Devil to the Belt (v1.1) by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page A

sip?” Bird asked, but Dekker was out again, gone. Bird shoved off and arrowed down to grab a handhold by Ben’s workstation, but Ben said:
    “I’m already ahead of you. Man said 79, 709, 12? No signal in that direction but the ‘driver.”
    Nothing but the ‘driver, Bird thought. God. “Hear any tag?”
    Ben shook his head.
    Bird bit his lip, wondering—
    Wondering, dammit, how long that particular ‘driver had been there. A while, damned sure. But Mama only told you what you needed. You could work out the rest from what you could gather with your own ears and your radar, but who wanted to?
    Who, in a question about a company tag and a private claim,—wanted to?
    Ben said in a low voice, “Do you suppose that fool tried to skim the company on a rock that size?”
    Bird thought, I want out of here.
    But what he argued to Ben was: “We just don’t ask. We don’t know anything and we sure as hell aren’t getting in their way. Whatever claim’s out there already has a ‘driver attached.”
    “Makes other claims kind of moot, doesn’t it?”
    “Don’t even ask.”
    Company prerogatives, secret company codes and direct accesses—company ships could talk back and forth at will; bet your life they could.
    And count that that ‘driver ship was armed—if you counted a kilometer-long mass driver as a lethal weapon, and Bird personally did. You didn’t want to argue right of way or ownership with a ‘driver captain. They were ASTEX to the core and they were a breed—next to God.
    Ben said, “Told you we should have left this guy on the other side of the lock. It’s still not too late.”
    “Cut the jokes. It wasn’t funny the first time.”
    “Bird, there’s a hell of a lot more than he’s telling. Big find, hell. They were skimming a company claim.”
    “We don’t know that.”
    “Well, that’s all I want to know. Suddenly I’m damn glad we haven’t been talking to that ‘driver. I don’t like this, damn, I don’t.”
    “I don’t know anything. You don’t know anything. We didn’t look at that log. Thank God. Let’s just get us out of here.”
    “We could offer to give evidence.”
    “We don’t know what we’re swearing to. We don’t
know
what happened.”
    “We
could
look in that log.”
    “Sure, a skimmer’s going to log his moves. What’s he going to write? ‘1025 and we just blew a chip off a 1 k rock’? If we touch that panel over there we’ll leave a record of that access, and maybe that’s not a good idea. Do I spell it out? Don’t be a fool.”
    “I can fix that log. I think I can bypass that access record if you really want to know.”
    “Don’t depend on it. ‘Think’ isn’t good enough. No. We don’t run that risk. Best claim we’ve got is that we haven’t seen those records and we don’t know a thing. We don’t have a problem if we just keep clean. No shady stuff. Nothing. Clean, Ben.”
    “Knock that guy in the head,” Ben muttered. “Be sure there’s no questions. Then there’s no problem.”
    God, he thought. Is that what they teach this generation?
    The ship jolted.
    Dekker yelled aloud, struggling to get free. Someone—a familiar voice now—shouted at him to shut up.
    Another, gentler, said, “That was just getting in position, Dekker. Take it easy.”
    He had another blank spot then, woke up with the nightmare feeling of increasing
g
, not knowing where it was going to stop, or what had started it. Something pressed into his back and he thought, God, we’re spinning—
    “Cory!” he yelled.
    “Shut up, dammit!”
    “Dekker.” This came gently then, with a touch at his shoulder. A smell of something cooked. Freefall. He blinked and looked at the gray-haired man, who let a foil packet of something drift near his face.
    “We’ve done our position,” the man said to him, he couldn’t remember the name, and then did. Bird. Bird was the good one. Bird was the one who didn’t want to kill him. “We’re going to catch our beam