Tripoint (3 page)

Plenty. Much too much, and he didn’t want a rehash from Mischa, but he’d found out one and two things he’d not heard before in the last hour, just by listening, and he sensed a remote chance of more pieces.

He shrugged, nerved himself not to blow, and waited.

“We pulled into Mariner,” Mischa said. “Like now,
Corinthian
was at dock. Ten other ships. It was the middle of the War, stations were jittery, you didn’t know what side the ship next to you might be on.
Corinthian
was real suspect. Had a lot of money, crew throwing it around. The ship smelled all over like a Mazianni sellout, but you couldn’t prove it. We had a caution on them. And my sister—” Mischa rocked the chair, regarded him a moment, frowning. “Austin Bowe’s the devil, Granted. Marie was seventeen, sweet, happy kid—in those years nobody could know for sure who was running clean and who wasn’t. You stayed close to kin and you didn’t spill everything you knew in sleepovers with strangers. That was the atmosphere. And this was her first time cruising the docks, not sure she’s going to do it, you know, but looking. ‘Stay close to Family, ‘ mama said. ‘Stick with your cousins. ‘ Two ships in port, we knew real well. We—Saja and I—tried to set her up with a real nice guy off Madrigal. We arranged a meeting, we were going to meet some of their crew in a bar, but Marie ducked out on us. Wouldn’t go with us, no. We waited. We had a drink, we had two. Marie knew the name of the bar, she had her pocket-com, she didn’t answer a page, I was getting damn worried, I was stupid—Saja kept saying we should call in, I figured Marie was doing exactly what she did, she wouldn’t go with any guy her brother set up, oh, no, Marie was going to do things her way, and Heston—he was captain, then—was going to kill her, you know what I mean? I was covering for her. I figured she wasn’t too far away. Wrong, again. We started searching, bar to bar, quiet, not raising any alarm. Next thing I know I’ve got a call from the ship saying they’d had a call relayed through station com, clear around Manner rim, Marie’s in trouble in some sleepover she doesn’t know the name of, she’s crying and she’s scared.”

Marie didn’t cry. Never knew Marie to cry. He didn’t recognize the woman Mischa was telling him about. And he couldn’t fault Mischa on what Mischa said he’d done.

“What we later reconstructed,” Mischa said, “your mother’d hopped a ped transport that passed us. That was how she ducked out. She’d gone into blue sector—we were in green—pricier bunch of bars, not a bad choice for a kid looking for action, and here’s this complete stranger, tall, good-looking, mysterious, the whole romantic baggage…
Corinthian
junior officer gets her drunker than she ought to be, talks her into bed, and it gets kinkier and rougher than she knows how to cope with. She gets scared. Guy’s got the key—mistake number two. Mama—your gran—gets the com call. At which point I get the call, mama’s on her way over to blue with Heston, and they’ve called the cops. At least Marie had the presence of mind to know the guy was
Corinthian
, she could tell us that. So the cops called
Corinthian, Corinthian
probably called Bowe—but Bowe’s
Corinthian’s
senior captain’s kid, so you know
Corinthian’s
not just real eager to see him arrested, and in those days, stations weren’t just real eager to annoy any ship either. Supply was too short, they were scared of a boycott, the government wasn’t in control of anything, and they assumed they just had a sleepover quarrel on their hands. Bowe took the com away from your mother, we didn’t have any other calls,
Corinthian
was in communication with Bowe—we still didn’t know what sleepover he was in. But
Corinthian
crew knew. They occupied the bar, maybe intending to get their officer out and back to the ship where the cops couldn’t get him, maybe going to take Marie with them, we had no idea. We couldn’t get any information out of station com, the police weren’t feeding us
Corinthian’s
communications with them or with Bowe, ours were breaking up if we didn’t use the station relay, but by now we had no doubt where Marie was—I was on the station direct line trying to get the stationmaster to get the police off their reg-u-lations to get in there, but nobody wanted to wake him up, the alterday stationmaster was an ass, insisted they were moving in a negotiating team. Meanwhile Heston and mama and some of the rest of the crew went into the bar after Marie.
Corinthian
crew had opened up the liquor—you can imagine. Things blew up. A
Corinthian
got his arm broken with a bar chair, the station cops got into it,
they
couldn’t force the doors. By time we got the mainday station-master out of bed, a cop was in station hospital, six of your future cousins were in our infirmary, about an equal number of
Corinthian
crew were bleeding on the deck, and things were at a standoff, with station section doors shut.”

