But come into their territory—
Lendler didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to interview the Belters. Even when he had it set up.
The phone beeped. He hoped it was Saito coming on-line: he could use a linguist about now—and he could wish Legal Affairs hadn’t left their office to a junior: the Fleet needed to enlist a motherworld lawyer, was what they needed, maybe two and three of them, since they never seemed unanimous— he’d had the UDC counsel on the line last night, talking about culpabilities and wanting releases from the next-ofs—
“Lt. Graff?” Young male voice. Familiar male voice. “Col. Tanzer on the line.”
He’d never been in the habit of swearing. But association with the Belters did suggest words. He kept it to: “Put him on, Trev.”
Pop. “Lt. Graff?”
“Colonel?”
“I’m looking at the file on Paul Dekker. Just wondered if you had any last-minute additions, before we write our finish on this accident business.”
“I’d appreciate that, colonel, as soon as we finish our own investigation.”
“Dekker’s been released from hospital, I understand, on your orders.”
Possibility of recorders. Distinct possibility. “Released to Fleet medical care. His blood showed high levels of tranquilizer and pain medication. My medical staff says it was excessive. Far excessive. The word malpractice figured in the report.”
A moment of silence. “Blood samples taken after he was in your doctors1 care, lieutenant. I’ll inquire, but you’ll excuse me if I choose to believe our own personnel. File a separate report if you like. Call the Surgeon General. It’s completely of a pattern with the rest of your actions. But you may find some of those chickens coming home to roost very shortly.”
Another one for Saito. But the gist of it got through, quite clearly.
Tanzer said: “The phone isn’t the place for this discussion. I’ll see you in my office in ten minutes. Or I’ll file this report as is, without your inspection, and add your objection in my own words.”
Moment of silence from his side. A moment of temptation to damn Tanzer for a bastard, hang up, and call the captain on uncoded com. He might be a fool not to have done that: Tanzer made little moves, niggling away at issue after issue, day after day; damn the man, he could be recording the conversation right now. But caution won. Follow the forms. “I’m on my way,” he said.
The sojers had this perverse habit called reveille, which meant after the com scared hell out of you and you hauled yourself bleary-eyed awake, you ran for the breakfast line before the eggs disappeared—Meg had gotten into that routine on the ship coming here, got a few days spoiled on the shuttle, and here she and Sal were again—standing in line, the only females in sight, with two guys who drew their own kind of attention.
Orientation, the lieutenant had told her, outside hospital. Keep him busy. Push him, but not too hard. Don’t let him off by himself.
Which meant they were a kind of bodyguard, she supposed. Against what, she wasn’t sure—against Dek’s own state of mind, high on the list: too much death, Sal put it, for anybody to tolerate. Everybody he’d gotten really close to, except Ben and her, had died; he’d watched it happen every damned time; and last night he was telling her to try to de-enlist, get out of his life?
Only convinced her how seriously she meant to follow the lieutenant’s orders and keep a tag on him.
So Dek was supposed to show them around, get them acquainted with the classrooms and the VR labs and the library, get their own cards picked up. Lab schedule, soon as they could get settled, hell and away different than she’d learned flying, but that was the way they did it in the Fleet: Dek said you took a pill and they hooked you up to a tape and they fed the basics of the boards into you by VR display like programming some damned machine—
“Confuses you at first,” Dekker was telling them, in the breakfast line, the other side of Ben. “Reactions cross what you know, you face it the next day and you don’t remember learning something new—-your hands know. They use it just to teach you the boards. The brain takes a while to get used to it—a while to know it knows. Handful of people can’t take the pills. But it’s rare.”
She listened. She tried to imagine it.
“They’re experimenting with that stuff over at TI,” Ben said. “Hell if they’re going to mess with my head. I’m a Priority 10. Programmer. Security clearance. Damn chaff, feat’s what’s going on, it’s that screwed-up EIDAT they’re using—drop me in here and my level isn’t in the B Dock system, oh, no, all it knows is pilots and dock monkeys, so I got to be one or the other, right? Right.” Dollop of synth eggs onto Ben’s plate. “So it lets some damn keypusher screw with my assignment. Does somebody over at Sol wonder where I am? Not yet. Personnel isn’t supposed to think, oh, no, they trust the EIDAT. I got a post waiting for me, God hope it’s still waiting. —What the hell is that stuff?”
“Grits,” Dek said.
“Was it alive?”
“It wasn’t alive.” Dek slid his tray to the end of the line and drew his coffee.
“You want me to carry that?” Meg asked.
“I’m fine,” Dek said, and stuck his card in the slot. “That’s present and accounted for. Laser scans the bottom of the containers, figures your calories and your allotments— dietician’s worse than—hell.” Reader’s read-line was blinking.
“You have a message,” the checkout robot said, as if Dek couldn’t read.
“Scuse.” Dek carried his tray over to a corner table, quiet spot, Meg was glad to note, following him, while Ben waited for Sal to check through—a skosh too many Shepherd eyes in this place for her personal comfort, all picking up every move they made. Hi, Dek, they’d say soberly, sounding friendly enough. Giving her and Sal the eye, that was a natural—women being severely scarce here; and sort of glossing Ben.
But me UDC boys looked at Ben and looked at them and heads sort of leaned together at tables, she could see it going on all over that other corner of the hall, thick with UDC uniforms.
Dek set his tray down. “I’ll check that message blinker. Probably your stuff. Hope it’s your stuff.”
As Sal and Ben showed up with their trays and set them down.
“What’s he doing?” Ben asked with a glance over his shoulder. “You don’t ask what a message is before breakfast, you never ask what a message is before breakfast—”
“Thinks it could be our accesses.” Meg set her tray down and cast a glance at Dek over by the phone, a skosh anxious, she couldn’t even tell why, except Dek had had this edge in his voice: he was On about something, she read it in his stance and his moves, and she hadn’t been able to read all the codes that had popped up. She said, still on her feet, “Ben? You capish the code on that blinker?”
“Accesses stuff,” Ben said, sitting down.
“Uh-oh,” Sal said.
Understatement. Serious understatement. Dek hit the phone with his open hand. “Scuze,” Meg said, and went that direction.
Dek snatched out his card, and ricocheted into her path. “What is?” she asked, catching at his arm. “Dek?”
“They clipped me, Tanzer’s fuckin’ clipped me, the son of a bitch.” Dek shoved her and she didn’t know whether to hang on or not—her hand stung as he blazed past her. But that didn’t matter. Dek going for the door like a crazy man—that seriously mattered. Dek knocking into guys inbound—
Mitch, for God’s sake—
Dek got past. Hot on his track she hit the same obstacle, who didn’t give way a second time. Neither did the other guys. “Kady,” Mitch said, not friendly. “I heard they’d gotten desperate.”