Tripoint (8 page)

She knew where it traded, when it traded, but not always
what
it traded.

She knew at least seven individuals of the Perrault clan had moved in from dead
Pacer
, long, long ago.
Pacer
had had no good reputation itself, a lurker about the edges, a small short-hauler that, on one estimation, had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time… and on another, had entirely deserved being at Mariner when it blew.

She knew that
Corinthian
took hired-crew, but it didn’t take them often or every voyage, or in great number. Hired-crew skuzzed around every station, most of them with egregious faults—tossed out of some Family, the worst of hire-ons, as a rule, or stationers with ambitions to travel, in which case ask what skills they really had, or the best of them, the remnant of war-killed ships. Sure, there were hired-crew types that weren’t out to cut throats, pick pockets, or mutiny and take a ship. But those were rarer, as the War generation sorted itself out.

Mutiny had never taken
Corinthian
. Which argued for a wary captain, a good eye for picking, or cosmic good luck.

Except that
Corinthian
rejects never turned up on dockside. And her crew spent like fools when they were in port—certainly hired-crew had reason to want to stay with
Corinthian
, and could count themselves well paid.

But nobody ever got off. Not that she’d found. Not, at least, in any crew record she’d found… and she’d searched—nothing to prevent any ship in any port from drinking down the hired-crew solicitations, and reviewing the backgrounds they’d admit to: had a program for that, too. And at Viking, where
Corinthian
had called frequently (since the second closing of the Hinder Stars, strange to say)—there were no
Corinthian
ex-crew. There might have been hires. But no one let off.

You couldn’t be so lucky as to get all saints, all competent, all devoted crewmen.

So what became of the rejects? There was still a commerce in human lives—rumor said; the same commerce as during the War, when the Mazianni had stopped merchanters and impressed crew. Rumor said… some ships that dealt with the Mazianni still traded surplus crew for a fair profit in goods, and therefore hired-crew had better watch what they hired-
to
.

The lurkers in the dark were certainly still out there. Accidents took ships—rarely, but accidents still happened, and ships still disappeared somewhere in the dark. Couldn’t prove that
Corinthian
in specific had anything to do with those rumored tragedies… but it had to get your attention. You had to realize… if you were in port with the likes
of Corinthian
, and if they knew you were on their trail… that your odds of accident had just gone higher, too.

You had to realize, if you were the only one aboard who wanted that son of a bitch’s hide, that certain members of the Family, less motivated and habitually more timid, would sabotage you, out of concern for their own lives.

So Tom was on her side. And Tom had talked to Mischa.

So Mischa had his spy.

Well, at least that meant walking out of the ship was easier.

—iii—

THE CENTRAL QUESTION, IN TOM’S mind, was how the clearance through customs was going to work—or, at least, how it was going to look.

If Mischa believed he was leaving the ship with Marie on
his
business, he’d get the permission fairly easily; but Mischa wasn’t supposed to know that he’d told Marie that Mischa had put him up to it, or he wasn’t supposed to know that Marie already knew all about it and they’d agreed to go diving in station records.

It was all too damned tangled, and he’d had word from Marie, which might or might not mean Marie accepted him at face value… or that Marie had been in contact with Mischa. He didn’t know—couldn’t know without asking questions that might bring Mischa and Marie head to head.

So he didn’t wait for official clearance to come to him from Mischa’s office. He excused himself off duty with Saja, telling Saja that Mischa had said see to Marie, and got Saja’s leave to go downside the minute
Sprite
locked into dock. He shut down his station, left his seat and rode the lift downside, leaving the cousins to wonder—and Saja to ask Mischa was it true, and Mischa to give the permission, granting Mischa hadn’t yet figured out that he’d gone over to Marie’s camp, and wouldn’t be reporting in.

He went to Marie’s office, found Marie talking with customs on com, a routine call he’d heard her make since he’d first sat in on her duty station—at six or seven, close to when Marie’d first taken him home. He’d thought all this exchange of numbers and origins and cargo data mysterious and impressive, then; he’d rated it tedious since—but now he listened to it in suspense, hoping for some clue to Marie’s intentions and dreading intervention from Mischa at any moment.

