Tripoint (5 page)

She, on the other hand, didn’t give a running damn for the luxuries she could have had. She’d had room enough in a senior officer’s quarters the couple of times she’d brought Tommy in (about as long as she could stand the juvenile train of logic), so she’d never asked for more space or more perks, and whether or not Mischa knew who really called the tune when it came to trade and choices,
Sprite
went where Marie Hawkins decided it was wise to go,
Sprite
traded where and what Marie Kirgov Hawkins decided to trade, took the contracts she arranged.

Mischa wouldn’t exactly see it that way, but then, Mischa hadn’t an inkling for the ten years he’d been senior captain exactly which were his ideas and which were hers. As cargo chief she laid two sets of numbers on his desk, one looking good and one looking less good, and of course he made his own choice.

Now Mischa was going to explain about Marie’s Problem to poor innocent Thomas, and enlist his help to keep Marie in line? Good luck. Poor Thomas might punch Mischa through the bulkhead if Mischa pushed him. Thomas had his genetic father’s temper and Thomas wasn’t subtle. Earnest. Incredibly earnest. And not a damn bad head on his shoulders, in the small interludes when testosterone wasn’t in the ascendant.

Predict that Mischa would want to deal with Tom, now, man to man, oh, right, when Mischa had ignored Tom’s existence when he was a kid, when Mischa had resisted tracking him into mainday crew until Saja pointed out they’d better put a kid with his talent and his brains under closer, expert supervision. Every time Mischa looked at Tom, Mischa saw Marie’s Problem; Mischa had a guilty conscience about younger sister’s Problem, and Mischa was patronizing as hell, Thomas hated being patronized, and Mischa hated sudden, violent reactions.

Gold-plated disaster.

Best legacy she’d given Bowe’s kid—awareness when he was being put upon. That, and life itself. End of her debt of conscience, end of her personal responsibility and damned generous, at that. So Tom was getting to be a human being. End report. Tom was on his own. Twenty plus years of tracking Austin Bowe, and she was here, free, owing nobody but that ship—a little before she’d wanted to be, but one couldn’t plan everything in life.

It didn’t particularly need to involve Tom. She’d acquired that small scruple. Leave Tom to annoy his uncle Mischa, if for some reason she wasn’t around to do the job.

Nice to have a clear sense about what one wanted in life. Nice to have an absolute and attainable goal.

Mischa could never claim as much. But, then, Mischa forgave and forgot. Rapidly. Conveniently—if Mischa got what he wanted, and you could spell that out in money and comfort and an easy course, in about that order.

Not her style. Thank you, brother. Thank you, Hawkinses, every one.

Sprite
might have come and gone peaceably at Viking for three, maybe four long rounds of its ports, exchanging loops with
Bolivar
, without chancing into
Corinthian’s
path. That wouldn’t have kept the data out of her hands—recent data, of
Corinthian’s
current activities.
Sprite
and
Corinthian
never even needed to have met face to face in order for her to have what she wanted.

Watching Austin Bowe sweat? That was a bonus.

Her chief anxiety now was the surprise of the encounter—before she had enough of that most current data. The last thing she wanted was for that ship to spook out suddenly and change patterns on her. She wanted to be a far greater problem to
Corinthian
than that.

Still, she improvised very well.

Loosen up, Austin Bowe had told her, on a certain sleepover night. Adapt. Go with what happens. You’re too tense.

Best advice anybody had ever given her, she thought. He’d meant sex, of course. But he’d meant power, too, which—she’d known it that night—was what that encounter had been all about, a teen-aged kid’s conviction that she ran her own life, up against a thorough-going son of a bitch, not much older, used to his own satisfaction.
That
was the mistake in scale Austin Bowe had made. Her motives and ambitions hadn’t been that important to him… then. She’d played and replayed that forty-eight hours in her head, and after the first few weeks, the rape itself wasn’t as bad as having had to walk out that door, the physical act hadn’t been as ultimately humiliating as
her
damned relatives, dripping pity and so, so embarrassed she’d been a fool going off by herself, relatives so upset—it was clearer and clearer to her—that she’d damaged the reputation of the ship, humiliated her relatives, gotten them all ordered out of port—and they were all so, so disappointed when she didn’t shatter and come crawling to their damned condescending concern.

