Devil to the Belt (v1.1)

by C. J. Cherryh

  Meg knew a whole lot more than she told Bird. And Sal knew more than she ever told any of us. And Ben’s figured that. That’s why it’s gone cold between them… that’s why, in the shakeout, it’s only partners that count.

  Mine’s paid out, now. Done everything I could, Cory…

  The interview was over. He got up, Sunderland got up. Sunderland offered his hand. He found the good grace to take it.

  Hard adjustment—they hadn’t had problems except the fact they were out of fuel and falling closer and closer to Jupiter, and in consequence of that, the morbid question whether they’d fry in his envelope before they got there or live long enough to hear the ship start compressing around them. Intellectual question, and one Meg had mulled over in the dark corners of her mind—speculation right now hell and away more entertaining that wondering what the soldier-boys were going to do with the company, and what it was going to be like in this future they now had, living on Shepherd charity.

  Sal and Ben might be all right—Ben was still subdued, just real quiet—missing Bird and probably asking himself the same question—how to live now that they had a good chance they weren’t going to die.

  Point one: something could still go wrong. When you knew you were diving for the big one, hell, you focused on trying things, and you lined up your chances and you took them in order of likeliest to work and fastest to set up. But when you knew you were going to be rescued by somebody else’s decisions and that it was somebody else’s competency or lack of it that was going to pull you out or screw everything up, then you sweated, then you imagined all the ways some fool could lose that chance you had.

  Point two: Sal was just real spooky right now—scared, jumpy: Sal had held out against her fancy friends once before when the Shepherds were trying to drive a wedge between them, and Sal had all the feel of it right now, wanting them so hard it was embarrassing to watch it—and Sal was hearing those sons of bitches, she was damn sure of it, saying, Yeah, that’s all real fine, Aboujib, but Kady’s an albatross—Kady’s got problems with the EC, that we’re trying to deal with in future—

  —Only thing Kady can do is fly, they’d be saying; and meaning shit-all chance there was of that, with their own pilots having a god complex and seniority out the ass. Might be better to split from Sal, get out of her life, quit screwing up her chances with her distant relatives, and go do mining again—maybe with Ben, who knew?

  But, God, it’s going to be interesting times. So’jer rules, more and more. They’ll make sweettalk with the miners til they got a brut solid hold on the situation, then they’ll just chip away at everything they agreed to.

  Dek—Dek could come out of this all right; but, God, Dek maybe hadn’t figured what she was hearing from the meds, how he’d gotten notorious, how he was so damn hot an item it was keeping the pressure on the EC to get them out of this—couldn’t drop Dekker into the Well, not like some dumb shit Shepherd crew that got themselves in trouble. Dekker was system-wide famous, in Bird’s way of saying. And that was both a good thing and a bad one, as she could figure—majorly bad, for a kid who’d just got his pieces picked up and didn’t get on well with asses.

  Lot of asses wanted to use you if you were famous. Piss one off and he’d knife you in the back. She’d got that lesson down pat.

  Good, in that consideration, if the Shepherds kept him on the Hamilton. But she didn’t think they would—kid with no seniority, a lot of rep, and a knife-edge mental balance… coming in on senior pilots with a god-habit. Critical load in a week. And if they put him back on R2, God help him, same thing with the new management.

  That left Sol and the EC. And that meant public. And all the shit that went with it.

  She was severely worried about Dek. She kept asking herself—while from time to time they were telling each other how wonderful it was they weren’t going to die and all, and Ben and Sal looked more scared right now than they’d been in all this mess—

  —asking herself, too, what they were telling Dekker, somewhere on the ship.

  Giving him an official briefing on his partner, maybe. Everybody’d been somewhat busy til now; and the heat being off (literally) the senior staff was probably going down its list of next-to-do’s.

  Or maybe they were telling him something else altogether.

  The door opened. Dek came back quiet and looking upset.

  “What was it?” Ben asked, on his feet. (God, she’d strangle him the day she got the cast off.)

  But Dekker looked up at Ben the way he’d looked at her when she’d found him on the ship: no anger. Just a lost, confused look.

  Maybe for once in his life Ben understood he should urgently shut up now.

  But Dekker paid more attention to walking from the door to the end of the bed—getting his legs fairly well, she thought, better than she was, the little they let her up.

