Strife continued looking at the sheets. Will added, “Hartley Quince is supposed to attend the reception. Let me know who he spends his time with.”
“Isn’t he on our side?”
“Just do it, Bar.”
In the next room, TJ must have completed his use of the toilet, for the sound of a massive hawk-and-spit coughed at them with the activation of the recycler. Finally Strife glanced up and met Will’s eyes. “Jeez,” he said, “these are worse than the ones at home.”
Will laughed. He went over, took his red uniform jacket from the peg by the door, and started pulling it on. He wondered how Iolanthe was taking her first morning on the Diamond.
That brought to mind his own responsibilities—but if there’d been any trouble, he would have heard about it. He checked his reflection in the glass on the opposite wall. Tall, clean, hair combed, perfectly respectable.
“You’re a gift from heaven,” said Bar, deadpan, and Will realized he’d been staring.
He laughed, uneasily. Powder-red, they called this uniform. It always reminded him of dried blood. God, you*re a morbid sonofabitch, he thought.
“I’ll see you at the shift-change,” he said to Barry.
Having Tal out of town had its advantages, Spider thought, though it was nervous-making in other ways. While good folk in the upper decks were preparing for Sunday church, he guided the freight carrier through the doors of the main court larder and storage house. He glanced over at his companion, O’Connell, and grinned at the knowledge that no imperious summons would come over the thrice-damned riccardi gadget to interrupt this venture. “Not falling asleep, are we?” he asked O’Connell.
“It’s early in the morning.”
“The better to profit by,” said Spider. O’Connell was a slender, light-haired man of about forty, an ex-admin thrown out of the ranks six years ago in a petty official’s backtracking to cover his own incompetence. O’Connell was a survivor, and a good man to drink with.
He knew the right way to wear an admin uniform, which was more to the point today. They halted the freight carrier in the larder’s loading pad. A kitchen clerk started toward them, a low-ranking apprentice from the look of him, but already angry and letting it show. Tsk. Patience, thought Spider; you’ll never rise in the world without it. He pushed open the door of the freight carrier, stood on the edge for a moment, and dropped to the ground.
“Hey there, friend!” he called. “You have our shipments for us?”
The kitchen clerk was very young, Spider saw. He could almost pity him. “What shipment?” The boy’s voice started to rise. “Is Inventory screwing everything up now?”
“Why, what do you mean?”
“We already got one set of wrong orders last night! They showed up with the last freight carrier and we couldn’t send them back! And now you idiots show up, and you’re not even on the roster!”
Dear, dear, dear. Spider turned his face up toward O’Connell, making his voice louder. “Sir, they say we’re not on the roster!”
“Do they?” O’Connell opened the door on his side and stood on the edge of the freighter, letting his lieutenant’s uniform be seen. The clerk gulped. “We damned well better be on the roster, son. I didn’t get out of bed early today for us not to be on the roster.”
Spider said, “I’m sure it’s not a problem, sir.” He said, more softly, to clerk: “We’re supposed to clear up things from yesterday, my friend—that’s why they sent the lieutenant. Maybe you didn’t notice, but you had more foodstuffs delivered to you than you ordered—”
“Of course we noticed! I told you, we tried to send it back. We don’t have that much free space here, and our department can’t incur any more storage costs.”
“Then we’re here to help you,” said Spider soothingly. “We’re to pick up the extra deliveries and take them back to the warehouse for redistribution.” He made his voice confidential. “Somebody up there made a mistake. And you know how it is—mistakes don’t happen. So we’re here to make sure it didn’t happen.”
O’Connell’s voice came down like an iron bar. “In fact, it never happened, if you know what’s good for you.” The clerk looked uncertain, but he was the only one on duty on Sunday, a decision had to be made, and their story was all too likely. And then Spider produced a list he unfolded from his pocket, with precisely the amounts they’d been overstocked with. “Well,” said the clerk.
“Believe me,” said Spider, “if you ever want to get to the next rank, you won’t offend the higher-ups.”
The clerk threw up his hands. “Take it! Just make sure we don’t get charged for it.”
“Trust me,” said Spider. “I’ll do the paperwork myself.”
A few minutes later they were piloting a much heavier freight carrier out of the larder. O’Connell said, “I can find buyers for most of the stuff, particularly among the ghosts. But what am I supposed to do with the salt? It’s much more than I can use.”
“I have an idea,” said Spider.
“Lord save us all from your ideas,” said O’Connell. He glanced behind them at the vanishing freight doors of the court storage house. “We could do this again in about six months.”
Spider shook his head. “Might get the same clerk.”
“What of it? Mistakes happen. We could call ahead, and I’ll bet he’d ask us to come by and pick up the surplus.”
“I sort of know him now. I have trouble lying to people I know. It’s a problem I have.”
“Since when? You lie to your supervisor all the time.”
He shook his head again. “I lie to the electronic records. I just don’t volunteer the truth to my supervisor.”
“Good God,” said O’Connell.
They drove on toward the level freight locks. O’Connell said, “You’re a much more dangerous person to be with than I ever
