“We can stop in and get a bite,” Meg said.

“I just want to get home,” he said. They had his packages, they kept him on his feet—he had no idea where he was, and he looked at a company cop, just standing by a storefront, remembering the cop that had stopped him outside the hospital, the fact he was weaving—a fall now and they’d have him back in hospital, with Pranh shooting him full of trank and telling him he was crazy.

God, he wanted his room and his bed. He wanted not to have been the fool he’d been going with these people—he wanted not to have spent any money, and when he finally saw familiar territory and saw The Hole’s flashing sign, he could only think of getting through the door and through the bar and through the back door, that was all he asked.

It was dimmer inside, light was fuzzing and unfuzzing as he walked, only trying to remember what pocket he’d put his key in, and praying God he hadn’t left it in the coveralls back at that shop—

But Bird and Ben were sitting at the table they’d had at breakfast, right by the back door. Meg and Sal steered him around to their inspection and Ben looked him up and down as if he’d seen something oozing across the floor.

“ Well.”

Bird said: “Sit down, Dek.”

“I’m just going back to my room.”

“ Hisroom, it is, now,” Ben said; and Meg, with a deathgrip on his arm:

“Ease off. Man’s severely worn down. He’s been shopping.”

“Yeah.” Ben pulled a chair back. “It looks as if.—Sit down, Dekker.”

His knees were going. But Ben suddenly took as civil a tone as Ben had ever used with him, walking out on him didn’t seem a good idea, and he was afraid to turn down their overtures, for whatever they were worth—there damned sure weren’t any others. He sank into the offered chair, Meg and Sal pulled up a couple of others, and he gave up defending himself—if they wanted something, all right, anything. Ben would only beat hell out of him, that was all, and Ben didn’t look as if he was going to do that immediately, for whatever reasons. The owner—Mike—came over to get his drink order—Bird and Ben were eating supper, and Bird suggested through the general ringing in his ears that he should do the same, but it was already too late: he couldn’t get up and stand in the line over there and he wasn’t sure his stomach could handle the grease and heavy spices right now. He remembered the chips. He said, “Beer and chips.”

“Out of chips. Pretzels.”

“Yeah,” he said, “thanks. Pretzels is fine.” Maybe pretzels were a little more like food, he had no idea; and beer was more like food than rum was. Anything at this point. God.

“That all you’re going to eat?” Bird asked.

Ben nudged him in the ribs and said, “Must be flush today. Who’s buying the pretzels, Dekker?”

Meg said, “Ease off, Ben. He’s seriously zee’d.”

“That’s nothing new,” Ben said, and Bird:

“Ben.”

“I just asked who’s buying the pretzels.”

“I am,” Dekker said. “If you want any, speak up and say please.”

Ben whistled, raised a mock defense. “Oh, well, now, yeah, don’t mind if I do. God, you’re touchy.”

He’d have come off the chair and gone for Ben, under better circumstances. He didn’t have it. It wasn’t smart. But something took over then and made him say, with a set of his jaw: “I didn’t hear please.”

“Oh. Please.” An airy wave of Ben’s hand. “Passing charity around, are we, now? Paying off our debts? Did finance come in?”

“Not yet. But it will. You want my card?” He pulled it out of his pocket, tossed it onto the table. “Go check it out, Pollard. Take whatever you think I owe you.”

Ben looked at him, and Bird turned his head and called out, “Mike, get those beers right over here, Ben’s had his foot in his mouth.—Excuse him, son. You want to get the pretzels, we’ll get the drinks.”

“I’ll pay my own tab,” he said. Too harshly. He was dizzy. He wished the drinks would hurry. He wished he was safe in his room and he wished he knew how to get there before he got into it with Ben. Mistake, he told himself, serious mistake.

“We mentioned to him about the board-time,” Meg said. “He says he wants to think about it.”

“What ‘think’?” Ben said. “He’s got no bloody choice.”

“Ben,” Sal said, sounding exasperated, “shut up.”

“Well, there isn’t.” Ben was quieter, scowling. “Try to help a guy—”

“Ben,” Bird said.

“We’re buying his effin’ drink!”

“Ben,” Meg said, and slammed her palm on the table, bang, a hand with massive rings on each finger. “We talked about the lease, and the jeune fils is thinking it over, that’s his privilege. Meanwhile he’s offeredto pay his own tab, all right? So don’t carp.—Don’t pay him any mind, Dek. Sometimes you seriously got to translate Ben. He means to say Trez bon you’re on your legs again and mercy ever-so for the pretzels.”

The beer and the pretzels came. Dek picked his card off the table and shoved it at Mike, said, “Put it all on mine,” and tried not to think what his account must look like now.

Bird said: “You don’t have to do that, son.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He picked up his beer and felt Ben’s hand land heavily on his shoulder, the way Ben had done on the ship when Ben was threatening to kill him. Ben squeezed his shoulder, leaned close to touch glasses with him.

“No hard feelings,” Ben said.

He didn’t trust Ben any further than he could see both his hands. His stomach was upset, he was all but shaking as was, and the glass Ben had touched the rim of suddenly seemed like poison to him, but he sat still and took the requisite polite sip of his beer.

Ben said, “So do you want the board time?”

He looked at Bird, asking without saying anything whether this was Bird’s idea too. Bird didn’t deny it.

“Yeah,” he said.

“So there’s strings to be pulled,” Ben said. “Short as the time is, we have to expedite, as is, or you won’t get the ops test before we’re out of here—and if you don’t do those forms right, they’re not going through. Now, as happens, I know the people you need. You do the work in the shop—”

“What work?”

“Thought you’d talked to him,” Bird said.

“I said we’d mentioned it,” Meg said. “We didn’t exactly get down to that point.”

“Well, now we have,” Ben said. “There’s no other way to do it, Dek-boy. Only deal going. So you’ve agreed. We’re waiting to hear how you’re going to pay for it. Time? Or money? Or the pleasure of your company?”

They were coming at him from all sides. He wasn’t sure there wasn’t a moment missing there—his ears were ringing, they were all looking at him, Ben with his hand on his chair back—he lost things, the meds said he did; and he sat here surrounded by these people who as good as had a gun to his head. If they helped him he might have a chance—but if they figured out he did forget things, the word would get around and it was all over, he’d never get reinstated, he’d end up doing refinery work…

“You any good as a mechanic?” Bird asked.

“I kept Way Outworking.”

“As a pilot?”

“I was good.” He didn’t expect Bird would believe him. He added, self-consciously, “We weren’t broke.” Bird had seemed the best of them, Bird had kept him alive and argued for him with these people. He was desperate for Bird to take his side now. And if they robbed him, there were worse alternatives. “Cory and I had 47 k in the bank. Not counting the ship free and clear. Rl bank’s sending it, but I can’t draw on it for another fifty, sixty days.”

“47 k,” Ben jeered. “Come on, Dekker.”

He didn’t look at Ben. He looked at Bird and Sal, clasped his hands around the wet chill of the beer glass. “Cory’s mom was pretty well set. Cory had her own account—trust funds. The hour she turned 18, she took it and she called me and bought my ticket and hers. She came out from Mars, I came from Sol—we met out here and we bought the ship. Paid a hundred fifty-eight k for her. Another 40 in parts. We made a few mistakes. We hadn’t made many runs—only been out here two years. But Cory knew what she was doing. She nearly had her degree in Belt Dynamics. 28 of that 47 k we didn’t have when we came out here. We were doing pretty well.”