Devil to the Belt (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  Most of all, maybe you got a little nervous when your partner started getting that excited about money and insisting they owned that ship.

  Most especially since Nouri and the crackdown, and since the company had gotten so nitpicking touchy—you wanted witnesses able to swear in court what you’d touched and what you’d done aboard somebody else’s ship.

  Bird shut the inside hatch and pushed the buttons that started the lock cycling. The red light came on, saying DEPRESSURIZATION, and the readout started spieling down toward zero.

  “Sal-vage,” Ben said, tinny-sounding over the suit-com. “Maybe she’ll still pitch, do you think? If those tanks are the most of the damage, hell, they’re cans, is all. Can’t be that expensive. We could put a mortgage on her, fix her up—the bank’ll take a fixable ship for collateral, what do you think?”

  “I think we better pay attention to where we are. We got one accident here, let’s not make it two.”

  The readout said PRESSURE EQUALIZED. Ben was doing this anxious little bounce with his foot braced, back and forth between the two walls of the lock. But you never rushed opening. Oxygen cost. Water cost. Out here, even with all the working machinery aboard, heat cost. You treated those pumps and those seals like they were made of gold, and while the safety interlocks might take almost-zero for an answer and let you open on override, it was money flowing out when you did. You remembered it when you saw your bills at next servicing, damn right, you did.

  The readout ticked down past 5 mb toward hard vacuum, close as the compressor could send it. Ben pushed the OUTER HATCH OPEN button, the lock unsealed and retracted the doors and showed them the scarred, dust-darkened face of the opposing lock. The derelict’s inside pressure gauge was dusted over. Bird cleared it with his glove. “760 mb. She’s up full. At least it didn’t hole her.”

  Ben banged soundlessly on the hatch with the steel bar and put his helmet up against the door.

  “Nada,” Ben said. “Dead in there, Bird, I’m telling you.”

  “We’ll see.” Bird borrowed the bar and pried up the safety cover on the External Access handle.

  No action. No power in the ship’s auxiliary systems.

  “No luck for them,” Ben said cheerfully. “Pure dead.”

  Bird jimmied the derelict’s external leech panel open. “Get ours, will you?”

  “Oh, shit, Bird.”

  “Nerves?”

  Ben didn’t answer. Ben shoved off to their own lock wall to haul the leech cord out of its housing. It snaked in the light as he drifted back. Bird caught the collared plug and pushed it into the derelict’s leech socket. The hull bumped and vibrated under his glove. “She’s working,” he said.

  “Sal-vage,” Ben said, on hissed breaths.

  “Don’t spend it yet.”

  Rhythmic hiss of breath over suit-coms, while the metal vibrated with the pump inside. “Hey, Bird. What’s a whole ship worth?”

  A man tried to be sane and sensible. A man tried to think about the poor sods inside, an honest man broke off his prospecting and ran long, expensive risky days for a will-of-the-wisp signal, and tried to concentrate on saving lives, not on how much metal was in this ship or whether she was sound, or how a second ship would set him and Ben up for life. The waiting list for leases at Refinery Two meant no ship sat idle longer than its servicing required.

  “130 mb. 70. 30. 10.” The pressure gauge ticked down. The vibration under his hand changed. The valves parted.

  Ice crystals spun and twinkled in front of them, against the sullen glow of borrowed power. Ice formed and glistened on the inner lock surfaces—moisture where it didn’t belong.

  “Doesn’t look prosperous,” Ben said.

  Bird pushed with his toe, caught a handhold next to the inner valves. His glove skidded on ice. Ben arrived beside him, said, “Clear,” and Bird hit the HATCH CLOSE toggle.

  “Going to be slow.” He looked high in the faceplate for the 360° view, watching the derelict’s outer doors labor shut at their backs.

  “You sure about that battery?” Ben asked.

  Bird hit CYCLE 2. The pumps vibrated. “Hell of a time to ask.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Thirty years at this, damn right I checked.—Whoa, there.”

  The HUD in the faceplate suddenly showed a yellow flasher and a dataflow glowing green. The one on the airlock wall glowed a sullen red.

