Tripoint (42 page)

Cast another, longing look at the computer. Looked at the door. Edged closer, then flipped it on just to see what program would come up.

Screen showed: MES>94.

He hit 01, keyed:
Your message software’s a dinosaur. I could access. I didn’t. T. Hawkins
.

Austin had a lot else on his mind. The whole ship rang with urgency. Stupid to do. Distracting to Austin. To… God knew who… but, dammit, things were happening up there he didn’t have a clue to judge. He had skills he wasn’t using. Somebody was after them, and he had to sit down here, being shot at, keeping pans from falling out of cabinets, getting rumors from the walk-ins… his stomach was in a knot.

It might make Austin
know
he restrained himself. Might get him at least access physically where he could access electronically. Software
was
a dinosaur. God knew what other was.

But, damn, no, ship was at risk. Wasn’t a time for personal stuff. He ran a delete. Flipped the switch. Killed it.

Could be the militia after them. And here he was. Wrong side of Marie’s quarrel. Wrong side of everything.

The ship was growing so quiet. He’d never heard anything the like on
Sprite
before they went to jump. On
Sprite
there were so many Family, there were so many kids running up and down, people yelling information at each other. Here… just quiet. Somebody walked outside the partition that divided the galley from general passage. Somebody shouted, far off in the ring. Somewhere, sounding sections away, a cart rattled. He made himself move away from the console, get to work, the last few table-seat units to fold up, thunderous, appalling crashes in the silence.

Jamal came back, started running checks on the cabinets. “You’re L14.”

“Yes.”

“Left your stuff there. Trank and all. You ever get sheets?”

“I… no. I didn’t. “ Sheets were the farthest thing from his mind. “I can do without. It’s all right. “ In the crisis at hand, he regretted his protestations to Saby about his own quarters. Didn’t want to be alone. Desperately didn’t want to be alone, but he’d taken that position… didn’t see how to talk to her now.

“Freeze your ass off,” Jamal said. “I tossed some blankets in. Put your trank on the bunk. Sheets are down in Medical, you got to do that yourself.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a crazy trip. Hope we see the other side of it.”

Cart rattled and thumped somewhere, growing closer. Tink coming back, he thought, and Jamal said, “We’re shut down here. You want to go get those sheets? I’ll sign you out.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. “ Jamal was down furnishing his quarters while he was sneaking access on the galley computer. Didn’t make him feel better. He went for the exit toward lower main, dodged Tink and the inbound cart.

“We done?” Tink asked cheerfully.

“Seems so,” he said. He tried cheerfulness. It didn’t take.

But Tink bumped him on the arm with a tattooed fist. “Hey. We’re all right. Seen us sail through the damnedest stuff. Pieces rattling off the hull. We come through. We always come through. Can’t scratch this ship.”

“You been aboard that long?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tink said. “You just belt in good. Hear? Hope you secured those cabinets, or we’ll have pans clear to Engineering.”

He laughed a little. He truly wanted to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. It made him feel better as he went his way down to Medical. Check out the sheets, yeah, pillow, too, got the blankets, already, sir, no problem, got the trank, yeah, I’m on the roster, I’m on galley duty, Jamal said he saw to it.

He got the sheets, he went to lonely L14 and checked out the accommodation. It wasn’t quite a closet. It had plumbing. He remembered what Austin said about turning the water on. He tried it and it was off. But the outbound pipe needed shutting. He got down to locate it, found the cutoff labeled, and turned it.

The first of the acceleration warnings sounded, then. He banged his head on the cabinet getting out, his heart going like a hammer. He heard Christian’s voice, at least he thought it was Christian: “We’ll clear Pell slow zones in ten minutes. At that time we’ll start our acceleration toward departure. We’re releasing non-ops personnel to quarters to secure premises. Please secure all pipes and unplug all but emergency equipment. Area chiefs please check compliance and all vacant compartments. As you are aware, we have a follower. We do not know the ship’s intentions, but we are on condition red alert. Double check all secure latches, secure all non-essential items.”

Damn, he thought, palms sweating. Canned speech. Christian was reading—he couldn’t be that calm and collected. But Christian had something to do besides imagine. He didn’t. The walls seemed to close in on him.

