Tripoint (37 page)

Easy fix, in fact. “Boy called,” Austin said to the agent at the kiosk out front of
Corinthians
ramp, and handed him the Union passport. “Lot activity of in and out the ship, he went out with the group—officer had the passports—”

The agent thumbed the passport. Ran the mag-strip for the visa, and it flashed Valid. “Checked through.”

“Yeah, he was supposed to get it from my son, something came up, he ran off on that problem… he’s twenty-three, scatter-brain,
we’d
been trying to find him to get it to him—this morning, he panics and phones our com, and now it’s a problem.”

“Yeah. Kids. I got two. Twelve and sixteen. Four-room apartment.”

“God.”

“Kid coming in?”

“On his way.”

“I’ll have it here, no problem. “ The agent put the passport under the desk. They talked about other things, the economy, both sides of the line, the entertainments on Pell, the free-port situation… for a ship’s captain at board-call, he was uncommonly leisured; for himself, with strangers, he was uncommonly conversational, but from where he stood, talking, he could see the whole dockside behind the customs line, a dim, utilitarian deckage, a neon-lit frontage of shops behind the two girders that were part of Pell’s main structure.

They talked about kids. He tried to imagine. About wives. He censored his arrangement with Beatrice. A couple of Downers waddled past, bound for somewhere. Transports lumbered along… Pell government was still talking about that transport rail system, the agent said, but the transport companies and the warehouses on Pell liked the status quo, on which they made money, and detested the rail, in which they endlessly debated all the share-plans the station could draft.

A couple of crew showed up, the early ones, Michaels and Travis, with slightly startled looks to see the captain standing waiting.

“Captain,” Michaels said. “Need a word. “ And Michaels diverted him aside from customs long enough to ask if he wanted anything. Michaels had basic good sense, in the essentials of discreet trouble-handling, and he would have left Michaels to take his watch down here, if it were slightly less explosive.

“I’ll handle it,” he told Michaels. “Just start the count. Develop a board glitch, we don’t display until we’re on last boarders.”

“Done,” Michaels said.

A group of eleven came in, techs, a couple of dockers…
Corinthian’s
monetary and liberty-time bonus for arrivals in the first hour of board-call got no few takers, but still, spacers were spacers, liberty-loves were hard to leave, and expect the real rush right down at the bottom of that first hour, and the last just right before the deadline, mostly the dockers, in that group, a few D&D’s that took some dealing with, but if Sabrina didn’t make it in the next quarter hour, she was going to find herself at the end of a long, long…

A closed taxi pulled up close, braked, and opened a door. No banker, no official got out, just, improbably—three
Corinthian
spacers, one Sabrina, in her usual fancy-business, Tink, in his bar-crawling gear, down to the bare arms and the tattoos and the earrings, and of course his threadbare duffle and the bagfuls of edibles. Last out, God, Tom Hawkins, sudden fashion queen, blue skintights, fancy black sweater, mod haircut, and a designer carry-bag, purple and orange—taste would out, evidently. Saby’d said he ‘needed a few things.’

He set hands on hips and watched this apparition walk up to customs… got a questioning look from the agent, who surely couldn’t do a confident ID on Hawkins’ new side-fall haircut. He nodded, the agent pulled out the passport, delivered a sober lecture to Hawkins, probably about being sure about the passport, Hawkins nodded, seemed dutifully impressed and sober, and the agent gave the whole group a wave-through… you bought it
at
Pell, customs wasn’t interested, unless you just radiated shady deals. And nobody could know how to rate this taxi-load.

Hawkins and Saby cleared customs, while Tink was still chattering at the agent, offering him a candy or something, Tink was a walking sugar-fix. Meanwhile the passport headed for Hawkins’ pocket.

Austin held out his hand. Smiled tightly.

Hawkins stopped so abruptly, evidently just now seeing him, that Sabrina ran into him.

Austin crooked a finger.—Hawkins meekly came and, to his outheld hand, delivered the passport.

“Stow your stuff with Saby,” Austin said then, as they walked, as he pocketed the passport. “Log in with ops, no word to anybody what happened, do you copy? And I’ll see
you
in my office thirty minutes to undock, on the mark, Mr. Hawkins.—Saby, you get him there.”