  He said, “Got an explanation, at least. Pretty much what we guessed, about Cory. And it’s solid, about the ship on its way. We’re all right.”

  “You all right?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. He looked down at the blanket. There was too much quiet in the room, too long. Sal finally edged over and put her hand on his shoulder.

  He said, “I’m real tired.”

  Meg moved her legs over. “There’s room. Why don’t you just go horizontal awhile? Don’t think. It’s all right, Dek.”

  He let out a long slow sigh, leaned over and put his hand on her knee. Just kept it there a while and she didn’t know what to say to him. Sal came and massaged his shoulders. Ben lowered himself into the chair by the bed and said, “So is this ship going to grapple and tow us or just pick us off?”

  “Tow,” Dekker said. “As I gather. Thing’s probably not doing all it can, even the way it’s moving.”

  “Starship,” Meg said, thinking of a certain flight. “I’ve seen ‘em glow when they come in.”

  “Freighters,” Sal said. “This thing’s something else.”

  An old rab had a chill, thinking about that “something else” next that one pretty memory. Thought—Earth’s blind. Earth’s severely blind.

  Feathers on the wind. Colonies won’t come back.

  Kids don’t come home again. Not the same, they don’t.

  Lot of noise. Dekker had no idea how big the carrier was, but it had a solid grip on them, and they could move around now, get what they needed before they sounded the take-hold and shut the rotation down for the push back to R2.

  But before that, they had a personnel line rigged, lock to lock, and he had an escort coming over to pick him up. The Fleet wasn’t taking any chances of a standoff—while they were falling closer and closer to the mag-sphere.

  Hadn’t told Meg and Sal. Hadn’t told Ben either. He intended to, on his way to the lock. Meanwhile he wanted just to get his belongings together. The Hamilton had had their personals out of Trinidad before they freed her, Bird’s too: they’d been packed and ready to go, all the food and last-to-go-aboards stowed in Trinidad, that being where they’d enter and where they’d ride out the initial burn. It was all jumbled together now—Hamilton had had no idea who’d owned what—and he found an old paper photo—a group of people, two boys in front, arms around each other, mountains in the background.

  Blue-sky. He didn’t know what these people had been to Bird. He thought one of the boys looked a little like Bird. He didn’t know what mountains they were—he knew the Moon better than he knew Earth and its geography—another class he’d cut more than he’d attended.

  But he looked at it a long time. He didn’t think it was right to take what was Bird’s—he hadn’t had any claim on him. Ben did. But you could put away a picture in your mind and remember it, years after.

  If there were years after.

  He took what was his. Put on the bracelet Sal had bought him—he thought that would make her happy. He didn’t know, point of fact, whether they’d let him keep anything. Worth asking, he thought.

  “Dek?” Sal asked.


  About finished, anyway. He stuffed a shirt into the bag, wiped his hair out of his eyes and caught his balance against the lockers as he stood up.

  All of them—including Meg. Sal was holding her on her feet. Ben, behind them.

  “Meg, God, I wasn’t going to skip out—the meds’ll have a seizure.”

  Meg said, “Thought we’d walk down to the lift with you.” In that tone of voice Meg had that didn’t admit there were other choices. “Hell of a thing, Dek.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to worry you. —Walk you back to your cabin.”

  “Doing just fine, thanks. Going to check these so’jer-boys out. See if we approve the company they’re putting you into.”

  He picked up his duffel, put a hand on the wall and came closer. Familiar faces. Faces he’d gotten used to seeing— even Ben. And Meg. Especially Meg.

  He leaned over, very carefully kissed her on the cheek. Meg said, “Oh, hell, Dek,” and it wasn’t his cheek she kissed, for as long as gave him time to know Meg wasn’t joking, and that close as he’d been with Cory, it wasn’t what he felt right now.

  Sal kissed him too, same way. But not the same. He couldn’t talk.

  Ben said, holding up a hand, “If you think I’m going to, you’re wrong.”

  You never knew about Ben. Ben saved him losing it. He got a breath, halfway laughed, and picked up the bag again, hearing the lock operating.

  “Sounds like my appointment,” he said. “Better move, so they can get us all under way. Risky neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, well,” Meg said, following him, on Sal’s arm. Hard breath. “They better take care of you. Letters are a good thing.”