Doors big as some ships. Stations didn’t
do
that. Not since the War.

“—We had two ships calling crew from all around the docks,” Mischa said. “Station central was refusing to relay calls, threatening to arrest
Corinthian
and
Sprite
crew on sight,
Madrigal
and
Pearl
crews were hiding some of our guys from the cops. I was in blue section, with about fifty of us.
Corinthian
, unfortunately, was docked right adjacent to blue. There were at least fifty of them holed up in the bar, about fifty more on deck, in blue, about that number of station cops and security, several hundred of our crew and theirs
and
cops stuck in sections they couldn’t get out of. Forty-eight hours later, station agreed to total amnesty, we got Marie out,
Corinthian
got Bowe and the rest of their crew out, and the bar owner’s insurance company and the station admin split the tab. We agreed to different routes that wouldn’t put us in the same dock again, which is how, by a set of circumstances, we ended up Unionside. And your mother turned up pregnant. That’s the sum of it.”

Mischa left a silence. Waiting for him to say something. He wanted to, finally ventured the question he wouldn’t ask Marie.

“Was Austin Bowe the only one?”

“As Marie tells it, yes.”

“As she tells it?”

“The captain’s son, and in a hell of a bind? He knew she was his best bargaining chip. Only thing that
might
get
Corinthian
out scot free was Marie, in one piece. She walked out of there.

Cut lip, bruises. Refused medical treatment, station’s and ours. She was holding together pretty well for about the next twelve hours. She’d take the ordinary trank…”

The picture snapped into god-awful focus. “You took her into
jump
?”

“By the terms, we agreed to leave port.”

“Marie wasn’t the criminal!”

“Station had a riot on its hands. Station wanted us on our way.
Marie
wanted out of that port. Medical thought she was doing all right.”

“My God.”

“In those days, the guns were live, all the time.
Heston
wanted out of there as soon as
Corinthian
jumped out. We weren’t sure they weren’t spotters, we didn’t want them sending any message to any spotter that might be lying in wait out there in the dark—they did that, in those days, just lurk out on the edges, take your heading, meet you out at your jump-point—spotters didn’t carry any mass to speak of. They’d beat you there. They’d be waiting. You’d be dead. We skimmed that jump-point as fast as we dared and we got the hell on to Fargone. It wasn’t an easy run. We pushed it. You did things you had to do in those days, you took chances, the choices weren’t that damn good, Thomas, it wasn’t like today. No safety. When you were out there in the dark, you were out there with no law, no protection. We just
had
no choice.”

“It’s a wonder she isn’t crazier than—” He cut that off, before it got out, but Mischa said,

“—crazier than she is. I know. You
think
I don’t know. I knew her before.”

“Why didn’t somebody
order
an abortion? I mean, doesn’t Medical just
do
that, in a case like that?”

“The captains don’t
order
any such thing on this ship. Your mother said if she was pregnant, that was fine, she
wanted
…”

“Wanted what?”

Mischa had cut an answer short, having said too much about something Mischa knew, about
him
. But if he chased that topic, Mischa might stop talking.

“She said it was her choice,” Mischa said, “and nobody else was getting their hands on her. I’ll tell you something, Tom. There’s not been another sleepover. No men. She won’t get help. Your aunt Lydia studied formal psych—specifically with Marie in mind. Never did a damned bit of good. Marie copes just real well, does exactly what she wants, she’s damned good at what she does. I’ll tell you something. She wouldn’t have any prenatal tests, wouldn’t take advice, damn near delivered you in her quarters, except your grandmother found out she was in labor. Marie was dead set you were a daughter, and when she gave birth and found out you weren’t, she wouldn’t look at you, wouldn’t take you, wouldn’t hold you, until three days after. Then she suddenly changed her mind. All of a sudden, it’s—Where’s my son? And your aunt Lydia tells me some crap about postpartum depression and how it was a traumatic birth, and a load of psychological nonsense, but I know my sister, I
know
the look she’s got; and I’m
not
damn blind, Tom, I hoped to hell she’d turn you over to the nursery, which she did when she found out she really hated diapers, and being waked up at odd hours. I wasn’t for it when she wanted you to come back and live with her. I really wasn’t for it, but your grandmother always hoped Marie would straighten out, sort of reconcile things… small chance. I watched you and her, damned carefully. Mama did. I don’t know if you were aware of that.”