“Be doubly sure of your belts. If you detect any belt malfunction, pad up with all available materials and secure yourself in the smallest area of your compartment. All personnel, review your emergency assignments. “

There wasn’t a ‘smallest area. ‘ The compartment was it. He got up off the deck and tested the belts. They worked. The emergency procedures all seemed unreal to him, more extreme than any drill he’d ever walked through, precautions against maneuvers he wasn’t sure
Sprite
had ever had to make, at the worst of the War. They’d sat the bad times out in port.

Pieces rattling
off
the hull. Hell.

The door opened, without a by-your-leave. “Looking for a room-mate,” Saby said.

He was glad. He was incredibly, shakily glad of that offer—welcomed Saby’s arms around him, held to her as something solid, against the suppositions.

“Yeah,” he said. “Good. Fine with me.”

—iv—

“EVERYTHING IN PARAMETERS,” Christian said, on the hand-off. Austin lowered himself into the chair, scanned the console, found the routine settings. “Anything else?”

The boy was always touchy. You never knew, unless you’d deliberately hit the button.

“No,” he said. “Belt in, stay tight, this one’s going to be interesting.”

“We’re going to skim it, right?”

Shoot right through Tripoint with no
v
-dump. Accumulate
v
at the interface and come into Viking like a bat out of hell…

Certainly it was one solution. But they were loaded heavy.
Hell
of a mass.

“You run the calc?”

“‘Pella and I did. It’s on your number two, all the options I figured. She says she can put it in margin. I say it’s dicey.”

“Very.”

“They always short you in the cans. Absolute mass is 200k less. Saby says.”

“That’s nice.”

“Nice. Hell. “ Christian was keeping his voice down, standing right by his chair. “What
are
we going to do? We’re
not
stopping.”

“Maybe.”

“God in—”

“Shush, shush, shush, Mr. Bowe, a shade less emotional, if you please.”

“You damn, grandstanding…
bastard
, no, forget I said it, you haven’t anything to prove to me, I know you can do it, let’s just not try, all right?”

“I’m perfectly serious—as a possibility. I trust you calc’ed that with the rest.”

“It’s on there.”

“It had better be. It had better be right, mister. Bet our lives it’s right.”

Christian’s mouth went very thin. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went forward, said a word to Beatrice, stopped for another to Capella, who wasn’t standing down at shift-change.

Capella listened, frowned, nodded to whatever it was. Christian bent and, definite breach of regulations, kissed the second chief navigator on the forehead.

The second chief navigator grabbed his collar, gave him one on the mouth that went on. And on. Christian came back straightening his collar and headed, clearly, past, without explanation.

“Inspiring the crew?” Austin said.

“Just for God’s sake
listen
to her.”

“Emotion, emotion. Get some rest.”

Christian left. The sort-out of shift-change was mostly complete.

“You know,” Michaels said, stopping by his chair, to lean on the arm and the back and deliver a quiet word to his ear, “the boy said, hit the sims, first thing; said, stay on ‘em, said don’t even ask you, just push the arming button last thing when we go up.”

“Did, did he?”

“Whole list of orders, yours, his, identical down the line. Just thought you’d like to know.”

He gave a breath, a laugh, couldn’t say what. Michaels patted his arm, went on for a word to Beatrice. Felt all right, it did. There was hope for the brat, give or take what he’d stirred.

No way their tagalong was Mallory’s. The Pell militia wouldn’t chase you from Pell docks into jump. If Pell wanted you, you’d have hell getting undocked. They’d have agents out to blow something essential while you sat at dock, no question, they’d learned their lesson the hard way about quarrels with ships.

So, granted it wasn’t the law, it was clearly a ship with a mission, and it was clearly on the Tripoint heading. If guesses were right, at worst-case, those holds were empty, and their lighter mass was going to give
Silver Dream’s
big engine-pack a hype to send it right past
Corinthian
. In terms of
v
, realspace negligible. In terms of position in space-time… ahead of them. Waiting for them, when hyperspace abhorred their energy-state out again at Tripoint.

