Dekker slumped against the chair-back, bowed his head, shaking it no, and Abe Persky said, brushing up close on his way out, “Not bright, kid. Understand?”
Abe left. Mike was pissed about his customers, andthe noise—he brought the drink over and said, “Shut this guy up. We don’t need this kind of trouble in here.”
“We got him,” Meg said, got Dekker by the shoulder and steered him for the chair. “You just calm down, hear? Bird’s not a thief.”
“The company’s the thief—you just—”
Meg said, “Shut it down, just shut it down, jeune fils. We hear you. Listen to me. Sit fuckin’ down.”
Dekker fell into the chair, caught his head against his hands, in an ambient quiet even The Hole’s music couldn’t drown.
“Dunno if he ought to have this,” Mike said. “I give you guys a break and you give me a crazy?”
Dekker said, looking up: “I’m not crazy!”
“Them’s the ones to watch,” Mike said, and set the beer down.
Dekker was honestly sorry he’d hit Bird. It was Ben he wished he’d found, before the cops came and got him. He might have killed Ben. And that might have satisfied him.
But Bird had told the bartender not to call the cops, for what good that would do, the red-haired woman had made him sit down at their table and they gave him a beer he didn’t need—
God, his head was pounding. His eyes ached.
The two of them—Bird and this woman with the red hair, who might be a Shepherd—sat at the table with him and told him how the company would have taken everything he owned anyway, how he had to be smart and keep his mouth shut, because he was only making trouble for people who didn’t have any choice…
“So what have Igot?” he asked.
“Hush.” Bird grabbed his wrist, squeezed hard, the way Bird had done on the ship, telling him shut up, to keep Ben from killing him, and his nerves reacted to that: he believedin Bird’s danger, he believedin Bird’s advice the same helpless, stupid way he’d found himself from one moment to the next believing what the doctors told him, and he knew then he was lost. He said, pleading with Bird for help: “They’re lying to me.”
Bird whispered, “Hush. Hush, boy. So they’re lying. Don’t make trouble, if you have any hope of getting that license back.”
He didn’t remember he’d told Bird about his license. He couldn’t even remember how long he’d been sitting here, except his hand stung, which told him how long ago he’d hit Bird. Holes in his memory, the doctors said. Brain damage…
“Whatever’s happened,” Bird said quietly, still holding his arm, leaning close, “—whatever’s happened, son, we’re not against you. We want to help you. All right?”
He was alone in this place, he didn’t know anybody on R2 but Bird and Ben, a handful of doctors and Tommy. He sat there with Bird holding his wrist and keeping him anchored in reality, or he might go floating off right now. Bird said he wanted to help. Nobody else would, here; Belters didn’t; and he couldn’t get back to Rl—couldn’t go back home without Cory even if they’d send him. Their friends would say, Why did you let her die? Why didn’t you do something? And all those letters waiting from her mother…
“Guy’s gone,” the woman’s voice said.
“He’s on something.” Bird shook his arm. “Dekker, you on drugs?”
“Hospital,” he said. He was staring at something. He could see a haze. He had no idea why he was staring, or how he was going to come unlocked and move again, except if Bird would realize he was in trouble and bring him back…
Bird said, “Dekker?”
“Yeah?”
“Look, where are you staying?”
That question required some thinking. It brought the room a little clearer. “I don’t know,” he said, asking himself if it mattered at all. But Bird shook at his arm, saying, “Listen. You’re pretty fuzzed. How are you set? You got any funds?”
He tried to think about that, too. Recalled the 60-day delay—when he’d been on R2 longer than that, dammit, and he didn’t know why the bank had waited til he got out of hospital to start transferring his account. He had no idea how he’d even bought the beers a while back. He had no idea how 500-odd dollars had arrived in his account—whether it was his, or whether he just didn’t remember…
Bird said, “We could put you up a few days—not that we owe you, understand? Let’s be clear on that. But I don’t really blame you for coming in here mad, either. Maybe we can work something out, put the arm on a few guys that might help, you understand what I’m saying?”
It sounded better than Pranh or the rest of them had offered, better than the cops had given him. Bird had always seemed decent—Bird was the one who’d told him about the ‘driver.
“Out there,” he whispered, trying to turn his head and look Bird in the eyes to gauge his reaction, but he couldn’t manage the movement: “Out there—you saw. You remember what happened…”
Bird closed down harder on his wrist, numbing his fingers, hurting his arm, reminding him Bird had another face. “Better you concentrate on where you’re going, son, and not think about anything else. You can’t help your partner now. She’s gone. Best you can do is get yourself clear. You think about it. Your Cory would want you to use your head, wouldn’t she? She’d want you to be all right. Isn’t that what she’d say?”
That made him mad. Nobody had a right to put words in Cory’s mouth. She’d hate it like hell. But he couldn’t get back from where he was. He said, staring off into nowhere, “Screw you, Bird.”
“Yeah, well,” Bird said. “Try to help a guy—”
Another hand landed on his arm, pulled him around until he was looking at brown eyes, shaved head, dark red crest—rab, radrab, Shepherd or whatever she was, he didn’t know. He was fascinated—wary, too. He’d been rab once. But Cory hadn’t approved—Cory was too frugal, too Martian to waste money, she’d say, or to waste effort on the system, even screwing it.
That senator—Broden—saying, when they’d opened fire on the emigration riots—”No deals with the lawless rabble—”
Newsflashes, when he’d been—what? Ten? Twelve? First real political consciousness he’d ever had, seeing people shot down, blood smeared on glass doors…
Rab style and rabfad was one thing. Shepherds wore it modified, he guessed because it annoyed the exec, and they would. But this one, extreme as she was, with marks of age around her eyes—”You’re from Sol Station,” the woman said. “Right?”
“Yeah.”
She stared at him a long time. It felt like a long time. She might be thinking of trouble. Finally she said, her hand having replaced Bird’s on his wrist without his realizing. “Severely young, severely stupid, cher juene fils. Company’ll chew you up. Bird’s all right. If Bird’s telling you, you do. Or are you looking for MamBitch to save you? That’s fool. That’s sincerely primefool, petty cher.”
Rabspeak, from years ago. From before Cory. From a whole different life. Rabfad had turned into respectable fast-fad, except if you didn’t get it out of the trend shops, except if you were truly one of the troublemakers—
Dress like that on helldeck was a statement—a code he couldn’t cipher anymore, not what the colors were, what the earrings said, what the shave-job tied you to… like this woman, who looked him in the eyes and talked to him—as if she saw what he had been before Cory—a damned fool wearing colors and politics he hadn’t then known the meaning of—