Devil to the Belt (v1.1) (68 page)

Tanzer had been blindsided, that seemed evident. And maybe FleetOps had had to keep the junior officer in the far dark to carry it off, but it was evident, at least as best he could put matters together, that the business with the committee and the general had been a flanking action—try to stir up some chaff, maybe throw a rock into the Sol One hearings. Who knew?

Certainly not the junior lieutenant. Possibly the Number Ones had. Certainly the captain had—and kept silent in spite of his repeated queries, which Saito of course had sent, the way he’d ordered Saito to do...

Damn and damn.

The deception shook him. You relied on a crew, you dumped all your personal chaff and trusted, that was what it came down to. You assumed, in throwing open everything you had, that you had some kind of reciprocity. Never mind the gray hair he didn’t have. The Fleet could decide he was expendable. The Fleet could use him any way it had to. But they put you in charge, you made what you thought were rational decisions and if the people who were supposed to be carrying out your orders weren’t doing that, you trusted they’d at least trust you enough to tell you—before you assumed you had a power you didn’t, and put yourself and them into a no-win.

You did the best you could in a touchy situation and they promoted Edmund Porey two ranks in the last year?

God, what did the man do? The Captains had to know Porey. Had to. Were they blind?

But Nav Two on Carina had a good head for Strategic Operations—Porey was back and forth to the Belt, Porey was ferry-captain on the carriers as they moved in for finish, which made him currently one of the most experienced with the ships, and Porey was probably working tight-in with Outsystem and Insystem Surveillance: that had to be where he got the merits. Clever man. Clever man, Edmund Porey was, and, clearly now, command-track, which he himself would never be: hyperfocus and macrofocus weren’t the same thing—not by a system diameter they weren’t.

So Porey had the stuff. Clear now how desperately they needed a mind of Porey’s essential qualities.

Clear now whose command he just might end up serving Helm for. The captain hadn’t trusted him. So they brought Porey in over his head?

He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he arranged his priorities and issued his orders, trusting they were getting through. It gave him the same surreal feeling he’d had writing his will, for the handful of personal possessions he did own—that past the time those instructions were carried out, his personal existence was going to be very much different.

He had ordered the records secured. That first. There were a lot of extremely upset UDC security personnel on the loose. There had very nearly been an armed stand-off. The UDC ordered erasure on certain files, he was quite certain. He was equally certain he had been too late to prevent that, during the time of the stand-off and queries flying back and forth between his office and Tanzer’s—he was sure UDC security had done exactly what they should have done, and that he had not been able to prevent it (although outside of going hand to hand with UDC personnel and cutting through a lock he didn’t know what he could have done) would be written down for a failure on his part.

He had not let them throw the database into confusion. That was a plus. He had not lost the library tapes. That also. He had ordered personnel in detention transferred; he had taken hospital and testing records under Fleet protection. He might order the release of detainees, but the disposition of those cases as a policy issue was not within his administrative discretion. He did not like the new commander. He, however, did not personally approve of creating administrative messes, which, counting his administrative style and Porey’s, might be the worse for the difference. He advised the UDC officers that all facilities were passing under Fleet administrative command, and personally phoned the UDC provost marshal and UDC Legal Affairs to be certain that all legal proceedings were frozen exactly where they were: no sense letting anything pass into record that need not.

Demas called, to say that the carrier was braking, directly after ceasing acceleration. Demas said that there was a contingent of marines aboard needing gravitied accommodations.

“I copy that. What’s the head count?”

“Two thousand.”

That was a carrier’s full troop complement. They wanted miracles. He called Tanzer, he listened to the shouting, he calmly requested invention, and ordered an emergency galley set up in an idle SoICorp module, ordered its power-up, ordered an Intellitron communications center linked in as FleetCom relay for the marine officers, ordered the Fleet gym given over to troop exercise, the Fleet exercise schedule combined with the UDC, on alternate days; located every class-4 storage can in Sol-2, shifted all class-4 storage to low-g and ordered station ops to consolidate the remainder and clear section D-2 for set-up as habitation. Sol-2 civil Ops bitched and moaned about access-critical supplies.

