“Did you leave her there?” the man said. He couldn’t remember what he’d just said, he could only see the boards, and someone was holding him down. He got an arm free. People were yelling. There were flashes of the white room, there were faces over him and they were all holding him. He yelled: “Let me go!” and felt a sharp explosion against his shoulder, but they kept holding him, telling him to calm down.
He said, out of breath, “I’ll be calm. I’ll be calm, I don’t want any more sedatives—”
Because when they drugged him he had no idea where he was or how long he was out or where he went in that dark…
He opened his eyes again with a terrible leaden feeling, as if he weighed too much and he couldn’t wake up—but he knew where he was, he was in the hospital. Two very strong men were holding him down and asking him how he felt now.
He was out of the dark. He said, when he had gotten a whole breath, “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just don’t give me any more shots, all right?”
“Will you talk to us? Will you behave?”
“Yes,” he said.
The man in white leaned over him then, took hold of his wrist and asked him, “Are you still worried about your watch?”
His heart gave a little thump, making him dizzy. But he knew it was a test. He wasn’t supposed to ask the time. They beat him when he did that. Or gave him shots. He shook his head, wanting to stay awake now.
The doctor said, “We’re going to take some readings while we talk. Is that all right?”
Another test. He made up his mind then: it didn’t matter what the truth was. If he didn’t say exactly the right thing they’d give him shots. He’d been in trouble in his life—but this was serious. This was a hospital and they thought he was crazy.
The doctor asked him, “Are you still worried about your watch?”
Black. The siren going. He heard something beeping wildly. A timer was going off and he didn’t remember setting it. He could see the doctor frowning at him—he tried to track on the doctor: he knew how important it was. And when he did that, the beeping slowed down.
“That’s better,” the doctor said. “Are you all right? Do you want to tell me what just happened?”
He got a breath. He said, calmly, trying to pay no attention to the beeps, “Cory was outside. We were working this tag—”
“On which side of the line?”
“On this side.” Stupid question. The beeps went crazy a moment, when his heart did. He got it calm again. “We were working this tag. A big claim. Big. Kilometer wide…”
“Are you sure, Mr. Dekker?”
“It was that big. And we were out there. We’d shot our tag, but it wasn’t a good take. Cory said—” The beep sped up again and he slowed it down, staring at the wall, remembering Cory saying, We’re not letting those sons of bitches—”—We had to fix it. And she was going to go in—”
“You couldn’t handle a rock that size.”
“It was stable. Not that bad.” Again the beep. He said, before it could get away from him. “But this damn ‘driver—he wasn’t on the charts—he wasn’tslowing down. I said—I said, ‘Cory, get in here, Cory, he’s still not answering me, Cory, get inside—’”
“Get the trank,” the doctor said. The beep became a steady scream. Like the collision alert. Lights were flashing.
“I said, I kept saying, ‘You sonuvabitch, my partner’s out there, my partner’s outside, I can’t pull off—’”
They hit him with the trank. Two of them were holding him. But he kept screaming, ‘”I can’t pull off, you sonuvabitch!’ “
“It’s not working,” somebody said.
The doctor pushed his eyelid up, leaning close, said, looking elsewhere, “Get the chief,” while breath came short and the monitor was beeping a steady panic:
“They didn’t list it,” he said. “It wasn’t broadcasting—”
The doctor said, “Make up another dose. 50 ccs.”
“It wasn’t on the damn charts—”
“Easy,” the doctor said. “We understand you.—Cut that racket.”
The beeper stopped. He took an easier breath.
“Good. Good.” Another dark space then.
Somebody had had an accident, an Rl ship turned up in R2 zone, probable ‘driver accident—which should be BM’s job, but it was in William Payne’s day-file, straight from Crayton’s office, in General Administration.
The memo said: Handle this. We need minimal publicity.
Payne paged through the file. A freerunner pilot in hospital—making wild charges about a ‘driver captain violating regulations…
God. The Shepherd Association was hardnosing it in contract talks, the company trying to avert a strike—Payne shook his head. Not quite his job, but it was very clearly an information-control situation, and that washis department, as executive director of Public Information. One could even, if one were paranoid, suspect a set-up by the Independents—but it seemed the pilot’s physical condition was no fake, and a miner was dead.
Bad timing—damned bad timing for this to come in.
The question was how far the rumors had already gotten. Freerunners had done the rescue. That was one problem. News & Entertainment could run another safety news item, give the odds against a high- vrock, remind everyone it was a remote possibility—or maybe best not to raise the question. The Shepherd Association wanted an issue. It was begging for a forum. Meanwhile the police were going over the wreck, poking about— thatwas a department Public Information couldn’t entirely handle. Best keep them away from the issues in the case.
A release from the pilot was the all-around best fix. Evidently BM had a crack team going over that ship—that was good: if there was a mechanical fault, settle the problem there, no problem. Get a statement from the pilot, fix culpability if there was any—
Not with a company captain, damned sure, and not in a lawsuit that could bring the Shepherd Association in as friends of the court. That certainly wasn’t what Crayton meant by “settlement.”
A hand touched Dekker’s face. It gave him the willies. He couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t even open his eyes yet.
“Mr. Dekker, would you answer a question for me? There’s something I don’t understand.”
He got a breath. Two breaths. Did get his eyes open, marginally. “What?”
“Why the watch?”
“Kept the time.”
“Mr. Dekker.”
Clearer and clearer. It was the doctor again. He made a ‘ try at sitting up, inched higher on the pillows.
“How are we feeling, Mr. Dekker?”
“Like shit.”
“You were talking about the watch.”
Beep.
“ Explainto me about the watch, Mr. Dekker. Why does it upset you?”
He wished he knew the answers to that one. The doctor stood there a long time. Finally he thought, Maybe this one’s going to listen. He said, tentatively, “We had some stuff linked to the main board. Way Outwas old. The arm didn’t work off the main board. It was supposed to be a three-man, you know, the way some of the ships used to be…”
“Go on, Mr. Dekker. The watch.”
“You couldn’t work the arm and see the log chrono. Real easy to lose track of time when you’re working and we didn’t trust her suit indicators. So we used my watch.” His voice shook. He was scared the doctor was going to interrupt him and order him sedated if he lost it. And he wasn’t sure if he was making sense to the man. “It only timed an hour, you know, the alarm was a bitch to set—so we’d set it to January 1.—What day is it?”