Tripoint, page 2
part #6 of Company Wars Series
Mischa possibly could have handled it better—but you never knew where you were going with Marie. Mischa could have been easier on Marie—but she'd lied to him the minute she'd said bygones could be bygones with that ship. She'd lied to his face, and her brother, as ship's senior captain, had laid the law down.
Drawn a line Marie Hawkins shouldn't cross—and that was a mistake with Marie, on a good day.
Her son said, quietly as he could, "May I be excused, sir?"
"I want to see you. In my office. One hour. I've got my hands full right now. You leave your mother alone. You don't need her advice. Hear me, Thomas?"
"Yes, sir." At least, at twenty-three, he'd outgrown 'boy.' Other uncles managed to say 'son' to their sisters' offspring. Mischa never had. It was 'your mother' when he disavowed Marie, it was 'Marie' when they agreed, and 'Thomas' when his behavior was in question. "Yes, sir, I hear you."
"Go on." Mischa gave him a back-of-the-hand wave.
He walked back to the lift. Other heads averted quickly, back to business, except the most senior cousins, who gave him analytical stares, wondering, quite probably, whether Thomas Bowe-Hawkins was in fact part of the Hawkins family, or whether, because of that ship sitting at Viking dock, he was going to do something lethally stupid.
"Son."
Saja. Tech chief. Likewise giving him a warning stare, turning in his seat to do it.
But Saja was senior on duty right now and couldn't break away, so that was one heart-to-heart lecture he could duck, although if he had to choose, he'd take Saja's over the captain's, no question.
The lift came up from downside, where Marie had left it. He punched Down, hoping Marie had gone to her office, and left the corridor. She'd be working, after this, nonstop, and God help anybody in the Family who walked through her office door. He knew her fits: Marie worked when she was mad, Marie worked when she was upset, Marie got up for no reason at all in the middle of the night and went to the office, staying there nonstop, thirty-six, forty, fifty hours, when she got in a mood, and he wouldn't go near her now by any choice.
The lift stopped. The door opened. Marie was waiting for him on lower deck, leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded.
"What did you say to him?"
"Nothing. I swear. Nothing."
Marie's eyes were grey, black-penciled like her brows; and cold, cold as a moon's heart when she didn't like you. In point of fact, she didn't always like her son. She was undoubtedly thinking about Corinthian, maybe seeing Bowe's face on him… he didn't know. He'd never known. That was the hell of it.
So now Austin Bowe was Corinthians senior captain. Mischa and Marie kept current using dockside sources he didn't have, clearly they did.
"I've done my job, " Marie said, "I've worked for this ship. Where does he get off, calling me on the deck like that, in front of the whole damned crew?"
"I think he just wanted you to know, before the word got out—he couldn't leave…"
"The hell he couldn't! The hell he couldn't manage the intercom. Wake up, Marie, oh, by the way, Marie, could you come up here, Marie? Damn him!"
"I'm sorry." When Marie blew, it was the only safe thing to, say. Teenaged cousins clustered in the corridor, now, down by the infirmary. Probably it was a shock case, some young fool cheating on the nutri-packs. Every half-grown kid thought he knew what was enough—at least once in his life.
"Mischa's going to be talking to you, " Marie said. "I know his ways. He's going to be telling you all his good reasons why poor Marie can't be trusted outside. Poor Marie's just too emotional to do her job. Marie who got raped and beaten half to hell while her mother and her brother dithered about station law just might do something like go down the dock and take a cargo hook to the son of a bitch that did it, because poor Marie just never got over it. I chose to have you because I choose what happens to me, and Mischa doesn't trust poor Marie to manage her own damned life! Well, poor Marie is going to go around to her office and study the market reports and see if there's any way in hell to screw Austin Bowe's ship lit the financial market, legally, because that's my arena! So when dear Mischa calls you in to tell you you've got to spy on poor Marie, for the sake of the ship, you'll know just what to tell him."
"He wants to see me."
