Tripoint, page 18
part #6 of Company Wars Series
But then, third side… he couldn't get away by staying on the ship, and, fourth, even if it turned out to be a set-up, he might still turn the tables on whoever set him up (likely Christian) and get to the police.
Except—fifth—Christian was absolutely right about going to station police, it scared him, the way Lydia, damn her screwed-up meddling, had once had him terrified of being left on station; but there was a reasonable adult fear in it, too—depending on the seriousness of what Corinthian was involved in, it was a way to get tangled up in Pell's Legal Affairs office, in a cross-border incident, called in at least as a witness in some God-only-knew court case that could drag on and involve drugs he didn't want to take, when all he remotely wanted to do was get a ship to Viking and have a reasonable chance of meeting Sprite on a port call, give or take a year. Viking was an immediate port for Pell, there had to be numbers of ships going and coming, all the time. If everything Christian said was true and he had his papers, he could be out of there maybe in hours from the time he hit Pell docks, and have all of it behind him.
But—six—he could talk his way into free passage, maybe; but a year's wait, on Viking, even eating out of vending machines, was, God, he didn't know, 15000c, at sleepover rates, if he starved himself and stayed in the cheapest places he could find. That was the next worry. Either Christian would keep his word and bid him farewell on Pell's dock, scenario a, and he was on his own, to get transport… or, scenario b, back to the set-up… Christian might have something in mind else. Like double-cross. Like…
Like setting him up to be killed, so nobody would ask questions.
Could Christian do a thing like that? It was the most logical thing for Christian to do, if he didn't come with a conscience, if Austin didn't intend to let him go, ever, if…
God, he'd lost count. But scenario three, or eight, or whatever—if Christian was right, and Austin might try to work him into crew, beat hell out of him until he learned to say yessir to Austin the way Christian did—
But after that, Austin wouldn't let him go, either, he'd just be on better terms with Austin. Which he by no means wanted. Christian and Christian's mother damn sure didn't.
So they agreed on something. The question was what they actually intended for a solution to the tangle.
He just wanted to go to sleep. God, he desperately wanted not to think.
But then he had a colder, more awful thought, and pulled open the panel beside the bunk.
No trank to keep him sane. No packets. He'd used them all. Nobody'd resupplied the locker. On Sprite, they checked and rechecked them, made sure every one was refilled.
Christian was in charge, on mainday. Christian was running things and Austin wasn't on duty.
Now he really couldn't sleep. Accel was hell enough and most times you could sleep through it, if you didn't mind feeling in two directions at once, but right now the knowledge of that empty panel and the lack of a com in the brig combined to upset his stomach. He kept rolling Christian's motives over and over, told himself, one, it was a long time until 0448h, and the minute someone started stirring about he could get attention to the problem. And, two, maybe if Christian was trying to scare him, he could get other attention at shift change…
Maybe the dark-haired girl would come back. Even Capella. It was no good lying and sweating, there'd be a chance to talk to someone, surely, they weren't going to go without a final check.
This, in the ship that didn't sound but cursory warnings when it moved.
It was an hour before they went inertial. He got up then, risking his neck, God, stiff and sore, every movement he made—maybe the ribs were cracked from the fight, maybe not, but that was minor compared to the chance of being left with no supplies down here. He yelled. He banged the walls, he yelled again at every remote sound he heard, hoping someone would hear.
Eventually he heard someone walking in the corridor, and screamed to anyone out there that he hadn't any trank, dammit, he needed help, he needed somebody to tell the captain…
Tink came walking up, with a tray—with trank and the nutri-packs on it, along with breakfast, or supper, or something, and one of Tink's decorated pastries.
Relief flooded through him and left a flutter like electric shock.
"We weren't going to forget you," Tink said. "We weren't going to forget you, no time we ever forgot the brig."
"I didn't know you were in charge. God, I'm glad to see you."
"Yeah, yeah. Galley always sees to stations. Always a snack first—first class stuff, here."
