Tripoint (48 page)

Betrayal, then, Tink’s voice, on Universal: “
All hands, Hawkins is in Michaels’ rig
.—
Tom, you got to get back here. “

Save the ship. He knew that. He understood. Tink had to get him.

“
Tom
!” Saby’s voice. Saby couldn’t leave her post. Wouldn’t. Too many lives… “
Tom, come back, Tom, I need you! I need you, dammit
!”

“
Tom
! “Tink’s voice, again, anguished. “—
Captain, he’s coming your way! I can’t catch him
…”

The whole ship wanted to stop him. In front of him, glaring light,
Corinthian’s
cargo-lock console, as he hand-over-handed toward the officers there.

“Hawkins!”

Christian.

He had no direction with the com. He scanned the 360° of helmet display, looking, but had no warning as someone snagged the back-pack, spun him around to rebound against the wall. “Son-of-a-bitch! What are you doing?”

He fended off the hold, but it wasn’t only Christian, it was two, three of them, grabbing hold, starting an inertial tumble. They bumped cans, richocheted off to the wall of the chute, back again. A section of tractor-chain ground against his helmet, bump, bump, bump, until somebody hauled them out of it and anchored their collective mass along the rail.

“
Cut his regulator
!” somebody shouted, C. BOWE was the name on the helmet closest, the one with his hand on his oxygen supply.

He panicked, swung to free himself, claustrophobic as if the oxygen had already stopped.

“You lied to me,” he panted, and struggled to get a hold on the rail. “You all fucking
lied
to me, you son of a bitch—
what ship, what’s going on out there
?”

Someone else was yelling—he couldn’t hear it; then “
Hold it
!”

Austin’s voice. “
Hold it, dammit, that’s high mass
—
brake on, damn you, cut it
—”

Something happened. “
Shit
!” somebody yelled, but he was still fighting for air, found an arm free and got a hold on the rail, as a jackstraw debris of metal rods flew everywhere.

“
Brake! Brake! Can’s ruptured
—”

Crewmen were yelling, rods were flying everywhere, into the line, into the moving cans, rebounding. A piece slammed him side-on, knocked him against the wall with no surety his arm wasn’t broken, but he got his glove to his regulator, tried to get the air-flow up.

“
Patch
!” somebody screamed—suit rupture—and nobody was watching him, they were shutting the cargo doors, far as they could with the racks mated, trying to stop the debris.

He couldn’t breathe. He drifted, trying, with clumsy fingers, to adjust the external regulator. Last impact had thrown him against the cargo-lock console, piece of metal rammed right through the shelter wall and into the console board, more of the jackstraws in slower, entropic motion now, companions in his drift. He fended them, tried to calm his breathing.

“
Austin
!” he heard Christian calling. “
Austin, use your com, dammit
!”

“
Captain was otherside, “
somebody said, “
in the other lock
!” and Christian:

“Shit, open the doors, open the damn doors!”

“
Austin. “
That was Beatrice, somewhere. “
Austin, answer com
!”

“
Yeah, “
came back, through heavy static. “
I got a problem. “
More of it, but it broke up.

Crew were trapped over in the other hold—trapped with a ricocheting mass of steel—and he’d done it.
He
had. He caught a hand-hold, no one caring, now, no one paying attention to him.

“
What’s happened
?” somebody asked, not the only voice. You didn’t chat on Universal when an emergency was in progress, you shut up. He thought that last voice might be the bridge asking information, but nobody answered. He tried to, on general: “Can of rods ruptured. “ Air still wouldn’t come fast enough. “Doors are shut, bridge—doors are shut, and that’s my ship out there, dammit!”

“
Tommy
?” Capella’s voice. “
Tommy, it’s closing
—
it’s
Sprite
and us both the sumbitch is after
,—
Tommy, d’ you hear me? That’s the truth. “

Mind went scattershot, a dozen trails of logic—sounds in the dark, colors running—freighter, freighter screaming…

Capella, leaning close, whispering… touch of lips… saying… telling him…

“
Tommy, we got to have the card, now, Tommy… Austin’s got to input. Hear
?—
Do it now, Tommy
!”

