Tripoint (9 page)

Held on station while the ship went on without them. Psych-adjusted, however far that went, until they didn’t threaten anyone.

Stationers wouldn’t kill you, no, they didn’t believe in the death penalty. When the psychs were through with you, you couldn’t even wish you had that option. That was what Marie was risking, and he shut up, because he didn’t
know
what the local law was; he didn’t know whether just suspicion of intent to commit a crime could get you arrested—it could, on Cyteen Outer Station, and he didn’t want to talk about specifics or name names with witnesses all around them. He just clung to the pole on the overcrowded transport, watched Marie for some evidence of an intent to bolt, and watched the numbers pass as they trundled along from blue dock, where the government and the military ships came in—a government contracted cargo didn’t entitle them—toward green dock, ordinary merchanter territory, closer and closer to
Corinthian
.

The transport stopped just before the green section doors. Three passengers got on, maybe ten or fifteen people got off. A transport passed going the other direction, and stopped near them. He stood ready to move in case Marie should try to lose him again, and go the other way around the station rim. But she stayed still, refused when he pointed out to her that there was a seat free. Someone else took it. Marie held to the pole, not saying anything, but sharp and eager and not at all distraught—happy, he kept thinking, uneasily, happy and alive to her surroundings in a way he’d never seen in his life.

They passed the section doors and rolled into green. He didn’t know
Corinthian’s
exact berth, but he had it pegged from the visual display as somewhere a third of the way into green out of blue.

He wasn’t ready for Marie’s hop off the transport as it slowed for a flag-down. He jumped, and tagged her quick pace along the frontage of bars and sleepovers, overtook her as she stopped and waited for him.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Marie, what are you doing?
Tell
me when you’re getting off!”

“The berth’s right down there,” Marie said, gazing down-ring, deeper into green. “They’re showing as offloading.”

He could see the orange light, but only a single transport was sitting, loaded, at the berth. “Not moving.”

“Taking their own time, for certain. I want a look at the warehouse and the company where that’s going. The transport logo says Miller.”

It sounded better than shooting at
Corinthian
crew. “What are we looking for, specifically?”

“What we can find. What they’re dealing in. “ She grabbed his sleeve and drew him back against the frontage of a trinket shop as a man walked past them. He was confused for a moment, looking for obvious threat on the man, but Marie didn’t let up.

“That’s a
Corinthian
patch.
Corinthian
officer.”

Sleeve-patch on the light green coveralls showed a black circle, an object he understood was some kind of ancient helmet. Crossed missiles. Spears. He’d learned that word from Marie. The patch had never looked half as much merchanter as military.

But, then, that described
Corinthian
to a tee.

And that might even be a cousin, striding along as if he owned the dock. Or a cousin’s shipmate, he amended the thought, considering that the slurs about hire-ons and sex as a pre-req for employment that he’d heard all his life from his cousins were probably entirely true. He found himself nervous, unaccountably afraid, even in this degree of proximity to the ship and a side of his life he didn’t want to meet.

“Come on,” Marie said, and tugged at his arm, urging him closer to that berth.

“No!” He disengaged, grabbed her arm and drew her back. “You said you’d settle with them in the market. You said you were looking for. something in the data.”

“Scared?”

“You can’t go down there, I won’t let you go down there.”

“Won’t let me?”

“I won’t. If they spot a
Sprite
patch, they’re going to be all over us. It’s crazy, Marie! If you can fix him through the market, do it, I’m with you, I’ll help you, but I’m not going to see you go down there and do something stupid!”

“I’m fine. What’s to worry about? Afraid to say hello to your father? I’m sure he’d be interested.”

The cousins who gave him trouble had nothing on Marie. “I doubt he knows I exist. Unless you know a reason for him to.”

“Interesting question.”