"How could I not guess? Tell him to—" Marie shut her mouth. "No, tell him whatever you want to tell him. But I'm not crazy, I'm not obsessed. Motherhood's not my career, I've always been clear on that, but you've turned out all right." She reached—in teenage years he'd flinch—she'd fought that piece of hair all his life. She brushed it away from his eyes. It fell. "Tell Mischa he's an ass and I said so.—It was a long time ago I told you kill that son of a bitch that fathered you. It was a bad time, all right? I made some mistakes. But you've turned out all right."
It was the first time Marie had ever admitted that. She paid him a compliment, and he latched on to it with no clear idea how much she meant by it—like a fool, he tucked it into that little soft spot he still labeled mama, and knew very well that Marie of all people wasn't coming down with an attack of motherhood. She was absolutely right. It wasn't her specialty—though she had her moments, just about enough to let on maybe there was something there, enough to make you want a whole lot more than Marie was ever going to give, enough sometimes to make you feel you'd almost attained something everybody else was born having.
She walked away, on her way to her office.
The general com blasted out the announcement that juniors should be careful about the nutri-packs, and take their dosages faithfully.
You could guess. Some kid down in infirmary had muscle cramps he thought he'd die of and a headache to match.
Always a new generation of fools. Always the ones that didn't believe the warnings or read the labels.
He'd trade places with that kid—anything but show up in Mischa's office and listen to Mischa's complaints about Marie. Mischa couldn't tell Marie to sit down and shut up. He didn't know why, exactly, Mischa couldn't. But something Marie had said a moment ago, about her mother and Mischa waiting for station law—that was another bit in a mosaic he'd put together over the years, right pieces and wrong pieces. Put them in and take them out, but never question Marie too closely or you never got the truth.
Sometimes you got a reaction you didn't want. His nerves still twitched to tones in Marie's voice, nuances of Marie's expression. Sometimes she'd strike out and you didn't know why.
Not a good mother—although he liked Marie most of the time. Sometimes he admitted he loved her, or at least toyed with the idea that he did, because there was no one else. Gran was dead at Mariner. He didn't remember her except as a blurry face, warm arms, a lap. Saja… Saja was solving a staff problem, by taking his side. And Mischa…
Well, there was Mischa.
—ii—
"How's your mother taking the situation?" Mischa asked, leaning back, with the desk between them.
That was a trap, and a broad one. Mischa, monitor the lower corridor? Spy on his own crew and kin?
Maybe.
"I don't know, sir. We did talk. She wanted to."
"She did." Mischa didn't seem to believe that, just stared at him a beat or two. "I don't know how much of the detail she ever gave you…"
Plenty. Much too much, and he didn't want a rehash from Mischa, but he'd found out one and two things he'd not heard before in the last hour, just by listening, and he sensed a remote chance of more pieces.
He shrugged, nerved himself not to blow, and waited.
"We pulled into Mariner," Mischa said. "Like now, Corinthian was at dock. Ten other ships. It was the middle of the War, stations were jittery, you didn't know what side the ship next to you might be on. Corinthian was real suspect. Had a lot of money, crew throwing it around. The ship smelled all over like a Mazianni sellout, but you couldn't prove it. We had a caution on them. And my sister—" Mischa rocked the chair, regarded him a moment, frowning. "Austin Bowe's the devil, Granted. Marie was seventeen, sweet, happy kid—in those years nobody could know for sure who was running clean and who wasn't. You stayed close to kin and you didn't spill everything you knew in sleepovers with strangers. That was the atmosphere. And this was her first time cruising the docks, not sure she's going to do it, you know, but looking. 'Stay close to Family, ' mama said. 'Stick with your cousins. ' Two ships in port, we knew real well. We—Saja and I—tried to set her up with a real nice guy off Madrigal. We arranged a meeting, we were going to meet some of their crew in a bar, but Marie ducked out on us. Wouldn't go with us, no. We waited. We had a drink, we had two. Marie knew the name of the bar, she had her pocket-com, she didn't answer a page, I was getting damn worried, I was stupid—Saja kept saying we should call in, I figured Marie was doing exactly what she did, she wouldn't go with any guy her brother set up, oh, no, Marie was going to do things her way, and Heston—he was captain, then—was going to kill her, you know what I mean? I was covering for her. I figured she wasn't too far away. Wrong, again. We started searching, bar to bar, quiet, not raising any alarm. Next thing I know I've got a call from the ship saying they'd had a call relayed through station com, clear around Manner rim, Marie's in trouble in some sleepover she doesn't know the name of, she's crying and she's scared."