"It's wonderful. " He tried to make light of it, feeling foolish. "Thanks, Tink. " But he was shaking so when he took the tray through the opening in the bars that the liquid shook in the cup. "Sugar-flowers. That's real pretty."
"Made it special. I'm real sorry I left you alone yesterday. I am. Wouldn't've happened if I hadn't left."
"Not your fault. It's all right, Tink."
Tink looked troubled… beyond 'it's all right. ' "Scuttlebutt was… there was an order."
"On what?"
Tink evaded his eyes. Found an interesting spot on the floor to the far side of the bars. "Like, it was just an order."
An order. And Tink just happened to need to change a filter?
"Tink?"
Tink still didn't look at him, quite.
He felt a twinge of regret. Of disappointment. Of anger, for Tink's sake… and his own.
"Yeah," he said, "I copy. Thanks. Thanks, Tink. Really, thanks."
"I didn't know they was going to do that!"
"You didn't know my brother was going to do that. I should've figured it."
"He ain't a bad officer," Tink said. "He's a layoff, but things get done.—And he's fair, most times. The captain's got him bothered."
"About what? What's enough, to go to that trouble? Tink, Tink, he's saying… he's saying he'll get me off at Pell. That I can go free. Is he lying?"
Tink looked at him then. A long, troubled look.
"What's the truth, Tink? I swear… I swear I won't say where I heard it, just tell me, and I'll believe you."
"The junior's a nice guy," Tink said. "He really is. Tries to take the crew's side. Stood between the hire-ons and the senior. Michaels. Michaels is who you don't cross. But the junior'll always hear you, if there's a side you got, you understand me? I don't figure what he did, it ain't like him to set somebody up like that, except he's got some notion you're a problem—on account of your mama. I hear she's got a grudge with the captain."
"You could say."
"So maybe that's it. " Tink cast a nervous glance down the corridor. "Tom, I got other places to get to, I got to hurry. We got jump at Oh Five, just short. Can't collect the tray, just kind of dump it in the shower when you're through, all right? And latch the door? I got a lot of stations to get to, before. But I come here first."
"Yeah," he said, "yeah, thanks, Tink. Sincerely, thanks."
He took the tray back to his bunk, sat down, dug in to the synth eggs-'n-ham, which wasn't bad, but peculiar. It had leafy stuff in it, that wasn't algae. Strong-flavored stuff. Maybe it was another thing they got off a living world, like a real spice. He'd had a few—just a few.
But he figured it had to be all right—Jamal kept the galley so clean, if green stuff turned up it was legit, and safe, and probably expensive. And once you thought that, it began to taste fairly good.
Not surprising, he told himself, what Tink had said. He'd had a halfway instinct about it, that he couldn't trust Christian's motives.
So Christian had him beaten to hell so he could get him to believe what he was going to say.
So he'd been a fool when, for about a dozen heartbeats, he'd leaned on Christian Bowe, believed he'd found someone in the universe who gave a damn slightly more than Marie gave.
Stupid, he said, to himself. He was ashamed, outright angry that he'd given serious credence to Christian's persuasions.
But hell if he'd let on. He'd be far more foolish to let on to Christian that he knew what he did know—and he had confidence in what Tink had told him. Tink didn't have any motive to lie to him. Christian did. Tink hadn't looked at all comfortable telling him what he'd told him—Christian had been so, so smooth, not a flicker of conscience in his delivery.
All of which argued that he had an ally in Tink, if he wanted to put it on Tink's shoulders, but he could get Tink in a helluva lot of trouble on that account, too, and he didn't damn want to, for Tink's sake.
He ate the pastry, thinking about that. It was as good as it looked, dark, with a rough, smoky flavor different than any chocolate he'd ever had. He thought it might just be real, and he wasn't sure if everybody got it, or just people Tink wanted to do it for.
