Rimrunners

First time, maybe, NG was really sure which of them was which.

He damn sure wouldn't have put his arms around Fitch.

CHAPTER 3O

LINES OF REFUGEES again, scared people, headed out into the patch-together tube that crossed Green dock, waiting, with their meager belongings, line moving only now and again, but you couldn't tell them to wait anywhere else, people had a ship waiting out there that could take them, and people wouldn't follow instructions and take numbers and wait for the next shuttle out, they just jammed up and made their line and wouldn't leave it.

It was worth a riot to argue with it. Wolfe said let 'em, Neihart, whose ship was the biggest that had come in, said let 'em, Mallory was God knew where.

The jam-up in the corridor played hob with ship's perso

They got out of her way when she went down to the docks, they moved their baggage over and gave her a clear path.

But she stopped when she recognized a man in line and recognized the woman next on.

Man looked up, worried-looking.

"Mr. Ely," she said. She didn't put out her hand till he did: a lot of stationers weren't anxious to be friends.

"Ms. Yeager," he said, and: "My wife, Hally Kyle."

"Ms. Kyle, pleased to meet you." She saw Nan Jodree offer her hand, too, at her left, turned and took a cold-as-ice, still steady grip.

"Good to see you," Nan said. " Goodto see you, Bet."

"Tried to find you," she said. "Mate of mine said he'd seen you on the list, but things were pretty scrambled."

"Going out again," Nan said.

"I got to bust ahead of you," she said. "I do apologize, I got to be on this one. Going back to Pell, too, they're going to ferry us, at least our front end. All that matters of a ship, anyhowc You all right?"

"We will be," Ely said. "You? We were worriedabout you, Bet."

"I'm fine," she said. They were sounding the board-call. "Damn, I got to get down there—See you at Pell!—Nice meeting you, Ms. Kyle."

Bernstein was upset, patches all over, jury-rigged messes patched into the can-hauler's hull, three weeks to do that linkup, and Smith said it was all right, Bernie said it was a hell of a mess, Musa said he'd seen worse—

Mostly, she figured, it was better than they'd been going to do, on their own.

Better than they haddone, getting into Thule.

Lot of the boards were shut down. Systems was mostly dark. Most of the ship just wasn't there, her tail-section due to take a ride into Thule's sun, along with Thule Station.

Piece of history going away.

She walked up to NG, said, "How's it going?"

NG made this little frustrated shrug, said, "What I got'sfinec"

That'd been the strange thing, NG'd had his chance, Neihart had heard what he'd done, offered him a berth, Bernie'd said. On Finity's End.

NG'd said, "No. Thanks."

Bernie'd been a little off-put, Neihart's trying to steal his Systems man, but Bernie had said to her and Musa, "I don't understand him."

NG didn't explain himself, to her or to Musa, never mentioned it.

She said, now, finally, because her conscience hurt her, "Heard you had an offer."

He said, shaking his head, "Bernie outbid them."

« The End »

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Bet Yeager's shady past remains a carefully guarded secret aboard the Union spaceship Loki until an encounter with Mazian pirates forces her to reveal her intimate knowledge of their methods. Set in the same universe as Cyteen ( LJ 5/15/88), Cherryh's latest novel captures the acute sense of claustrophobia of men and women under pressure.

Recommended.-- JC

Customer Reviews

Living with the Enemy, November 26, 2002

Reviewer

:

This is yet another of Cherryh's books set in her Alliance-Union universe, but told from a rather different perspective than most of the others in this series.

Very little of this book is actually about the war, instead choosing to focus on a middle-aged female warrior, Bet Yeager, who has been effectively marooned on one of the Rim stations, and living from hand to mouth while avoiding detection by any cognizant authority. Finally left with no more options on the station, she takes a new berth on a 'shadow' spy ship belonging to what to her is the 'enemy'. Once on board, she has to earn the respect of her shipmates, put up with sadistic officers, and keep a clamp on her history from 'the other side'. With this as a basic outline, the story really revolves around her continuing growth as a person, stretching herself to perform actions she didn't believe she was capable of, and the (sometimes strange) friendships she makes as she learns the ins and outs of her new shipboard comrades.

Told in Cherryh's typical breathless style, often with incomplete sentences, a frequent recourse to alphabet-soup acronyms, and backgrounds that are often only sketched in, the story ripples rapidly towards its climax, making for quick reading. Perhaps a little too quick, as there is a little bit of a rushed feeling to the climax. And as always with Cherryh, this style takes some getting used to, and readers unfamiliar with some of other books in the series may feel a little lost.

There is some real action here, of the type that Cherryh is known for, but filtered through Yeager's perceptions. Beyond the action, the item that makes this stand out from the run-of-mill works is the strong character development of Yeager in the face of multiple difficult situations, some of which would have a direct correspondence to the problems of women in the American workplace. Some of Yeager's solutions to certain of her situations will put a new face on casual sexual relations on a mixed gender ship, an item of relevance now for the Navy. But this is not a strident call to the feminist movement, but rather a statement in story form of the real power and necessity of independent women, of women living up to (and being allowed to do so) their full potential.

A different viewpoint, a strong female role model, perhaps a little too short and rushed, but still a strong work.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

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