Tripoint (41 page)

“I said… “ He fought for self-control. And quiet in his voice. “I said, We should lay back in Pell system, go slow… this guy’s not hauling, I’ll lay you money he’s not hauling. He’s certainly armed with more than the ordinary. Capella says… he’s some different faction of the Fleet.”

“Welcome to the real universe. Different factions of the Fleet. I’m amazed.”

“Be serious, dammit.”

“I am. Very serious. Decades of seriousness. “ Austin rocked his chair back, crossed his leg over his knee, folded his hands on his stomach. “Has it ever struck you, Christian, this fragmentation, this stupid factionalization of the Fleet that should have defended civilization,—says something about the human condition? That enemies are much more essential to our happiness than friends? That our rivals shape our ethics, and our failures define our goals? Seems so, from the business on our own deck. Screw Mazian. And Mallory. But what a miserable,
stupid
end it comes to.”

“It’s one damn ship out there! Quit talking about endings and give me some of that experience you claim to have.”

“Scared, Mr. Bowe?”

“Screw you!”

“If you can’t mate with it, eat it, or wear it, it’s no good? I thought that was your philosophy. Maybe it can do something about the ship back there.”

“Cut it out! You’ve made your point. Let’s talk about that ship, let’s talk about what to do—”

“Shoot at it, maybe? Or stall us insystem? I think that was Capella’s advice. Fine for her. But not for us.”

“You’re running scared! You’re more scared of Marie Hawkins than—”

“Than that spotter? No.”

“Then, damn you, quit joking. I don’t know when you’re listening.”

“You could ask.”

“I could take it for granted, if you weren’t such a bastard.”

“Never take anyone’s listening for granted. Children teach you that. Any other divine revelations? Human insights? Moderately wise notions?”

Christian set his hands on the chair arms, to get up. “That I’ve got things to do. I’ve had it. I’m through. I’m not listening, after this.”

“Oh, give me some news. This isn’t it.”

“Damn you, pay attention to something but your ego! Capella says the other faction wants her—with the navigational data she has in her head. She’s saying they’d go after us to get her.”

“Ah. Information. Finally.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Austin shrugged. “I’ll let you know.”

“What kind of an answer is that?”

“Exactly that. Go see to your own business. I’m offduty, you’re on, good luck, good night, stay out of trouble. Meanwhile, consider that the woman you’re sleeping with might just possibly have motives of her own.”

“Oh, that’s right, drive a wedge, plant suspicion—”

Austin rocked his chair back. “God, this is boring. Wake me when you have a thought.”

“Damn you!”

“Still waiting.”

God, he wanted to get up, walk out… he
hated
Austin in this damned, superior mode, this smug, condescending spite. He’d interrupted. He knew the pose.

“Father, sir,—
what
were you about to say?”

“Ah. About Capella? Her advice to stay in port… was better for her than for us.”

“Because
we’re
running from the Hawkins ship?”

“Because we can’t keep this ship sitting at dock running up charges, boy, basic economics.”

“Your real reason, damn you.”

“Through putting words in my mouth?”

“Yes, father. “ Through clenched jaw. “Please.”

“Because that ship is going to sit out there at Tripoint and wait as long as we can wait. Very simple. We can’t avoid it. We can’t outwait it. I’m afraid your friend Capella would like to stay at dock simply because there’s a chance of a ship coming in that she can skip to, quietly, so when
Corinthian
does meet with trouble… she won’t be on it.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t read her that way.”

“I used to be that naive.”

A biting remark was on his tongue. He didn’t vent it. “Can we talk about the ship, sir? It’s going to overjump us. I agree it’s going to be waiting for us when we get there. It’s going to read our entry shock and it’s going to fire on it,”

“Yes.”

“Then what do we do?”

“If they know precisely where we’re going, not damn much we can do. We hope that’s not the case. We’ve got til our wave reaches them and their response, whatever it is, reaches us. We hope that’s a long distance, that’s what we do.”

“That can’t be all! They could be sitting right
on
our drop-point—”

“Why would they want Capella?”

“Because she knows a
lot
of Fleet drop points. Not just this one. Because they don’t want to blow up the ship she’s on.”

