He said, under his: “We know what he said. But he hasn’t made a whole lot of sense. That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”
“For God’s sake, Ben, give the kid a chance—you said yourself, if we got the finance, give the guy a stake—”
“I don’t know why you want to hand this guy the keys to everything we own and say help yourself! What about me? What about the guy that’s tossed all his funds into this well, huh? This guy could be a slash-killer for all we know, and you’re wanting to use our credit on him?”
“Shut up, Ben.”
He shut up. Bird turned him loose and went over to talk to Mike at the bar. Mike stood there scowling. Dekker was still sitting there with his mind bent, staring off into deep space.
Meg was in the next chair talking to him. Salwas leaning over him, showing cleavage. He walked over to Dekker, laid a hand on his shoulder, ready to jump if Dekker wanted to throw a punch. He squeezed Dekker’s shoulder, said, casually, “Hello there, Dek. Remember me? Ben Pollard. How are you doing?”
He flinched, and he couldmove: he turned his head very slowly to look up at Ben, remembering they were not in the ship, they were in a bar in a sleepery on R2, and he’d just punched Bird. He figured Ben wanted to punch him, but Ben wasn’t doing it because this was a public place.
He said, “Hello, Ben.” He could almost come out of the haze. Ben was far clearer to him than the women had been. He was actually glad when Ben moved a chair and sat down, leaning into his face, holding his arm.
Ben said, “Well, how’ve you been, Dekker?”
“Not good,” he said; and, fighting to get back from where he was, he tried desperately to be civil so long as Ben was being: maybe he hadbeen crazy. Maybe Ben was honestly trying to start things over. “You?”
“We’re fine. We’re real fine. Sorry about the ship.” He figured Ben was trying to make a point. He wasn’t going to accept it. But numbness gave him a self-control he wouldn’t have had otherwise. “Yeah, well,” he said.
Ben squeezed his arm. “A little zee’d, are we?”
“They gave me something.” Dekker held up white plastic sacks. Ben took them from him. Prescription bottle showed through the plastic. “I’m supposed to take those.”
“Not all at once,” Meg muttered. “He’s had enough damn pills and excessively too much beer. Man needs to get up and walk, is what he needs.”
He thought, All right, let’s keep people happy, give this guy a chance to show out crazy as he is—the poor little pet.
So he stood up and pulled at Dekker. “Come on, Dekker, on your feet. Walk the happystuff off.”
Dekker didn’t argue. He stood up. Ben got an arm around him before the knees went.
“The Pacific called,” Bird came over to say. “Seems he left his card there. They’re holding it.”
“Guy’s got a card.” Ben felt a little better then, hoping there was finance on it. “Has he got a room there?”
“No, I worked something out with Mike.”
Ben stopped, with his arms around Dekker.
He thought: Shit!
CHAPTER 11
DEKKER waked, eyes open on dark, gholding him steady. But it wasn’t the hospital, it didn’t smell like the hospital. It didn’t sound like the hospital. It sounded like helldeck, before they’d left. His heart beat faster and faster, everything out of control. Nothing might be real. Nothing he remembered might be real.
“ Cory?” he yelled. “Cory?” And waited for her to answer somewhere out of the dark, “Yeah? What’s the matter?”
But there was no sound, except some stirring beyond the wall next to his bed.
He lay still then, one hand on the covers across his chest. He could feel the fabric. He wasn’t in a stimsuit. He wasn’t wearing anything except the sheets and a blanket. He lay there trying to pick up the pieces, and there were so many of them. Rl. Sol. Mars. The wreck. The hospital. The Hole. His whole life was in pieces and he didn’t know which one to pick up first. They had no order, no structure. He could be anywhere. Everything was still to happen, or had. He didn’t know.
A door opened somewhere. Someone came down the hall. Then his opened, the ominous click of a key, and light showed two silhouettes before the overhead light flared and blinded him.
Bird’s voice said, “You all right, son?”
“Yeah.” His heart was still doing double-time. He put his arm up to shade his eyes. Time rolled forward and back and forward again. He began to figure out for certain it was a sleepery, and he remembered being in the bar with Bird and Ben. It was Bird and the red-haired woman in the doorway, Bird in a towel, the woman—Meg—in a sheet. Ben showed up behind them in the doorway, likewise in a sheet, looking mad. Justifiably, he told himself, and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Clearer-headed?” Bird asked.
“Yeah.” Things are still going around. He recalled walking up and down the hall behind the bar, up and down with Ben and Meg and a black woman, remembered eating part of a sandwich because Ben threatened to hit him if he didn’t stay awake—but he didn’t remember going to bed at all, or how he’d gotten out of his clothes. He had hit Bird in the mouth. Bruised knuckles reminded him of that. “Sorry. I’m all right. Just didn’t know where I was for a second.”
“Doing a little better,” Bird said.
“Yeah.” He hitched himself up on his elbows, still squinting against the overhead light. “I’m all right.” He was embarrassed. And scared. The doctors said he had lapses. He didn’t know how large this one might have been or how many days he had been here since he last remembered. “Thanks.”
Bird walked all the way in. “You’re sounding better.”
“Feeling better. Honestly. I’m sorry about the fuss.”
Ben edged in behind Bird, scowling at him. “Beer and pills’ll do that, you know.”
“Yeah,” he said. He earnestly didn’t want to fight with Ben. His head was starting to ache. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“Good God,” Ben said. “Sorry and Thank you all in one hour. Must be off his head.”
“I’ve got it coming,” he said. “I know.” He slipped back against the pillow, wanting time to remember where he was. “Leave the light on, would you?”
Ben said, “Hell, if it keeps him quiet—”
They left then, except Bird. Bird walked closer, loomed between him and the single ceiling light, a faceless shape.
“You had a rough time,” Bird said. “You got a few friends here if you play it straight with us. Watch those pills, try to keep it quiet. Owner’s a real nice guy, didn’t call the cops, just took our word you’re on the straight. All right?”
He recalled what he’d done. He knew he had maybe a chance with Bird, maybe even with Ben, if he could keep from fighting with him. “Tell Ben—I wasn’t thinking real clear. Didn’t know what ship I was on.”
“You got it straight now?”
“I hope I do.” His head was throbbing. He wanted desperately for them to believe him. He didn’t know whether he believed them—but no other way out offered itself. He put his arms over his eyes. “Thanks, Bird.”
Bird left. The light stayed on. He didn’t move. In a while more he took his arm down to fix the room in his mind. It was mostly when he shut his eyes that he got confused; it was when he slept and woke up again. He kept assuring himself he was out of the hospital, back with people who understood, the way the doctors didn’t, what it was like out there.
And the two rabs, who might be Shepherds, but who didn’t talk like it—he wasn’t sure what they were, or what they wanted, or why they zeroed in on him. They worried him the way Ben worried him—not the dress: the mindset—the mindset that said screw authority. No future. Get high. Get off. Get everything you can while you can, because the war’s coming, the war to end all wars.
Hell, yes, Cory had said, it could end Earth. But it won’tget the human race; that’s why we’re going, that’s why we’re heading out of here…