Whatever—it was good. Whatever—Tink didn't need to apologize for being absent. Whatever—Tink had no reason to tell him what he'd told him, except some sense of fairness, except maybe everything he thought he read in the man was true—because Tink didn't read out to him as vengeful, or a habitual or purposeful liar. He'd do a lot for Tink. He hadn't met anybody like Tink, on Sprite or on the docks, and Tink had a piece of his priorities, if Tink ever somehow needed something he could do.
But he could think of a thousand reasons for Christian to lie, and to want him off the ship—if only for the reasons that Christian had plainly admitted to him as his reasons.
It made… not quite a lump in his throat, but at least welling up of feeling he hadn't expected to apply, on this ship. Didn't know why he should be surprised. Even Marie'd double-crossed him, in her way—played him for a fool, ditching him on the docks the way she had.
The truly embarrassing thing was, he couldn't learn. Cousins had caught him in sucker-games, and you'd think he'd get cleverer—he had, give him credit, grown more reserved with them. But the harder Marie had shoved him away the more desperate he was to get close to her—
Kid mentality. Panic instinct. Once, in a corridor downside she'd told him she wasn't speaking to him, and walked off-he'd followed, gotten slapped in the face, and kept it up, and gotten slapped… he'd been, maybe, five, six, he wasn't sure, but it came back to him sometimes with particular clarity, the smothered feeling, the feeling he had to hold on to Marie, and he'd known he was making her madder, he'd known she was going to hit him every time he caught her, but he kept doing it, and grabbing at her clothes and screaming his head off—she kept hitting him, until Marie got a better grip on her panic than he had on his—it was panic, he'd figured that out somewhere years later, panic on her side, panic on his.
God knew. They did it to each other, simply existing. He'd gone to that warehouse in some confused sense of responsibility for Marie he would have thought he'd learned not to have.
She'd kept him, Mischa had said, for reasons that had scared him—that ought to scare anybody with a conscience and a responsibility—but had Mischa done anything to protect him'
Not one solitary thing.
A half-brother who wanted rid of him. A father who wished he'd never existed.
He wasn't anybody Sprite expected anything from, either,—hadn't Mischa said so? He'd screwed up. Everybody expected it. Why in hell shouldn't he deliver? Only major time he'd ever helped Marie, he'd screwed up.
And why spare Christian, or his father? Why cooperate with anyone at all, except to spite the powers that created him? Try helping them, maybe. Worst thing he could think of to do to anybody.
Didn't want to hurt Tink, though, really didn't want to hurt Tink, or get him arrested, or lose his license—he didn't even know the guy but a couple of days, but Tink didn't deserve it. Wasn't fair that he couldn't think about Corinthian anymore without remembering specific faces, guys like Tink, guys like those sons of bitches he'd like to find when he didn't have a cable on his wrist, but he didn't want to kill them, just…
Wasn't damned fair. Corinthian hadn't been faces to him. Hadn't been people like Tink, at all.
Which meant he should disappear fast when he got to Pell, just out the lock and out of port, no note to the cops, nothing that could screw his father the way he deserved.
Chapter Six
—i—
NUMBERS WERE SPIELING OUT TOWARD jump, arbitrary destination at this point, but crew of both shifts on last-minute errands needed the time to reach secure places. The bridge was all shift-changed. The last, the pilot switchover, was quick, exchange of a couple of words of report, and Beatrice settled into her post, still mildly pissed, you could tell it in the set of her jaw.
Mildly pissed was more worrisome than raging hell in Beatrice's case, and Austin kept an eye on the aristocratic, pale-skinned arrogance that was one damned fine pilot smiling with perfect friendliness at her outgoing shift-mate.
Mildly pissed meant that some event had made la belle Beatrice a little happier about the cause célèbre Beatrice wasn't talking about, namely Hawkinses. She wasn't giving him advice, he had had all the advice he wanted, and he strongly suspected the meeting between Beatrice and Christian, that he was sure he wasn't supposed to know about, had had something to do with a handful of dockers trying the new boy on board, something to do with Christian's pulling said new boy aside—for a talk, presumably.
From which, exit Tom Hawkins with new clothes—expensive clothes. Christian's. They were about the same size.