“I assure you,” he said coldly and courteously, “I appreciate the difficulty. But human beings have priority over galley supplies... That is a problem. I suggest than you move your dispenser equipment to 3-deck to handle it. There are bottles and carts available... —Then get them from maintenance, or we’ll order them. I’m sure you can solve that....”

Meanwhile, the thin nervous voice of approach control tracked the carrier’s braking, in a tone that said approach control wasn’t used to these velocities. Inner system wasn’t a place merchanters ever moved at anything like that v. Merchanters drifted into the mothersystem at a sedate, mind-numbing leisure, sir, while bored techs and mechanics did whatever repair they’d had on backlist— days and days of it, because the mothersystem with all its traffic had regulations, and a starship, which necessarily violated standard lanes, made mothersystem lawyers very anxious. The mothersystem was a dirty system. The mothersystem had a lot of critical real estate, the mothersystem had never accurately figured the astronomical chances of collision, and the Earth Company had made astronomically irritating regulations. Which they now saw Exceptioned. That was the word for it. Exceptioned, for military ships under courier or combat conditions.

The ECS4 wasn’t even at hard stretch. But station was anxious. If braking utterly failed (astronomically unlikely) that carrier would pass, probably, fifty meters in the clear. But tell them that in the corridors, where the rumor was, Security informed him, dial the carrier was aimed straight at them.

Porey, the bastard, might shave that to 25 meters, only because he hated Earth system. But Porey never said that in outside hearing.

Porey had other traits. But leave those aside. Porey was a strategist and a good one, and that, apparently, was the priority here. Not whether Edmund Porey gave a damn about the command he’d been given. Not whether he had any business commanding here, over these particular mindsets.

The Shepherds were his crews, dammit, down to the last two women the captain or someone had finagled in here.

Fingers hesitated over a keypad.

The captain. Or someone. Anyone in Sol System must have known more than he had. What in hell was going on?

He had a call from Mitch Mitchell on the wait list. He returned it only to ask, “Where are you?”

“Sir?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on? What’s—”

He said, “Where are you?”

Mitch said, “Your office in two minutes.”

“You don’t read, Mitch. Where?”

“Coffee machine in one.”

Not that long to work a carrier into dock, not the way they’d learned it in the Beyond, especially when it was a tube link and a straight grapple to a mast. The carrier used its own docking crew—marines, who simply moved the regular staff aside. More and more of them. A familiar face or two: Graff recognized them, if he couldn’t place them. Carina dockers. Mazian’s own crew. A lot of these must be.

Lynch, the sergeant-major identified himself, close-clipped, gray-haired, with no ship patch on his khaki and gray uniform, but Graff recalled the face. He returned the salute, took the report and signed it for transmission of station Secure condition.

More of them were coming off the lift. “Sgt,-major,” he said, with a misgiving nod in that direction. “We’ve had a delicate situation. Kindly don’t antagonize the UDC personnel. We’ve got a cooperation going that should make your job easier.”

“The commander said take the posts. We take ‘em, sir.”

He frowned at the sergeant-major. Darkly. Kept his hands locked behind him, so the white knuckles didn’t show. “You also have to live here, Sgt.-major. Possibly for a long while. Kindly don’t disturb the transition we have in progress. That also is an order.”

A colder face. A moment of silence. Estimation, maybe. “Yes, sir,” Lynch said. Carina man for certain. Dangerous man. Close to Mazian. Lynch moved off, shouted orders to a corporal.

Steps rang in unison. Breath steamed in the air in front of the lift. Marines were headed for the communications offices, the administrative offices, the lifesupport facilities, simultaneously.

The lift let out again. Armored Security and a scowling, close-clipped black man in a blue dress jacket.

Graff stood his ground and made his own bet whether Porey would salute or put out a hand.

It was the hand. Graff took it and said, “Commander.”

“Lieutenant. Good to see you.” He might have been remarking on the ambient temperature. “I take it the report is in our banks.”

“It should be. I take it you heard about the interservice incident. We have personnel in the brig...”

“The colonel’s office,” Porey said, shortly, and motioned him curtly to come along.

Quiet in the cell block, deathly quiet for a while. Then someone yelled: “Hey, Pauli.”

“Yeah?”

“You know that five you owe me?”

“Yeah?”

“Cancel it. You got that sumbitch.”

