Read Online Heavy Time by C. J. Cherryh - Free Book Online

Bird cried, and came up and shoved him away.
    His hand hurt. Bird was taking the lunatic’s part. So he went down and got into stores and dispensed himself a beer: he didn’t speak to Bird, he didn’t trust himself to say anything at the moment. His jaw was sore. A tooth felt loose. His lip was cut.
    He had never had a fight in school and it had not been his idea to have one this late in his life, except a guy wanted to kill him. He yelled up at Bird, “Don’t you let that sonuvabitch loose! Don’t you do it, Bird!”

    He took a gulp of beer, still shaking, his legs and arms jerking spasmodically, his breath so erratic he had trouble drinking. Not scared, mad, that was all. Damned mad. The guy tried to kill him and Bird shoved him off and started making sympathetic noises at the guy that had meant to do them both in. Bird owned the ship. Bird gave the orders. And Bird thought they could trust this sonuvabitch…
    “Toss me up a cold pack,” Bird yelled down.
    He did that: he opened up medical and sent it up to Bird and Bird didn’t even look at him.
    Bird cut the penlight. At least Dekker’s pupils were the same size and they both reacted, which was about all he knew to look for. Dekker was bleeding from the nose in little droplets. He mopped the air with his handkerchief, to keep it out of the filters, wiped Dekker’s chin, then caught the cold pack and applied it to Dekker’s face and the back of his neck.
    Dekker began to show signs of life, confused, struggling with the tape for a moment before he reached over with his free hand and started tearing at it. Bird grabbed that hand, restrained it, saying, so only Dekker could hear, “Easy, easy, just stay quiet, it’s all right. Just take it easy—you’re not doing any good that way. Cut it out, hear?”
    Dekker was breathing hard, staring at him or through him, he had no idea. Dekker wanted loose, couldn’t fault him for that—couldn’t be sure he was sane, either; and God only knew what was going on with Ben. Dekker gave a jerk at the wrist he was holding.
    “Uh-uh,” he said. “Just stay still. You leave that tape alone for a while. Hear? Just let it be.”
    Dekker said, “Liar.”
    “Yeah, right.” You went to sleep and things were halfway under control and you woke up with two guys trying to kill each other and it wasn’t highly likely to make sense. “You’re bleeding into our filters. Just stay still—damn!” as Dekker choked and sneezed beads of blood. He snagged them with the handkerchief, one-handed, pressed it against Dekker’s face. “I don’t know what you did, son. Did you do something to piss Ben off?”
    Dekker only shook his head, denial, refusal, he had no idea. Dekker blew blood into the handkerchief, gasped a bubbly breath and mumbled, “Cory. Call Cory.”
    “Not likely she’s answering.” He shoved Dekker’s hand at his face. “Hold that.”
    He snagged the ice-pack that was coming back after its impact with the wall, and gave Dekker that too. “Just keep the cold on it. If you’re going to bleed, bleed into the handkerchief, all right? Don’t blow at it. Just let it be.”
    Dekker looked at him past the bloody handkerchief and the cold pack. Sane for a moment, maybe. Or just too miserable and too short of breath to be crazy for a while.
    He collected himself and his headache and the remnant of his patience, shoved off and drifted down to Ben. Ben intended to keep his back to him, it seemed—so he turned, touched a cabinet and changed course. You got used to reading faces upside down or sideways. Ben’s was sour, upset, and Ben was trying not to notice being stared at—only drinking his beer and trying to be somewhere else.
    “I got a problem,” he said. “Ben?”
    “We both got a problem,” Ben said shortly, as if he was not going to say much else. But Ben said then: “The guy was trying to kill us. He damn near had that clip undone, with a panel edge for a pliers. What was he going to do then, huh,