Rimrunners (12 page)

Mmmn. There was the set-up. Nice little trap to catch her breaking a dozen regs

and start off real fine, that was. She made a little move of her hip. "Nice, but

I don't see my beer. You let me get finished. Hear?"

She figured that would cool it down, whoever put him up to this was going to be

disappointed. But the man was downright having trouble with that no-go, hell if

he wasn't. It was enough to make a woman feel a little better-looking than she

knew she was—or feel like she was hallucinating.

Man's weird, she thought when he backed off and muttered something about getting

her the beer, about meeting her in crew-quarters. Man's real weird.

Another Ritterman, that's what I got. Don't tell me that face can't get a

come-ahead any time he wants it.

She wiped her neck when he walked off. Hell if she wasn't a lot warmer herself

than she had been.

Hell if she wasn't thinking about him and that beer all the way down the

corridor, right through the mofs' section, all the pretty little

officer-quarters, so much that she ran right up on Fitch himself—bright, shiny

pair of boots standing there for-a full second before she looked up.

"Yessir," she said, and started to get up, but he waved a permission and stood

there scowling.

And Fitch walked off without finding anything to bitch about. Which from Fitch,

she reckoned, was some kind of compliment.

Damn prig, she thought. Mainday, middle of his morning. Her watch-officer was

that Orsini the skuts had been cussing, she'd heard enough so far to figure

that. She hadn't seen Orsini. Didn't expect to see him out supervising a

deck-scrub. Didn't expect him to come 'round and introduce himself. Fitch seemed

to be definitely, worrisomely curious about her.

She leaned into it and scrubbed that burn-deck all the way to the bridge again,

swearing that it was a basic law, officers had dustier feet than the skuts who

knew they were going to have to scrub it up.

But she lived to get to the white line on the other side of the bridge, after

which she got up on her feet again, straightened her aching back and walked down

to stowage, put up the scrub-gear exactly the way she'd found it, coiled and put

up all the clip-lines, exactly so, and got her duffle out of the stowage locker

where Bernstein had told her it was. Then she hiked up-ring, with a major thirst

for that promised beer by now, and telling herself all the while that pretty-boy

wasn't going to be waiting, or if he was, it was going to be some damn bit of

trouble, maybe a damn lot of trouble: on Africa you got hazed and it got rough,

it got to be real rough, and if that was the way it was going to be, then smart

and cool was the only way you lived through it.

She walked into the dark crew-quarters, where a vid was playing. Lot of noise

that direction. She looked around in the dim light trying to figure what bunk

might really be vacant on this shift, and where people might just be sharing-up.

Pick the wrong one and you could get hell; and she wasn't entirely convinced she

was going to get through the first night without getting jumped by somebody in

one sense or the other. Some sum-bitch in the lot had to have a sense of humor,

and maybe half a dozen of them. Maybe the whole damn lot. Her stomach was upset.

Memories again. Twenty years on Africa and she'd gotten seniority enough so she

could hand it out instead of taking it. It wasn't the case here.

Somebody came down the aisle to intercept her, a single dark-haired somebody who

said: "Want that beer?"

"Yeah," she said, once her heart had settled. She still didn't trust it

entirely, but it was a scary kind of night and she was fuzzy-tired enough to

hope she was being alarmist, that it was a civ ship even if it was a spook, and

the whole thing was just a good-looking younger man who for some fool reason

thought skinny, sweaty and almost forty was attractive. Or who was just

appointed to find out what she was and report on her to the rest of the crew.

So she snubbed the safety-tie of her duffle to a temp-ring by the door, and they

went out to crew rec, up by the galley: he logged himself a double tag on the

keyboard there on the counter, drew a couple beers from the tap, and handed her

one.

"How d'you earn extras?" she asked.

"You get fifteen cred a week, shipboard," he said. "Use 'em on beer, use 'em on

food, save 'em for liberty, they don't care."

"Thanks, then," she said, figuring to buy him one on her tab, if she liked him,

which looked likely, except she still couldn't figure him. He put his hand on

her back. She twitched it off, because it was bad business if any mofs walked

through here and caught you hands-on. She stood there like a kid with her first

boy-interest and drank her beer while he drank his.

"You're Engineering," she commented, for an opener.

He nodded.

"Guess you know that's my assignment."

Another nod.

Spooky man, she thought. Talks about as much as everybody else on this ship.

So she tried again, on something you couldn't answer without talking.,"How

long've you been on this ship?"

"Three years."

"You mind to say where from?"

"Hire-on. General. What about you?"

Not a question she wanted, that one. She shrugged. "Same thing. Last hire was

Ernestine."

"Kato," he said.

She nodded. But she didn't want to talk down that line either.

"Bernstein easy to-work for?" she asked.

"He's all right."

"Fitch?"

"Bastard."

"Guessed that," she said, and saw him toss off the rest of his beer.

"Come on," he said.

Nervous man. Real nervous. Steps were echoing in the corridor, somebody walking

in from down-ring. "I dunno," she said, annoyed, a little anxious herself with

that sudden hurry-up he wanted. "Minute. I'm still drinking."

"Come on."

"Hell. You can wait a damn minute!"

The steps got closer. It was Muller—who gave them both a frown, a halfway

pleasant nod to her, and a second frown at her company while he logged himself a

beer.

"'Evening, NG," Muller said.

She took another look at the man she was with.

"'Evening," her company said, not friendly, and laid a hand on her shoulder to

steer her out.

NG. The one Bernstein had included on his watch-it list.

"I'm not through yet," she said, with a swallow left in the bottom of her cup,

and NG dropped his hand.

"You been introduced?" Muller asked, and NG said: "Shut up, Gypsy."

"No, I haven't," Bet said. "Man introduced himself."