Limbs jerked, half paralyzed, moving to what he couldn’t but half remember, just Capella’s voice and the gut-hitting feeling that he might have been immensely, irremediably wrong in his instant assumptions, Marie’s assumptions, beaten into him, dinned into him…

Not what he’d seen on this ship.

“
Where’s Austin
?” the bridge was asking, and he listened sharp, wanting to hear, when somebody, a voice he’d heard before, answered:

“Captain’s caught otherside. The other hold. They’re trying, Bea, they did an emergency close, and they got to jack the damn doors. “

“
Shit, “
he heard, Capella’s voice. “
Captain? You copy
?”

The outer cargo hatch had closed on the mated rails. Crew was jacking it open, using levers at either side of the doors, others trying to scrape past the doors and under the cans blocking them to reach the hulk’s hold.

Tom slung himself that direction along the safety rail, no one stopping him on his careening course—was so shaken he strained his arm catching himself on the landing. But a man squeezed through ahead of him—he re-angled his body and hauled himself through, risking the LS kit on his back… felt it scrape as he entered the hulk.

His first sight in the hulk’s cargo lock was loose cans, debris floating, white powder in clumps and clouds, adhering to surfaces, obscuring vision throughout the cargo chute.

He had no idea now what he was doing, except they were trying to get crew out past him, one man that could move himself, that tried to help his rescuers. White powder, God knew what, clung to his visor no matter how he wiped. Loose rods shot past, still potent with
v
.

Then a suited body drifted toward him along the stalled row of cans. He grabbed its arm, not able to see who it was, whether the man was alive or dead, or who it was—he wasn’t moving, was all, and he hauled the man back to the cargo lock, through the whiteout of dust, and passed the man through the gap to the men on the other side—one life maybe they could save.

“
Captain
?” he was hearing on hail. “
Captain? Seven minutes. Closing fast. “

And a second voice, Capella’s, he thought, desperate: “
We need that key-card. Look in the console key slot, Tom, somebody. Fast. “

He knew what he was looking for. He tried to go in that direction, when a rod bounced past, hit the wall noiselessly, ricocheted and vanished into the powder-storm. And crew hauled suited bodies past him, a man with a piece of iron through the torso, then one with a helmet gouged and splintered across the faceplate.

TRAVIS, the helmet said.

Only name he’d made out, on anybody. Wasn’t Bowe. He found himself shakily relieved it wasn’t Austin, as he grabbed a rail and tried to get along the wall.

A suited figure caught up with him in the obscuring dust. BOWE, the helmet said. c. Smeared with blood. Christian looked straight at him. He started to ask… where Austin was… and his com crackled with,

“Damn you, you Hawkins bastard, get out of there!”

A rod shot between them. Rebounded. Hit a can, richocheted again, came back.

He was drifting, on a rebound. Grabbed something.

“
Four minutes, “
he heard, in the ringing of his ears.
Motion alert
, was flashing in his faceplate. “
Get out of there, “
com said, male voice this time, “
Get out, now, we’re screwed, leave it, leave it, leave it. “

And Capella’s: “
Get the card, damn it
!”

His back hit the cans. He bounced off, saw a crewman near him, trying for a hand-hold, and he held out an arm, mindless free-fall reflex. The man grabbed him and he grabbed the rail as they grazed the wall in a conjoint tumble toward the bright light, spotlights all he could see in the white-out, except dark beads like frozen oil spatting against his faceplate.

He shoved off, dragging the man with him, grabbed the console rim and stopped their random motion as green seconds bled time away from him in the faceplate display. The man he’d rescued had hold next to him—crew had reached them, trying to pull both of them away; but the man shoved them off, shoved a card into the console they both clung to.

C. BOWE showed grey through the paste of white dust on the opposing helmet. He could see Christian’s face, intent on the card, not on him.

Other voices on Universal sputtered with static. Somebody was yelling, “
Close the doors. Kick the cans clear! Shut the cargo doors! Fire window is forty-eight seconds
—”

Christian jammed the card down, firm contact, groped for the input slate and the electronic stylus scissor-jointed over it.

