A good thing, was it, for hired crew? Maybe the best berth any of them could ever hope for? The ship paid… damned well, evidently. Evidently the ship could afford it without a blink. In either case one had to ask—
Latecomers arrived, a noisy six, seven crewmen who'd missed the serving hour, who saw the food line taken down and weren't happy. "Jamal?" one called out, and got no answer.
Guys who thought they might not get supper weren't a happy lot, and he was uneasy being out front instead of behind the counter, in the galley-proper, where only galley personnel belonged, according to the sign. He went over to the gap in the counter, eased past a guy standing in his way.
"Tink's here," he said, "he just stepped out. He'll be back—"
The man behind him stepped on the cable, jerked his arm.
"Who are you?"
"Tom Hawkins. Tom Bowe-Hawkins. " That name had never been an asset in his life, but it seemed that way now. "Excuse me. " He closed his hand on the cable to pull it free, looking at the man dead on. The trouble warning was flashing through his nervous system. It doubled when the guy didn't move his foot. "I pay favors," he said.
"Well, what aboutsome favors?" the clown said. "You handing it out, boy?"
"You want meals off-schedule, you ask and say please, or you talk to Cook about—"
The guy jerked the cable. He was ready for it, but the guy outweighed him. He had the counter corner between them. He used that for a brake, but the pull put his arm in hostile territory and hurt a wrist getting sorer by every pull on it—hurt it considerably, and the guy grabbed his arm to jerk him around the counter and into the galley.
Another jerked on him and he got him—threw all the weight he owned at the target he found clear—the guy's throat, that being what he exposed, and grabbed the guy's sleeve as he slid across the counter and the others closed in. He had one hand free, the other was tangled with the cable, and he couldn't swing, but he tried to grab the cable and get it around a neck, any neck, he wasn't particular. He got part-way up when he landed, got hits in anywhere he saw open, between efforts to keep them from doing a complete take-down, the way they were trying, not just the one, all of them. "Get him, get him, get him," someone yelled, and as the sheer weight shoved him down, his head hit the cabinet handle, boomed off the doors, his shoulders hit the floor and five or six guys were piling on him, weighing his legs down, hanging onto his arms. A blow caught his temple and knocked him blind, a knee landed in his gut, and he kept trying to swing, but he couldn't get the one hand clear, couldn't get out of the vee they'd jammed him into, and couldn't fend the next blow or the next or the next…
"What in hell are you doing?" somebody yelled, and he kept trying to swing—caught one with his elbow. "Break it up. Now, damn it! Break it up!"
Somebody waded in and pulled the guys off him, told them to get the hell out—didn't sound like Jamal, didn't sound like Tink… he still hadn't gotten his sight back, but whoever had gotten them off ordered them out, said he wouldn't put them on report, just get the hell out. "This is my brother," somebody yelled next his ear, the same somebody holding him on his feet. "You lay a hand on him again and I'll kill you."
Christian? He didn't believe it—but somebody who called him brother was holding him up, arm around his bruised ribs. His knees weren't working at all well, he couldn't get his breath. One of them had hit him in the gut, and he couldn't keep his feet when his rescuer let him down to the deck against the cabinet and lifted his eyelids one after another.
"'m all right," he said, trying to get his wind back. "Can't see—they caught me one in the head."
"Goes away," Christian said, and it was, to the extent he could make out lights and darks, the white of the floor, the dark of Christian's knee. He was preoccupied getting his breath and still didn't comprehend why Christian who'd given him, hell till now was holding him from falling on his face—his Pollygirl'd hold him like that, defend him like that, but, different, he thought dimly, different, never had anybody pull him out of a fight who hadn't likewise lit into him, and him being close to falling on his face, and the rescue being somebody he didn't otherwise trust… he didn't know what he thought or felt… whether he resented it or didn't when Christian shouldered his weight, ran a hand through his hair and called him a damned ass in a tone gentler than Marie ever used with the same endearment.
Stupid to trust the guy who'd jerked him up a wall on a cable.
But Christian dug a key-card out of his pocket, and used it on the cable lock, just took it off, and rubbed his wrist and pulled at him. "I'll give your regrets to Cook. Come on. Up. Up."
He didn't know what he thought. Didn't understand the game, but he hurt, he couldn't see, and up on his feet was where he wanted to be, except the whole room was tilted. Christian kept him upright—kept him from falling on his face—he was seeing blurry tables in a vacant galley, now.
And Tink came back.
"What's going on?" Tink asked. "I just stepped out to storage, sir, I was with him all the time—"
"Six, seven fools," Christian said. "I got him, Tink. He's all right. I'll fix him up."
He wasn't sure about that proposal. He wasn't sure he wanted Christian taking him anywhere, and he wanted Tink to stick with him, but Tink didn't raise any objection as Christian steered him past the tables and out the door—what could Tink do anyway? Christian was an officer on this ship.
It was up to him, then. He made a try at walking on his own, but he still couldn't see anything but shapes, and he wasn't, it turned out, walking straight. Christian threw an arm around him, hauled him away from impact with the wall.
"Don't be an ass," Christian said, "difficult as that may be for you."
"Go to hell."
Christian jerked him hard enough his head snapped. "I can beat up on you. They can't. That's the rules."
Seemed perfectly clear. He got a breath as they walked. "Where're we going?"
"My cabin."
He planted his feet. Tried to. He wasn't at all stable, even standing, and Christian dragged him along anyway. By now his vision was clearing, but a headache arrived with it, and he thought a bone in his forearm might be cracked, where Christian was pulling on it.
Another jerk. "Don't give me trouble."
Hurt, being hauled on like that. Didn't have the brain operative enough to argue otherwise, and he thought for a moment he was going to throw up, right there in the corridor. He didn't want to do that. Wanted a bathroom, wanted to sit down, and if Christian had a place closer than he could otherwise get to, fighting wasn't worth it yet, wait-see… hope the rescue was a rescue and not an ambush in itself.
Christian steered him for a blurry door, opened it, on a wide cabin with real carpet. Chairs. Bunk. Lot of pillows.
"Don't bleed on the bed. " Christian dropped him onto it. "You hear me?"
He wasn't trying to. He was looking for somewhere to lean his hand, but it was bleeding or bloody, his nose was bubbling, and Christian went back to the bath and ran water while he considered whether he was or wasn't going to heave his gut up.
Not, he decided after several breaths and a wait-see. He propped himself with his hand on his knee, mildly tilted, on the edge of the bed, while Christian brought him a wet towel and insisted on going at his face with it, mopping his nose and his mouth, his eye. He was shaky. The cold towel obscured his vision and he wasn't sure where up was. The tilt warned him.
Christian shoved him backward, flat, and said catch his breath.
Good idea, he thought. But it rode his thoughts consistently that Christian wasn't his friend, the captain of the ship had ordered him to be in the galley, and if there was a set-up for blame possible, Christian wasn't necessarily the one going to catch hell—he just couldn't think through the haze and the headache to figure out what the game was.