  “May be a while,” he said, glancing back as he walked. Not good for the balance. “But I will. Soon as I can. Soon as I have a paycheck. Don’t know whether I’ll be at the shipyard or where. Sol, maybe. I just can’t say.”

  Trying to pack every thought he had into a handful of minutes. Thinking about the Fleet’s tight security, and the tighter security around him.

  “Maybe if you ask the Shepherds they can find out where I’m stationed. Maybe the captain can get a letter to me, even if I can’t get one out. My mother’s Ingrid Dekker, she’s on maintenance at Sol—write to her, if that doesn’t work. She may know where I am.”

  Or maybe not, he thought, as they came into the ops area, where the lift was, to take him up to the lock. Fleet uniform on the blond and two marine MP’s, with pistols. Standing with Sunderland. He hoped they didn’t take him off in handcuffs. Not in front of Meg, please God…

  “Mr. Dekker?” the crew-type said—young, insignia he couldn’t read. Outheld hand. He took the offer. Didn’t read any threat. “Name’s Graff. Going to take you across and see you signed in.”

  Didn’t sound like a threat. It wasn’t handcuffs at least.

  Graff said, “This your crew?”

  “Meg Kady, Sal Aboujib, Ben Pollard.” He spotted Sam Ford over to the right, Ford with his arm in a sling. “Sam Ford. Ran the com for us.” He wasn’t sure Ford liked the notoriety. Maybe he shouldn’t have opened his mouth. But damn-all the Fleet was going to do about the rest. They were getting the one they’d bargained for, and Graff didn’t look like a note-taker. He shook hands with the captain, waved a small goodbye at his shipmates, took Graff’s signal they were going.

  Lift took him and Graff and one guard. That was all that would fit. Graff said, on the way up, “Ops training’s real glad to get its hands on you. Move of yours gave the lieutenant an attack. You didn’t hear that.”

  He looked Graff in the face. Saw amusement. Saw the MP biting his lip.

  Lift let out at the dock. Cold up here. He stood and shivered, thought then to ask, “They going to let me keep my personals? Or should I leave them?”

  “Put them in stowage. Few months, you can get them back.”

  The lift was coming up again. It opened.

  Ben came out with the other MP.

  “Thought we said goodbye,” Dekker said.

  “Yeah, well,” Ben said, and said to Graff, “Got room for another one?”

  Different kind of ship. ECS5 was her designation—didn’t have a name yet, and wouldn’t, til she was commissioned. Gray and claustrophobic, huge flexing sections on the bridge. Instruments he didn’t understand. Most of it was dark. The crew was minimal, evidently, or the boards weren’t live yet. The personnel ring wasn’t operational—it was acceleration that let them walk the deck, g-plus at that, with the Hamilton’s mass. Graff had said he’d do a walk-around with them.

  Real quiet walk-around. It was a working ship. They didn’t belong here. They weren’t under arrest. Graff, Dekker got the idea, was doing a sell-job. “Good program,” Graff said, about flight training. “They don’t want you to come in with a lot of experience—new tech. Whole new kind of ship. Can’t talk about it. Can’t talk about it covers a lot we deal with.”

  He didn’t know what he thought. The machine around him wasn’t anything he’d even seen photos of.

  Wasn’t the only thing that puzzled him. He said to Ben, while Graff was talking to one of the techs, “Are you sure what you’re doing?”

  Ben gave one of his shrugs. Ben looked pale in the dark, in the light off the monitors. Sweating a little and it wasn’t warm in here. “No way to get ahead. You lost the ship, Dek-boy. Debt up to our necks… but a man with my background—there’s a real chance in this stuff. Military’s where the edge is, the way R2’s going now. Fleet’s the way up, you remember I said it. There’s an After to this war.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Officer before I’m done. Brass pin and all. Damn right, Dek-boy. You remember you know me. You fly ‘em and I’ll be sitting in some safe office in Sol HQ telling ‘em how to do it. Odds on it?”

  “Out of your mind,” Dekker repeated under his breath; and looked around him at things he wanted to understand, thinking, he couldn’t help it: God, Cory should have seen this…

  Hellburner

  Alliance-Union Prequel #2

  CHAPTER 1

  STOCKHOLM Is a city of islands and gardens, a stunningly eclectic architectural mix, from the Wgsdagshus to the 23rd century Cariberg Museum, from the restored Riddarsholm Kyrka to the Academy gardens...