—ix—

IT WAS
HIM
, DAMMIT,
WITH
Saby, and Tink, Austin was waiting the other side of the barrier, and Christian had not a question in his mind.

“He
knew
, damn him! He knew all along! Damn her!
Damn
her!”

“Damnation to go around,” Capella said, leaning against the store-front. “We’ve still other strays to watch.”

Redirection. In Capella, suspect it.

“You knew. You damned well knew!” He was furious. And Capella, having talked to Austin aboard, having had a chance to ask questions… came back with a grim look, a, “He’s keeping the schedule,” and, to his, “Why?”—”Thinks Hawkinses are as serious a threat, evidently.”

Capella swore she didn’t, personally, think
Sprite
was on a scale with their other problem. But the taxi was gone from the customs area, Tom Hawkins was walking up the ramp with Saby, who, dammit, owed him some loyalty, being his cousin, being who’d brought him up—

And it looked to him like a problem, a
major
problem, Hawkins in his new clothes and his new haircut—he hadn’t recognized him. He’d thought he was some better-class recruit than they even usually got, somebody Saby had recommended.

But, no, it was a surplus, conniving brother, whose clothes alone cost more than the 200c he’d been carrying—who
hadn’t
had a passport, who’d had no way to lay his hands on his without
Corinthian’s
complicity; who hadn’t had a credit card… if Family Boy had money stashed in banks the other side of the line, he couldn’t have accessed it without ID.

Somebody else’s money.
Corinthian
money.

“Austin’s damn clearance,” he said. “Look at him!”

“Looks pretty good, actually,” Capella said. “And Saby. My, my, my.”

“You
did
know!”

“I know now. Give up the quarrel, Chrissy-lad, it’s over, it’s won, this is why papa Austin said what he said.”

“About what?”

“Just that he’d made up his mind. That
Sprite
was more threat than one Mr. Hawkins. Damn right. He had this one tied up and wrapped around his high-credit finger, just yank the string.”

It didn’t make sense to him, except that Austin had played him for a fool deliberately, Austin had spent whatever it took to make him look a fool not only to Saby and Tink, who were in on it, but in front of Capella, who might have been under orders, in front of the whole crew—people laughing behind his back, enjoying the joke.

He looked at Capella, searching for any hint of that laughter at his expense. He couldn’t find any hint of it, but Capella wasn’t easy to catch, no expression at all.

A handful of dockers arrived, Gracie Greene and Metz, Dan Blue, Tarash and Deecee, trouble, all of them, he watched them walk up to customs, and his gut was in an upheaval, thinking… they were going to hear about it, everybody who’d been out in the search after his brother had to have known, at some point, and here he stood, playing the fool, while his brother went into the ship on his own terms.

“Fuck it!” he said, and grabbed Capella by the sleeve, heedless of safety. “It’s a couple of hours till ail-aboard, there’s a bar, there’s a restaurant…”

“I thought we were economizing,” Capella said.

“Hell! I’ve got a k or so left, what do I fucking care? Fucking smart-ass Family Boy, on Austin’s fucking credit, while I spend everything I’ve got? Fuck it, fuck it all, let’s blow it, everything—”

“Chrissy,—”

“I said everything! What do I need? A father who fucking cares what I do? A cousin with one shred of basic loyalty? A partner who doesn’t go screwing my brother? What’s the matter with me, Pella, what’s the matter with me?”

Capella delayed to look at him. Long. “Got all your parts,” Capella said. “Things work.”

“Don’t be a damned ass!”

“Maybe you better work with what you got,” Capella said, “what you stand in when you shower, hmn? It’s all anybody’s got.”

Philosophy wasn’t Capella’s long suit. She threw it at him now and again, she whispered it in his ear when the ship made jump, she confused him when he was mad, and blew it off, which
no
body else could do*.

“Dance,” Capella said, “is a lot nicer than looking for stray brothers. Couple drinks, a few dances—long and dark after, Chris-person. Long and deep and dark. I’d dance, myself.”

“You’re crazed! You’re absolutely crazed!”

“It’s my calling. But there’s now, and thereafter’s such quiet, Chris-ti-an. Hear it. Listen to it. Don’t waste time. It’s so scarce.”

“Don’t con me! You knew, you knew what my father was doing!”

