“Shove off that, eh? If we’d stayed on Lancer we’d be swimming in a slot by now.” Nigel stretched lazily, though he did not feel tired.
“You, maybe. Not her.”
“We’re together,” Nikka said simply.
“Not necessarily,” Carlos said carefully.
“I would protest Nigel going into the Slots. If I failed to get him revived, I would follow. So that we will lose no time together.”
“I don’t think you mean that,” Carlos said. “You still have work to do here. And you and I, we need each other too, you have to—”
“We’ll get bugger-all done if we recycle our stale statements while the clock runs,” Nigel said forcefully. “I need shelter, Carlos. That’s the nub of it. Either you give it to me or you don’t.”
Nigel watched conflicting emotions in the man’s face. He’d done the classic male-challenge thing, of course—interrupt Carlos, and abruptly shift the subject, to boot. Not wise, generally. But Carlos was a deeply conflicted person, uncertain how to respond to those signals. This was precisely what Nigel had hoped: that the deeply embedded responses of each sex would get tangled, and in his confusion Carlos would yield. Nigel recalled Blake’s notion of the ideal human: Male and female somehow blended in the same body, anima and animus united, entwined. He wished the poet could be here to see the result. Dreams were best when not made concrete.
Carlos dodged. “I can’t do anything. In a few minutes somebody’ll—”
“I’ve filed a formal complaint. Put it into shipcomm from our apartment. That has to be heard—even Ted can’t block that.”
“By the rules,” Nikka added, “it must go on open net for twelve hours. He requested a mandatory vote, so people can’t ignore it.”
Carlos nodded. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Don’t be thick. If Ted can pop me back in the soup before the vote’s resolved, nobody’ll take the small risk of reviving me unnecessarily. Possession’s nine-tenths of the game here.”
Nikka asked thoughtfully, “You truly think he would?”
“More’s the fool he, if he doesn’t. Ted sees me as a kernel for opposition forces. Why not eliminate me? This expedition’s turning out stale as old beer. He wants something dramatic to pin his name on, is my guess.”
Carlos frowned. “Like what?”
“It may’ve occurred to him that Lancer’s a damn ferocious weapon.”
“How?” Carlos seemed to be regaining his equilibrium. He stood up, clearly feeling his heft and strength in comparison with these other two. “Look, you’re sounding more and more—”
Carlos! They with you?
The voice came over general audio, filling the small cabin. “Well, it didn’t take them long,” Nikka said.
“He’s got you,” Carlos said.
“Depends,” Nigel said. “Everybody’s fretting about Earthside, granted—that gives him freedom of maneuver with us. No one’ll give a frap if we—”
Carlos! Then, fainter, Where in hell is he? I thought you saw him go in there with the two of them.
“I’ve got to answer him,” Carlos said.
Nigel nodded. He went to a spot mike and tuned it in. “We hear you.”
Nigel? Just what the hell you think you’re—
“Fairly obvious, I should think.”
Don’t give me that arched-eyebrow shit. You left medical without a release, you ignored the directive approved by shipwide congress, then you—
“Please, no boring list of sins.”
The council orders you to march over to HQ there and—
“Give it a rest,” Nigel said sourly.
You sneaky bastard! You slipped by once but damned if we’ll let you take up any more of our time now, when—
“Stop playing to the gallery, can’t you?”
Stop playing! Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got men all around that submersible. They’re coming in after you unless you pop that hatch and walk out. You’re just a sick old man, and we don’t want to be rough. But this is a crisis. You’ve got three minutes.
Nigel switched off his personal transmitter. “Sounds earnest.”
“Damn right he is,” Carlos said. “Let’s go. There’s no way out.”
Nigel said hurriedly, “Course there is. Take us down.”
“Into the vent?”
“Right. You’re set to do a bit of snagging soon anyway—the Task Schedule says so.”
“My, my copilot’s not on board.”