“Possibly. Also—possibly because she knows the Tripoint drop and they don’t. It’s a lot of space to search, for something the size of a freighter. You can bet the dissident factions have tried to find it and you can hope they’ve failed. If they need her, we’ll have whatever advantage she can give us. And she’s not anxious to die. Or fall into their hands. So I do trust Capella—that she’ll do what she does very well.”

“So what do you want me to set up for you, on the boards? Any changes in config? In defaults, in display?”

“No. Nothing unusual.”

“Dammit, this isn’t a game.”

“You’ve seen that. Good. This is not a drill. In the event of this actual emergency… we’ll hand off thirty minutes before jump. Meanwhile, I need my nap.”

“You’re not actually going to sleep.”

“I think so. I’ll have my dinner. Catch an hour or so. See you. Good luck. Don’t screw things too badly.”

“God, I hate you.”

Humor left Austin’s expression, ever so briefly. And returned, like a mask. “You used to say that when you didn’t get your way. Sorry, this one depends on that ship out there. I say again, don’t screw it.”

There was silence. He got up, slowly, and walked out. The door hissed shut.

He stood outside, against the wall, for some few moments, telling himself calm down, actually confusedly
sorry
about that parting shot, for the way Austin had looked for half a heartbeat. He’d never scored on Austin like that. Never gotten Austin’s real expression in an argument. In retrospect, maybe that was what scared him. As if Austin was somehow and for a moment wide open to him—as if, maybe Austin wasn’t expecting to come out of this mess.

But, hell, Austin had been in the War, Austin had shepherded
Corinthian
through fire and mines and stray ordnance, only a couple of times taken damage, Austin had gotten them out of far worse, while he’d shivered inside the pillow-padded storage bin where Saby hid with him, Saby swearing it was going to be all right, the ship was going to move hard for a while, Austin and Beatrice were doing it, don’t be scared, Chrissy, don’t be scared—while Saby shivered, too, and half-broke his bones when the
g
-force built, and you didn’t know when it would stop, or when it did, you didn’t know why, or what could hit you, or when.

Never forgot those years. The nerves had still been there when he was sixteen, worse, maybe, that he’d only heard later what was going on, never so that he could pin this sensation to that movement… impressions all muddled up in a three-year-old’s memory, a five-year-old’s terror.

For sixteen, seventeen years he’d been spooked by jump, by the
g
-forces, by the whole feeling of a ship doing what a ship did. But Capella had laughed him through his terrors, Capella had snared him in other sensations, taught him to enjoy the craziness, to see the dimensions as other than up and down and falling. Austin was wrong about her—Capella had come to him on the docks, not the other way around: he hadn’t thought of that argument against Austin’s suspicions, he always thought of the telling ones after the door was shut.

He could trust her. Trust her with his life, absolutely.

With his half-brother—hell, cancel that. Don’t think about it. Elder brother was stronger, faster, smarter, any adjective you wanted, he was also god-awfully clean-minded, noble, true, and honest. A thorough-going bore.

Dance, she’d said, light flickering around her, the music drowned in the drum-beat, the equation of a different space glowing below the bracelet, and no damn guarantee the enemies she was avoiding weren’t going to walk through that door.

They’d been in mortal danger. He hadn’t thought about it. Capella had been waiting for it. Wanting, maybe, a chance at it on the dockside, where her enemies were much more vulnerable.

Or… maybe keeping Austin guessing, whether she’d board or not. And making Austin know he might force her to board—but work for him?

God. God, he’d been blind. Focused on the wrong problem. Again. He had to get the pieces together,
had
to pull it out, if Austin was sinking into some self-destructive funk… Austin and Beatrice were feuding, you could feel it in the way the ship moved; the ship could lose more than trade, it could
lose
, out there in the dark, where if they didn’t make that pick-up, they couldn’t guarantee there’d be another. And if an enemy found that supply dump… they couldn’t guarantee anything, either. Not even their getting out alive.

Capella sat on main crew, this trip. Had to. He was supposed to set things up… and no changes in routine, Austin said?

When they were running into ambush, and Austin knew it?