“That sumbitch is in here!” another voice yelled. “That sumbitch is going to whip you good, Basrami!”

“Yeah, you got a big chance of doing that, Charlie-boy. How was dessert?”

“Your guy can’t navigate an aisle! What’s he good for, him and his fe-male pi-luts? Couple of Belter whores, what I hear—”

Dekker stood at the bars, white-knuckled, Ben could see it from where he sat. From down the aisle Meg’s high, clear voice. “You a pi-lut, cher, or a mouth?”

“You come in here to save Dekker’s ass? Bed’s what you’re for, honey. It’s where you better stay.”

Ben winced. Meg’s voice:

“Fuck yourself, Charlie-boy, but don’t fuck with me. What are you, a tech or a pilot?”

“Pilot, baby, and you better stay to rock-picking. You’re out of your league.”

Chorus of derision from one side of the cell-block. Shouts from the other. Dekker hit the cross-bar with his fist, muscle standing hard in his jaw, and from down the row, Meg shouted:

“You got a bet, Charlie-boy.”

Wasn’t any way she wouldn’t take a challenge like that. Her and Sal. Ben felt his gut in a knot, saw Dekker lean his head against the bars, not saying anything, that was the danger signal in Dekker. And somebody down the row yelled, “Hey, Dekker! You hearing this?”

Shouting over the top of it. Dekker had to answer, had to, way the rules worked, and Ben held his breath and crawled off the bunk, not sure what he was going to do if Dekker blew.

“Dekker? You hear?”

Man couldn’t talk. Ben added those numbers fast, yelled out: “He’s ignoring you, mouth! You’re boring.”

“Funny he had a lot to say when Chad bought it! That right, Dekker? That right?”

Ben shoved his arm, not hard. Dekker was frozen. Hard as ice. Staring into nothing. Other guys were yelling. Something hit the middle of the aisle and rattled to a stop. And Dekker looked like a guy hit in the gut, wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t defending himself, was letting others do it. Another shove wasn’t going to push him into thinking. God only knew what it might do. He had the look of a man on the edge of cracking and Ben didn’t know what to do with him, he didn’t know how to answer the catcalls and the shouting that was going on, he hoped to hell for the MPs to come in and break it up. Wasn’t any more from Meg. He could hear Sal’s voice in the middle of it, but he had a desperate feeling he was in a cell with half a problem and Sal had the other half...

“Hey, Custard Charlie,” somebody yelled. “You want to run the sims full hours? Take you on.”

That was a hit. Belters tagged you and you stayed tagged until you burned it off—and then it could come back years later.

“Take you on, take Dekker and his women on, any day, any day—what about it, Dekker? You got a voice, pretty-boy? Where’s your ladies?”

‘Ladies’ included one UDC shave-head in the mix, Ben figured, but he wasn’t going to get into it, wasn’t his business, wasn’t going to win a thing.

But Dekker came alive then, shouting, “We got enough of that Attitude, mister, we got too damn many dead with that Attitude. I liked Chad, you hear me, you son of a bitch? I liked him all right, it was your own CO set him up.” Dekker’s voice cracked. He wasn’t doing highly well right now, but at least the jaw had come unwired. He hit his fist on the bars, turned around and said to the ceiling or the walls, Ben didn’t think it was to him, “God, they’re making me crazy—they’re trying to make me crazy.”

Wouldn’t touch that line, Ben told himself, and held his breath, just stood out of the way while Dekker walked the length of the cell and back.

“Hey, Dekker,” another voice yelled. “You son of a bitch, was that your mama on the news?”

Shit. Dekker was at the bars and that knot was back in his jaw. “You want to discuss it? Is that Sook?”

“No way,” another voice yelled out. “Sook’s not guilty. That was J. Bob.”

Catcalls went one way and the other. Shouting racketed up and down the hall, until starting with the far end, it got suddenly quiet. Quiet traveled. Ben leaned against the bars and tried to see what was going on, and all he could make out was UDC uniforms and MPs.

“That’s better,” someone said. “Keep it quiet. Fleet personnel are being released—” A cheer went up.

“—to Fleet Security, for your own officers to sort out. You’ll file outside, you’ll give the officers your full name, your serial number, your rank, in that order. You’ll be checked out and checked off...”