Exploring the ship. Trying to do the logical thing, going around the rim. “You all right?” Curran asked.
“Just frosted. Nothing more. Section three’s frozen down, you copy that”
“You got it shut?”
“Shut tight.”
“Here,” Stevens said hoarsely, tapped her arm. ‘Vacate. I’ll get the section up to normal. Sorry about that.”
“Sure,” she said. She slid clear of the cushion and he slid in.
“Just go on,” he said. “I’ll take care of it, do a little housekeeping. Take a break, you and Curran. We don’t need to keep rigid schedules. God knows she’s run without it”
Curran might have gone on sitting, obstinate; she gathered him up with a quiet, meaningful glance, a slide of the eyes in the direction Neill and Deirdre had gone. “All right,” he said, and came with her, walked out of the bridge and down the corridor.
And stopped when she did, taking his arm, around the curve by the galley.
*He might hear, Curran signed to her. Pointed to the com system.
She knew that. She cast a look about, looking for pickups, found none closer than ten feet. “Listen,” she said, “I want you to keep it quiet with him. Friendly. I don’t know what the score is here.”
“What’s he running around there, with a sector frozen down? Contraband, you reckon?”
“I don’t know.—Curran, have you tried the doors on the cabins —the other cabins? Something terrible happened on this ship. I don’t know when and I don’t know what. Hit by the Mazianni, he says; but this—The loft is frozen; the cabins left—you know how they were left… there’s a slept-in bed around there, frozen down.”
“I tell you this,” Curran said in the faintest of whispers, “I don’t sleep well—in that cabin. Maybe he’s worried for himself— about us doing to him what occurs to him to do to us. I don’t like it, Allie. Most of all I don’t like that comp being locked up. That’s dangerous. And you know why he got us out of there… not to look over his shoulder while he works, that’s what. I wouldn’t put it past him, spying on us. Or murder, if it came to it”
“No,” she said, a shake of her head. “I don’t think that I never have.”
“You ever been wrong, Allie?”
“Not in this.”
He frowned, a look up from under his brows. “Maybe the record’s still good. And maybe we go on like this and we have a run-in with the military—what’s he going to do, Allie? Which way is he going to jump? I don’t like it.”
“He’s strung out I know it. I know it’s not right.”
“Allie—” He reached out, touched her shoulder, cousin for the moment and not number two. “Man and woman—he thinks one way with you and maybe he thinks he can get around you; but you let me talk it out with him and I’ll straighten it out. And I’ll get those comp keys. No question of it.”
“I don’t want that”
“You don’t want it, I don’t want it. But we’re in trouble, if you haven’t noticed. That man’s off the brink and he’s going farther. I propose we have it out with him… we. Me. No chaff with me. He knows that. You just stay low, stay out of it, go to your cabin and we’ll put the fear in him.”
“No.”
“You think of something that makes as good sense? You going to ask him and he’ll come over? I’ll figure you tried that.”
She bit at her lip, looked up the corridor, where Neill and Deirdre came down the horizon. “Sorry,” Neill said again; and Deirdre: “Who’s minding the ship?”
“He is.—What was it, around there?”
“Loft,” Deirdre said. She clenched her arms about her. “A mess —things ripped loose—panels askew—didn’t see all of it, just from the section door. Dark in there.—Allie…”
“I know,” she said. “I figured what was in there,” She thrust her hands into her pockets, started back.
“Where are you going?” Curran asked.
“To my cabin.” She looked back, straight at Curran, straight in the eyes. “I’m off. It’s your shift. Maybe you’d better get back to the bridge. I’ll be there—a while.”
Chapter XIII
Lucy had gotten along, running stable under auto: Sandor shut down comp and stared a moment at scan, numb, the dread of the warship diminished now. It was not going to jump with them: had no capacity to do that. Mallory herself was sitting still, watching— he could not imagine that much patience among the things they told of Mallory. He did not believe it: she was waiting for something, but it had nothing to do with him. He began to hope that she just wanted them out of her way.
And if it was other Mazianni she was hunting—if she expected other traffic. He got up, looked once and bleakly at the couch he had quit. There was a little time left in mainnight. But the effort to sleep was a struggle hardly worth it, lying there awake for most of the time, to sleep a few minutes and wake again. He had done that all the night. Nervousness. And no chance of banking out. Not as things were.
He headed for the shower, trusting the autopilot—a scandal to the Dubliners: he imagined that. They wore themselves out sitting watch and he walked off and left it. There were things that wanted doing—scrubbing and swabbing all over the ship, work less interesting to them, he was sure: but he began to think in the long term, a fleeting mode of thought that flickered through his reasonings and went out again. There was the loft—
They had never done anything about the loft, he and Ross and Mitri: no need of the space—Lucy was full of empty space; and walking there—they just avoided it. Put it on extreme powersave.
The cold kept curious crew out. When he was alone on the ship he had never gone past the galley. It was dead up there… until the Reillys started opening doors and violating seals. Opening up areas of himself in the process, like a surgery. He gathered his courage about it, the hour being morning: a man was in trouble who went to bed with panic and got up with it untransformed. He tried to look at it from other sides, think around the situation if not through it.
A little time, that was what he needed, to break the Reillys in and get himself used to them.
But the comp—
(Ross… they wouldn’t have given out that money for no reason. No one’s that rich, that they can spill half a million because a few of their people take a fancy to sign off—half a million for a parting-present…)
(People don’t throw money away like that. People aren’t like that.)
(Ross… I know what they want. I loved her, Ross, and I didn’t see; I was afraid—Pell would have taken the ship—and what could I do? But they think I’ve sold her; and maybe I have. What do I do, Ross?)
The warm water of the shower hit his body, relaxed the muscles: he turned up the cold on purpose, shocked himself awake. But when he had gotten out he had a case of the shivers, uncommonly violent… too little food, he reasoned; schedule upset. He reckoned on getting some of the concentrates: that was a way of eating without tasting it, getting some carbohydrates into his body and getting the shakes out.
They had to make jump tomorrow maindawn. He had to get himself strung back together. Mallory was not going to take excuses out there. Mallory wanted schedules and schedules she got
He dressed, shaved, dried his hair and went out into the corridor, back to the bridge.
Curran was sitting against a counter—Neill and Deirdre with him. “I’m for breakfast,” Sandor said. “I think we could leave her all right, just—”
“Want to talk to you,” Curran said. “Captain.”
He drew a deep breath, standing next to the scan console-leaned against it, too tired for this, but he nodded. “What?”
“We want to ask you for the keys. There’s a question of safety.
“We’ve all talked about it. We really have quite a bit of concern about it.”
“I’ve discussed that problem. With Allison. I think we agree on it”