Marie didn't cry. Never knew Marie to cry. He didn't recognize the woman Mischa was telling him about. And he couldn't fault Mischa on what Mischa said he'd done.
"What we later reconstructed," Mischa said, "your mother'd hopped a ped transport that passed us. That was how she ducked out. She'd gone into blue sector—we were in green—pricier bunch of bars, not a bad choice for a kid looking for action, and here's this complete stranger, tall, good-looking, mysterious, the whole romantic baggage… Corinthian junior officer gets her drunker than she ought to be, talks her into bed, and it gets kinkier and rougher than she knows how to cope with. She gets scared. Guy's got the key—mistake number two. Mama—your gran—gets the com call. At which point I get the call, mama's on her way over to blue with Heston, and they've called the cops. At least Marie had the presence of mind to know the guy was Corinthian, she could tell us that. So the cops called Corinthian, Corinthian probably called Bowe—but Bowe's Corinthian's senior captain's kid, so you know Corinthian's not just real eager to see him arrested, and in those days, stations weren't just real eager to annoy any ship either. Supply was too short, they were scared of a boycott, the government wasn't in control of anything, and they assumed they just had a sleepover quarrel on their hands. Bowe took the com away from your mother, we didn't have any other calls, Corinthian was in communication with Bowe—we still didn't know what sleepover he was in. But Corinthian crew knew. They occupied the bar, maybe intending to get their officer out and back to the ship where the cops couldn't get him, maybe going to take Marie with them, we had no idea. We couldn't get any information out of station com, the police weren't feeding us Corinthian's communications with them or with Bowe, ours were breaking up if we didn't use the station relay, but by now we had no doubt where Marie was—I was on the station direct line trying to get the stationmaster to get the police off their reg-u-lations to get in there, but nobody wanted to wake him up, the alterday stationmaster was an ass, insisted they were moving in a negotiating team. Meanwhile Heston and mama and some of the rest of the crew went into the bar after Marie. Corinthian crew had opened up the liquor—you can imagine. Things blew up. A Corinthian got his arm broken with a bar chair, the station cops got into it, they couldn't force the doors. By time we got the mainday station-master out of bed, a cop was in station hospital, six of your future cousins were in our infirmary, about an equal number of Corinthian crew were bleeding on the deck, and things were at a standoff, with station section doors shut."
Doors big as some ships. Stations didn't do that. Not since the War.
"—We had two ships calling crew from all around the docks," Mischa said. "Station central was refusing to relay calls, threatening to arrest Corinthian and Sprite crew on sight, Madrigal and Pearl crews were hiding some of our guys from the cops. I was in blue section, with about fifty of us. Corinthian, unfortunately, was docked right adjacent to blue. There were at least fifty of them holed up in the bar, about fifty more on deck, in blue, about that number of station cops and security, several hundred of our crew and theirs and cops stuck in sections they couldn't get out of. Forty-eight hours later, station agreed to total amnesty, we got Marie out, Corinthian got Bowe and the rest of their crew out, and the bar owner's insurance company and the station admin split the tab. We agreed to different routes that wouldn't put us in the same dock again, which is how, by a set of circumstances, we ended up Unionside. And your mother turned up pregnant. That's the sum of it."
Mischa left a silence. Waiting for him to say something. He wanted to, finally ventured the question he wouldn't ask Marie.
"Was Austin Bowe the only one?"
"As Marie tells it, yes."
"As she tells it?"
"The captain's son, and in a hell of a bind? He knew she was his best bargaining chip. Only thing that might get Corinthian out scot free was Marie, in one piece. She walked out of there.
Cut lip, bruises. Refused medical treatment, station's and ours. She was holding together pretty well for about the next twelve hours. She'd take the ordinary trank…"
The picture snapped into god-awful focus. "You took her into jump?"
"By the terms, we agreed to leave port."
