Tommy came in and said, “Do you want a shot, Mr. Dekker?”

He grabbed his pillow and buried his face in it. So Tommy went away.

“Got something for you,” Marcie Hager said, in her office in Records, with that peculiar smugness that Ben remembered. He came away from the doorframe—he had come to the Records office on a cryptic Drop by—from Marcie. This after a nicebottle of wine that showed up with a buzz at Marcie’s door some days past. You never paid Marcie’s kind in funds. But you did want to be remembered.

Marcie said, a very faint whisper, “Got a little flag on your claims case. Seems Dekker’s license has just been pulled.”

He pursed his lips. “Grounds?”

“Doesn’t say. Just turned up on the flag.”

“Mmmn,” he said. He winked at Marcie, said: “Thanks,” with a little lift of his brows. “Big thanks.”

Marcie looked self-satisfied. “I did enjoy that.” Meaning the wine, he was sure. But it didn’t mean the wine paid everything. Marcie had her sights set on promotion—something to do with personnel. He didn’t forget that.

So Dekker’s license was being pulled.

He walked out of the Records, hands in pockets, reckoning what he knew and who he knew, and finally decided to stroll over to a certain small office in Admin—nothing much. Records.

But Fergie Tucker worked there.

Fergie was just plain bribable.

“Hello, Fergie,” he said, leaning on the counter. “How about lunch?”

“The guy’s got no license now,” Ben said, over a sandwich in Io’s flashing neon decor. You never could tell what you were eating in here—everything flashed red and orange and green and the music made the wine shake in the glasses, but Tucker liked it. “He’s out on a medical. Psych, if you ask me. He was crazy, out of his head all the way back—no way in hell he was in control of that ship.”

Tucker took a drink. Strobe light turned the wine black, then flashed red on Tucker’s face as he set the glass down, a jerky movement synched with the bass flutter down the scale. The wine shook. The air quivered. Tucker said, more loudly than he liked, “What exactly do you want?”

“Ex-pe-dition,” he said, leaning close.

“Huh?” Tucker said. Tucker’s hearing had to be going.

“Expedite!” he said, over the bass line. “There’s no damn way he was in control. That’s the law. He has to be in control, or we own that ship.”

“I know the law.”

“Well?”

Tucker shrugged, and took a big bite of his sandwich. Which left him sitting there while he disposed of it. Tucker had been a pig in school and he was still a pig. But he was a high-ranking pig. And he could move data along if he wanted to.

“Everything in order?” Tucker asked finally, when the mouthful was down.

“That application’s so clean it squeaks. Vid. Before, after, and during. Clean bill from the cops.”

“Court of Inquiry?” This around a mouthful.

“We haven’t gotten any complaints. Nothing filed on us. On him, maybe. But I know that title’s clear. It’s his. The partner’s dead, died out there. Sole title’s with the guy, there aren’t any other liens on it. We’re it.”

Tucker’s face was orange now, with moving shadows. Sitar run. Clash of cymbals. Bass in syncopation.

“So what are we talking about?”

“Just slip it ahead in the queue.”

Tucker swallowed. Said, slowly, “Has to have a grounds. Give me one.”

He said, carefully, “What’s grounds?” and inclined his head as far across the table as he could get it. The music was on a loud stretch.

“Where is this ship? What’s its status?”

“At dock. Lifesupport’s a mess. Tanks are blown. Filthy as hell and the cops have it.”

“Chance of ongoing damage?”

“Could be. Depends. Have we got a better one?”

“Hardship.”

“On who?”

“The claimant? Have you suffered damage?”

God, it was so close he could taste it. “Financial?”

“Any kind of damage? Can you document it?”

“Yes!” He winced. The music vibrated through the table top. He held the explanation a moment, then shouted, “We spent our reserve getting that mother in. We’re short at the bank, we couldn’t lease our ship out when we came in because the cops had it impounded, now we don’t know what to do—she’s past time she should have gone, you know, here we are a good way through our heavy time, but she’s sitting idle; we got crews stacking up want to lease, and we need the money, but you only get a percentage on a lease if we do let her go out.”

“So? Where’s the hardship?”

“We could have to be here because of legal questions on the other ship—we’re trying to be in compliance with the rules, but we don’t know which way to jump. We’ve already lost a big chunk of our capital and we’re scared to leave for fear of sending the whole deal out the chute, you understand what I’m saying? We’ve been waiting months already. We’re coming to the time we should be out of here and we can’t be.”

“Yeah,” Tucker said. “You know, somebody else could even slip in with a bid and take that ship, if word got out she was up for claim, if you weren’t around to, sort of, oil the gears.”

Tucker was a real bastard. He stared at Tucker, thinking, Don’t you think about it, you scum,—while the music went from green to red and his blood pressure went up and up.

“Yeah,” he said, “but we aredue a Hardship.”

“Yeah, well, you know those things are hell to fill out. You have to use the right words, say exactly what the clerks around in Claims like to hear. And you have to have somebody take it over there that can put it on the right desk.”

“Guaranteed?”

“Guaranteed.” Tucker’s pig eyes looked him up and down. “Ship owner has collateral like hell. Never has anything in pocket. How’re your finances running?”

“Five hundred.”

“Five thousand.”

“The hell!”

Tucker shrugged, slid his eyes away, filled his mouth with sandwich. The bass fluttered up and down the scale.

“All right!” Ben yelled.

Trinidadwas free. That had come through this morning. Thank God. Bird nursed the beer to the bottom and the last lean froth—wanted a second one, but the tab at The Hole was already too high. August friggin’ 15th, and Trinidad wasstill at dock.

Meg patted his shoulder, went over to the bar. He figured what she was doing, then, and turned half around to protest, but Mike was already drawing the first one, and Sal Aboujib laid her hand on his from his other side. “Beer’s cheap,” Sal said. “Let her buy this one. We owe you a few.”

He had a slateful of figures that wouldn’t balance, Ben was still arguing about staying on, Dez Green and Alvarez and a good many of the other independents who’d been in when they arrived had all checked out on runs, and he was trying right now to decide whether old bones could run the risk of shortening their own time here, or whether they should just lease Trinidadout to Brower and his mate and sit at Base running up sleepery and food bills—maybe even lease her to Meg and Sal. Promisethem the new ship if they got it. In that consideration they were short of supplies, the bank was not cooperating, and the damned LOS never had turned up again. They could try one more thing to get Recoveries to wake it up, but that computer time was expensive—and he just wasn’t sure it was worth it. They’d had another minor LOS yesterday, not on one of their own, but on one they had a 15-and-20 on, on Peterson’s lease; and he wished to hell he knew whether it was just bad luck, Peterson’s fault, or whether there’d been any assignment in that sector when the thing went dead: the company just didn’t like to hand out that kind of information. There were hotheads on helldeck that’d go for somebody if they got the wrongful or rightful notion they’d been robbed. Couldn’t blame Mama on that one. Fights with chains and bottles were hell on the cops.

So they took the second LOS and they were going to have to tighten belts, that was all. And he knew why Meg and Sal were moping around with him and Ben instead of out running down a lease or even hitting on them for Trinidad, when that would have been the logical thing.