  Founded in the mid 13th century, the dry of Stockholm holds abundant evidence of a thousand years of Baltic seafaring tradition, plus a lively nightlife centered in modem Gustavsholm—

  Ben indexed through the motile pictures and the text, the statistics about rainfall and mean average temperature which the Guide cautioned a visitor did not in any sense mean a constant temperature. Useless statistic—unless one contemplated Antarctica, where a mean temperature of -57° C and an average hours of sunlight only slightly better than Sol Station core meant Ben Pollard had no interest in McMurdo Base. Ben Pollard had seen a good deal of cold and dark and rock in his life. Old rock. This 13th century business amazed him. The whole damn human race dated itself in eighteenths of Jupiter’s passes about the sun, to the astonishingly recent number of about 10k such fractions, if you took the oldest cities. ASTEX R2 out in the Belt had been a skuz old place and a friend of his had sworn it had seen better days just in his lifetime, but when Ben Pollard thought old, he thought in millions. The rock he’d handled out there was old. Humankind was a real junior on those terms.

  He sipped real orange juice, imported up from the blue, cloud-swirled globe you could see at any hour on channel 55, along with the weather reports anywhere in the motherwell.

  Weather—was a novelty. Real weather. You got weather in a station core when they were blowing cold rock down the chute. You got condensation in your spacecraft and you swore like hell and wiped and dried and tried to find the source of it. But in the motherwell condensation fell out of the sky in frozen balls or slow flakes or liquid drops depending on the low level atmospheric temperatures, and k-wide clouds threw out electrical discharges that made it a very bad notion to stand (the Guide said) at
the highest point of the landscape.

  Daunting thought.

  The Guide said 70% of the Earth was water.

  The Guide said water in the oceans was 10k meters deep in places, and because it wasn’t frozen, Luna’s gravity pulled it up in a hump of a wave that rolled around the globe and washed on every shore it met, enough to grind up rock into beaches.

  All that unfrozen water. Gaseous nitrogen and liquid water that made all that sparkle when the sun hit the wrinkles on it that the Guide said were waves.

  He planned to stand on a beach and get a good close look at that unfrozen water. On a clear day, when there were no lightnings. You could do it from the station. You could be there while you were here, but VR was a cheat, you could be a whole lot of places that weren’t real. He wanted to stand at the edge of the ocean and watch the real sun disappear behind the real world, at which point he figured he would really believe he was standing on a negative curvature.

  The Guide said some spacers got dizzy, with the horizon going the wrong direction. There were prescriptions for vertigo. There were preparatory programs. But hell, he’d monkeyed around the core at R2, and stared straight at the rotation interface. That had to be worse.

  The clock on the screen said: 0843 June 14, 2324. And there was plenty of time this morning for coffee. Dress maybe by 0930h. Exams were done, the last score was going up today, but, hell, that was Interactive Reality Sampling and he had that one in his pocket, no question, no sweat. Probably set the curve: him or Meeker, one or the other: just let the UDC get that score, and Stockholm was in his pocket for sure, motherwell assignment in the safest, softest spot in the service except Orlando. Stockholm was where Ben Pollard was headed, yeah! soon as the interviewers could get up to station.

  Hell and away from the Belt, he was. Here you didn’t jam two guys into a fifteen by six, hell, no, Sol Station and Admin? You got a whole effin’ fifteen by six .9 g apartment by yourself, with a terminal that could be vid or VR whenever you opted. If you qualified into the Programming track in the UDC Technical Institute, you got an Allotment that afforded you 2c/d Personals per effin’ seven-day week, which meant oj that was real, coffee that was real, red meat that was real, if you had the stomach for it, which Ben personally didn’t—you lived like an effin1 Company exec and had a clearer conscience. And if you could get that on world posting, your tech/2 graduation rating equaled a full UDC lieu-tenancy in the motherwell, with an Army first lieutenant’s pay to start, full grade technical/1 promotion guaranteed in a year, and access with a capital A to all the services that pay could buy. You knew there was a war out in the Beyond, but it wasn’t going to get to Earth, that was what they were building that Fleet out there to stop—and even if it did nobody was going to hit the motherwell, humans just didn’t do that. You were safe down there. You’d be safe NO matter what.