“This is the control room.” The captain moved past him, her voice husky in her hoarse throat; he heard the clanking as Shadow Jack still fumbled with a pressure suit in the lock behind him. He drew a long breath of cool air, coughed once as his startled lungs reacted.
“Hello, Pappy.”
The captain pushed off from the wall, with the indefinable lack of grace that marked her alienness more than her face and hair. She moved across the vastness of the control room toward the instrument panels. He suddenly realized that the room was not empty, that he was being studied by a girl and a short pale-skinned man. “Betha—” A smile spread in the man's grizzled beard—an old man, too old to still be in space, to still be sound.… The slim brown girl wasn't looking at him at all, but only staring through him toward the lock. She was a Belter, ludicrously dressed in faded pants cinched by a flapping belt.
“You mean to tell me this is all you brought back?” The old man gestured at him, half joking, half appalled. “This—fop? You traded our Rusty for
The captain shook her head, amused, said blithely, “No, not ‘Shadow Jack and the Beanstalk,’ Pappy. I just said we didn't get the golden goose … and maybe we've been the golden goose, all along, and didn't know it.”
Wadie felt Shadow Jack brush by him with the cat in his arms. The boy tossed her out into the air, giving her momentum, and she paddled on across the room, perfectly at ease.
“Rusty!”
She made rusty meows of pleasure, moving toward the old man's familiar hands.
The Belter girl's face startled him, transformed by wild bliss as her eyes found Shadow Jack. He looked away from her, back at the old man. “Wadie Abdhiamal, representin' the Demarchy. And usually better than this. I'm afraid two hundred kilosecs in that deathtrap didn't do much for my appearance.” The old man laughed.
Shadow Jack glanced back at him. “Try it for a couple megasecs, sometime.”
The captain drifted against the control panel, lines of strain settling on her face again, making it grim. “It was hell, Pappy. I didn't want to make you come into Demarchy space to pick us up, but I don't know how much longer the life-support system would have held up. It wasn't adequate for two—and with three …” She rubbed her face, smearing grime. “The past two days were worse than the whole two weeks going in. But we had to bring him along. It was the only way we could get out of there. Their communications network is incredible; they already knew everything about us—everyone did, on every single separate piece of rock. And every one of them just waiting to grab our ship and play God with it—just like the Ringers. We can't trust either of them now; if we want hydrogen we're going to have to take it.”
“Captain Torgussen,” Wadie said, “the government only wants—”
“I know what you want, Abdhiamal. My ship. You made it clear enough. But your Demarchy will have to catch us first.” Her eyes cut him, blue glass. “I'm sorry, Abdhiamal, but you're on our ground now. Consider yourself our hostage.”
Shadow Jack laughed, sitting back in the air. The girl moved away from the panel to his side, her face expressionless.
Wadie said nothing, saw the captain hesitate.
“You don't seem very surprised. You didn't believe what I told you at Mecca, and still you let this happen?”
“I didn't know whether to believe you or not. After what you've been through, I figured maybe you really had given orders for the destruction of your ship, and I didn't want to take that chance. And I didn't want to take any chances with the Tirikis. And if you were lying about cooperating … well, I'm on your ship; that gives me another chance to change your mind. Heaven Belt needs your help.”
“We don't owe you anything; greed and hostility are all we've met in Heaven Belt.”
“Why did you come here in the first place, except to trade on the fact that you figured we were ridin' high? Why shouldn't we be as greedy? One hundred million people—most of the Main Belt—died in the first hundred megasecs after the war. And the ones that are left …” He pointed at Shadow Jack and the girl. “Look at Lansing. Their people won't last another circuit around Heaven. And we're all headed for the same thing, unless we have your ship.”
She frowned, hooked a shoe under the security rail that edged the panel. “The fact remains that we have rights of our own, as human beings—including the right to leave this system if we choose—and you're not willing to give them to us. It's true we came here to trade, because we thought Heaven had things we wanted. But you've got nothing to offer, and we can't afford to waste our ship and the rest of our lives for nothing. Morningside can't afford it. We just don't have the resources to throw away on you.”
“I—admit we didn't consider your position—” He broke off, the crassness of it embarrassing him. “We made a mistake, not considerin' your position. It was a stupid mistake. But we aren't the Ringers; we don't just want your ship, we want your cooperation. We might still have some things you'd want. It wouldn't have to be forever. The use of your ship, its reactor, and its shop, for a hundred and fifty megasecs. We'll deal with you fairly.” The part of him that had questioned MacWong asked,
The captain moved restlessly. “I don't believe that. Everything I've seen shows me I can't depend on the Demarchy. You can't even depend on each other. Even if you meant every word you said, someone else would make it a lie and attack us.… I'm not blind, Abdhiamal, I can see what's happened here, and I know it's true that you need help. If I'd only had some sign to prove to me that at least the Demarchy was worthy of our trust. But I haven't. We can't help you; you won't let us. It's impossible.”
“Captain, I—”
“The matter is closed.” Something in her voice told him that it was closed, irrevocably, and that the reason went much deeper than a simple betrayal of trust.
Not understanding, he only nodded, his own fatigue and exasperation leaving him defeated. “To what end am I your hostage then. Captain?”
Her eyes shifted, clouding. “I don't know. Whatever end we come to, for better or worse … will be yours too, I suppose. You helped us out of a tight spot, Abdhiamal. Inadvertently, but you did help us. I'll try to be as fair to you. If we get the hydrogen we need, I'll find a way to get you back to the Demarchy before we leave the system. It will only be a—temporary inconvenience.” She looked at him strangely for a moment; turning away, she reached for the old man's arm. “Oh, Christ, Pappy, I'm so tired. So glad to be back.” He pulled her close, too close; held her until she broke away, kissing him once, tenderly.
The old man glanced at the captain; she shook her head. “It doesn't matter; he'll find out soon enough, I suppose.” Her hand gestured at the screen and knotted into a fist. “They all died at Discus. And we're going back. Pappy, get started on a course for Discus. We can't risk staying here any longer. We're going to take what we need from the Ringers, Abdhiamal, any way we can, and that's going to suit me fine.” She threw it at him, defiant, before she turned to Shadow Jack and the girl. “I'm going to get us out of here as fast as I can. I want to be sure no one from the Demarchy can touch us. We'll be doing one gee for five or six days, again, to get us back to the Rings.”
“It'll be worth it.” Shadow Jack cracked his knuckles. The girl's mouth set in a line; she nodded. She moved closer to Shadow Jack, stroking his bare arm lightly. He glanced down at her, irritated, but didn't pull away.
“Thirsty?” she said. He straightened out of his drifting slouch, smiled suddenly, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Yeah!” He pushed off from the wall and they left the room.
The old man was strapped into a seat, working at the panel. The captain moved out into the air to collect a pencil and an unidentifiable metal cube. She pushed the cat into a compartment in the wall.
“Captain.”
She started back toward the control board. “What?”
“I'd like permission to use your radio.”
“Refused.” She reached a chair, maneuvered herself down.
“But I need to—”
