Tripoint (20 page)

“
Christian,”
came the call over his pocket-corn.

Correction. Everybody but Beatrice. Maman wanted to talk to him, bless her conniving soul, maman had just heard the news, and he’d right now as gladly have taken a bare-ass swim in the cold of the jump-point as go discuss half-brother with Beatrice.

“Christian, immediament, au cabinet. “

Now, Beatrice wanted to see him, in her sanctum sanctorum, her office, down the corridor and around the rim from Austin’s precincts. Beatrice was evidently turning
Corinthian’s
helm and Capella’s course-plotting over to Travis an hour and a half early for the purpose—one supposed they weren’t running blind and autoed at the moment.

So he took the lift topside, to the inner ring, soft-footed it past Austin’s shut door, to Beatrice’s office. He took a deep breath, raked his hair into order, and presented himself, perforce, to maman,—who got up and poured two drinks.

Stiff.

He took his. He sat down. Beatrice sat down. He took a drink. Beatrice took a drink and stared at him. Life had left few marks on Beatrice, except about the eyes, and right now they were sleep deprived and furious.

“This Hawkins,” Beatrice said as if it was a bad taste, “this Hawkins. What do you know about it?”

“What should I know about it? I brought him aboard because I hadn’t any choice…”

“You could see this coming, with that ship inbound. You had to take every action to make this Hawkins a problem—”

“I hadn’t any instructions that said leave a man to freeze!”

“We’re not talking about that. You’re in a position to make judgments, you’re in a position to observe—I’m telling you use your head. That boy is a threat to you, do you understand? Austin won’t see him, no, of course Austin won’t so much as look at him—does this say to you he’s not interested? This boy’s had nothing but Hate Austin poured into his veins. And does this deter him? No. Altogether the opposite. Does a man tell Austin no? Does he?”

“Not damned often.”

“And this boy?”

“This
boy
is older than I am.”

“Bravo. You notice the point. This woman. This boy.—Austin does not take kindly to ‘no. ‘ It’s a major weakness in him.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Use your wits. This is not our friend. And there are degrees of rebellion that won’t amuse, do you see? Find them. Make them. Deprive this Hawkins of any reasonable attraction in this business. We have too much at stake here for self-indulgence, of his fancies or of yours.”

He didn’t ask how he was to do this. Beatrice wasn’t long on details. Beatrice wasn’t long on sleep right now, clearly, and about time Travis took over out there. Bad jump. He saw the signs of it. He took down half his drink. Beatrice took all of hers. He set his glass down and got up and went for the door.

“Damn Saby,” Beatrice said, having, apparently belatedly, remembered another offender on her agenda.

He stopped, his hand on the switch. “
She’s
involved?”

“Saby’s character judgments.
Ouí. Certainement
. What else but my sister’s child? Saby the judge of character.
Chut
!” Beatrice took up his glass, lifted it, silently wished him out the door and out of her thoughts.

The air was clearer outside. Ideas weren’t. Maman’s perfume was still in his nostrils, along with the scent of brandy. It clung to a man that dealt with her.

Corinthian’s
alterday pilot. Perrault and not Bowe.

And tenacious of her position.

Maman never wanted a kid, that was sure. Probably Austin hadn’t been thrilled, in so many words. But maman when she came aboard and knew Austin in the carnal and the ambitious senses, had made the professional sacrifice…

Beatrice always did know Austin better than Austin knew himself.

Gave Austin a new experience, laid out of sex maybe imminently before birth, shoved him off on ten-year-old Saby and put a fresh coat of gloss on her nails.

So Beatrice was worried. Never ask whose ass was threatened. With Beatrice it wasn’t a question. Beatrice was worried and Beatrice was pissed at him for not freezing his Hawkins half-brother into a police puzzle.

And
he
didn’t know why he hadn’t, except the whole business had caught him off guard, and he’d made a fast decision, a decision he’d stuck by when it got complicated, and when, in
Corinthian’s
predeparture hours, it had looked less than sensible.

But nobody’d told him to kill anybody. Nobody’d told him it was a requirement. And, dammit, Austin had shot a couple of fools, but not on dockside—he’d seen Austin be scarily patient with guys who’d crossed him in bars and on the docks, when he’d thought Austin wouldn’t take it… that was the example he’d had, and where did everybody get so damned know-everything when he’d played it by the rules he’d been handed?

