hundreds of workers were under his direct supervision, and he was responsible for turning out the machines that would make other machines that would ultimately go to the various project directors.
It wasn’t as much fun as what Bernie, Ben, and Spanky were doing-making all sorts of swell stuff to use directly against the lizards-but they couldn’t do their thing unless he did his. Besides, he never really was a “tight tolerance” guy, he admitted, and the majority of the machines that made machines could be relatively crude.
His wandering eyes fell on a ’Cat machinist almost in front of him. “Hey, you,” he grumbled loudly, “watch what the hell you’re doing!”
The ’Cat stopped turning the traverse handle, and the coils of brass that had been crawling away from the shaft she was turning abruptly sprang away to join the growing pile around her feet. “What I doing?” she demanded.
Caught off guard, Laney was stumped. Usually, his gruff comments went unanswered. He felt it was his duty to make them periodically to keep the workers on their toes. His face turned red and he stood up-making his ass hurt even more. “You mean you don’t know what you’re doing?” he demanded hotly, questing with his eyes for some fault.
“I know what I doing,” came a shockingly abrasive retort. “Do you?”
“Why you…! Just look! Look at all that shit coiled around your feet! It looks like a goddamn tumbleweed! What if that chuck snatches it up? It’ll yank you in by the tail and all there’ll be is a cloud of fuzz! Who the hell taught you to be a machinist’s mate?!”
“Dennis Si-vaa! He teach me good! He make weapons to kill Grik, not stand around all day making big pole less big!”
Laney’s eyes bulged. “Silva?! Why, that big malingering ape couldn’t machine a proper turd with his ass!” Inwardly, Laney blanched at his own comment. Lately, he literally couldn’t do that himself. He forged ahead. “I want you to slip the belt on that machine this goddamn minute, find your chief, and tell him you want to learn how to be a real machinist!”
Dean was so intent on his harangue that he didn’t hear the sudden snap-hack! or the shrill, warning cries of alarm. He kind of heard the dull, buzzing whoosh! of the broken belt that slapped him on the back of the head.
He was still mad when he woke up in an aid station sometime later, but couldn’t remember why. He felt like he’d jumped off a roof head-first, though.
“Whadami doin’ here?” he mumbled. When no answer was immediately forthcoming, he closed his eyes and raised his voice. “Hey, goddamn it! Why am I here?”
“Shut up!” came a harsh, heavenly, female voice. “You want to wake everybody up? Besides, you might burst a vessel!”
Laney opened his eyes and saw Nurse Ensign Kathy McCoy hovering over him.
“It’s an angel!” he said wonderingly.
“Nope.” Kathy laughed. “Just me.”
“You’re an angel, all right,” muttered Laney, “and there’s damn few of you. Scarcer than the kind with wings, I bet. You danced with me a couple o’ times at the Busted Screw.”
Kathy grimaced. “Yeah. I try to dance with all the fellas. I’d never forget you, though.” Laney’s eyes went wide and he beamed. “You stomped all over my feet,” Kathy explained. “I haven’t walked right since.”
Destroyed, Laney uttered a groan.
“Head hurt?”
“Yeah. Who hit me? One of those chickenshit monkeys I have to put up with?”
Kathy frowned. “Not who, what. One of those leather belts that runs your machines broke. Conked you pretty good. Didn’t break the skin, but you’ll have a goose egg the size of a baseball. You guys ought to be wearing helmets in there.”
“Mmm. Ought to be doing lots of stuff. We do what we can.”
“Yeah. Hey, you hurt anywhere else? You’ve been squirming around like a worm on a hook, even in your sleep. By the way, now that you’re awake, you need to stay that way for a while in case of concussion.”
Laney nodded-painfully-but hesitated.
“What? You are hurting somewhere else. Where?” Kathy demanded.
“I’d, uh, rather not say. I’m fine.”
Kathy nodded. She easily recognized the code words for “I’m not telling a broad about my private agonies.” “Okay, without telling me what hurts, tell me what it feels like.”
“Like I’m shitting busted glass!” Laney blurted, then caught himself. “Hey! You tricked me!”
