Devil to the Belt (v1.1) Read online

  He cast a glance askance at Bird sleeping so quiet in his net, where they had strung it between the galley and the number one workstation, Dekker being just too close to the spin cylinders. Dekker might have been crazy long before this—and Bird just might be soft enough to let the guy loose on his watch. That was all it took, let Dekker near a wrench or, God forbid, get his hands on something sharp.

  All that blood in the ship, all those little red splatters on the suits—did a cut on the forehead bleed like that?

  He had to have it agreed with Bird. They had to keep that guy confined—somehow, someway. They couldn’t sleep in nets for a month, they needed the spinners: and the idea of being blind and tucked in a spinner for six hours wondering what Dekker was doing on Bird’s watch already upset his stomach.

  And, damn, he intended to keep every move logged, everything they did, everything this Dekker did, every spate of What time is it?

  Dekker would get the time, all right. Logged on and logged off.

  He’d get the expenses written down, too, exactly the way he knew how to do it in a record Management would accept—because Benjamin J. Pollard wasn’t letting an old man’s softheadedness rob them of a break like this. Hell. No.

  CHAPTER 4

  REFINERY Two was only slightly prettier than a rock, but it did come welcome—that k-plus wide sooty ring that you only caught sight of on camera—and most to Bird’s knowledge were eager to see it, and did turn the optics on, long before it was regulation that you had to get visual contact. There she hung, magnified in the long lens, spinning with a manic vengeance, with her masts stuck up like spindles and her stationary mast surfaces bristling with knobby bits that were pushers and tenders, and shuttles from the Shepherds and such. A few, hardly more than ten or so at any one time, counting company rigs waiting crew change, were ships a lot like Trinidad, a whole lot like Trinidad, if you took plan B on your outfitting, and opted for green in the shower.

  A lot of the fitting inside Refinery Two was a lot like Trinidad, too, except, one supposed, if you got down to corporate residence levels, and there was about the same chance of freerunners seeing that in person as getting a guided tour of the company bunker on Mimas.

  Belters lived and Belters died and Refinery Two just rolled on, this big factory-hearted ring which was the only close to g-1 place miners and tenders in R2 zone ever got back to. She swallowed down what the Shepherds gathered in, she hiccuped methane and she shat ingots and beams and sheet and foam steel. She used her own plastics and textiles or she spat them at Mars, in this year when Jupiter was as convenient to that world as Sol Station was. But nobody knew what went to Mimas. Some said what was down there repaired itself and had more heart than any company exec—but that was rumor and you didn’t want to know. Some said it wasn’t really the ops center it was reputed to be, in case of something major going wrong at the Well: some said it was the ultimate bunker for the execs—but you didn’t say war in polite society either and you didn’t think too much about the big frame that sat out there aswarm with tenders and construction craft, a metal-spined monster that took rough shape here at the source of steel and plastics before it moved on to final rigging at Sol. You called what was going on out in the Beyond a job action or you called it a tax strike or you called it damned stupid, but if you were smart you didn’t discuss it or that ship out there and you didn’t even think about it where Mama might hear.

  A-men.

  “Well,” he sighed, “she’s still here. Kept the porch light on and the door open.”

  Ben didn’t say, What’s a porch light? You never could get a rise out of him like that.

  “Used to sit outside at night,” Bird said, “look up at the stars—you know what a shooting star is, Ben, lad?”

  “No.” Ben’s tone said he was not at the moment interested to know. He was working approach, as close as his second-class license would let him. “I’m about ready to hand off. You got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dockmaster advises they copy on the request for meds. They’re on their way.”

  “Good on that.” He saw Ben furiously ticking away at the comp. “—I got your handoff. Take it easy.”

  “Take it easy. We got meds and customs swarming in here, we have to have the records straight.”

  “Everything’s in order. I checked it. You checked it.—You’re sure they copy on that mass.”