It was the way with every damn piece of hell he caught, he was supposed to have read it in the air, in flaming letters, different than anybody else on the ship.

Don’t get involved with the cops or with customs. Don’t do anything to get hauled into legal messes.

Wasn’t murder?

Wasn’t killing Austin’s own bastard kid just a little nuisance to the ship?

Wasn’t giving Marie Hawkins grounds to call the cops and name names just a little slight possibility of trouble, if her own kid turned up as an icicle in the warehouse
Corinthian
was using?

Nobody ever considered that. They didn’t have to consider it, now. He’d handled that part. He’d removed that possibility and kept their record clean. And now Beatrice as much as called him a fool.

While Hawkins did the only damned thing that would have stopped Austin from dumping him on some Sol-bound ship at Pell. Hawkins had said no. Hawkins had all but spat in Austin’s eye doing it, and now Austin wouldn’t dispose of him anywhere until he’d won. Count on it, the way you counted on a star keeping its course, or a mass-point being in the space you launched for.

Austin would win. Austin would win, on whatever terms the contest took.

Seeing to it what those terms were…

Hawkins wanted off the ship. Well and good. He wanted Hawkins off.

Fair exchange.

—iii—

IT WAS GALLEY SCUT. NOTHING IN the least technical, just a lot of scrubbing to get the galley’s contribution to the electrostatic filters down as close to zero as possible, which meant scrubbing the floors and cabinets after every meal on every shift, polishing the surfaces, sorting the recyclables, including the slop that went to the bio-tanks to feed the cultures, of which you didn’t want closer knowledge—but the product was salable. And you cleaned the water outflow filters, more crud for the tanks to digest, and if you didn’t have a cable attached between your wrist and the wall, you went down the corridor and did all the recycling filters, too, but Tink did those.

Except the cable, he was glad to have the duty, anything but lie in a cell with nothing to do but think about his problems, and Tink said, joking, Be careful, if Cook found out how clean things could be, he could get stuck on permanent scrub.

He decided Tink probably looked like he’d cut your throat because really he’d rather not have to. Tink turned out to be a nice guy, a genuinely nice and overall kind individual—he didn’t recall anybody he’d ever run into who just gave things away like Tink… the chocolates-offer when Tink was drunk he decided hadn’t been a come-on, at all. He’d been stuck in a cell, Tink had a bag of rare imported extravagance, and Tink would have probably given him three or four just because he looked sad, that was the way Tink seemed to operate. No systems engineer, for sure, but if Tink had thought he’d screwed up something in installing the filters, Tink would have fixed it himself and never told the cook.

So he took Tink’s advice and didn’t scrub so hard, for fear Cook would demand the same out of Tink… and it couldn’t be Tink’s favorite job.

Tink’s favorite, in fact, seemed to be doing the pastry stuff, making ripples and curls and sugar-flowers that probably nobody in this crew was going to appreciate. But Tink made them anyway. He said it made the food look good and if the food looked good the ship got along better. He said if you hired on crew it was important they felt like they got quality food and quality off-shift entertainment and quality perks on dock-side. That way you got them back aboard with no trouble.

“This ship treat you all right?” he asked Tink. The cable that linked him to a safety-line bolt didn’t inspire belief in the system.

“Real good,” Tink said, making another sugar-flower. “Big allowance dockside. I tell you, there’s guys didn’t appreciate the captain when they started, but they know where that allowance comes from. You stay on his right side and you don’t hear from him; and I tell you, he give a few guys a chance or two, that’s not bad. Never cut their allowance. Just put a tag on ‘em. That’s pretty good, anywhere you look for work.”

Didn’t say what happened if they got altogether on his bad side. Or if you were his unwanted son. “They beat this guy. I heard it.”

“Yeah, well, Michaels.”

“He’s the officer.”

“He’s the round-up man. Gets the crew in. Guy pulled a knife, he knew better.”

“He live?”

“Oh, yeah. Busted ribs, busted hand, guy name of Tolliver. I tell you if he don’t come about and do right after this, crew’ll kill him.”

“Seriously kill him?”