Blow across the face. Didn’t know why. He didn’t know why mama ever did things, one minute hit him, another held him, Marie had never made sense about what made her mad. Call her Marie, not mama, that was the first lesson he learned. Marie was
his
mother, and finally, finally she took him home to her quarters like the other kids’ mothers—but if he made her mad or called her mama she’d take him back and the other kids would know…

Which she did. More than once.

“Were you?” Mischa asked, and he didn’t know what Mischa had just said.

“I’m sorry, I lost it.”

Long silence, long, long silence in the captain’s office, himself sitting in front of the desk, like a kid called in for running, or unauthorized access. Damn Mischa, he’d thought he understood, he’d thought Marie was right. Now he didn’t know who’d lied or what was real or how big a son of a bitch Mischa was, after all.

“I can’t control Marie,” Mischa said. “Your grandmother might’ve, but she’s gone. I’ve talked to her. Ma’am’s talked to her. Your aunt Lydia’s talked to her. Said—You’re hurting that boy, Marie, he’s too young to understand, he doesn’t know why you’re mad at him, and for God’s sake let it
be
, Marie. Which did damned little good. Marie’s not—not the kid that went into that sleepover. She’d hold a grudge, yes. But nothing like—”

Another trail-off, into silence. Maybe he was supposed to fill it. He didn’t know. But he still had his question.

“Why didn’t she abort? What was it you almost said she wanted?”

Mischa didn’t want that question. Clearly.

“Tom, has she talked to you about killing Austin Bowe?”

“She’s mentioned it. Not recently. Not since I moved out on my own.”

“She ever—this is difficult—do or suggest anything improper?”

“With me?” He was appalled. But he saw the reason of Mischa’s asking. “No, sir. Absolutely not.”

“The answer to your question: she said… she
wanted
Austin Bowe’s baby. And she wouldn’t abort.”

It rocked him back. He sat there in the chair not knowing what to say, or think.

Marie’d said, just an hour ago, she’d kept him because
she
chose what happened to her. Obstinacy. Pure, undiluted Marie, to the bone. He could believe that.

But he could… hearing the whole context of it… almost believe the other reason, too. If he could believe Mischa. And he did, while he was listening to him, and before Marie would turn around and tell him something that made thorough sense in the opposite direction.

“Wanted his baby,” he said. “Do you know why, sir?”

“I don’t. I’ve no window into Marie’s head. She said it. It scared hell out of me. She only said it once, before we jumped out of Mariner. Frankly—I didn’t tell your grandmother, it would have upset her, I didn’t tell Lydia, I didn’t want that spread all over the ship, and Lydia’s not—totally discreet. I didn’t even know it was valid in the way I took it. She’d been through hell, she never repeated it in any form—it’s the sort of thing somebody might say that they wouldn’t mean later.”

“Have you asked her about it?”

Mischa shook his head, for an answer.

“Shit.”

“Thomas. Don’t
you
ask her. She and I—have our problems. Let’s just get your mother through the next week sane, that’s all I’m asking.”

“You throw a thing like that at me, and say… don’t ask?”

“
You
asked.”

He felt… he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know who was lying, or if Marie was lying to herself, or if Mischa was deliberately boxing him in so he couldn’t go to Marie,
couldn’t
ask her her side.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Has she talked—down below—about killing anyone?”

“She said—she said she wants to get at him through the market. Legally.”

“You think that’s true?”

“I think she’s good at the market. I think—there’s some reason to worry.”

“That she might pull something illegal? Damaging to us?”

If Mischa’s version of Marie was the truth—yes, he could see a danger. He didn’t know about the other kind of danger—couldn’t swear to what Marie had said, that she wouldn’t take to anybody with a cargo hook, that it wasn’t her style. Cargo hook was Marie’s imagery. He hadn’t thought of it.