Hell, she got along
fine
after that, except their hovering over her and waiting for Marie to blow up. After mama died, Mischa took over the hovering, and Mischa had said to her and everybody who was interested that she’d be just fine if she ever found herself the right man.

That was funny. That was downright pathetically funny. Mischa thought if she just once got good sex she wouldn’t want to kill Austin Bowe.

Or Mischa Hawkins.

Sex good or bad hadn’t put Austin Bowe in charge of
Corinthian
. It might be gender, genes, family seniority, even, God help them, talent; but it sure as hell couldn’t be his performance in bed, and damned if hers that night had measured Marie Hawkins’ capacities, any more than Mischa’s self-reported staying power in a sleepover meant he was fit to captain
Sprite
.

—iv—

DAMN COM BEEPED. INSISTENTLY. If it wasn’t a screaming emergency, the perpetrator was dead.

Austin Bowe reached out an arm from under the covers, in a highly expensive station-side room, seeking toward the red light in the dark.

Which disturbed… whatever her name was. Who moaned and shifted and jabbed an elbow into his ribs as he punched the button.

“Austin.—What in
hell
do you want?”

“
Sprite’s
inbound.”

He blinked into the dark. Thoughts weren’t doing too well. Too much vodka. The fool woman sat up and started nuzzling his neck. He shoved her off. Hard.

“Captain?”

“Yeah, yeah, I copy.” The brain wouldn’t work. The body felt like hell. “Have we had any word from them?”

“No. They’re in approach.”

“What the hell are you doing on watch? Is this Bianco?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re in approach.”

“I’m sorry, sir. No excuse. About two hours from mate-up.”

“That’s just fucking wonderful. Can we not discuss it here, possibly? Where’s Christian?”

“I—hate to tell you this, captain.”

“All right, all right,
find
him. Dammit!”

“What are we to—?”

“Make it up, Bianco, damn your lazy hide, we’ve got a problem. Use your ingenuity!”

What’s-her-name put an arm around his neck. Said something he wasn’t listening to. Beatrice was on the dock somewhere. Their son was likewise somewhere on the docks, supposedly seeing cargo moved, but
Corinthian
didn’t know where Christian was at the moment?

“Aus-tin,” the woman said. “Is something wrong?”

“Damn dim-brain,” he muttered, and got up and looked for his clothes.

“That’s not nice.”

He found the light-switch. Glared at the fool, who looked scared and shut up.

Stationer, he remembered that. He had a headache to end all. He didn’t know how he’d ended up with a total fool. Crewwoman off a station-sweeper would have better sense than hang onto a ship’s officer with a trouble-call.

He dressed.

“Are you coming back?”

“If I do, you’d better have your ass out of here.” He pulled on his sweater. If he got any rest, he’d want
rest
, not present company, a bar-crawler with a libido too active for her bank-employed husband.

Hawkins. Worst damned mess he’d ever gotten into. Sending him death threats for more than twenty years. Psych case, as best he figured it, if not then, definitely now.

Woman with a problem. Cargo chief, market and commodities expert, as he got the make on the Marie Hawkins—looking for a way to get him, which might not be with a gun or a knife, give the woman credit for brains and professional expertise, which he hadn’t, the night he’d made one of the prime mistakes of his life.

And gotten a son who was reputedly
on
that inbound ship, as Marie Hawkins had continually been solicitous to let him know.

Damn. Damn and damn.

Station probably didn’t remember the incident. Stationers had a lot of trouble figuring ship-time, and hell if any ship actively helped them do it. Mariner’s records were blown to cold space, nothing he knew of had transferred, and
Corinthian
was clean at Viking.

So far.

“Aus-tin?”

“Damn you, you pay the tab, I’m fucking bored!”

He keyed the exit, he left at a fast clip, he didn’t know why he’d ever thought the stationer fool worth the price of the room, except Beatrice had her agreement, and they kept it, and that meant Beatrice had probably found herself some young piece foolish enough to think he could handle an exotic experience.