“Guessed, maybe. Didn’t know. “ She hooked his arm with hers. “Last trip of all, maybe. There’s something in the dark, I don’t know where.”

“Sprite?”

“Maybe several somethings. They may take me back, Chris-person. I don’t know. There’s only now. This liberty’s been a bitch. Let’s go.”

“What—take you back?” She’d met them at this station, she’d come, with what he overheard and what he guessed, with codewords and such she didn’t show to customs. She
was
their access to a trade they had to have, that otherwise they couldn’t find, couldn’t access. A second, perilous grab at Capella’s arm, as she turned away. “Have you told Austin this notion? Have you told him?”

“I’m not supposed to have told
you
. No. This is a confidence, Christian-person.”

“
Christian
, dammit! And where do you get such notions? We aren’t even
near
hyperspace.”

Pale eyebrow quirked. Mouth pursed. “The presence. The spook that’s in port. Is that solid enough for you?”

“
Can
you feel something?”

Capella had a fey, distracted look for an instant, as if she reached out at that moment, into something he couldn’t, nobody could. But the eyes flickered and Capella drew in a sudden, unscheduled breath before she shook her head. “You can convince yourself of anything. No. “ She seized his arm and tugged him toward the frontage, and the bars. “I wish we’d see them.”

“Who? The spook? This Patrick?—You think they’re boarding, now?”

“I say if you find a small ship that is, you know his name.”

“Well,
look
, for God’s sake, look at the boards. “ He’d been occupied with Hawkinses and Capella wasn’t, Capella wasn’t concerned with
Sprite
or Hawkinses in singular or plural, he saw that now.

“I know two names. Because one is, doesn’t mean the other isn’t.”

“You mean there could be a back-up in port? Tell Austin, for God’s sake!”

“Austin knows there’s danger. Austin’s danger is Hawkins. Was, from when you let elder-brother take a walk.”

“The hell!”

They’d reached the frontage. Almost the door, and Capella swung around on him, angry, astoundingly so. “Your
fault
, Christian,
and
mine, I should have said, and didn’t, it looked good, what you were doing, and it wasn’t, it had flaws. It had flaws in
Christophe Martin
, it had flaws in assuming elder-brother’s easy, it had flaws all over the place, and my looking for him was very hard, and very scared, Christian-person, so scared I made another mistake, and got attention from this damn spook, who isn’t
ours
, do you follow me?”

Anger whited out half of it. But
ours
came through, touching on what he’d tried to understand. Ours. Theirs. Us. The Fleet. “Explain. Explain to me—ours, theirs,—who’s
us
?”

“Mazian’s, Mallory’s, Percy’s… the Fleet’s pieces, the pieces that have their own partisans, their own spooks and their own suppliers… you work for Mazian, that’s the truth. But not all do. Some ships are dead, Mallory turned coat, the rest… “ Capella ran out of breath, and didn’t find another immediately. “I’ll tell you this. There’s two needs here. There’s
Corinthian
, wanting everything the same forever, and there’s
us
, who can’t make that happen, Christian, captain-papa won’t understand that, but there’s those that want me so bad…”

“
Why
? Because you can do what you do?”

“You might say. Because I know places.”

“What places?”

“Places they want. Badly.—I can’t let
Corinthian
get boarded. It’s not in my own interest, you copy that? If the captain asks,—make him believe it. And we’re running with guns live this jump. Take my side on that, if there’s any argument on it.”

It was crazy. He was up to his ears in the Hawkins business, he couldn’t think about anything else, but Capella was telling him about waking up the guns they’d used once in his lifetime, about the ordinance Michaels maintained and serviced and kept viable, through all these ship-board years. It didn’t happen. A chance encounter on a dockside didn’t lead to live guns, when a crazy woman was trying to get them hauled in by port authorities.

But a spook had gone invisible… which could well mean some other ship at Pell was in an unannounced board-call at this very moment.

Hell in a handbasket, that was what it felt like. He
wanted
to break a Hawkins neck, and two or three others, but suddenly he was perceiving a threat that didn’t give him time for that. Austin might not take it seriously. Austin had his mind on Hawkinses, on Marie Hawkins in particular. That was who was ruling
Corinthian’s
movements. Hawkinses had them going out instead of lying in port until at least they had the advantage of not being a target.