But nothing in the conversation sounded unusual, just Marie’s easy, crisp way with station officials, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. Station, at least, showed no indication to them that Viking was in any way nervous about their presence. He didn’t hear any word of special security arrangements from station officials, didn’t hear any advisement from Marie whatsoever that there was a history between
Sprite
and a ship already in dock—just a welcome in from station, a little chatter of a friendly nature, a little exchange of names and procedures.

A free port meant no customs to speak of, the way he’d understood the briefing, at least not the usual meticulous accounting of goods carried in. There were rules, mostly about firearms and drug trading, and an advisement that long-haulers would be advised to stay clear of white sector.

Meaning out of the Viking local haunts, he supposed, the territory of Viking miners, dockers, construction personnel, and the occasional citizens who preferred the free and easy atmosphere of dockside to the pricier, fancier establishments above.

In that arrangement, Viking was no different than Fargone, where you
didn’t
go into insystemer bars and sleepovers unless you were truly spoiling for a fight.

“We copy that,” Marie said. “We’re a quiet lot. Thank you. Glad to be here, hope we can be a regular. We need to do some on-site consultation with the Trade Bureau. Can you tell me who to talk to?”

His ears pricked up. A name. Ramon French, Trade Bureau, Union Affairs. Marie made another call, said they’d been called in on short notice, hadn’t any Alliance figures, wanted access to the local Trade resource library, in the Bureau, which they’d had word at Mariner that they would be able to access under the new rules. They had to establish an account, had to take care of certain legalities. General crew would exit in about an hour after shut-down, but certain officers would as soon be through customs early so they could get the credit accounts established, could Viking arrange that?

There was a good deal of back and forth after that, on screen, Marie looking for something, the program, he supposed it was, searching at high speed through the records for the patterns it wanted, while Marie talked on the station line with m’ser French, secretary in the Viking Trade Bureau, about accounts, and arranging the data search.

“Good, good,” Marie said, signed off, and spun her chair about. “I take it you’re coming, Tommy-lad.”

“I guess I am,” he said, wondering if it was really going to be that simple to get off the ship. But Marie just closed down her boards, led the way down the corridor, and keyed them through the airlock.

He was appalled. You didn’t just…
open
the lock without the captain’s order. But nobody had the lock codes alarmed, evidently. Mischa had to know what Marie was likely to do, and Mischa hadn’t ordered any special security.

Which was one vote, he guessed, for Mischa having told him at least a quarter of the truth.

Which might bear on who was telling the rest of the truth… and whether he ought in fact to report back to Mischa. Scary proposition, to be first out of the ship… down the winding access, breath frosting, and out the station lock on the downward ramp.

He’d never gone through customs with Marie before. Maybe the easy attitude he saw in the officers was because Viking had just become a free port, whatever that exactly encompassed. Maybe it was just that senior crew on reputable ships didn’t get the once-over and question and warning juniors got in places like Mariner and Fargone. Marie got a wave-through from a uniformed officer, the only one visible, without even a kiosk set up, or a single glance at her papers. She said, “He’s with me,” and the customs official waved him past with her.

Amazing. He thought he could like being senior crew, if that was what it meant. And Viking might be a grim, utilitarian place, as grim and browned-steel as his childhood memory of this station, but if it meant wave-throughs from customs, and no standing in long lines of exiting crew, he thought he could like Viking port’s attitude.

Except for the other clientele.

—iv—

BERTH 19 ORANGE SECTOR WAS moderately convenient to Viking’s blue section, where the Trade Bureau maintained its offices, a long walk or a relatively comfortable ride on one of the slow-moving public transports. There was, uncommon on stations Tom was familiar with, plenty of sitting room on the transport benches. You stepped aboard—if you weren’t able-bodied you could flag it to a complete stop—and it also would do a full stop at any regular Section Center, but otherwise you just intercepted it when it made one of its scheduled rolling stops, stepped up as you grabbed the boarding rail, and stepped off the same way.