Which, if she’d snugged in for the duration of their scheduled layover, meant that finding Beatrice wasn’t a minor problem, either.

Beatrice wasn’t on cargo duty. Christian was. Austin walked out the fancy doors and onto the docks and took out the pocket com.

“This is Austin. Bianco, any information?”

“Sabrina’s looking,”
Corinth-com
said. “Christian’s been in touch off and on. I think he’s on green, right near the Transship office. He’s been in and out of there.”

“That’s just real good. Where’s our friend coming in?”

“Berth 19. Orange.”

Considerably separated from them, around the rim. That was a vast relief. “They request it?”

“I don’t know, captain. I didn’t think—”

“Right. I copy. I’m coming back to the ship. General recall, all staff who aren’t on a job.”

“I’m on it,” Bianco said.

As well say Red Alert. He didn’t want to talk cargo where station could pick it up, although he didn’t expect Viking to have any suspicion of trouble. Marie’s brother was captain on
Sprite
now, he’d heard that. Possibly
Sprite
had had no idea
Corinthian
was here, but it wasn’t
Sprite’s
ordinary route. Possibly they’d come in on the new station status.

Or possibly Hawkins had gotten information that made this no chance meeting at all.

And Hawkins, with her particular skills, was extremely bad news.

He started walking, looking for a ped-transport.
Corinthian
being on alterday schedule, meant dealing with second-tier station authorities, who didn’t always ask close questions, as well as avoiding some of the traffic that clogged mainday official channels. It had its advantages. But on the docks mainday and alterday were meaningless; the bars and shops were always open and there was always night, always darkness above the floodlights that lit the girders, up where the lights and the cold of the pipes made their own weather.

Warehouses. Processing areas. Factories. Food production. Fabrication. The place dwarfed everything but the ship-accesses and the machines that served them.

And a crew scattered on a two-week liberty with all of Viking Station to lose themselves in—was no easy matter to locate, individual by individual, in every tiny sleepover and bar on the strip. Christian had a com. The duty staff all had corns. Certain people weren’t answering.

One of Marie Hawkins’ most logical targets wasn’t damned well answering.

—v—

You didn’t expect a happy hello from Marie. You interrupted her at work and you took your chances. But Tom thought he should at least try, after the burn. The market figures were up on the screens. Marie, two senior cousins and four juniors were sorting through the usual welter of incoming stock market and commodities data off station feed.

But not the usual. He’d lay odds
Corinthian’s
arrival date and market dealings were somewhere in the figures on Marie’s monitors. She keyed the displays, in rapid sequence, to Privacy.

He leaned against the desk, arms folded: “I just thought I’d check on you.”

“I haven’t turned blue. What did Mischa say?”

“Mostly that he trusts you to do your job. Right or wrong?”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Which one of us?”

Marie slid him an oblique, grey-eyed look, and lifted a brow. Easy to understand how a man twenty years ago had made a move on Marie Hawkins.

“Outside
of Corinthian,”
he said, “how does it look?”

She caught that implication. He saw the second quirk of her brow, the tightening at the corner of her mouth.

“You’re bothering me,” Marie said, leaning back in her chair, folding her hands on her stomach. “Go somewhere.”

“Mischa said you’d be fine. He
trusts
you, Marie.”

“Right. Sure. I heard echoes of that, topside.” Marie shoved her chair back. “What did he say?”

He’d tried to compose it. The threads threatened to scatter under Marie’s sniping attacks. “Just—that you’ve got him scared for your safety, that he’s not real certain
Corinthian
isn’t going to lay for us out in the dark when we leave. He said, on the other hand, he agrees with you about doing our business and sticking to our area—”

“Where are we coming in?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard. “ He
hadn’t
, but he didn’t like the question or the direction of thinking it indicated. He didn’t know whether to break the news that he was her assigned tag or not. He didn’t think, on second thought, that he wanted that information to come out in the present context. “Just checking. Glad you’re fine. Talk to you later.”

Marie rocked forward, stood up, hauled him by the arm to the corridor. The off-shift was coming on, crawling out of bunks and stirring about preparatory to shift change. Cousins passed. Marie backed him against the wall, with, “Spill it.”