  “Yeah. I made ‘em say-again.” Ben was going through readout. No papers. Everything was dataflow. BM wanted forms, and it was all dataflow, not at all like the old days when if you fouled up some damn company form you got a chance to read it over slow and easy and say it right. Now in this paperless society the datalink grabbed stuff and shoved new blanks at you so fast you didn’t have time to be sure all your answers made sense.

  “You got all that stuff,” Bird said. “And welcome to it. Damn, I hate forms.”

  “No worry.”

  Ben had a sure instinct for right answers. Ben swore it was a way of thinking. Ben input something and said, “Shit! Shut him up!”

  He only then realized Dekker was talking, mumbling something in that low, constant drone of his. “I can’t half hear him, he’s all right.”

  “I can hear him! I can damn well hear him—Where are we? Where are we? What time is it? I tell you—”

  “Easy.”

  “I’ve been easy. I’m going to kill him before we make dock, I swear I am.”

  “No, you’re not. He’s being quiet. Just let him alone.”

  “You’re losing your hearing. You can’t hear that?”

  “Not that loud.”

  “The guy’s crazy. Completely out of it. Only good thing in this business.”

  “Ben… just—drop it, Ben. End-of-run nerves, that’s all. Just drop it, you mind?”

  There was a cold silence after that, except the click of buttons. And Dekker’s voice, that was loud enough to hear now and again once you thought about it.

  Long silence, except for ops, and approach control talking back and forth with them, walking them through special procedures.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said stiffly.

  Maybe because they were closer to civilization now. And sanity.

  “Where are we?” Dekker asked.

  “God!” Ben cried, and leaned far back in his seat. He yelled up at Dekker: “It’s June 26th and we’re coming into Mars Base, don’t you remember? The president of the company’s going to be at the party!”

  “Don’t do that,” Bird said. “Just leave the poor guy alone.”

  “He’s alone, all right, he’s damn well alone. Another week and we’d be as schitz as he is.”

  Another call from Base: “Two Twenty-nine Tango Trinidad, this is ASTEX Approach Control: tugs are on intercept. Stand by the secondary decel.”

  “Approach Control, this is Two Twenty-nine Tango. We copy that decel. We’re go.” He shut down his mike, yelled: “Dekker! Stand by the decel, hear me?”

  “Break his damn neck,” Ben muttered.

  There was no time for debate. They had a beam taking aim. Approach Control advised them and fired; pressure hit the sail and bodies hit the restraints—they weren’t in optimum attitude thanks to that ship coupled to them, and it was a hard shove. Dekker yelled aloud—hurt, maybe: they had him padded in and tied down with everything soft they could find, but it was no substitute.

  It went on and on. Eventually Dekker got quiet. Hope to hell that persistent nosebleed didn’t break loose again.

  “Two Twenty-nine Tango Trinidad, this is ASTEX Approach Control: do a simple uncouple with that tow.”

  “Approach Control, this is Two Twenty-nine Tango. We copy that uncouple. Fix at 29240 k to final at 1015 mps closing. O-mega.”

  Bird uncapped the button, pushed it, the clamps released with a shock through the frame, and One’er Eighty-four Zebra went free—still right up against them, 29240 k to their rendezvous with the oncoming Refinery and they were going to ride with the tow awhile,
until the outlying tugs could move in and pick it off their tail.

  Ben muttered. “I got everything customs can ask on that ship. Got all the charges figured, too.”

  “Just leave it, Ben.”

  “I want that ship, Bird. I want that ship. God, we got the proof—I got all the proof they need—”

  “Ben,—”

  “Look, they do their official investigation. But this guy’s incompetent, he was incompetent when we boarded. What’s he going to do, ask ‘em the time? The law’s on our side.” Ben was cheerful again. “We got it, Bird, we got it.”

  “Let the guy alone,” he said. “Forget about that ship, dammit!”

  “I’m not forgetting it. Hell if I’ll forget it. We’re filing on it. Or I am. You can take your pick, partner.”

  “There’s such a thing as wanting things too much. You can’t ever afford to want things that much. It’s not healthy.”

  “Healthy, hell. I’ll take care of us. All you have to do is sit back and watch me go, partner, I know the law.”