One of those full stops was, of course, the station offices in blue sector. Marie got up, as the stop came up. He waited beside her, hanging onto the rail until the transport slowed down. A crowd was waiting to board, confronting a good number getting off. You could always figure that blue would be the highest traffic area on the station, give or take the insystemer bars at maindark or alterdark shift-change, or the occasional concert or public event: blue held all the station business offices, the administrative offices, the main branches of all the banks, the embassies and trade offices, the big corporate offices, and the station media centers. You saw people in business suits, people in coveralls—half the crowd carried computers or wire-ins, pocket-coms, you could take your pick of accountants and security officers, official types—those usually in single cab-cars that wove in and out of foot traffic, and hazardously close to the ped-transports: step off without looking and you could get flattened.

Heart-stopping, close call, that, just then, cab and pedestrians, human noise of a sort you only heard in places this dense with people. It gave him the willies… just too many people, all at once, going in chaotic directions, not caring if they hit each other. Marie stepped off in the middle of it. He stepped off beside her, his eyes tracking oncoming traffic.

“Straight on,” Marie said, as if she’d had an inborn sense where things were—or maybe she’d checked the charts. He hadn’t. He really didn’t like the jostling and the racket—he’d looked all along the dockside they passed for
Corinthian
patches, or for any reaction at all from Marie, as if she’d seen something or might be looking for something other than what she said, but Marie was cold and calm, all business, Marie tolerated people shoving into them, which was steadier nerves than he had, and fell back as the crowd surged toward the stopped transport. He caught his balance as a man shoved him, looked around for Marie as the transport started to roll, with people still trying to grab the rails and board.

Marie was back on the transport.

People shoved past him in a last-moment rush for available deck-space. He elbowed back and tried to catch the boarding rail, but others were in front of him and the transport was gathering speed, faster and faster.

“Marie!” he yelled, knocked into a man in a suit, and into a rougher type, who elbowed him hard. He wasn’t interested in argument. He ran, chasing the transport in the wake it made in the crowd, knocked into a woman as they both made a frantic grab for the standing pole on the rear of the transport flatbed. He caught it, and clung to it.

The woman had gone down. Others were helping her up, he saw them diminishing as, having gained the platform, he spared the glance back. He hoped the woman wasn’t hurt. He didn’t know what else he could have done, and he’d made it.

Wobbly-kneed and out of breath, he excused himself past several pole-hangers on the standing-room-only transport, worked his way up to where Marie was standing, likewise holding to the pole.

She awarded him a cold glance.

“Dirty damned trick,” he panted. “I knocked a woman down, Marie! Where in hell do you think you’re going? Where’s this about appointments with Records?”

“Did I bring you up to be naive?”

“Dammit, you brought me up to tell the truth!”

“That’s to me. Don’t expect any favors from the rest of the universe. Why don’t you jump off at the next stop?”

“Because I didn’t lie to you! I want to help you! Can’t you take loyalty when you get it?”

“I take it. For what it’s worth.”

“God, Marie!” He couldn’t get his breath. He hung on to the pole as the transport swerved. “This is crazy!”

“
I’m
crazy. Hasn’t Mischa told you? Poor Marie’s just not that stable.”

“You’re acting like it!” There were people all around them, giving them room, determinedly avoiding their vicinity even standing shoulder to shoulder with them. He couldn’t get breath enough to argue. He felt crushed by the crowds. He clung to the pole with one hand, people sitting behind them, the dock business frontage passing in a blur. Green sector was coming after blue, where, according to what they’d seen coming in,
Corinthian
was docked. “Where are we going? The obvious?”

“Not quite,” Marie said, leaving him to wonder, because they couldn’t discuss murder on a crowded transport.

He didn’t want Marie arrested. Marie wasn’t going to give him an answer here anyway, and he wasn’t entirely sure, by that last answer and by Marie’s sarcasm about poor Marie and Mischa, that Marie wasn’t still on to something that didn’t involve attacking
Corinthian
bare-handed, or doing something that could get both of them… he recalled Mischa’s warning all too vividly, and had a sickly and immediate fear in the pit of his stomach… caught by station police and ground up fine in station law.