  “CONTAMINANTS.” Ben let go a shaky hiss of pent breath. “It’s not going to be pretty in there.—Bird, do we have to go through with this? There’s nothing alive inside.”

  “We’re already there. Can you sleep without knowing?”

  “Damn right I’ll sleep, I’ll sleep just fine.—I don’t want to see this, Bird. Why in hell do I got to see this?”

  “Hey, we all end up the same. Carbon and nitrogen, a lot of H2O…”

  “Cut it out, Bird!”

  “Earth to earth. Dust to dust.” The indicators said 740/741 mb. and PRESSURE EQUALIZED. “Lousy compressor,” Bird said, pushed the INNER HATCH OPEN button. Air whistled, rushing past the pressure differential and an uneven seal. The doors ground slowly back. External audio heard it. 10° C, his HUD said about the ambient. Not quite balmy. “Heater’s going down. Heater’s always next to last.—You do know what’s last, don’t you, Ben-me-lad?”

  “The damn beeper.” Ben’s teeth were chattering—nothing wrong with Ben’s suit heater, Bird was sure. Ben’s breath hissed raggedly over the suit-com. “So Mama can find the salvage. Only this time we got it, Bird, come on, I don’t like this. What if that leech pulls out?”

  “Plug won’t pull out.”

  “Hell, Bird!”

  Inner doors labored to halfway open. Bird caught the door edge and shoved himself and his backpack through into the faintly lit inside.

  A helmetless hardsuit, trailing cables and hose, drifted slowly in front of them, spinning in a loose, cocoon of its attachments. A cable went from its battery pack to the panel, last sad resort: the occupants had had time to know they were in trouble, time to drain the main batteries and the leech unit, and finally resort to this one.

  Bits and pieces of gear drifted in the dimmed light, sparked bright in their suit-spots, cords, clips—everything a tumble could knock free. Fluids made small moons and planets.

  “Mess,” Ben’s voice said. “Isn’t it?”

  Bird caught the hose, tugged gently to pull the suit out of his way, and checked the suit locker. “One suit’s missing.”

  “I’m cutting that damn beeper,” Ben said. “All right?”

  “Fine by me.”

  Stuff everywhere. Cables. A small meteor swarm of utility clips flashed in the light. Globules of fluid shone both oily-dark and amber. A sweater and a single slipper danced and turned in unison like a ghost.

  “Lifesupport’s flat gone,” Ben said. A locker banged in the external audio, while Bird was checking the spinner cylinders for occupants. Empty. Likewise the shower.

  A power cell floated past. Dead spare, one from the lock, one guessed.

  A globule of fluid impacted Bird’s visor, leaving a chain of dark red beads.

  “Come on, Bird. Let’s seal up. Let’s get out of here. They’re gone. Dead ship, that’s all. Don’t ask what this slop is that’s floating. The ‘cyclers are shot.”

  Drifting hose. More clips. A lump of blankets under the number two workstation, spotted in Bird’s chest-light. “Looks like here’s one of them,” Bird said.

  “God! Let it be! Bird!”

  “Carbon and water. Just carbon and water.” Bird held the counter edge and snagged the blanket.

  The body drifted past the chair, rolled free as the blanket floated on to dance with the sweater.

  Young man in filthy coveralls. Straight dark hair and loose limbs drifted in the slow spin the turnout gave him.

  Not much beard.

  Bird caught a sleeve, stopped the spin, saw a dirty face, shut eyes, open mouth. Dehydration shrank the skin, cracked
the lips.

  “Don’t touch him!” Ben objected. “God, don’t touch him!”

  “Beard’s been shaved, maybe three days.”

  “God knows how long ago—he’s dead, Bird. That’s a dead body.”

  Bird nudged the chin-lever over to sensor array, said, “Left. Hand.”

  The HUD showed far warmer than the 10° ambient.

  Pliable flesh.

  “Isn’t a body, Ben. This guy’s alive.”

  “Shit,” Ben said. Then: “But he’s not in control of this ship. Is he?”

  Long, long door closing, with an unconscious man crowding them three to the lock, and the underpowered motors going slow and threatening breakdown. Then they could Mode 2 Override their own airlock, mixing air supplies and keeping pressure up for their passenger’s sake. “Go ahead and seal it behind us,” Bird said. “Keep it just the way it was, in case Mama asks questions.”

