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

favors right now, son. What?”
    “Call my partner.”
    “We’re doing all we can.”
    He didn’t believe that. He especially didn’t believe it when Bird pulled another cable loop out of his pocket and grabbed his other wrist. He resisted that. He tried to shove Bird off, but when he exerted himself he kept graying out and losing his breath. “Let me go,” he asked Bird, quietly, so Ben wouldn’t hear. God, his ribs hurt. “Let me loose.”
    “Can’t do that, son. Not today. Maybe not for a while. Ben says you’ve been bashing things.” The cable bit into his wrist and one clip snapped.
    “Ben’s a liar!” No. He hadn’t meant to take that tack. He tried to amend it. A second clip snapped—woven steel cable looped around a pipe or something. He tried not to panic. He tried to be perfectly reasonable. “He’s right. I was off my head awhile. But I’m all right now. Tell him I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
    “I’ll do that.” Bird squeezed his shoulder in a kindly way. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, son. Nobody means you any harm. We just got three people in a little ship and you’re a little confused. Try to keep it a little quiet. You’ll be all right.”
    The oxygen felt short. He tried not to panic. He didn’t want them to tell him he was confused. “Bird,” he said, before Bird could get away. “There’s a’driver right where I came from. Isn’t there?”
    “I wouldn’t know that, son. I don’t know for sure where you came from.”
    “79, 709, 12.”
    Bird nodded slowly. “All right. Yes. There is a’driver near there.”
    He found his breath shorter and shorter. He said, calmly, sanely, because he finally found one solid thing they both agreed on. “All right. I want you to call it. Ask about my partner.”
    “You sure you had a partner, son?”
    Reality kept getting away from him. Time and space and what had happened did.
    He fixed on Bird’s gray-stubbled face as the only reference he had. “Just call the’driver. Just ask them if they picked up my partner. That’s all I ask.”
    “Son… I honestly don’t know what you might have been doing out there in a’driver’s assigned territory. You understand me?”
    He didn’t. He shook his head.
    “How long have you been in the Belt, son?”
    “Couple years.” He wasn’t sure of that number any longer either. He was sure of nothing in regard to time. He thought again—look at my watch—got to know—which direction to reckon.
    “Free runner?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You ever make any money at mining?”
    Ben asked those kinds of questions. “Maybe.”
    “Haven’t ever done any skimming, have you?”
    His heart jumped. He shook his head emphatically, wanting Bird to believe him.

    “No.” He couldn’t remember what conversation they were in, what they had just said, why Bird was asking him a thing like that.
    Bird said, “We’re just damn close to that’driver’s fire-path, understand, and if we got one accident, we sure don’t need another, you read me?”
    Things were dark awhile. Bird gave him more of the soup, told him it was breakfast and they were all right. He wanted to think so, but he didn’t believe it any longer. He heard voices near him. He thought he remembered Bird asking him questions after that. He wasn’t sure. He dreamed he answered, and that Bird let him loose awhile to get to the toilet. But maybe that was the other time.
    From time to time he remembered the collision. His muscles jumped, and then he would realize that was long past and he was still alive. “What time is it?” he asked, and Bird caught him by the side of the jaw, made him focus eye to eye.
    “Son, don’t cross Ben again. Don’t ask him the time. Don’t ask me. Your friend’s dead. She’s dead , you understand me?”
    Bird’s grip hurt. Bird was angry and he didn’t know why.
    “We got the confirm from Base,” Ben shouted up.
    “Yeah,” Bird called back, and patted Dekker’s face. “Got a draft coming