She was still smiling when she reached the commons.
II
SHE LEANED on the catwalk railing to watch the activity in the cradle of the loading dock curving below. "Slug, take the kids down to give a hand with those carter-winches. Jebel said they could use some help."
Slug guided the platoon to the chair-lift that dropped into Tarik's pit:
“All right, when you get down there, go over to that man in the red shirt and ask him to put you to work. Yeah, work. Don't look so-surprised, stupid. Kile, strap yourself in, will you. It's two hundred and fifty feet down and a little hard on your head if you fall. Hey, you two, cut it out. I know he started first. Just get down there and be constructive . . ."
Rydra watched machinery, organic supplies—Alliance and Invader—handed in from the dismantling crews that worked over the ruins of the two ships and their swarm of cruisers; the stacked, sorted crates were piled along the loading area.
"We'll be jettisoning the cruiser ships shortly. I'm afraid Rimbaud will have to go, too. Is there anything you'd like to salvage before we dump it, Captain?" She turned at Jebel's voice.
"There are some important papers and recordings I have to get. I'll leave my platoon here and take my officers with me."
"Very well." Jebel joined her at the railing. "As soon as we finish here, I'll send a work-crew with you in case there's anything large you want to bring back."
"That won't be . . ." she began. "Oh, I see. You need fuel, don't you."
Jebel nodded. "And stasis components, also spare parts for our own spider-boats. We will not touch the Rimbaud until you have finished with it."
"I see. I guess that's only fair."
"I'm impressed," Jebel went on to change the subject, "with your method of breaking the Invader's defense net. That particular formation has always given us some trouble. The Butcher tells me you tore it apart in less than five minutes, and we only lost one spider.
That's a record. I didn't know you were a master strategist as well as a poet. You have many talents. It is lucky that Butcher took your call, though. I would not have had sense enough to follow your instructions just on the spur of the moment. Had the results not been so praiseworthy, I would have been put out with him. But then his decisions have never yet brought me less than profit." He looked across the pit.
On a suspended platform in the center, the ex-convict lounged, silent overseer to the operations below.
"He's a curious man, "Rydra said. "What was he in prison for?"
"I have never asked," Jebel said, raising his chin. “He has never told me. There are many curious persons on Tarik. And privacy is important in so small a space. Oh, yes. In a month's time you will learn how tiny the Mountain is."
"I forgot myself," Rydra apologized. "I shouldn't have inquired."
An entire foresection of a blasted Invader's cruiser was being dragged through the funnel on a twenty-foot wide, pronged conveyor. Dismantlers swarmed up the side with bolt punches and laser spots. Gig-cranes caught on the smooth hull and began to turn it slowly.
A workman at the port-disk suddenly cried out and swung hastily aside. His tools clattered down the bulkhead. The port-disk swung up and a figure in a silver skin suit dropped the twenty-five feet to the conveyor belt, rolled between two prongs, regained footing, leaped down the next ten-foot drop to the floor, and ran. The hood slipped from her head to release shoulder-length brown hair which swung wildly as she changed her course to avoid a trundling sludge. She moved fast, yet with a certain awkwardness. Then Rydra recognized that what she had taken for paunchiness in the fleeing Invader was at least a seven month's pregnancy. A mechanic flung a wrench at her, but she dodged so that it deflected off her hip. She was running toward an open space between the stacked supplies.
Then the air was cut by a vibrant hiss: the Invader stopped, sat down hard on the floor as the hiss repeated; she pitched to the side, kicked out one leg, kicked again.
On the tower, the Butcher put his vibra-gun back in the holster.
"That was unnecessary," Jebel said, with shocking softness.
"Couldn't we have . . ." and there seemed to be nothing to suggest. On Jebel's face was pain and curiosity. The pain, she realized, was not at the double death on the deck below, but the chagrin of a gentleman caught at something ugly. His curiosity was at her reaction. And it might be worth her life to react to the twisting in her stomach. She watched him preparing to speak: he was going to say—and so she said it for him—: “They will put pregnant women on fighting ships. Their reflexes are faster." She watched for him to relax, saw the relaxation begin.
The Butcher was already stepping from the chair-lift onto the catwalk. He came toward them, banging his fist against his corded thigh with impatience. "They should ray everything before they take it on. They won't listen. Second time in two months now." He grunted.
Below, Tarik's men and her platoon mingled over the body.
"They will next time." Jebel's voice was still soft and cool. "Butcher, you seemed to have pricked Captain Wong's interest. She was wondering what sort of a fellow you were, and I really couldn't tell her. Perhaps you can explain why you had to—"
"Jebel," Rydra said. Her eyes, seeking his, snagged on the Butcher's dark gaze. "I'd like to go to my ship now and see to it before you start salvaging."
Jebel exhaled the rest of a breath he'd held since the hiss of the vibra-gun. "Of course."
"No, not a monster, Brass." She unlocked the door to the captain's cabin of the Rimbaud and stepped through. "Just expedient. It's just like . . ." And she said a lot more to him till his fang-distended mouth sneered and he shook his head.
"Talk to me in English, Ca'tain. I don't understand you."
She took the dictionary from the console and placed it on top of the charts. "I'm sorry," she said. "This stuff is wicked. Once you learn it, it makes everything so easy. Get those tapes out of the playback. I want to run through them again."
"What are they?" Brass brought them over.
“Transcriptions of the last Babel-17 dialogues at the War Yards just before we took off." She put them on the spindle and started the first playing.
A melodious torrent rippled through the room, caught her up in ten and twenty second bursts she could understand. The plot to undermine TW-55 was delineated with hallucinatory vividness. When she reached a section she could not understand, she was left shaking against the wall of non-communication. While she listened, while she understood, she moved through psychedelic perceptions. When understanding left, her breath left her lungs with shock, and she had to blink, shake her head, once accidentally bit her tongue, before she was free again to comprehend.
"Captain Wong?"
It was Ron. She turned her head, aching slightly now, to face him.
"Captain Wong, I don't want to disturb you."
“That's all right," she said. "What is it?"
"I found this in the Pilot's Den." He held up a small spool of tape.
Brass was still standing by the door. "What was it doing in my part of the shi'?"