"On target," Beatrice said, without looking at anyone. "Five minutes, mark."
Beatrice was, face it, jealous—jealous of her position, which never was threatened except by her damnable moods. So her personal effort had produced a shipboard Bowe offspring. It hadn't been his idea. Ten years of immature brat whose whereabouts had to be assured before the ship moved, thank God for Saby or the Offspring would have gone smack against the bulkhead for sure. Ten more years of juvie phobias, psychoses, and damn-his-ass attitudes before the brat was supposed to turn into an adult with basic common sense.
Which meant knowing when to take a wide decision and when to realize he didn't have all the information and he should ask before he did something irrevocable.
But, oh, no, Christian wouldn't ask. Christian knew everything.
Christian was full of bullshit.
Christian had been tormenting Hawkins, probably from the time he came aboard, right down to the instant he caught him at it, and now Christian was a sudden source of wardrobe and brotherly sympathy?
Don't mind papa, he beats up on all of us?
Double bullshit.
Christian had gotten Hawkins' temper up in the encounter they'd just had… and he'd gone on to try that temper, quite deliberately—only prudent, considering Hawkins had had that particular mother for a moral and mental guide, Marie Hawkins whispering her own sweet obsession into young Hawkins' ear, guiding his steps, maybe right onto Corinthian's deck, who but Hawkins could possibly know?
Hawkins' back had hit the wall and he'd come up yelling I'll kill you. Which was the truth. Maybe only for that moment, and maybe only in extremity, it was the unequivocated truth—but extremities occurred, moments did happen, desired or not, and Hawkins was a bomb waiting all his life to find such a moment.
It made him unaccountably angry, that Marie Hawkins had done that to the boy. He couldn't be sure, of course, that he could write the whole of Hawkins' reactions down to Marie Hawkins' account, but when Hawkins had come away from the wall shouting what he had, his own nerves had reacted off the scale, just… bang. Kill him. Grab him and beat his head against the wall until he yells quit.
And afterward, reverberations in himself far out of proportion to the quarrel, shaky-kneed reaction that hadn't let up for half a damned hour after he'd walked out of that cell and back to the territory where the captain ruled as lord and master of Corinthian.
He didn't know why. He wasn't accustomed to react like that to a confrontation, not with crew, not with Beatrice, not with Christian.
So he didn't know why he felt a personal hurt for Hawkins' reaction. Maybe that Marie Hawkins had done something off the scale of his personal (if more rational) morality, doing that to the flesh of her own flesh—couldn't say he was surprised. Marie Hawkins hadn't become a lunatic after they'd spent forty-eight hours barricaded… she'd been crazy before they'd ever shared a bed, and it might be, to his observation, a genetically transmitted imbalance.
So why did Marie Hawkins' unfair action get him in the gut? What did he fucking care about Marie Hawkins or her kid?
Most spacer-men never met their offspring. And vice-versa.
Which seemed, from where he sat, now, an eminently sensible idea. He hadn't had a sister. Not even a female cousin. He'd have been spared shipboard offspring in the lateral or the vertical sense—if Beatrice hadn't double-crossed him and tossed her contraceptive.
Damn the woman. She'd had no right, no bloody right, to do that in the first place, and none at all, now, to play the jealous fool with him over a woman he cared absolutely nothing about and the offspring he'd never remotely planned to deal with.
"Mark. Three to jump," came from Beatrice.
Go on dockside separately, they did, he and Beatrice, that was the agreement. They didn't account to each other for their bedmates, they trusted each other for basic good taste—and suddenly Beatrice went green-eyed jealous over a cold-natured Family bitch whose primary interest the first and only night they'd slept together was in seeing him fried?
He had an uncomfortable idea precisely on what inspiration Beatrice's birth control had failed, now that he thought of it. And why Corinthian's chief pilot had inconvenienced herself at least long enough to deliver that statistically rare failure into the universe, Beatrice talking, like a fool, about personal curiosity, and biological investment, and primal urges…