"Marie wasn't the criminal!"
"Station had a riot on its hands. Station wanted us on our way. Marie wanted out of that port. Medical thought she was doing all right."
"My God."
"In those days, the guns were live, all the time. Heston wanted out of there as soon as Corinthian jumped out. We weren't sure they weren't spotters, we didn't want them sending any message to any spotter that might be lying in wait out there in the dark—they did that, in those days, just lurk out on the edges, take your heading, meet you out at your jump-point—spotters didn't carry any mass to speak of. They'd beat you there. They'd be waiting. You'd be dead. We skimmed that jump-point as fast as we dared and we got the hell on to Fargone. It wasn't an easy run. We pushed it. You did things you had to do in those days, you took chances, the choices weren't that damn good, Thomas, it wasn't like today. No safety. When you were out there in the dark, you were out there with no law, no protection. We just had no choice."
"It's a wonder she isn't crazier than—" He cut that off, before it got out, but Mischa said,
"—crazier than she is. I know. You think I don't know. I knew her before."
"Why didn't somebody order an abortion? I mean, doesn't Medical just do that, in a case like that?"
"The captains don't order any such thing on this ship. Your mother said if she was pregnant, that was fine, she wanted…"
"Wanted what?"
Mischa had cut an answer short, having said too much about something Mischa knew, about him. But if he chased that topic, Mischa might stop talking.
"She said it was her choice," Mischa said, "and nobody else was getting their hands on her. I'll tell you something, Tom. There's not been another sleepover. No men. She won't get help. Your aunt Lydia studied formal psych—specifically with Marie in mind. Never did a damned bit of good. Marie copes just real well, does exactly what she wants, she's damned good at what she does. I'll tell you something. She wouldn't have any prenatal tests, wouldn't take advice, damn near delivered you in her quarters, except your grandmother found out she was in labor. Marie was dead set you were a daughter, and when she gave birth and found out you weren't, she wouldn't look at you, wouldn't take you, wouldn't hold you, until three days after. Then she suddenly changed her mind. All of a sudden, it's—Where's my son? And your aunt Lydia tells me some crap about postpartum depression and how it was a traumatic birth, and a load of psychological nonsense, but I know my sister, I know the look she's got; and I'm not damn blind, Tom, I hoped to hell she'd turn you over to the nursery, which she did when she found out she really hated diapers, and being waked up at odd hours. I wasn't for it when she wanted you to come back and live with her. I really wasn't for it, but your grandmother always hoped Marie would straighten out, sort of reconcile things… small chance. I watched you and her, damned carefully. Mama did. I don't know if you were aware of that."
Blow across the face. Didn't know why. He didn't know why mama ever did things, one minute hit him, another held him, Marie had never made sense about what made her mad. Call her Marie, not mama, that was the first lesson he learned. Marie was his mother, and finally, finally she took him home to her quarters like the other kids' mothers—but if he made her mad or called her mama she'd take him back and the other kids would know…
Which she did. More than once.
"Were you?" Mischa asked, and he didn't know what Mischa had just said.
"I'm sorry, I lost it."
Long silence, long, long silence in the captain's office, himself sitting in front of the desk, like a kid called in for running, or unauthorized access. Damn Mischa, he'd thought he understood, he'd thought Marie was right. Now he didn't know who'd lied or what was real or how big a son of a bitch Mischa was, after all.
"I can't control Marie," Mischa said. "Your grandmother might've, but she's gone. I've talked to her. Ma'am's talked to her. Your aunt Lydia's talked to her. Said—You're hurting that boy, Marie, he's too young to understand, he doesn't know why you're mad at him, and for God's sake let it be, Marie. Which did damned little good. Marie's not—not the kid that went into that sleepover. She'd hold a grudge, yes. But nothing like—"
Another trail-off, into silence. Maybe he was supposed to fill it. He didn't know. But he still had his question.
"Why didn't she abort? What was it you almost said she wanted?"
Mischa didn't want that question. Clearly.
"Tom, has she talked to you about killing Austin Bowe?"
"She's mentioned it. Not recently. Not since I moved out on my own."
