“But what in hell do they think they’re doing?” His voice came out higher than he intended, hardly recognizable. “What kind of a game is this? How could they ever think they could get away with it?”
“There’s crazy people. They shot us down at the company doors. News cameras everywhere. Everybody in the world saw it. How’d they get away with that, can you tell me, jeune rab? —Have your rum. The word’s out on the Shepherds’ com. They’ll be hearing it at Sol about now. The company won’t want you to talk, you understand—seriously won’t want you to talk to anybody. That’s what’s going on. But if MamBitch pushes now, the Shepherds are going to shut MamBitch down. Let the corp-rats fly the ships with their cut-rate crews. Let the company execs fly the Well.”
“I want that guy, Meg.”
“Close as we can come. You got the guys that launched him. Somebody’sjob’s gone. Best you can do with these sumbitches.”
He’s reported in the core, the last report from Salvatore’s office had said. They were still searching; and Payne, with Towney’s office requesting the Dekker file, searched screen after screen of records generated by Salvatore’s investigation.
Record score on re-certification. Cleared to retrain, shipping with the two miners who’d picked him up, plus a Kady and Aboujib, both female—
Ships both due to launch on the 18th, the sleepery owner swearing he had no idea in hell where Dekker was—Dekker has missed a supper appointment: his partners had been phoning around trying to find him. Dekker could have come and gone, the owner had no idea, he’d been watching the vid. Everybody in the bar had been watching the vid…
Aboujib and Pollard both had Shepherd parentage. Kady was a cashiered shuttle pilot. Bird had been a suspect in the Nouri affair, close friend of Pratt and Marks—
The file had gone to Towney’s desk.
And the monkey was climbing up PI’s back.
Nobody had told hisoffice that Dekker was anything but, at absolute worst, a skimmer who’d gotten caught and bumped. Nobody had told him that a ‘driver captain was going to make a gesture like this at the Shepherds.
He keyed up Industry’srecord. Windowed in the second chart.
No record of asteroid 98879 prior to the incident. Industry’stransmission logged the discovery to the company. March 7th.
God.
Dekker had flat spooked out about the launch—that was Ben’s opinion on the matter. Thtey’d tried restaurants, game parlors, tried the bars again in the idea he could be skipping from one to the other, but the cops and the military were getting more and more visible on the’deck.
To hellwith that guy! Ben thought, trying to look inconspicuous while a group of military police came past the frontage. Inside, the vid was saying something about shifts held over due to “military exercises” and “a test of security procedures…”
A hand landed on his shoulder. His heart nearly stopped. He spun around nose to nose with Bird.
“Don’t dothat!”
“Now wegot a problem. We got wall to wall cops at The Hole.”
He felt of his pocket, cold of a sudden. “Card’s with me. We’re all right.”
“All right,’” Bird echoed him. “You got a hell of an idea of ‘all right.’ Have you seen Sal or Meg?”
“Not since an hour ago.”
The PA blared out: “ Shifts will be held another hour. There is a Civil Defense Command exercise in progress. If you have an assigned CDC post on 3-shift, go to it immediately. If you have no assigned duty, clear the ‘decks, repeat, all off-shift personnel get off the ‘decks and return to quarters.”
“The hell,” Bird muttered. “I’ve seen thisbefore.”
“What are they doing?”
“Cops,” Bird said. “Martial law. Shit with finding the kid. They’re going to shut him up, shut it down—it’s Nouri all over again.” Bird’s hand closed on his arm. “And we’rein it up to our ears, understand me?”
He did understand. He saw company cops moving through the crowds—saw blue-uniformed MP’s too, with heavy sidearms.
Bird said, “This time we put the word out, just find some friends, spill the beans, tell them pass it on.”
“Why risk ournecks? We got enough troubles.”
“That’s what we said the last time.”
“Bird,—those are guns out there!”
“Do you know the word ‘railroad,’ Ben-me-lad? Pratt and Marks were innocent. No way those boys were with Nouri’s lot. Good, dumb kids. But now nobody’s sure.—You do what you like.”
“Where are you going?”
“Doing a little discreet talking around in various ears. The company’s not hushing this one up. This time we know numbers. And dates.”
His mind went scattering in panic—the launch tomorrow… but that wasn’t going to happen. The urge to kill Dekker for involving them in this… but Dekker was probably the first one under arrest.
He took a fistful of Bird’s coat, hauled him back. “Bird,—”
“I knew Pratt and Marks were being screwed,” Bird said. “ Ihad the evidence, you understand me. It could have tied meto Nouri—in certain eyes. Everybody was scared. Everybody was saving his own ass. And everybody lost.—Not this time.”
“Bird, for God’s sake—”
“This time it’s us in the fire-path, you understand me? And we’re not dumb kids. You’ve got that datacard. Give it to me.”
Ben felt after the flat shape in his inside pocket, desperately trying to think what old classmates he knew that could fix thisone—but there wasn’t anyone. Not a damn soul who wouldn’t be, the way Bird said, saving his own ass.
“ Giveit to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Put it on the bulletin board. And pass the word.”
“Shit!”
Bird leaned close and put a hand on his shoulder. “Find yourself a hole, hear me? Get down to the club. Don’t know if Sal’s friends’ll let you in, but, hell, you’ve got ties there. Use ‘em. It’s the only hole might cover you.”
Bird trying anything under the table—Bird didn’t know shit about the safeguards on the computer systems, Bird didn’t know shit what he was doing, dammit, those charts were their living—
They also were the only evidence that existed about where they’d been and what they’d done, and if the company arrested them and erased it—
“Hell,” he said, “you’ve got that Shepherd card. Thing’s got 1-deck Access.”
“Do what with it? Hell, Ben, that thing’s probably more dangerous—”
“Just leave the computer stuff to me and stay out of it, Bird, you don’t know shit how to get past the lockouts. I can get into all the boards, hell, I can get it into general systems, Bird, I know the modem codes…”
“Where in helldid you get those?”
He said, “Just give me the fuckin’ card, Bird, and tell ‘em the filename’s Dekker.”
“ Mr. Crayton is in conference,” the secretary said, and Payne shot the memo through in desperation. “Give thatto him. We’ve got to have a policy decision. Thirty minutes ago!”