Except with a wrong word to the UDC R&D chief.
“Think I just picked a wrong word with Villy. Does ‘cut and dried’ describe what they’re going to ask at the hearings?”
Com One said, her almond eyes half-lidded, “Probably. ‘Rigged’ might too. On, is the man?”
Demas said, “A lot On. Deep in. Drink your coffee, Helm. Present for you.” Demas laid a bolt on the table. Fat one.
Damn. “What is that?”
“That, J-G, is a bolt. It was lying next the wall in a dark little recess in the carrier’s main corridor. Where the construction crew just installed the number eighteen pressure seal.”
Thing was good as a bullet lying there. “I want to see the count sheet. I want the last crew that worked in there. Damn those fools!”
“Station labor. Gravitied brains. What do you ask?”
Ben said, “You remember Graff?”
“Yeah,” Dekker said.
“What do you remember?”
“The trip out from the Belt. Here.”
“Good boy. Where are we?”
“Sol Two,” he said. Ben told him so. He had to believe what Ben told him: Ben was the check he had asked for. Ben was what he got and he had to believe everything Ben told him—he told himself that, this morning. Ben showed him pictures and showed him letters in the reader, that he remembered reading. The ones from Meg, the note from Falcone, the morning—
The morning they pulled him off the demo and put somebody else in.
Nothing you can do, Falcone had written. Left the note on the system. Came back like a ghost—after the accident. After—
“You remember where the sims are?”
“Which ones?”
“You tell me.”
He felt tired, wrung out. He lay back in the pillows and said, “Couple downside. They’re all the procedurals.” Tried to think of exact words and remembered Ben was a licensed pilot too. “Ops stuff—stuff you need your reflexes for—it’s in the core.”
“Null-g stuff.”
“Null-g and high-g.” His eyes wanted to drift shut. His mind went around that place as if it were a pit. He could see the chamber in the null-g core, the sims like so many eggs on mag-lev tracks, blurring in motion. Lot of g’s when they were working. . ..
“When’s the last time you remember using the sims in the core?”
Difficult question for a moment. Then not so hard. “Watch before the test. Wilhelmsen and I—”
“Wilhelmsen.”
“He was my backup.”
“friend of yours?”
Difficult to say. “Chad...”
“Wilhelmsen?”
He nodded, eyes shut. “Son of a bitch, but he was all right. Didn’t dislike him. We got along.”
“So they subbed him in. You watch the test?”
He didn’t know. Completely numb now. But the monitor on the shelf was showing higher points to the green line.
“You went into shock. They put you in hospital.”
Wasn’t the way he remembered. Wasn’t sure what he did remember, but not that shock was the reason. No. He hadn’t seen it.
“They give you drugs in the hospital?”
He nodded. He was relatively sure of that.
“Give you a prescription when you left?”
“Dunno.”
“They say they did.”
“Then I guess they did.”
“You guess. Were you still high when you left the hospital? Did you have drugs with you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What time of day was it?”
“Don’t remember, Ben, I don’t remember.” But something was there, God, a flare on the vid, a light the cameras couldn’t handle. Plasma. Bright as the sun. Pete and Elly, and Falcone and the ship.
“You all right?” The monitor was beeping. “—No! Let him alone. It’s all right! Leave him the hell alone.”
Orderly was trying to intervene. He opened his eyes and looked toward the door, trying to calm his pulse rate, and Ben leaned over and put his hand on his shoulder. Squeezed hard.
“You get in that sim by yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Somebody put you there?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, Ben. I just can’t remember.”
“Come on, Dek, think about it. You got into the core. You remember that? You had to get that far. What happened then?”
He shook his head. He kept seeing dark. Hashing lights. Green lines and gold. Heard Cory saying, Nothing you can do, Dek, nothing you can do...
They were back in The Hole. In his room behind the bar. Had a drawerful of pills....
He put a hand over his eyes, men stared at the ceiling and looked over at Ben again to be sure where he was and when he was. But the black kept trying to come back and the lines twisted and moved.
‘Driver ship, a k long. Loads of rock going to the Well at tremendous v.
Cory was dead. Dead a long time. So was Bird. He thought that Bird was dead. Fewer and fewer things were coming loose and drifting.
He pressed his hands over his eyes until it made sparks of color in the dark of virtual space. Red. Phosphenes. Was that what they said the lights were?
Spinning, of a sudden. He grabbed the bed. Ben said, “God, watch it!”
Something was beeping. Ben said, to someone at the door, “He had a dream, that’s all.”
“Want you there this afternoon,” Graff said to his Nav One; and to Saito.
Saito said, “This won’t be like our procedures. An answer-what’s-asked. This is Earth. Don’t mistake it.”
Graff took a sip of cooling coffee. “I couldn’t. The old man hasn’t sent us a hint, except Pollard, and Pollard doesn’t know anything. I don’t know if that’s a signal to raise that issue or not—but I can’t understand the silence. Unless the captain’s leaving me to take the grenade. Which I’d do. Little they could do anyway but transfer me back. But he should tell me.”
“No grenades,” Demas said. “—No chance of Dekker talking?”
“Pollard’s honestly trying. All I know.”
“You sure he’s the captain’s? He could be Tanzer’s.”
Graff remembered something he’d forgotten to say, gave a short laugh. “Pollard’s a native Belter.”
“You’re serious. Tanzer knows it?”
“Knows he’s a friend of Dekker’s. That has him the devil in Tanzer’s book. What’s more, this Belter claims he’s a Priority 10 tracked for Geneva.”
Demas’ brows went up.
Graff said, “Bright. Very bright. Computers. Top security computers.”
“Tanzer can’t snag a Priority like that.”
Saito said, “Not without an authorization. I doubt Tanzer can even access that security level to realize what he is.”
“The captain set up Pollard with a room in the hospital. I told him to stay to it and Dekker’s room and keep his head down. With a security clearance like that, he understands what quiet means, I think. He’s got an appointment waiting for him—if he can get out of here before he becomes a priority to Tanzer.”
“You signal him?”
“Every word I could prudently use. There were some I didn’t. Maybe I should have. But he’s UDC. You don’t know where it’ll go, ultimately.”
“No remote chance on Dekker?”
“No chance on this one. Too much to ask. They’ve requested the log. They’re going to ask questions on the carrier—they’ll want to ask questions about the trainees. But they won’t talk to them. They’re not scheduled. Trainees don’t talk to the EC. Trainees they’re designing those ships around don’t talk to the committee because the committee is only interested in finding a way that doesn’t admit we’re right. Another schitzy AI. Another budget fight.”
“The Earth Company makes a lot of money on shipbuilding,” Demas said. “Does that thought ever trouble your sleep?”
“It’s beginning to.”
The captain wanted to bust Demas up to a captaincy. Demas insisted he was staying with Keu. The argument was still going on. The fact was Demas hated administration and claimed he was a tactician, not a strategist, but Demas saw things. Good instincts, the man had.