It made him happier just thinking about it—
Made him outright laugh, thinking how that had probably done more to reform Meg Kady than all the Evangelicals and the Islamic Reformeds who handed out their little cards on helldeck.
Sal, now, he thought—reforming Sal was a whole different proposition.
You got all kinds on helldeck—except you didn’t walk it in any business suit, not if you didn’t want to get laughed out of The Hole. So Ben shed it at the locker he kept on 3-deck, put on his casuals and his boots, after which it was safe to go home.
Change of clothes, change of style—Ben Pollard went most anywhere he cared to go on R2 and nobody would find him out of place.
But fact was, helldeck was where he most liked being—down in the hammering noise and the neon lights. He’d been scared as any company clerk when he’d first laid eyes on it, at 14, even if his mama had belonged here—but even at that age he’d known sure as sure that Ben Pollard was never going to have the pull to get out of the company’s lower tiers. He’d learned how it really was: the ideal the company preached might be classblind; but funny thing—kids without money ended up like Marcie Hager, in the middle tiers, where you had certain cheap perks, but you’d never get a dime of cash and you’d never get further—and aptitudes and Institute grades had damned little to do with it. President Towney’s son, for an example, was about as stupid an ass as had ever graduated from the Institute—and they put him in a vice-presidency up in the methane recovery plant… while Ben Pollard, a Shepherd’s kid, got a stint at pilot training (at which he was indifferent) and geology, at which he was good; and a major in math, thank God. But he couldn’t get into business administration, not, at least, tracked for the plum jobs. They went to relatives of company managers. They went to company career types, who had paid their dues or whose parents had, or who tested high in, so he had heard, Company Conformity.
Shit with that. He took a little jig step on his way back from the Assay office, and on helldeck nobody took exception to a little exuberance—if a guy was happy, that guy must have reason: in a society that lived on luck you wanted to brush close to whoever looked to have it, because that guy might lead you to it.
What he had was a card in his pocket that said they had a couple of nice pieces, and that money was going into the bank, dead certain. You tagged things and you didn’t know how long it was going to be til the ’driver got there, but what you had in your sling was money—and in this case, a good chunk of it.
Yeah!
“Meg or Sal in?” he asked Mike at the bar when he got to The Hole—he knew where Bird probably was, where Bird had been this time of day for the last week.
Mike said, “They aren’t, but the cops were.”
He looked at Mike a moment. It was hard to change feet that fast. “Cops.”
“They weren’t in uniform. But they had badges. Anything I should know?”
He sighed, said, because, hell, you needed the local witness on your side if it came to trouble: “All right, Mike. The guy we rescued—out in the Belt. We got a claim in on the ship. He owned it. Sole survivor. The guy’s crazy. God only knows what he’s said. Police are probably checking us out to be sure we’re on the straight.”
Mike looked a shade friendlier at that. And interested. “Claim on the ship, is it?”
He tapped his key on the bar. “More of a long, long story. But that part’s blackholed. You, we trust. Let me go check this out.”
He went back through and down the hall where the sleeping rooms were, opened the room he had (at least on the books) with Bird.
“Shit!” was his first reaction.
Not as if they had much to disarrange, but thieves could have hit and been neater. Four days to get their Personals out of police hands and here was everything they owned strewn over the sink, the lockers open, their laundry scattered on the bed—and a big bright red sticker on the mirror that said: This area was accessed in search of contraband by ASTEX Security acting with a warrant. Please check to be sure all your personal items are present and report any broken or missing articles or unsecured doors immediately by calling your ASTEX Security Public Relations Department at…
He pulled the sticker off the mirror. Paper thicker than tissue was worth its weight in gold. Literally. You could fold the thing and write important secret notes on the edges if you could find a pencil, which was equally frigging scarce.
Shit, shit, shit!
He opened the side door that led into Meg and Sal’s room—it was technically a quad. Same mess, only more so. Meg and Sal had more clothes.
Meg and Sal were going to kill them. That was one thought going through his head. The other was outrage—a sense of violation that left him short of breath and wanting to break something.
What in hell were they looking for?
Something off that ship?
Datacard?
He had a sudden cold thought about the charts. But he had that datacard in his pocket, where he always carried it. He felt of his pocket to be sure.
Damn!
He headed out, locked the door, walked down the hall and tried to collect himself for Mike, who asked, “Anything wrong?”
“Not that I know. Be back in a bit.” He kept going, to the nearest Trans to get him up to 3-deck.
He had this terrible cold feeling, all the ride up, all the walk down to the gym and the lockers. His hands were shaking when he used his personal card to open the locker. He suddenly thought: Everywhere I use this card they can trace it. Same as in the Institute. There’s nothing they can’t get at…
He got the door open, he felt of his suit pocket—
The card with the charts was there. He’d been so excited about the Assay report he’d forgotten to switch it back.
But, God, where’s it safe now?
In the room they’ve already searched?
Maybe they’d expect him to do that. And they might be looking for one kind of trouble—but if they found something illegal—
Damn!
Dekker opened his eyes tentatively, hearing someone in the room—realized it was his doctor leaning over him. The drugs had retreated to a distant haze.
“About damn time,” he said.
The doctor moved his eyelid, used a light, frowning over him. “Mmm,” the doctor said. Pranh was his name. Dekker read it on the ID card he wore.
“Dr. Pranh. I don’t want any more sedation. I want out of here.—What did the police find out?”
Pranh stood back, put his penlight in his pocket. “I don’t know. I suppose they’re still investigating.”
“How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long have they been investigating?”
“Time. Does that still bother you?”
It still touched nerves. But he was able to shake his head and say—disloyal as it felt to say—“I know Cory’s probably dead. Right now I want to know why.”
Pranh’s face went strangely blank. Pranh looked at the floor, never quite at him, and started entering something on his slate.
“You haven’t heard from the police,” Dekker said. It was hard to talk. There was still enough of the drug in him he could very easily shut his eyes and go under again, but he kept pushing to stay awake. Pranh didn’t answer him, and he persisted: “How long has it been?”
“Your partner is dead. There’s no probably. Denial is a normal phase of grieving. But the sooner you get beyond that—”
“I don’t know she’s dead. You don’t know. For all I know that ship picked her up. I want to talk to the police. I want a phone—”
“Calm down.”
“I want a phone, dammit!”
“It’s on the record. A rock hit you, a tank blew.”
“There wasn’t any rock—”