if he didn't die?

She heard the lift work again, heard it reach topside, and sat and patiently adjusted screws and thought, I got to have the Flexyne, shop's got to be warmer now, I can go down there and get some tubing, get a chance to talk to NG— no knowing if it was Fitch just come up, but he can't be still talking down therec

Damn, if I go down there I got to tell NG everythingc

Got to find him in a decent mood, I got to—

God, I hope he didn't hit Fitch.

She hooked the left gauntlet up with the left arm, flexed the fingers—whole arm exhausted just from the resistance in the damn thing.

If I try to make up what I'm going to say I'll just screw it up— I just got to tell him, is all, whether or not Fitch's done anything, either patch it up or head it off—

She safety-clipped the sleeve, closed the lid on the tool-kit.

The door opened. She looked up at Fitch, Fitch walked in and looked over what she was doing, the scattered pieces of the rig.

"Having a problem, Ms. Yeager?"

The airlock opened, distant echo through the ship. She tried to collect herself and remember what exactly she'd said to the mof out there, said, "Mr. Orsini didn't indicate whether he wanted a patch or a fix, sir."

"How's it coming, so far?"

From Fitch, a quiet and civil question. It rattled her. She made a second try after scattered wits, got a breath. "I du

"How much to go on this one?"

"I du

"How well's a dirty one hold?"

"'Bout the same. Just a matter of—"

"How long?"

— Doing it right, she had been about to say. Pride. Something like that. Fitch's attitude pissed her. But she said, "On this onec maybe eighty, a hundred hours. I want to get into the pumps, check—"

"What about the other one?"

"I du

"You need some help?"

"I don't think we got it," she said. "You know or you don't know, you go to fuckin'