Dropping her eyes, swallowing the bitter medicine of her pride, she walked back through the loading bay toward the lock, and the North America’s hold. She felt Link’s questioning gaze on her back, and her face burned hotter.
Tie Dye dropped her arm as they stepped over the rim of the seal. She glanced back once. Link had disappeared, gone back into Starhold without her. She stopped, and put her back to the drab gray surface of North America’s lock. She jutted her chin at Tie Dye above her folded arms. “When are you gonna let up on me?” she demanded.
Tie Dye, who had moved ahead of her, whirled. His face suffused, and his voice rose. “I haven’t done a thing to you.”
“Bullshit! You get in my way at every opportunity, you insult me, you make extra work—and now you can’t let me have even a half hour of freedom.”
He took a step toward her, balling his fists at his sides. Isabet was suddenly aware of how big he was, how thick his arms and thighs were, how mean the expression in his small eyes. She stiffened her back, but she took a swift glance around, looking for a way to escape.
“You had your chance,” he sneered. He came closer, and she could smell the tang of perspiration, feel the heat of his temper. “I was gonna be nice to you, Itty Bit! I was gonna be real nice, but you weren’t having any of it.”
“I don’t do that,” she said. She spoke as stoutly as she could, but she couldn’t control the tremor in her voice. He advanced until he was within arm’s length of her. She said, “I tried to tell you, Tie Dye. I don’t do it with anybody.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Everybody calls you that!”
“Not you, Itty Bit. Itty Bitch.” He reached for her, his meaty hand seizing the back of her neck, yanking her away from the curving wall of the lock. There was something about the hardness of his hand and the heat from his body that told her he meant it this time. He would force her. But she had sworn she would never be forced again. She had vowed to herself she would die first.
She writhed in his grip, trying to free herself. His other hand came up, reaching for her waist to pull her against him. There was no time even to think about what she was doing. He couldn’t hold her head, though he tried to grab at her cropped hair. She dropped, slid down his body, his legs. He cursed as he kicked at her, and caught her in the side. She rolled away from him, once, twice, the gray floor hard against her shoulders and knees. He lumbered after her, staying between her and the door leading from the hold into the safety of the ship. She leaped to her feet, spinning in a circle, searching for another escape.
She spotted the instrument panel that monitored the sealing ring, and dashed for it. Tie Dye came after her, his heavy feet making the whole lock vibrate. Her ribs hurt where he had kicked her, and her scalp stung where he had pulled her hair. There was no time to think about that now, no time to wonder if a rape would finally get Command’s attention. Like a monkey, she leaped up the laddered handholds toward the panel.
The panel was a good three feet above Tie Dye’s head. It took her only seconds to reach it. As Tie Dye flailed at her, she popped the clamps. The panel swung open, showing the many-legged crawler folded tightly into the cramped space. Belatedly, she realized she should have chosen the other side of the tube, but there was no time now.
“Get your hands off that!” Tie Dye roared. He braced his foot on one of the handholds, and started climbing toward her.
There was only one thing she could do, and even as she thought of it, she was already doing it. She turned on her side, sucked in her stomach, and slid past the crawler’s sharp angles into the cool darkness of the sealing ring.
Behind her, Tie Dye swore and banged his fist against the panel frame. She wriggled further into the ring so he couldn’t reach her foot and haul her back.
She would wait him out. It was tight, her hiding place, and unlike the maintenance ring of the North America, it was dark. She couldn’t see a thing, but she could breathe. She could take it. He would give up eventually, and leave her alone. She would slip back to her quarters and lie low until his temper wore off. She’d done that before.
It was a good plan, but she soon understood the flaw in it. She had underestimated the full force of Tie Dye’s rage. He was an engineer, a good one. He knew how to make machines work. She was just settling into the least bothersome position when she heard the slither and click of something coming up the ring behind her.
The damn crawler! Tie Dye had launched the crawler. She thought of the thin blades of its legs opening, stretching, moving it along the ring. She shuddered, imagining those blades cutting through the soft soles of her shoes. He was serious this time, deadly serious. She was no stranger to trouble, but this had to be the worst.
Panicked, she wriggled further into the ring, feeling her way in the blackness. The crawler’s mechanical sounds were like the clicking of someone’s arthritic knees, and they came steadily closer, driving her forward. Was it her imagination, or did the ring narrow as it circled the lock? She could hardly move her shoulders, and only just find purchase with her feet and the tips of her fingers, pushing herself along. The maintenance tube of North America had lights, and room for her to move her elbows, bend her knees. This was a nightmare tunnel of blackness and constriction, a coffin indeed. If she were an inch wider, a pound heavier, she would be trapped. Her breathing quickened, and her mouth dried.
Shit, she thought. A rock and a hard place. There was no choice, nothing she could do but press on. It was all too much like the shelters, choosing between two or more evils every damn day of her life. When she got out of here, she promised herself—and she would get out of here—she was going to make Tie Dye’s life a living hell!
Anger served her better than fear. She scooted forward through the tube as quickly as her thrusting toes and scrabbling fingers could move her. She felt the chill as the tube arched above the lock, and she refused to think about the black, cold emptiness on the other side of the layers of plastic and rubber and metal. The ring grew even tighter, until she thought she might be stopped, but then, as she wiggled one shoulder and then the other past the most constricted part, she found there was room again. There was still no light, and the sound of her breathing filled her ears almost enough to shut out the gentle scrabbling of the crawler coming behind her. At least she was moving. She was gaining. She held her breath for a moment to listen. She was sure the sound of the crawler had diminished behind her.
It was then that she felt the slight movement, as if an infinitesimal breeze had touched her cheek. She froze for several heartbeats, holding her breath, trying to determine what it was. The sound of the crawler grew louder again as she paused.
The darkness seemed to accentuate the sensation, so subtle she could have imagined it. It was more a feeling than a fact. It was a bit like when she could feel the North America preparing to brake, a faint suggestion of something changing, something happening. It was subtle. But it was real.
It shouldn’t be there, but she had no doubt, as she began wriggling forward again, that she had felt it.
The crawler should, too. It should stop, and set up an alarm.
It didn’t. The damn thing really did need redesigning.
Gasping for air, praying she could reach the opening before the crawler did, she drove herself harder. For what seemed interminable moments, there was nothing in Isabet’s world but her own rasping breaths and the mechanical click and slither behind her. She wriggled, and wriggled, and wriggled, until she thought the skin of her hands and shoulders and knees must be raw. She peered forward, trying to see the glimmer of light that would mean she had reached the panel, and could escape this confining tube.