But bet they wouldn’t use nukes, not if they wanted to board and take the second chief navigator for themselves. They’d use inerts: simple mag-fired rifle balls, in effect—hoping to cripple
Corinthian’s
jump-capacity; and they’d have to launch those
after
they’d picked up the wavefront of
Corinthian’s
arrival.

“Nav.”

“Sir.”

“Are you comfortable with what you have, with data?”

“Yes, sir, more than adequate. “

He keyed up the alternatives. Found the one he wanted. The supply dump. “Nav, receive my send. How close can you put us?”

“Sir.
May I talk privately
?”

“Come ahead.”

Capella left her chair, came and leaned an elbow against his console. “Sir,” Capella said. “If you want honestly to leave it to me, give me leave to dump at any point, I’ll guarantee you best of two alternatives.”

“What two?”

“We find this sumbitch far enough out we can make that dump or close enough in we take my bet and skip through to Viking. We can dump down. Swear to you.”

You looked in Capella’s eyes when she was off duty, you learned nothing. You looked there now and you got the coldest, clearest stare.

“I believe you, second chief navigator. Are you saying leave that choice to you?
My
priorities involve the economics of this ship. Involve keeping a contract, with entities I believe you represent. Can you set us next our target,
if our
problem isn’t within, say, three hours light? Can you assure me… we can stay emissions-neutral?”

“Hell of an accuracy, sir.”

“Can you do it?”

Capella when that grin cut loose was the devil. The very devil. You didn’t know.

“Maybe.”

“I’d suggest you figure it, second chief navigator.”

“You are one son of a bitch, captain, sir.”

“Yeah. I am. How good
are
you?”

“Damn good.”

“Then do it.”

“Yes,
sir. “

Never a way in hell he could have gotten that berth within the Fleet—point of fact, there hadn’t been a way in hell he’d have wanted one, in his adult life, when they were losing ships faster than they could reckon what they’d lost, and attitudes inside the Fleet were responsible for that trend. He could still name a couple of the captains he’d have shot as soon as deal with, and the feeling was still, he was sure, entirely mutual.

He’d never truly known where Capella fit in that mosaic, until just now that he’d nudged Capella into action: Don’t question me, second chief, just obey the order. And that straight look and that ‘sir’ out of their nameless navigator…

Satisfying, that he could get ‘sir’ out of this woman, who’d had the career that had slipped away before he was old enough to chase it, in any sense that the War could be won or that there was time left to reconstitute the old order. He’d seen nothing past the impending debacle, once upon the omniscience of his youth, seen nothing worth obeying or believing, fool that he’d been; and now his son was staring into another Götterdämerung, nothing of fire and fury, just a niggling increase of regulations—he could see that from where he sat, watching anachronism on her way to the navigation console.

He’d had his moral victory, maybe, maybe could slip out of this mess… maybe escape all the rest of the little regulation-generated disasters, so long as he lived, on a ship that had thrown in its lot with what was changing. Little ships couldn’t get the profit margin, with the new regulations, couldn’t keep ahead of the Family ships and the state-sponsored combines.

So what did a small-hauler do, but go on serving the ports they could, getting cargo where they could, even doing what obliged them to take personnel the Fleet dictated they take?

No way to refuse the honor, of course, no objection possible, and no assurance the divisions inside the Fleet weren’t going to play out one day on their own deck, for interests a mere merchant captain didn’t guess, and against opposition said captain might not find out about until it was too late.

Unless, say, the second chief navigator saw it, too, saw the same wall coming, and the same Götterdämerung.

Yes,
sir
, that word was, and he watched her settle in, all business, listened to her, on A-band, engage Beatrice, and tell Beatrice she’d have certain data, and she should trust it blindly, no matter how extreme it seemed.

Beatrice half-turned in her seat. He nodded. Beatrice settled back. So they were going with it. Beatrice would handle it. He had confidence, too, in the Fleet’s gift—granted you knew which faction she belonged to.

—v—

ACCEL GREW HARDER, JOINTS POPPED. Fingers twined with fingers. Couldn’t think of anything, not at this
g
-stress, just company.