“Out the lock,” Tink said, and a flower happened, and a curlicue. “This crew got no need for a guy who don’t appreciate what we got here. “ Tink pursed his lips and concentrated on embellishments for the moment, so he was scared Tink didn’t take to the question. Tink added, frowning, “Suppose a Family ship’s got better. Some of us ain’t got that option, you know?”

“I don’t know. If
Sprite
got a look at that cake, they’d steal you fast.”

Tink grinned and laughed. “Ain’t so sure.”

“So it really is pretty good here.”

“Best deal us hard-ass hired-crew’s going to get. “ Tink shot him an under-the-brows look. “Captain’s your papa. You should make officer real easy.”

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” He gave the cable a shake. But he didn’t want to turn bitter with Tink, who clearly didn’t know. “Maybe. “ He laughed, to throw Tink off the track. “Maybe out the lock next, who knows?”

Tink was quiet a bit, starting another frosted pastry, thoughtful-looking, his lip caught in his teeth. “Didn’t know my father or my mother. Don’t know what ship I was. Ship was blew to hell, there was pockets, you know, and they got some of us out. That ship passed me on, I don’t remember the name. “ Tink’s brow knit. “Don’t remember either name. I remember standing in the airlock. I remember the crossover when we come aboard. But I can’t remember the names. And then there was another ship, and then Mariner, till she blew. Some things I remember. I remember Mariner all right. But not the ships. Don’t know why that is.”

He could guess. Thousands of people blown to cold space, a handful of survivors, most of them kids… even stationers put the kids inmost and protected from hull breach.

“I hear,” he said cautiously, because he wasn’t sure Tink had ever been through school in the sense a Family kid had, “I hear a lot of the Mariner kids don’t remember.”

“Yeah. Funny thing, I remember that part, remember the sirens and the smoke and all. “ Tink filled a pastry cone with blue, and made a part of a design. “Remember ‘em coming through in suits, with lights, looking for survivors. “ The design became a star. And another, smaller. “Bounced around a bit, couldn’t do any damn thing, but I didn’t want to sit on any station after that. “ Star after star, little and big. “So I started out with galley scut, same’s any kid. Graduated to advanced scut and general maintenance. Studied di-e-tary science, and got a couple good posts… “ A series more of stars and a whimsical sprinkle of silver beads. “The guy who taught me to do this, he was real old, hospitaled off at Pell, he used to let me do a lot of stuff, illegal, you know, no station permit, but he didn’t pay me. I watched him do it, I spent my whole leave learning the basics. Next time I got a leave there, the old guy’d died, so I taught myself the rest.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Huh. “ Tink looked at him as if to see was he kidding. Grinned. “Most guys say, hell, that’s stupid. Then they argue over who got what piece.”

“You could get a job anywhere. Station chef’d hire you.”

“No station. I ain’t getting blowed to hell, not Tink.”

“Can’t blame you for that.”

“No damn way.”

“How long have you been with
Corinthian
?”

“Fifteen years. Fifteen years. “ He looked at the pastry. “That do it?”

“That’s real pretty.”

“I seen roses on Pell,” Tink said then. “That’s what the flowers are, is roses. They got this big greenhouse, you can take a guided tour. Cost you five c. It’s worth it.”

“Pell’s where we’re going?”

“Yeah. If you get dock time, if you want to go, you can come with me. It’s an hour tour.”

“I don’t think they’re going to let me.”

“More’n you just backtalked the captain, isn’t it?”

Tink wasn’t so slow. “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t think he’s ever wanted me alive, let alone on his ship.”

“Huh,” Tink said. That was all. And his estimate of Tink’s common sense went way up.

—iv—

THE LIGHTS DID THAT BRIEF DIMMING and rebrightening that was maindawn and alterdark, that ancient re-set of biological clocks for the two main shifts together, that odd time that two entire crews who shared the same ship should meet and cross and exchange duties. One shift’s first team was eating breakfast, one shift’s first team was eating supper, while the seconds of one shift were making ready for switchover and the seconds of the other were at supper if they liked, or rec, or sims or whatever… it was a great deal the same as on
Sprite
, a great deal, Tom supposed, the same on every ship in space, a lot the same on stations, so it must say something about what Earth did or had done… he’d never figured, but he supposed so.