  “God, we got a CONTAMINANTS flashing in our lock now. Why the hell don’t we have a transfer bag? God, this guy’s all over crud.”

  “We’ll think of that next time. Come on, come on. Do it.”

  Ben swore, made the numbingly slow seal of the wreck’s doors, then pulled their leech free and hit HATCH CLOSE on their own panel, sending One’er Eighty-four Zebra toward an electronic sleep, still docked with them, her last battery on the edge of failure.

  “Man was a total fool,” Ben muttered. “He should’ve hooked the ship in to feed that suit, not the other way around. Should have let her go all the way down.”

  “Would’ve made sense,” Bird said.

  “So where’s the partner?”

  “God only. Push CYCLE. I can’t reach it.”

  Ben got an arm past him and the rescuee and hit the requisite button. Their own compressor started, solid and fast, a healthy vibration under the decking.

  Then the whole chamber went red and a blinking white light on the panel said INTERNAL CONTAMINANT ALERT.

  “Shit,” Ben groaned.

  “You got that right.”

  “Bad joke, Bird. That stuff got past the filters!”

  “Just override. Tell it we’re sorry, we can’t help it.”

  Ben was already punching at the button. Ben said, “We don’t need any damn corpse fouling up our air, howsoever long he takes to get that way.—God, Bird, we own that ship!”

  “Just let’s not worry about it here.” Bird felt the slight movement in his arms. Hugged the man tight, thinking, Poor sod. Hold on. Hold on awhile. We got you. You’re all right. He said to Ben, “He’s moving.”

  Ben drew an audible breath. “You know, we could put him back in there. Who’s to know?”

  “Bad joke, Ben.” The PRESSURE EQUALIZED lit up. “Hatch button. Come on, give me a hand, huh? I can’t turn around.”

  “We can’t damn well afford this!” Ben said. “We’re into the bank as far as—”

  “Ben, for God’s sake, just punch the damn button!”

  Ben punched it. The hatch opened, relieved the pressure at Bird’s back, gave him room to turn and haul their rescuee inside. He carefully let the man go and let him drift while he sailed back into the lock and secured the leech into its housing. Then he drifted back through and shut the inside hatch.

  Ben was lifting his helmet off—Ben was making a disgusted face and swearing. Their air quality alarm had the warning siren going and the overhead lights flashing—it was that bad. Ben grabbed their guest by the collar and started peeling him out of his clothes.

  Bird got his own helmet off and let it float, stripped off his gloves and helped Ben peel the unconscious man to the skin, trying not to breathe, bunching the coveralls and stimsuit continually as they peeled them off, trying not to let them touch the air. He hesitated whether to go for a containment bag or shove them in the washer and maybe foul the cleaning fluid for the rest of the trip. The washer was closer. He crammed them in, slippers and all, levered the small door shut and pushed the button. The stench clung to his bare hands. His suit was splotched with yellow and red stains.

  He heard a faint voice not Ben’s, protesting incoherently, turned and saw Ben pulling the shower door open, the young man trying to resist Ben’s pulling him around. Ben pushed the man inside and pulled the door to—a knee was in the way and Ben shoved it, while their uninvited passenger, drifting behind clear plastic, slammed a weak fist against the clear plex door.

  “Be a little damn careful, Ben.”

  Ben pulled the outside seal lever down, flung up the service panel beside the door, pushed the Test Cycle button, holding the shower door shut the while. The shower started. Their guest slammed the door with his fist again, drifted back against the wall as the water hit him.

  “What’s the water temp?”

  “Whatever you left it.”

  “I don’t remember what I left it.—Cut it, Ben, he’s passed out.”

  “He’s all right, dammit! We’ve spent enough on this fool, I’m not living with that stink! It’s my money too, Bird, in case you forget! It’s my money right along with yours we spent running after this guy, it’s my money pays for those filters, and that smell makes me sick to my stomach, Bird!”

  “All right, all right. Take it easy.”

  “It’s all over us!”

  “Ben,—shut up. Just shut up. Hear me?”