“Marie,—for God’s sake—”

“It’s not a problem, Tom, I don’t know why you’re making it a problem. We just go a little closer, have a look around…”

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“Marie, what do you care now? After twenty years, for God’s sake, what could you possibly
care
about that man? I don’t. I don’t give a damn where he is, what he does, I don’t want to meet him, I don’t want to know anything about him.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No, I’m not afraid, but—”

“Liar yourself.”

“Do you want him to rule your life, Marie? Is what happened twenty years ago going to govern your whole damned career?”

Marie’s hand was in motion, and he’d gotten faster over the years. He blocked it. It stung, even so.

“Don’t you lecture me!” Marie hissed. “Don’t you lecture me, Thomas!”

“‘Bygones be bygones.’ Hell!”

He wasn’t looking for the second try. He didn’t intend the force of the hand that blocked it.

“Cut it out, Marie!”

“Don’t you lift a hand to me, don’t you ever lift a hand, you hear me?
Damn
you!”

“I said cut it out!” He intercepted the third try, realized he was holding too tight and let go. “I’m not
him
, dammit, Marie, I’m not
him
, God, stop—
stop
it, Marie!”

She got a breath. She was absolutely paper white, staring at him with white-edged eyes, mouth open—he was shaking. She could still do that to him, he didn’t know why, except that she could make him mad and that when he was mad he didn’t think. He could hit her in his temper and maybe hurt her, maybe
want
to hurt her, that was the fear that paralyzed him.

She got her breath. She stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”

“I didn’t know there was a side!”

“You damned well believe there’s a side! Don’t you talk to Mischa behind my back! I didn’t have to have you. I didn’t have to keep you. And what’s fair—what’s fair, Tom, your talking to Mischa, when Mischa never did one damned thing to help me, my own ship never did a damned thing to help me—like it was all
my
fault—”

“I know what you feel, Marie, I don’t blame you, but you don’t know—”

“You don’t know what I feel! You don’t know any part of what I feel. Don’t give me that!”

“I don’t want this ship to leave you in some station psych unit!”

“I’m not
stupid
, boy! Does Mischa think I’m stupid?”

“Mischa doesn’t have a damned thing to do with my being here, I’m here for
you
, Marie, for God’s sake, don’t act like this! Listen to me!”

“Get away from me!” She shoved him off, ran along the frontages, and he ran after her, caught her, but she started hitting him.

“Marie,—”

“Hey!” somebody said, a voice he didn’t know. Someone grabbed him hard from behind and shoved him, Marie broke and ran, and he was staring at an angry spacer a head taller and a good deal wider, yelling, “What’s your problem?”

“That’s my
mother
, dammit!”

The man grabbed him by the collar. “You treat your mama like that?”

“She’s in trouble! Let me go!”

“What trouble?”

“Let go!” He broke the hold and ducked, ran toward
Corinthian’s
berth, and stopped, having lost all sight of Marie. Someone came running behind him, and he swung around, held up both hands in token of peace, ducked the man’s attempt to grab him again.

“I’m telling you that’s my mother, it’s crew business, I’m not after a fight—just leave me the hell alone, she’s breaking regs, I got to find her!”

He shoved the man off, ran down the dock closer to
Corinthian
, hoping he’d find some hidey-hole Marie might have found—there were bars and he skidded into one, hoping for a service door—saw one, but it was behind the bar. He kited back along the wall as the damnfool spacer came in looking for him. He slipped out the door behind the man’s back, then ran down the row to the second bar over, and into the far dim back of the room, in case the man should give it another try. He was out of breath, hoped the man hadn’t called the cops. He saw a public phone and went to it—it was too far around the station rim to rely on the pocket-com. He punched in the universal number for ship-lines,
Sprite’s
berth at orange 19, then the internal number for bridge-corn.

“This is Tom Hawkins. Put me through to the captain, this is an extreme emergency.”

Mischa came on, immediately, with, “Where did she lose you?”

“Green 10,” he said, shamefaced. God, not even a What happened?

“Kid, stay
put
, do you copy? Where are you right now?”