  “There’s things other than law, Ben.—Just stow the charts, hear me?”

  “I’m not stowing the charts.”

  “We’re going to get searched, dammit, just put the damn things in the hole or friggin’ dump ‘em, we can’t get ‘em off this time—”

  “Guys run ‘em in all the time, customs doesn’t give a damn—just say they’re vidgames. They don’t even boot to check.”

  “Ben, dammit!”

  “I haven’t spent all this work to give up those charts. They’re going to go over us with a microscope, Bird,—”

  “Thirty years nobody’s found that hideyhole, not customs and not the lease crews. Just drop ‘em in. You think they’re going to go at us plate by plate over a rescue?”

  “Two Twenty-nine Tango Trinidad, this is ASTEX Approach Control: tugs are 20 minutes 14 seconds, mark.”

  “Approach Control, this is Two Twenty-nine Tango. We copy: 20 minutes 14 seconds. No problem, tow is clear. Proceeding on that instruction.”

  Ben said, “You got an Attitude this trip. I don’t understand it, Bird, I swear I don’t understand it.”

  “You know Shakespeare, Ben?”

  “Haven’t met him.”

  They were still speaking as they made dock. Barely.

  “We got ‘er,” Ben said.

  Several significant breaths later Ben said, “I’m sorry, Bird.”

  “Shakespeare’s a writer,” Bird said.

  “One of those,” Ben said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You got him on tape?”

  “There’s a tape. Hard going, though.”

  “Physics?” Ben asked.

  “Two Twenty-nine Tango Trinidad, this is ASTEX Dock Authority, check your pressure. Will you need a line?”

  “We copy 800 mb, B dock. No line, we’re 796.”

  “Trinidad, we copy 796. Medical units standing by on dockside. Stand by life systems sample.”

  “Shit,” Ben groaned, “they’re going to stall us on a medical. They damn well better not find some bug aboard, I’ll skin him.”

  “Won’t find any bug. Get our data up, will you?”

  They were nose to the docking mast. Trinidad shuddered and resounded as the cradle locked. She hissed a little of her air at the sampler.

  ASTEX said: “Welcome in, Trinidad. Good job. Stand by results on that sample.”

  The dockside air went straight to the back of the throat and stung the sinuses, icy cold and smelling of volatiles. It tasted like ice water and oil and it cut through coats and gloves the way the clean and the cold finally cut through the stink Bird smelled in his sleep and imagined in the taste of his food. Time and again you got in from a run and the chronic sight of just one other human face, and when you looked at all the space around you and saw real live people and faces that weren’t that face—you got the sudden disconnected notion you were watching it all on vid, drifting there with only a tether and a hand-jet between you and a dizzy perspective down the mast—worse than EVAs in the deep belt, a lot dizzier. Dock monkeys kited about at all angles, checking readouts, taking samples, talking to empty air. Bird’s earpiece kept him informed about the meds inside the ship, the receipt of the manifest and customs forms at the appropriate offices—

  “Morris Bird,” the earpiece said, thin voice riding over the banging and hammering of sound in the core. “This is officer Wills, Security. Understand you found a drifter.”

  He hated being sneaked up on, hated the office-sitters that would blindside a man and made him look around to see where they were—or whether they were there and not a phonecall. He turned and saw three of them in ASTEX Security green, sailing his way down the hand-line.

  “Yessir,” he said, before they got there. “Details have already gone to BM. Any problem?”

  “Just a few questions,” Wills said. Before he got there.

  CHAPTER 5

  YOU have any theories to explain what happened?” Wills asked. The cops hung face to face with him, all of them maintaining position with holds on the safety-lines, and you about needed the earpiece to hear at the moment over the thundering racket from a series of loads going down the spinning core. Bird, mindful of the Optex Wills was wearing, shrugged, shook his head and said, mostly honestly: “Could’ve caught a rock. Helluva bash on one side. On the other hand, the bash could’ve been secondary. Maybe he was working real close in and just didn’t see another one coming, dunno, really, dunno if it’s going to be easy to tell. We didn’t go outside, just got a look on vid. We did make a tape.”

