She’d said, Dek, don’t be a fool, you’ve no future here. They’re killing the freerunners, they’ll get the Shepherds in not too many years—there’s no hope here.
She’d said, Don’t ever think I’ll leave you behind…
Sal sipped her drink in the blue neon of Scorpio’s—the vid had been not-too-bad, chop and slash, the way Meg said, but not a long one, and as she had put it, it was way too early to chance walking in on the boys, besides which she had a word to drop on some friends next door. It was her favorite lounge—Shepherd territory, right next to the Association club—pricey, spif: you got the usual traffic of office types who went anywhere au courant on the edge of helldeck, but the Shepherd relationship with Scorpio’s was longstanding: Shepherds got the tables in the nook past the glass pillars, and Shepherd glasses came filled to the brim, no shorting and no extra water, either.
Not a place they could afford as a steady habit, damn sure, not unless they picked up some guys with Shepherd-level finance, and they weren’t shopping to do that this time.
No danger of walk-up offers this side of those pillars either, thank God: the women to men ratio on helldeck meant Shepherds were used to being courted, not the other way around, and two women who weren’t signaling didn’t get the pests that made sane conversation impossible in a lot of the cheaper bars, God, you got ‘em in restaurants, in vid show doorways—this shift some R&R bunch was in from the shipyard, and the soldier-boys on leave down at the vid were the damn-all worst. They’d had a glut of male fools for the last few hours and Scorpio’s was a refuge worth the tab, in her own considered opinion.
“I tell you,” she said over an absolutely genuine margarit, “my instinct would be to take this Dek a tour before we go out, you know, personal, just friendly. Rattle him and see what shakes. I think that’s a serious safety question. But we got Ben in the gears, damn ‘im.”
“You want my opinion, Aboujib?”
“Po-sess-ive?”
“Vir-gin, Aboujib. You’re probably the first that ever asked him.”
“Hell, he’s that way with Bird!”
“Yeah.”
She saw what Meg was saying, then. “That way about a lot of things, isn’t he?”
Meg stirred her drink with the little plastic straw. “Man’s got a serious problem. Hasn’t cost us yet. But it’s to worry about. Ni-kulturny, what he pulled on Bird tonight.”
“Ochin,” Sal agreed with an uncomfortable twitch of her shoulders, sipping her margarit, thinking how they weren’t doing as ordinaire with Ben, how if it was anybody else but the best numbers man on R2, she’d have handed him off to Meg—switch and dump, the old disconnection technique. But, dammit, Ben was special, the absolute best, and Meg with Ben didn’t do them any good. Meg didn’t know the right questions and she didn’t do the calc as well.
Besides which it wasn’t Meg who made Ben crazy enough to show her things the Institute hadn’t, that he’dfigured, that he wouldn’t hand out to anybody. She’d never met a case like Ben—you felt simpatico with him one minute and the next you wanted to break his neck. She’d never met anybody she trustedthe way she did Ben—except Meg and Bird; Ben was the only one but Meg and Bird she’d feel safe going EV with—and, counting his crazy behavior, she couldn’t figure that out.
At least he wasn’t like the greasy sumbitch who’d threatened not to let her back in the ship unless she did him special favors. Numbers men were always at a disadvantage, always got the problems until you were as good as Ben, that nobody wanted to lose. Meg had never been through that particular trouble—a numbers man didn’t dare antagonize his pilot, if he had any sense; and he didn’t send his pilot walkabout either—but a numbers man definitely could get out with some severely strange people in this business; and if you had some few partners you were sure of, you didn’t let them go—didn’t try to run their lives for them, not if you wanted all your fingers back, but hell if you wouldn’t go to any length to hold on to them, to keep things the way they were.
Kill somebody? If it came to it, if you ever would—then you would. And trying to keep two tallish young guys from killing each other out there…
“What are we going to do, Kady?”
Meg pursed her lips. “Just what we’re doing. Let Bird handle it.”
Someone brushed by their table. Touched her shoulder. “Aboujib?”
God. A walk-up? Meg’s frown was instant. Sal looked around and up an expensive jacket at a Shepherd—one of Sunderland’s crew, friend of Mitch’s—she didn’t know the name. He said, very quickly, slipping something into her pocket, “That question you left?”
“Yeah,” she said—different problem. Sameproblem. She held her breath. Felt something flat and round and plastic in her pocket, her heart going doubletime.
“This is Kady?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You can say.”
“Word is, problem’s gone major. You’re tagged with it. Go with it the way you said. Time’s welcome. But when you get your launch date… you let us know. Very seriously.”
The guy walked off then.
God.
“What the hell?” Meg asked.
“I dunno,” she said, thinking about a shadowy ‘driver sitting out there spitting chunks at the Well. And MamBitch, who prepared the charts andtheir courses, and shoved them up to vand braked them. “I dunno.” Her stomach felt, of a sudden, as if she’d swallowed something very cold.
“Is that what I think I heard?” Meg asked. “They think we could be in some kind of danger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, God, great!”
“Let’s not panic.”
“Of course let’s not panic. I don’t effin’ like the stakes all of a sudden.”
She leaned forward on the table, pitched her voice as low as would still carry. “Meg. They’re not going to let us run into trouble.”
“Yeah,” Meg whispered back. “Let’s not hear ‘run into.’ I don’t like the words I’m hearing. I don’t like this ‘Go with it.’ Maybe I want a little more information than we’re getting into.”
“They’re saying we’re doing the right thing—”
“Yeah, doing the right thing. We can be fuckin’ martyrs out there, is that what they want?”
She reached across the table and grabbed Meg’s hand, scared Meg would bolt on her. “We got a real chance here—”
“What real chance? Chance your high and mighty friends are going to hold us a nice funeral? Chance we can collect the karma and they stay clean?”
“Meg, I can get you in.”
“Screw that.” Meg jerked her hand back. “I don’t take their charity.”
“Meg. For God’s sake don’t blow it.”
Meg set her jaw. Took several slow breaths, the way she would when she was mad. “What’s their guarantee? Shit, we could be bugged here—”
Sal took the flat plastic out of her coat pocket, which had a little green light showing. Palmed it, fast.
“God,” Meg groaned.
“They’re ahead of the game. They’re not going to let us walk into it.”
“Oh, you’ve got a lot of faith in them. That’s contraband, dammit!”
“Meg, they’re not fools.”
“They must think we are.”
“We made them an offer, Meg, they’re sayingthey’re agreeing. They’re warning us.”
“Yeah,’tagged with him.’ I like that. I really like that.”
“Meg.” She couldn’t lay it out better than Meg already knew it. Meg looked like murder.
But Meg said finally: “So we’re tagged with him.—Are we talking about giving up that lease?”
The answer was yes. Meg knew it. Meg knew it upside and down.
“Shit,” Meg said.
“We’ve got what they want. They wanthim. They paid their debts. That’s what they’re saying. They’re asking us take a risk, and we’re in, Meg, they’re making us an offer. If we screw ‘em on this—or if we back out now—”
She was down to begging. There were pulls in too many directions if Meg skitted out on this one. God, everything she wanted, everything. “A Shepherd berth, Meg. One last run. We get Dek out in the big quiet for a few months and that’s it. Ben and Bird set up with those ships. Karma paid. We’re getting outof here, Meg. A chance at a realship. Both of us.”