Muller gave her a thinking-look. NG stood there outside her vision, a shadow

whose reactions she couldn't see.

"You watch this one," Muller said, dead grim, and turned to the counter again,

got a cup and drew his beer.

Trouble. She felt her heart thumping, instinctively backed up a step between her

company and this Gypsy, touched NG's arm to distract him and saw very clearly

nobody was joking.

"Come on," she said, and he came away with her, put an arm around her and she

let him for a few steps, no matter it could get them on report.

"Let's get out of here," he said.

She stopped a step. "No way," she said. What he wanted was trouble, damn sure.

You didn't need long on a ship with Fitch on it to figure that out.

He stopped. He shoved her hard. "Hell with you," he said, and walked off, just

headed down-ring and kept going.

Something in his voice that wasn't right, she thought, with her shoulder still

stinging and her knees a little wobbly-tired. Hell with you!

"Yeager," Muller said from behind her, not hostile, not trouble, himself. She

looked back at him. "Yeager, let that go."

She wasn't sure she liked advice from Muller. She wasn't sure what it was worth

or whether it was right or whether it was friendly to her.

"What in hell was that?"

Muller shrugged. "A lot of trouble. Not my business, understand, but I figured

you might not know about him."

"What about him?"

"Name's NG. Ramey, sometimes. Mostly NG. Crew gave him that name, you figure it?

Short for No Damn Good."

NDG. Like you painted on something you were going to junk. Like with a spoiled

can, a piece too skuz even for the cyclers.

She looked around where NG had headed. She looked back at Muller.

"What'd he do?"

Muller made a face, shook his head.

"What'd he do?"

"Question is, what he hasn't. Man's a foul-up. Damn good at what he does, or

Fitch'd have spaced him, twice, three times over. You let him alone, you let him

do what he does, you don't have anything to do with NG you can help. Man's got a

way of paying back every favor you try to do him."

She didn't get the feeling Muller was anything but serious. She didn't

particularly get the feeling Muller was actively after NG's hide. It was more a

set-up for an eventual I-told-you-so.

But something upset her stomach and put a twitch between her shoulders.

"Muller," she said, polite, very polite, "Muller, I got to thank you for fair

warning: may be so and I'm not doubting it, but I got a problem not at least

asking the other side of it."

"You got the right," Muller said. "I don't say it's not smart, on principle. But

you got a rep to make in this crew. Don't start it with him. More'n one in this

crew's got station-problems, a few've got other-ship problems, but NG's in a

whole different class."

"I take everything you say," she said. "Thanks. But I got to make up my own mind

on a man. Maybe you're right. But I'm just that way."

Muller nodded, not offended, not offensive, just an I-did-my-best.

So she wiped her aching hands on her pockets and she walked off, wobbly-tired as

she was, because, dammit, she'd gotten into the middle of something and it

bothered her, it bothered her a whole lot the way the man had been, the

on-the-edge way he acted. That made her think Muller might be right.

But most, it bothered her that a whole crew hung a tag on a man like that, just

wrote him off like he was garbage.

Maybe he was. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe it was because she was more than a

little strung-out that she even gave a damn. She hurt, she was staggering-tired,

she could do a lot more for herself, just to go find some vacant bunk and fall

in it and let a grown man handle whatever problems he'd made for himself.

But she thought she knew where to find him.

CHAPTER 9

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Ramey?" She let the door shut. Shop area wasn't a place she felt secure

wandering around, a real warren of a machine-shop, a narrow aisle, the lights

down to a dim glow, place cold as hell. She left the lights alone. She stayed

where she was, not precisely scared, just careful. "You here, man?"

Silence. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was a fool talking to an empty room.

Maybe somebody on mainday shift was going to walk out of Engineering next door

and find her here off-shift and she was going to catch hell.

"Ramey?"

A slight movement, from back in the aisles of drills and lifts and presses.

He was there, all right. It occurred to her that he could be crazy—but that

wasn't what Muller had said, precisely.

But he wasn't being cooperative, either.

"All right," she said, "all right, I can take a hint. I'm going to bed, I've had

better times, Ramey, but thanks for the beer."

She heard the move, she saw the shadow at the end of the aisle.

Man is crazy, she thought. On drugs, maybe.

And I'm stark crazy for being here.

Ought to go for the door, but that could set him off, like as anything else.

Talk to the man.

"You want to come on back," she asked him, "maybe have another beer? Can't say

I'm up to too much deep thinking, but I owe you the beer. Except you'll have to

put it on your tab, haven't got my week here."

The shadow stood there a moment, finally made an abrupt throwaway gesture and

sauntered up the aisle into the light—man in a faded jumpsuit, the light making

hollows of his eyes, under his cheeks. He stopped there, put his hands on his

hips, then came walking up to her, closer and closer.

Careful, man, she thought. Trying to scare me. Trying to put the fear in me. I'm

a damn fool to be here in the first place, but this fool can break your neck,

man.

"You looking for trouble?" he asked.

"Looking for another beer," she said, hands on hips herself, making up her mind

to keep the whole situation cool: damned if he was going to think he had his

bluff in and start any petty, hands-on stuff in the dark corners during duty

hours when Bernstein could put her on report. "Dunno what else. I'm blind tired,

Fitch gave me a hard time, Bernstein gave me a hard time, man buys me a beer and

shoves me off—right now I got nothing particular in mind, except yours was the

bed I was headed for and I got no notion where to put my duffle without waking

somebody up. Got no desire to pick the wrong bed, don't want to get some

sum-bitch mad at me, I don't want some damn skuz next to me either; and I ain't

awake enough right now to make critical judgments, so I want to go back down

there—" She hooked a thumb toward the door. "—and get me another cold beer and a