But Cory never answered him wherever he was, and at times he knew she wouldn’t.
The old man drifted up into his sight again, put a straw in his mouth and told him to drink. He did. It tasted of copper. The old man asked him what had happened to his partner. Then he remembered—how could he have forgotten?—that she was out there and that ship was, he could see it coming—
“No!” he cried, and winced when it hit, he knew it was going to hit, the collision alert was screaming. He yelled into the mike, “My partner’s out there!” because it was the last thing he could think of to tell them.
“Your partner’s dead!” somebody yelled at him, and another voice, angry, yelled, “Shut up, dammit, Ben! You got no damn feelings, give the guy a chance. God!”
He was still alive and he did not understand how he had survived. He hauled himself to the radio, he held on against the spin as long as he had strength. “Cory,” he called on the suit-com frequency, over and over again, while the ship tumbled. Maybe she answered. His ears rang so he couldn’t hear the fans or the pumps. But he kept calling her name, so she would know he was alive and looking for her, that he’d get help to her somehow…
As soon as he could get the damned engines to fire.
Or as soon as he could get hold of Base and make that ship out there answer him…
Ben said, “We’re duesalvage rights, whether he’s company or a freerunner, no legal difference. It’s right in the company rules, I’ll show you—”
Bird said, carefully, because he wanted Ben to understand him: “We’ll get compensated.”
“Maritime law since—”
“There’s the law and there’s what’s right, Ben.”
“ Rightis, we own that ship, Bird. He wasn’t in control of it, that’s what rightsays.”
Ben was short of breath. He was yelling. Bird said, calmly, sanely, “I’m trying to tell you, there’s a lot of complications here. Let’s just calm down. We’ve got weeks yet back to Base, plenty of time to figure this out, and we’ll talk about it. But we’re not getting any damn where if we don’t get our figures in and tell Mama to get us the hell home. Fast.”
“So how much are you going to spend on this guy?. A month’s worth of food? Medical supplies? We’re going to bust our ass and risk our rigging for this guy?”
Bird had no answer. He couldn’t think of one to cut this off.
“This is my money too, Bird. It’s my money you’re spending. Maybe you own this ship, maybe I’m just a part-share partner, but I have some say here.” Ben flung a gesture toward Dekker, aft. “That guy’s going to live or he’s going to die. In either case he’s going to do it before the month is up. Much as I want to be rid of him, there’s no need busting our tails—we have double mass to move, Bird, and hell if I’m dumping the sling—”
“All right, we’re not dumping the sling. Not ours, not his either, if we can avoid it.”
“And we’re not putting any hard push on the rigging. There’s no point in risking our necks. Or putting wear on the pins and the lines. We don’t call this a life-and-death. We can’t cut that much time off. And hell if I want to meet a rock the way this guy did.”
It made better sense than a lot else Ben had been saying. Bird took that for hopeful and nodded. “I’ll go with you on that. A hard push could do more harm than good for him, too.”
“Guy’s going to die anyway.”
“He’s not going to die,” Bird said. “For God’s sake, just shut up, he can hear you.”
“So if he doesn’t? A month gets him well, and we pull into station and he looks healthy and he says sure he was managing that ship just fine—”
“Just let it alone, Ben!”
“I’m going to get pictures.”
“Get your pictures.” Bird shook his head, wishing he could say no, wishing he had some way to reason with Ben, but if getting a vid record would make Ben happier, God, let him have the pictures. “We have the condition of that ship out there, we have the log records over there—”
“Charts—” Ben exclaimed, as if that was a new idea.
“We’re not touching that log. No way. That part of the law Iknow.”
“I’m not talking about that. Look—look, I got an idea.”
An idea was welcome. Bird watched doubtfully as Ben punched up the zone schema, pointed on the screen to the’driver ship and its fire-path to the Well, the same thing that scared them even to contemplate. “ That’sgot a medic. That’s got a friggin’ company captain in charge. We just ask Mama to boost us over there just across the line and theycan take official possession.”
“Damn right they would. The company doesn’t run a charity.”
“It’s an Rl ship! They’re obligated to take him. They have no choice. The law says a ‘driver is a Base: they can log us right there for a find if we bring it in, and this is a find, isn’t it? Same as a rock. We can turn it in, money in the bank, and we can apply to do some clean-up along with its tenders for the rest of our run—that’s damn good money. Sure money. And we got the best excuse going.”
“Ben, that’s a ‘driver captain you’re talking about. They don’t haveto do anything. You want him to tell us we’ve still got to turn around and take this guy in to Base, maybe clean to Rl, if he takes it in his head—he can do that. You want him to tell us he’ll hold Eighty-four Zebra for us—and then contest his fees in court when he shows up three years from now with one hell of a haulage charge? We got this run to pay for, we got serious questions to answer, because there’s a whole lot that’s not right about this, and I’m not taking my chances with any Court of Inquiry back at Base with all the evidence stuck out on a ‘driver that for all we know isn’t coming in for three or four more years. If you want to talk law, now, let’s be practical!”
Ben’s mouth shut.
“A ‘driver does any damn thing it wants to. Three years’ dockage charges, supposing they’re on the start of their run. Three years’ haulage. You want to try to pry a claim away from the company then? Not mentioning the cost of getting it there. We’re short as is. You want to hear them say ferry it back ourselves anyway? Twice the distance? Or get us drafted into its tender crew on a permanentbasis? You know what they charge a freerunner for fuel?”
Ben looked very sober during all of this. Ben bit his lip. “So that’s out. You know, we could just sort of knock that fellow on the head. Solve everybody’s problem.”
Ben, who was scared to death of looking at a body.
“Yeah, sure,” Bird said.
And from aft: “What time is it? What’s the time?”
Ben glanced up. “Now what does he want?”
Bird checked his watch. “2310,” he shouted back.
“I want my watch.”
“God,” Ben muttered, shaking his head. “We have four weeks of this guy?”
“ I want my watch!”
Ben yelled: “Shut up, dammit, you’re not keeping any appointments anyway!”
“Patience,” Bird said, but Ben shoved off in Dekker’s direction. Bird sailed after, arrived as Dekker said quietly, “I need my watch.”
Ben said: “You don’t need your watch, you’re not going anywhere. It’s 23 damn 10 in my sleep, mister, you’re using our air and our fuel and our time already, so shut up.”
“Ben, just take it easy.”
“I’ll shut him up with a wrench.”
“Ben.”
“All right, all right, all right.” Ben took off again.