"Just move aside."
I did, and she took my seat. She was wearing brown slacks and a baggy shirt and she had her hair pulled back in a practical manner. Her cheeks were flushed, but not necessarily from the heat. She attacked the panel with a nearly amusing intensity that I found disquieting.
"Status Blue," she snapped, breaking a violet fingernail on the toggle.
I forced a yawn and b.u.t.toned my shirt slowly. She threw a side glance my way, checked the registers, and fired a cast.
I monitored the lead on the screen. She turned to me for a second.
"Status Red," she said levelly.
I nodded my agreement.
She worked the winch sideways to show she knew how. I didn"t doubt she knew how and she didn"t doubt that I didn"t doubt, but then--
"In case you"re wondering," she said, "you"re not going to be anywhere near this thing. You were hired as a baitman, remember? Not a Slider operator! A baitman! Your duties consist of swimming out and setting the table for our friend the monster. It"s dangerous, but you"re getting well paid for it. Any questions?"
She squashed the Inject b.u.t.ton and I rubbed my throat.
"Nope," I smiled, "but I am qualified to run that thingamajigger--and if you need me I"ll be available, at union rates."
"Mister Davits," she said, "I don"t want a loser operating this panel."
"Miss Luharich, there has never been a winner at this game."
She started reeling in the cable and broke the bond at the same time, so that the whole Slider shook as the big yo-yo returned. We skidded a couple of feet backward. She raised the laterals and we shot back along the groove. Slowing, she transferred rails and we jolted to a clanging halt, then shot off at a right angle. The crew scrambled away from the hatch as we skidded onto the elevator.
"In the future, Mister Davits, do not enter the Slider without being ordered," she told me.
"Don"t worry. I won"t even step inside if I am ordered," I answered. "I signed on as a baitman. Remember? If you want me in here, you"ll have to _ask_ me."
"That"ll be the day," she smiled.
I agreed, as the doors closed above us. We dropped the subject and headed in our different directions after the Slider came to a halt in its berth. She did not say "good day," though, which I thought showed breeding as well as determination, in reply to my chuckle.
Later that night Mike and I stoked our pipes in Malvern"s cabin. The winds were shuffling waves, and a steady pattering of rain and hail overhead turned the deck into a tin roof.
"Nasty," suggested Malvern.
I nodded. After two bourbons the room had become a familiar woodcut, with its mahogany furnishings (which I had transported from Earth long ago on a whim) and the dark walls, the seasoned face of Malvern, and the perpetually puzzled expression of Dabis set between the big pools of shadow that lay behind chairs and splashed in cornets, all cast by the tiny table light and seen through a gla.s.s, brownly.
"Glad I"m in here."
"What"s it like underneath on a night like this?"
I puffed, thinking of my light cutting through the insides of a black diamond, shaken slightly. The meteor-dart of a suddenly illuminated fish, the swaying of grotesque ferns, like nebulae-shadow, then green, then gone--swam in a moment through my mind. I guess it"s like a s.p.a.ceship would feel, if a s.p.a.ceship could feel, crossing between worlds--and quiet, uncannily, preternaturally quiet; and peaceful as sleep.
"Dark," I said, "and not real choppy below a few fathoms."
"Another eight hours and we shove off," commented Mike.
"Ten, twelve days, we should be there," noted Malvern.
"What do you think Ikky"s doing?"
"Sleeping on the bottom with Mrs. Ikky if he has any brains."
"He hasn"t. I"ve seen ANR"s skeletal extrapolation from the bones that have washed up--"
"Hasn"t everyone?"
"...Fully fleshed, he"d be over a hundred meters long. That right, Carl?"
I agreed.
"...Not much of a brain box, though, for his bulk."
"Smart enough to stay out of our locker."
Chuckles, because nothing exists but this room, really. The world outside is an empty, sleet drummed deck. We lean back and make clouds.
"Boss lady does not approve of unauthorized fly fishing."
"Boss lady can walk north till her hat floats."
"What did she say in there?"
"She told me that my place, with fish manure, is on the bottom."
"You don"t Slide?"
"I bait."
"We"ll see."
"That"s all I do. If she wants a Slideman she"s going to have to ask nicely."
"You think she"ll have to?"
"I think she"ll have to."
"And if she does, can you do it?"
"A fair question," I puffed. "I don"t know the answer, though."
I"d incorporate my soul and trade forty percent of the stock for the answer. I"d give a couple years off my life for the answer. But there doesn"t seem to be a lineup of supernatural takers, because no one knows.
Supposing when we get out there, luck being with us, we find ourselves an Ikky? Supposing we succeed in baiting him and get lines on him. What then?
If we get him shipside, will she hold on or crack up? What if she"s made of sterner stuff than Davits, who used to hunt sharks with poison-darted air pistols? Supposing she lands him and Davits has to stand there like a video extra.