Jame scratched his dirt-crusted scalp. 'The what?'
Jaen smiled. Pallis said, 'I'll explain sometime… Damn it, I'm telling you the time for war is gone, barman. Its justification is gone. Rees has shown us a way out of this gas prison we're in… but we have to work together. Sheen, can't we get out of this bloody rain?'
The rain trickled down her tired face. 'You're not welcome here. I told you. You're here on sufferance. You're not entitled to shelter…'
Her words were much as they had been since Pallis had begun describing his mission here — but was her tone a little more uncertain? 'Look, Sheen, I'm not asking for a one-way deal. We need your iron, your metal- working skills — but you need food, water, medical supplies. Don't you? And for better or worse the Raft still has a monopoly on the supply machines. Now I can tell you, with the full backing of Decker, the Committee, and whoever bloody else you want me to produce, that we're willing to share. If you like we'll allocate you a sector of the Raft with its own set of machines. And in the longer term… we offer the miners life for their children.'
Jame leant forward and spat into the rain. 'You're full of crap, tree-pilot.'
Beside Pallis Jaen bunched a fist. 'You bloody clod—'
'Oh, shut up, both of you.' Sheen pushed wet hair from her eyes. 'Look, Pallis; even if I said 'yes' that's not the end of it. We don't have a 'Committee,' or a boss, or any of that. We talk things out among us.'
Pallis nodded, hope bursting in his heart. 'I understand that.' He stared directly into Sheen's brown eyes; he tried to pour his whole being, all their shared memories, into his words. 'Sheen, you know me. You know I'm no fool, whatever else I'm guilty of… I'm asking you to trust me. Think it through. Would I have stranded myself here if I wasn't sure of my case? Would I have lost something so precious as—'
Jame sneered. 'As what, your worthless life?'
With genuine surprise Pallis turned to the barman. 'Jarne, I meant my tree.'
A complex expression crossed Sheen's face. 'Pallis, I don't know. I need time.'
Pallis held up his palms. 'I understand. Take all the time you want; speak to whoever you want. In the meantime… will you let us stay?'
'You're not stopping at the Quartermaster's, that's for sure.'
Pallis smiled serenely. 'Barman, if I never sup your dilute piss again it will be too soon.'
Sheen shook her head. 'You don't change, do you, pilot…? You know, even if — if — your story is true, your madcap scheme is full of holes.' She pointed to the star kernel. 'After working on that thing maybe we have a better feel for gravity than you people. I can tell you, that gravitational slingshot maneuver is going to be bloody tricky. You'll have to get it just right…'
'I know. And even as we sit here we're getting some advice on that.'
'Advice? Who from?'
Pallis smiled.
Gord woke to a sound of shouting.
He pushed himself upright from his pallet. He wondered vaguely how long he had slept… Here, of course, there was no cycle of shifts, no Belt turning like a clock — nothing to mark the time but sour sleep, dull, undemanding work, foul expeditions to the ovens. Still, the former engineer's stomach told him that at least a few hours had elapsed. He looked to the diminishing pile of food stacked in the corner of his hut — and found himself shuddering. A little more time and perhaps he'd be hungry enough to eat more of the stuff.
The shouting grew in volume and a slow curiosity gathered in him. The world of the Boneys was seamless and incident-free. What could be causing such a disturbance? A whale? But the lookouts usually spotted the great beasts many shifts before their arrival, and no song had been initiated.
Almost reluctantly he got to his feet and made his way to the door.
A crowd of a dozen or so Boneys, adults and children alike, stood on the leather surface of the world with faces upturned. One small child pointed skywards. Puzzled, Gord stepped out to join them.
Air washed down over him, carrying with it a scent of wood and leaves that briefly dispersed the taint of corruption in his nostrils. He looked up and gasped.
A tree rotated in the sky. It was grand and serene, its trunk no more than fifty yards above him.
Gord hadn't seen a tree since his exile from the Belt. Perhaps some of these Boneys had never seen one in their lives.
A man dangled upside down from the trunk, dark, slim and oddly familiar. He was waving. 'Gord? Is that you…?'
'Rees? It can't be… You're dead. Aren't you?'
Rees laughed. 'They keep telling me I ought to be.'
'You survived your jump to the whale?'
'More than that… I made it back to the Raft.'
'You're not serious.'
'It's a long story. I've travelled from the Raft to see you.»
Gord shook his head and spread his hands to indicate the sack of bones that was his world. 'If
that's true, you're crazy. Why come back?' Rees called, 'Because I need your help…'
13
On clouds of steam the plate ship swam toward the Belt. Sheen and Grye stood at the entrance to the Quartermaster's and watched it approach with its cargo of Boneys. Sheen felt dread build up in her, and she shuddered.
She turned to Grye. When the Scientist had first been exiled here by the Raft he had been quite portly, Sheen remembered; now the skin hung from his bones in folds, as if emptied of substance. He caught her studying him. He shifted his drink bowl from hand to hand and dropped his eyes.
Sheen laughed. 'I believe you're blushing.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Look, you've got to lighten up. You're one of us now, remember. Here we are, all humans together, the past behind us. It's a new world. Right?'
He flinched. 'I'm sorry…'
'Stop saying that.'
'It's just that it's hard to forget the hundreds of shifts we have had to endure since coming here.' His voice was mild, but somewhere buried in there was a spark of true bitterness. 'Ask Roch if the past is behind us. Ask Cipse.' Now Sheen felt her own face redden. Reluctantly she recalled her own hatred for the exiles, how she had willingly allowed their cruel treatment to continue. A hot shame coursed through her. Now that Rees had changed the perspective — given the whole race, it seemed, a new goal — such actions seemed worse than contemptible.
With an effort she forced herself to speak. 'If it means anything, I'm sorry.'
He didn't reply.
For some moments they stood in awkward silence. Grye's posture softened a little, as if he felt a little more comfortable in her company.
'Well,' Sheen said briskly, 'at least Jame isn't barring you from the Quartermaster's any more.'
'We should be grateful for small mercies.' He took a sip from his bowl and sighed. 'Not so small, maybe…' He indicated the approaching plate. 'You miners do seem to have accepted us a lot more easily since the first Boneys arrived.'
'I can understand that. Perhaps the presence of the Boneys shows the rest of us how much we have in common.'
'Yes.'
The Belt's rotation carried the Quartermaster's beneath the approaching plate once again. Sheen could see that the little craft carried three Boneys, two men and a woman. They were all squat and broad, and they wore battered tunics provided by the Belt folk. Sheen had heard legends of what they chose to wear on their home worldlet… She found herself shuddering again.