  The air quality siren was still going. It was enough to drive a man crazy. They were having a zero run, hardly anything in the sling. They’d spent nerve-wracking hours getting the ship linked and now Ben had gotten so close to money he could taste it. Ben got a little breath, looked as if control was still coming hard for him, as if he was somewhere between breaking down and breaking something.

  Bird shoved over to the lifesupport control panel and cut the siren. The silence after was deafening. Just the shower going and their own hard breathing.

  Ben was a hard worker, sometimes too hard. Bird told himself that, told himself Ben was a damned fine partner, and the Belt was lonely and tempers got raw. Two men jammed into a five by three can for months on end had to give each other room—had to, that was all.

  Ben said, thin-lipped, but sanely, “Bird, we got to wipe down these suits. We have to get this stink off. It’s going to break down our filters, dammit.”

  “It won’t break down our filters,” Bird assured him quietly, but he went and got the case of towel wipes out of the locker. The shower entered its drying cycle. The guy was floating there, eyes shut, maybe resting, maybe unconscious. Bird reached for the door.

  Ben held the latch down and pushed the Test Cycle a second time.

  “Ben,” Bird protested, “Ben, for God’s sake, the guy’s had enough. Are you trying to drown him?”

  “I won’t live with that stink!”

  The man—kid, really, he looked younger than Ben was—had drifted against the shower wall and hung there. He was moving again, however feebly—and maybe it was cowardly not to insist Ben listen to reason, but a small ship was nowhere to have a fight start, over what was likely doing the kid no harm, and maybe some good. You could breathe the mist, you could drink the detergent straight and not suffer from it. Dehydrated as he was, he could do with a little clean water; and cold as he’d been, maybe it was a fast way to warm him through.

  So he said, “All right, all right, Ben,” and opened the box of disinfectant towels, wiped his hands and chest and arms and worked down.

  “I can still smell it,” Ben said in a shaky voice, wiping his own suit off. “Even after you scrub it I can still smell it.”

  “That’s just the disinfectant.”

  “Hell if it is.”

  Ben was not doing well, Bird thought. He had insisted Ben go over there with him and maybe that had been a mistake: Ben wasn’t far into his twenties himself; and Ben might never have been in a truly lonely, scary situation in his whole stationbound life. Ben had spooked himself about this business for days, with all this talk about hijackers.

  On the other hand maybe an old dirtsider from Ear
th and a Belter brat four years out of school weren’t ever going to understand each other on all levels.

  They shed the suits. They’d used up three quarters of their supply of wipes. “Just as well our guy stays in the shower,” Bird said, now that he thought calmly about it, “until we have something to put him in. His clothes’ll be dry in a bit.” He cycled the shower again himself, stowed his suit and floated over to the dryer as it finished its cycle. The clothes were a little damp about the seams, and smelled of disinfectant: the dryer’s humidity sensor needed replacing, among a dozen other things at the bottom of his roundtoit list. He read the stenciled tag on the coveralls. “Our guy’s got a name. Tag says Dekker. P.”

  “That’s fine. So he’s got a name. What happened to his partner, that’s what I want to know.”

  Maybe that was after all what was bothering Ben—too many stories about Nouri and the hijackers.

  “He wasn’t doing so well himself, was he?” Dekker, P was drifting in the shower compartment, occasionally moving, not much. Bird opened the door, without interference from Ben this time, and said, quietly, before he took the man’s arm: “Dekker, my name’s Bird, Morrie Bird. My partner’s Ben. You’re all right. We’re going to get you dressed now. Don’t want you to chill.”

  Dekker half opened his eyes, maybe at the cold air, maybe at the voice. He jerked his arm when Bird pulled him toward the outside. “Cory?” he asked. And in panic, bracing a knee and a hand against the shower door rim: “Cory?”

  “Watch him!” Ben cried; but it was Ben who caught a loose backhand in the face. Dekker jabbed with his elbow on the recoil, made a move to shove past them, but he had nothing left, neither leverage nor strength. Bird blocked his escape and threw an arm around him, after which Dekker seemed to gray out, all but limp, saying, “Cory…”

  “Must be the partner,” Bird said.