Wrote an H. A.

Hand shook, dithered in a fit of shock. V.

“O,” Tom said, furious with his own spasm of shaking. Christian’s hand wasn’t making it. He grabbed the hand, forced a shaky circle. Shakier C. Son of a bitch, it wasn’t just himself and Austin knew Capella’s code.

Lights flashed. Display above the input said, in red letters:

ENEMY IDENTIFIED. TARGETING. POSITIVE.

He flashed on
Sprite’s
corridors. Marie at her console. But he believed Patrick was real, and Patrick was first on the old hulk’s list. His voice in the dark said so.

While
Sprite
was out there. Coming toward them. TARGET LOCKED, he saw on display, through a white haze.

FIRE INITIATED.

The hulk’s frame shook. He felt it through the hand-grip. Stared at his brother’s face, Christian staring at him.

Felt something pull at him, trying to pull them away. He held onto the console. But he saw suit lights then, coming around behind Christian, to take him away.

Christian went. But
he
wasn’t leaving. Wasn’t moving. No. Information was here. On
this
readout. It was all the truth he had.

“
Tom, “
Saby said. Hands tugged at him, failed to move him. “
Come
on,
Tom, dammit, it’s fired, it’s all we can do. “

“
Tom. “
Tink’s voice. A new hand pulled and he couldn’t hold on any longer. His gloved hands lost their handhold, and they carried him back toward the doors, through the drifting white.

“
Tom. “
Capella’s voice, then. “
Tom
, Sprite is
not, so far, a target, repeat, not, so far, a target. “

“
Who’s in command down here
?” he heard somebody ask, and Christian answer:

“I guess I am. “

“
Not yet. “
Another voice came faintly, scratchy with static. “
Not yet, you don’t, kid
.—
Where’s the damn hostile, can somebody find the hostile
?”

“
Fireball, “
came from the bridge, smugly. “
Any minute now. “

Still couldn’t get enough air. Tom let Saby and Tink pull him ahead, along the railing. He just breathed, his visor dusted over so the lights fuzzed.

“
There it goes, “
a female voice said. “
Austin. You copy? Got the bastard. “

“
I copy, “
Austin said. “
Thank you, Beatrice. “

He tried clumsily to adjust the air-flow. People talked to Medical, then, talked about broken arms and a suit puncture, one man dead. They said the cargo doors were shutting. But
motion imminent
had just gone off his faceplate display.

Nothing seemed real to him. Crew movement was all drifting now, leisurely. He heard Beatrice Perrault say,

“
Evidently the robot respects a freighter ID. Or its direction, as nav believes
. Sprite
is, at any rate, sacrosanct. That gives us a new problem. “

“Screw that,” Tom said. New panic closed on him. Indignation. He shoved to get clear. “They’re not attacking my ship. “ He couldn’t break Tink’s grip. He shoved the channel selector with his chin. “
Austin, damn you, that’s my ship, dammit, that’s my mother’s ship
—”

“
Put Hawkins in contact, “
Austin said faintly. “
Beatrice. Dan. Do it.—Tom. “

“Sir. “

“That’s a word I like to hear. We still have them outgunned, Thomas Bowe-Hawkins. Remember that. Tell mama hello. “

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“
Stand by. “
Voice he didn’t know. But after that:

“Go
ahead, Hawkins. Talk them out of shooting. Or going away. The old hulk doesn’t like either one. “

Contents
-
Prev

—i—

“
TOM, “
SAJA SAID, A FACE ON THE vid. “Tom. Tell me again.
Tell me why it’s your choice. “

“Yeah, well… “ Breath still felt as tight as it had in the suit. “Dammit, tell Marie I want to talk. I’ll tell her. All right?”

“
She says
,…”

“Yeah, screw what she says until she says it to
me
. Tell her get the hell on the com and talk to me. Now.”

Silence, then. He sat there, on
Corinthian’s
bridge, with Saby and Christian standing over him, and Austin sitting—a broken leg, four broken ribs and a broken arm, was Austin’s tally, give or take. One man hadn’t been lucky. Came of fools interfering with operations. Came of a mistake he’d never in his life forget.