Tripoint (49 page)

But they’d delivered the last of the cargo. Austin insisted. Said he’d never failed a contract and he wasn’t starting now. Flour and blood every damn where, iron rods floating all over the hold. Couldn’t get that out of his memory.

Hadn’t even realized his ankle was broken. He’d been that scared. That numb.

New image came on. Marie stared at him. He stared back, a light-second removed.

“So?” Marie said. “
You staying with
Corinthian?”

“
Yes, “
he said. “
—Met a girl, Marie. “

“
A girl. “
Marie snorted. “
You damn fool. “

“Yeah. I know. But you’d like her, Marie.”

“Austin there?”

That surprised him. That really surprised him. He looked at Austin. Austin turned his chair, reached across the board and put the aux com live.

“Hello, Marie. What can I do for you?”

While, across the bridge, missiles were armed and the scan was locked warily on
Sprite
.

“Hello, Austin. You want him?”

Austin shrugged. “Not my choice.”

“What do you want?”

“To get clear. That’s all. You speaking for
Sprite
, now, Marie? I hear so.”

“Damn right. “

“Well, captain Hawkins, you’re clear, you’re free. My navigator says you could even cut a deal. I’ll give you a password, in fact. Tell Miller Transship you want the deal I had. Whisper the word Tripoint. Somebody’ll be in contact, if you’re polite. Just sit at Viking and wait.”

“You’re out of your mind. “

“It’s clean money, all legitimate salvage. Real old dates. And we’re out of this route, for good. Got another offer. So it’s all yours, captain Hawkins. Comfortable living. I do suggest you upgrade your armament, if you take the offer. And rig a cutoff for that damn ID.”

“Go to hell. “

“Go to hell yourself, Marie. Love you.”

“Tom?”

He punched the switch. “Marie. Yeah?”

Marie didn’t say anything right off. Just stared. Punched a few buttons. Maybe the image-capture. It looked to be. He pushed that button on
Corinthian’s
board. Froze that look, that motion, for keeping, for the rest of time.

“
You stay out of trouble, “
Marie said. “
Keep yourself honest. Hear
?”

“You take care of yourself,” he said. “Mama. You take care.”

—ii—

DREAM OF A POINT OF shifting mass, three-body problem. Tricky spot, the navigators said.

Never been a star. Never could be. Complex motion, forever shifting, the third mass tending to widen the gap by very small amounts over centuries.

Navigators said the Point wasn’t stable—said the close binary mass followed Sol on its strange course, maybe some ancient association with Sol and its planetary companions in the long-ago past, in their frantic pace across the long, long gulf Sol was crossing—all of human history in that passage.

And the third mass at Tripoint… was a newcomer, maybe swept up out of Pell, who knew? Scientists wrangled, nothing proved, nothing known for certain—they talked about probes, to reach down into the high-g depths of what might, almost have been a star.

Easy, most of all, to lose things in the triple mass. Easy to miss ships, easy to pick up the brown radiance of any of the three Points, blotting out all else that might lie behind it.

Tom could hear one deep sound, at least, going away from them. Sat there, while Saby slept the sleep that made hyperspace bearable.

Sprite
was on its way.

So were they—to a Place, Capella swore, where there was cargo to be hauled, a place the Fleet had found, that they’d been supplying all along, but they’d not needed to know—until now.

Where? was the burning question in the crew. But Capella wasn’t talking.

Said, the Fleet had never surrendered. They never would.

Said, Some things you got to take on faith.

Austin said they put up with her.

Christian said…

Christian said they could sell surplus crew to the Fleet, and older brother should watch his step, and not screw anything really essential.

They made one seven-light jump, toward the place they were going.

Arrived, not at Pell, or Viking, but at another dark mass and a fuel dump.

So where they were going now was far, far from places they knew… he didn’t know of any two-jump that lay on ordinary routes.

Some Mazianni hideout, it might be. Austin was still worried, he caught that, in things he’d overheard. But rumor had always said the Fleet had places nobody knew.

Mostly, he regretted Pell. He wanted to go back if only once, wanted to recover that time with Saby. That walk in the spacefaring forest. He wanted to see a rainstorm, even from water-jets.

Saby had kept the leaf safe for him. He sat on the bed looking at it… you could sit a long time, in the strangeness of jump-space. He hadn’t duties. Computers weren’t reliable right now. It was the interface the ship engaged. Time wasn’t. Logic wasn’t. Colors and sounds came and went.

The music, Capella called it. He heard it. At least… it sounded that way.

A shadow arrived in his vision. How long and when didn’t matter in this space. Capella was there. She sat down on the bed. He folded the leaf back into its paper safekeeping.

“More of those,” she said.

“What, more of those?” Sometimes, with Capella, you had to start in the middle of conversations.

“Where we’re going,” Capella said. “More of those.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Absolutely. Always. Well, sometimes. But this is true, Tommy. “ She reached out, patted Saby’s foot. “ ‘Scuse. Sweet dreams.”

“Forests?” he asked.

“Might be.”

“Can’t be.”

Capella shrugged. Tucked her knee into the circle of her arms. “All that Earth was,” she said. “Will be again. Six more jumps.”

“Six. My God.”

“There’ll be fuel dumps. We’ll be fine. “ Capella looked at him sidelong, tilted her head and looked at the overhead as if she could see through it.

Maybe she could. He was still discovering things.

“Do we come ever back from there?” he asked. The territory beyond was dark to him, a complete, uneasy unknown. Except, suddenly, the idea of forests. Green. Damp. Alive.

“I’ve been there,” Capella said. “Truth is,—I found this place.”

“You?”

“Heard it, in the dark.—D’ you hear that?”

Something. He wasn’t sure. Felt it, more.

“What was it?”

“Dunno,” Capella said. “There’s things you can’t explain. Keeps you wanting to go again. Listen. Listen to it. There’s a whole universe out there.”

He did listen, for a long while. Capella went away again. The whole ship was theirs. Visit any cabin. Open any door. No one knew.

Forests, the woman said.