“It’s my job,” Kathy said. “And it was easy. I won’t even ask to do an exam, and I don’t really want to. But judging by your physique, your complaint, and your job, I bet you spend a lot of time sitting, right?” Reluctantly, and somewhat indignantly, Laney nodded. “Just as I thought. Hemorrhoids. Piles. You know.”
Laney shook his head. “Piles! That can’t be it. Sometimes I think I’m gonna die! You can’t die from piles… can you?”
Kathy almost laughed, but shook her head. “No, and I’ll give you something that ought to help, at least a little… on one condition.”
Laney’s eyes narrowed. “Doctors ain’t supposed to put conditions on helping folks, are they?”
Kathy shrugged. “Maybe I’m a doctor here, but I’m just a nurse back home. I can do what I want.”
“What’s the scam?”
“Tell you what. I get a lot of guys-’Cats-in here who work for you. Just like you, they get hurt now and then. Anyway, they’re doing important work and they’re proud of that. Some would rather be doing something else, and I understand, but your division, or whatever it is, is just as critical as any other-maybe more so-and they know it. They don’t mind the work or the hours or even getting hurt, but nearly everyone I see-though anxious to get back to work-is not anxious to get back to work for you. You’re a jerk, Dean. Right now you’re a hurt jerk, so I’m trying to be nice. What it boils down to, the ‘scam,’ I guess, is this: promise to try to quit being such a pain in the ass, or I’ll let your ‘pain in the ass’ keep reminding you how you make everybody around you feel. Deal?”
Chief Electrician’s Mate “Ronson” Rodriguez heard the exchange between Ensign McCoy and Laney through the thin reed screen that separated them. He’d come in to get his hand fixed after he’d cut it on some of the sharp Lemurian copper wire. Now stitched, disinfected, and bandaged up, he’d been taking his ease for a few moments away from the “powerhouse,” the factory he’d been put in charge of where they built, refurbished, and experimented on the various electrical contrivances Riggs was in charge of. The problem was, that stupid ox Laney was always cruising through his shop looking for deserters. Rodriguez knew Laney resented him as a jumped-up electricians’ mate third class, and thought he could toss him around with his size and personality. He was wrong.
Ronson might have let him get away with it once, but a lot of things had changed besides relative ratings. Rodriguez had been wounded in action far more often than Laney, and besides Laney’s genuinely impressive underwater adventures, Rodriguez had seen a lot bigger “elephants” than the chief machinist’s mate. His most recent escapade was the one that finally earned him a nickname. His first name was Rolando, and his shipmates had tried to tag him with “Rolo,” “Rodent,” and even “Rhonda,” but none ever stuck. When Walker took that Jap shell in her auxiliary fuel tank in the forward fireroom, somehow Rolando’s sweatband and longish hair had caught fire. Silva put him out, but the mental image of him running around on the amidships gun platform like a lit match had left him with “Ronson” Rodriguez, and this time it took.
Since then, he kept his head shaved to his slightly scarred scalp and the only hair he cultivated was a Pancho Villa mustache. The men were allowed trimmed beards and razors were scarce, but the chiefs were allowed a little more leeway by everybody, captain to Lemurian cadet, because in most cases, they’d earned their stripes the hard way. All of Walker ’s and Mahan ’s chiefs who hadn’t gone to other ships had filled dead men’s shoes except Campeti-and the Bosun, of course-but Rodriguez didn’t think Laney filled Harvey Donaghey’s very well. If Laney felt the same way about him, he could eat turds and chew slow.
The arguments they had over Laney’s “defectors” always escalated to bellows of rage and interfered with work in the powerhouse. Laney did know better than to take a swing, and the contention between them always had to be taken to Riggs or Spanky-more lost work in both departments. Riggs and Spanky tried to be fair, but if Laney really needed the deserter in question, the poor bastard got sent back. Rodriguez suspected the two officers were getting as tired of the situation as Rodriguez was, and Laney was probably out on a cracking plank. He wondered whether Kathy McCoy’s comments would do any good.