He had to look up at the bar name on the back wall. “The
Andromeda. “

“You don’t budge from there. Do you copy? Don’t budge. Saja’s on the dock. He’s had you in sight. He’s been trying to catch up to you since you left, damn your hide.”

Chasing us, he thought. Why? They had the com. Why didn’t they just call us?

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll be here. “ Imagination painted what Marie might be up to, trying to get on board
Corinthian
, lying in ambush for their crew on dockside—getting caught at it, and arrested, because
Corinthian
had probably gathered all sorts of evidence on Marie’s intentions over the years, if Mischa was right about the messages she’d sent.

He hung up. He followed the edge of the room, around the tables, not to leave the bar, but because he wanted not to be visible from the door. Traffic was moderate in the establishment. A group of spacers came in and went to the bar. He spotted a darkness about the patch. It could be
Corinthian
. He couldn’t tell from his vantage; and the man that was following him hadn’t shown. He thought he might just sit down in the corner and order a drink, but it wasn’t a table-service kind of place, you had to go up to the bar, and he wasn’t eager to go up there with the newcomers.

He took a look outside, a careful look-see, anxious whether there was any sight of
Sprite
personnel, or whether the man who’d followed him into one bar was still searching.

No sign of either. But he saw Marie, down the row, just standing in front of some shop, looking across the wide dock to
Corinthian’s
operations zone.

He could go back and call Mischa. He could lose her, that way. He stayed where he was, thinking Saja and his group could spot him that way, and thinking to keep Marie in sight.

But Marie started to walk along the frontage, still in the direction she’d been going, with consistent looks toward
Corinthian’s
area.

Stalking them. He stood watching, looked frantically for Saja to show up, and. saw Marie getting further and further away.

Screw it, he thought. Mischa knew where he was better than he was going to know where Marie was if he didn’t move. He started walking as fast as he could—he figured running would draw attention he didn’t want. He just tried to look like someone on business, without making the noise that would alarm Marie or drive her to cover down some service access that on some docksides you found unlocked.

She stopped and took something from her pocket, he was scared to death it was a gun; but it was an optic of some sort, maybe a camera, he wasn’t sure. She was looking toward
Corinthian
and he took the chance to run, as lightly and quietly as he could, in her direction.

She saw him at the last moment, spun about in alarm and then scowled at him.

“Dammit,” he panted. “What are you looking at?”

“Damn yourself. The answer’s Miller Transship, 23 green, no long distance from 10. They’re onloading. But that’s a Miller company transport. You’d know that son of a bitch was going to deal all inside.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s not hiring outside help. No freight handling by any outside party. He sells to Miller, he buys from Miller, Miller’s his transport, his commissioned supplier…”

“That’s not illegal, is it?”

“No, it’s not illegal. It does mean there’s minimal contact with people who might ask questions. God, I wish we’d been here just five days ago.”

“When he was offloading.”

“Damn right when he was offloading. The market’s just so smooth right now. Can you imagine a ship arriving and the market not showing a single change on the boards?”

He couldn’t. The market always reacted. “I don’t think so.”

“Bravo. You don’t think so.”

“So what do you think?”

“Oh, just coincidence.
Corinthian
just carries such a mix of average goods you just don’t get a tick at all. Goods Miller warehoused the instant that ship hit system. And you still don’t get a tick.”

“Why doesn’t station spot it?”

“Station may have spotted it. But it’s not illegal for Miller to hold a shipment off the boards, either.
They’re
a transshipper. They don’t have to declare in a free or a dutied port, not since the War. Transshipped goods are technically still in transit until they deliver them elsewhere.”

“With the cargo broken up and dribbled out in patterns that don’t make patterns.”

“Brilliant. You must have gotten deviousness from his side.”

“The hell I did. What are you going to do about it?”

“Just take a few pictures. “ Marie lifted the camera that probably, he thought, had a close-up function that meant business.

And a couple of
Corinthian
crewmen were looking their direction, maybe out of frame from what Marie saw.

“Marie. Marie, they’re looking at us. Let’s just walk.”