  “We’ll want that. Also your log. Did you remove anything from the wreck?”

  “We took out the rescuee and the clothes he was wearing. Nothing else. We washed ‘em and he’s still wearing ‘em. He had his watch, and nothing in his pockets. He’s still wearing the watch. Anything else we left aboard, even his clothes and his Personals. You wouldn’t want to open up without a decon squad. It’s a real mess in that ship.”

  “Any idea where the partner is?”

  “Evidently she was outside when the accident happened. He kept trying to call her, kept trying when he was off his head, I guess he tried til he couldn’t think of anything else. They’re from Rl. Her name was Cory. That’s all we ever figured out. His life systems were near gone, ship was tumbling pretty bad. He’d taken a lot of knocks.” He hoped to hell that would cover Ben’s ass about the bruises. He felt dirty doing it, but he would have felt dirtier not to. “Kid was pretty sick from breathing that stuff, kept hallucinating about having to call his partner—evidently did everything he could to find her, sick as he was.” He tried to put Dekker in the best light he could, too, fair being fair. “When we got to him, I guess he just finally realized she was gone. Fever set in—he’s been off his head a lot, just keeps asking over and over for his partner, that’s all.”

  “What would he say?”

  “Just her name. Sometimes he’d yell Look out, like he was warning someone. Kid’s exhausted. Like when you give up and then the adrenaline runs out.”

  “Yeah,” Wills said. “Didn’t happen to say why they were out of their zone?”

  “He didn’t know they were out of their zone.”

  “So he did say something else.”

  “We had to explain we were taking him to R2. It upset him. He was lost, disoriented. The accident must’ve happened the other side of the line.”

  Cops never told you a thing. Wills grunted, monkeyed along the lines toward the hatch as if he was going inside. The other officers followed. But one of the blue-suited meds was outbound, towing a stretcher with Dekker aboard, and the other meds were close behind. The cops stopped them at the lines just outside the hatch, delayed to look Dekker over, talk to the meds, evidently asked Dekker something: there was a lot of machinery noise on the dock—they must be loading or offloading—and he couldn’t hear what they said or what Dekker answered. They only let the meds take him away, and that course came past him.
/>   They had wrapped Dekker up in blankets, had him strapped into the stretcher, and Dekker looked wasted and sick as hell. But his eyes were open, looking around. The meds brought the stretcher to a drifting stop and said, “You want to say goodbye?”

  It was one of those faces that could haunt a man, Dekker’s lost, distracted expression—but Dekker seemed to track on him then.

  “Bird,” he said faintly through the noise and the banging overhead. “Where’re they taking me?”

  Dekker looked scared. Bird wanted it over with, wanted to forget Dekker and Dekker’s nightmares and the stink and the cold of that ship, not even caring right now if they got anything for their trouble but their refit paid. He sure didn’t want an ongoing attachment; but that question latched on to him and he found himself reaching out and putting a hand against Dekker’s shoulder. “Hospital. That’s all, son. You’re on R2 dock. You’ll be all right.”

  Bird looked at the meds, then gave a shrug, wanting them to go, now, before Dekker got himself worked up to a scene. They started away.

  “Bird?” Dekker said as they went. And called out louder, a voice that cut right to the nerves, even over the racket: “Bird?”

  He exhaled a shaky breath and shook his head, wanting a go at the bar real bad right now.

  Ben came out of the hatch with their Personals kits. The police stopped him and insisted on taking the kits one by one and turning them this way and that. They were asking Ben questions when he drifted up, and Ben was saying, in answer to those questions, “The guy was off his head. Didn’t know what he’d do next. Screaming out all the time. Thinking it was his ship he was on. We had to worry he’d go after controls or something.”

  He scowled a warning at Ben, but not a plain one: there was the Optex Wills was making of every twitch they made. Ben was looking only at the officers. He said, to explain the scowl, “You’d be off your head too if you’d been banged around like that.”

  “In the accident,” Wills said, fishing.