Had to talk to Michaels, that was what. Had to be sure that capped switch was thrown and the guns were up when they made the drop at Tripoint. Elder brother and that matter… didn’t matter, in that context. A non-issue, until they got to Viking. If they got to Viking.

—iii—

RUMORS MULTIPLIED ON LOWER deck once mainday tech crew had hit the galley line in numbers, and the incoming detail gathered form as informants from various ops posts got together at the tables and fact and speculation intersected: Fact: the ship out there was
Silver Dream
, it was a closed-hold hauler, you couldn’t tell whether or what it had in its holds. Fact: it had a large engine pack, which was always suspicious on a non-Family ship. Observation: Christian and the second chief navigator were uneasy about it, and: Speculation, were sure it wasn’t hauling, and when they cleared the slow zones they were going to light out of Pell like a bat.

That much, Tom picked up just passing around the tables, refilling table coffee and tea pots. Heads were together, the galley was uncommonly quiet, voices were subdued and urgent. Dockers clustered apart from the techs, at their tables at the end of the galley zone… the questions in that corner were slightly different, no less urgent: What are we going to do, skip through the Point? And the answer: Can’t offload. No way we can offload.

Somebody wondered, then, whether they’d still get their pay, in that event. The rest, apparently old hands on
Corinthian
, said Shut up, don’t be a fool, being alive to spend it was the issue, and the captain would make it up, the captain never shorted you for what wasn’t your fault.

Tom collected plates, grabbed them as fast as they emptied, folded up the tables and the seats, fast as he could. Heard names like Mallory, and Porey, and Edger, names of captains of the dismembered Fleet. Talk about ambushes. And a dump, whether
v
-dump, meaning whether they were going to slow down, or supply dump… it sounded like the latter. Rendezvous, of some kind? he asked himself.

“What do we regularly
do
out there?” he asked Tink. “Level with me. What’s the ordinary scenario?”

“There’s a place,” Tink said, but someone came near, just then, and Tink didn’t feel comfortable talking, it was clear. Jamal frowned at both of them.

“Tink, get some help, that cart’s ready for the bridge, Medical’s ready to roll.”

“Yeah, I’m on it,” Tink said, grabbed a couple of offduty maintenance techs and dragooned them into cart-transport, while he folded tables and secured safety latches, wanting not to think about Mazianni weapons bearing down on them.

Mazianni operating at Pell, free and open, for God’s sake? And following them out of port?

Where did they get undock clearance? Who assigned them dockers to get them out that fast, to follow
Corinthian
? Nothing fit with what he knew unless it was Mallory on their tail… but Mazianni didn’t above all describe Mallory, who did operate out of Pell. Mallory was semi-legitimate. Had total station cooperation—it could be some ship working for her, and Pell authorities, to arrest them… or get evidence on them, but there were warrants for that, easier to do at dock.

“Tom!”

Tone of a man who’d been trying to get his attention. He looked at Jamal, blank of what the man had been saying.

“Hell, I’ll get it,” Jamal said. “No damn brain on duty anywhere. Stay here! Pull the delivery slips, check it off. If you screw up, Hawkins, somebody’s without trank. Can you manage that?”

“Got it. “ He went back to the paperwork desk, laid Jamal’s handheld on the communication plate, punched the requisite code for the deliveries, DDAT, to transfer, 1 plus T, no mystery in the software. The handheld registered File Complete, meaning it had read an end-of-file,—and a furtive, stupid thought sprang up. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he said to himself, system’s guarded, all kinds of partitions. He looked longingly at that console, then, hell, shook his head and let it alone.

He’d done the checklist when Jamal came back with what looked like the stuff from Medical. Jamal took the list he’d vetted, left, with: “Stow everything behind doors. Don’t trust counter-mounts. We don’t know what we’re into. Turn the water off, under the sink. Lock the drain down. You know how to do that?”

“Yessir,” he said. Tink was still out on deliveries. He flipped the lever to dismount the mixer and the processor, stowed them below, secured oven latches, washers, cabinets, put the pans behind solid doors and latched them in. Got the water shut off, put the anti-vacuum lock on the drain. He’d never used one, but he’d heard about whole sections voided of air through a pipe breach.