Tripoint

Meanwhile he'd gotten crazy enough he was linked arm in arm with Capella and trying to do her skip-step and pattern down the deck-plates.

"Chris!" someone female yelled from behind him.

Which confused his navigation, since the female he was with was beside him.

Which let him know he wasn't thinking clearly, and thatreminded him…

"Hell. I haven't called Millers."

"Christian!"

Familiar voice. Crew. Cousin.

"Oh, screw it," Capella said, as he veered about. "She's no fun."

He blinked, sweating in the cold chill of dockside. A drop of condensation came down, splat! off some pipe overhead. That was Sabrina, ten years senior, and dead, dead serious, he saw that on her face.

"Christian, where in hell'syour com?"

He felt of his pocket. Pulled it out, and disengaged his arm from Capella.

The red light was on. God knew how long. Must have been beeping from time to time—somewhere under the music in the bar.

"You andCapella," Saby said. "Deaf as rocks, both of you. Sprite'sinbound."

Took him a couple of heartbeats. He was at a low ebb.

"Shit all," Capella said, in the same second he placed the name and realized this was a definite emergency.

"Austin know?"

"Austin's on it. What's this about Miller? What's this about a transport down?"

"They're next-shifting it, I've been trying to move them. " His navigational sense was shot to hell. He was on green dock, he could figure that. He ran a hand through his hair, blinked at Saby's righteous sobriety. "Electrical problem, they tagged it, they know what it is. It's the damn Viking unions, Miller could do the job themselves, except nobody can touch it."

"We may be pulling out of here," Saby said. "Austin's furious, nobody can find Beatrice. I'd just get your rear down to Miller and tell them get the next shift up early, put it on our tab. We're on recall, everybody with no business out. I'll call in, say I've found you."

"We've got cargo on dock," he said, in the begi

"Beatrice—" Saby began, but that was nonsense.

" FindBeatrice, if you can, and good luck—Capella, you get down to Miller and tell him his trade is on the line, don't tell him why, tell him it's major trouble, and if we get screwed we'll take him with us."

"Where are you going?"

Visions of cans in the warehouse, half of them re-labeled and half not. Visions of a broken transport stalled God knew where between Corinthianand Miller Transship's warehouse with God knew what aboard, and he didn't want to guess.

Sprite.

Hawkinses.

He had a brotheron that ship. Half-brother, at least.

He was, on one level, curious. On another, he wasn't. Not until they got those cans labeled.

"Tell Austin," he said to Saby, "I'll be in the warehouse, I've got the com on, I'm listening. Just let me straighten this out."

"Christian,—"

"I'm fine, I'll fix it."

"Hell," Capella said. "Listen to the woman."

"Christian,—"

"We are exposed as hell,"he said to Saby, walking backward, a feat proving his sobriety, he decided, considering his recent alcohol intake. Austin didn't want excuses. It was his watch.

He couldn't screw this. "I'll fix it. Tell Austin I'll fix it, there's no problem."

"Answer your damn com after this!" Saby yelled at him. A loader was working somewhere. Human voices were very small, on the dockside, easily overwhelmed by the clash and bang of metal.

Capella caught his arm and spun him about.

"Better bribe the mechanics," Capella said, with her curious faculty for realism, drunk or sober. "Cheaper than station brig, Chrissy-lad. Which we could all be in if we screw this. You got to sober up, spaceman. We got to get a watch on that ship when it comes in. Anybody comes around the dock, we just arrange a distraction."

"We get the cargo moving," he said. That was the absolute priority. Couldn't just leave those cans on the dock. Austin was applying personal diplomacy to the mechanics, he was willing to bet that— Corinthianwas as good as down-timed herself while Millers' transport was stalled, stupid half-ass company owned theirs, which was why they dealt with them, but they were creaking antiques—

Didn't want just any transport drivers inthat warehouse anyway.

Emergency had him sweating in the cold air. A ship showed up that he'd never expected to meet—one they'd taken care for years not to meet. The karmic feeling, things happening that shouldn't be.

And would Austin run, from Marie Hawkins? From a crazy woman? Hell. That wasn't the Austin he knew.

He used the next public phone. He called into ship-com. He hoped not to deal with Austin.

" Where the hell is your com?" Austin's voice came back to him.

"Sorry, I was in a noisy environment."

"/ have a damned good idea where the hell you were, Christian. Save it. Did you get the message?"

"Yes, sir.—But we've got a transport down. They're trying to fix it. I didn't think you wanted to be—"

"I'm awake. I'm bothered. I'm mad as hell and I'm calling Miller. We've moved the count up, we've got a serious problem, and I suggest you get your ass down there and get that cargo moved. Yesterday! I'm reassessing your file, mister, the same as any crew member who can't do his job! You doubt me? You want to tell me how I owe you a living?"

"No, sir. I will—I'm doing that. No, sir, I know you don't. " The nerves twitched. They remembered. Austin meant exactly what he said, and it wasn't necessary he have liberty again for the next three years if he pissed Austin any further. End report.

Capella had gotten sober, too. Entirely.

Chapter Two

—i—

APPROACHING INNER SYSTEM WAS a matter of hours, at a high fraction of c.

Dumping that velocity while they could still graze the interface was a relatively easy matter.

Working at station-proximity speeds to get a high-mass freighter into a rotating station, on the other hand, was a tedious, nerve-wracking operation. Always be aware of the nearest take-hold point. Stay out of the lift except on business. Stay out of fore-aft corridors. Keep belted when seated or asleep.

Meaning that trim-ups might be rare when a long-hauler was following the computer-directed approach—no pilot flew docking by the seat of the pants—but stations were debris-generators, thick with maintenance and service traffic and escaped nuts, bolts and construction tiles, and, while in the zone of greatest risk a freighter pilot was no-stop, come hell or the Last Judgment, or absent anything but damage to the docking apparatus (meaning any pusher-jock in a freighter's approach path was a bump and a noise and a gentle course-correction), the possibility of evasive maneuver did exist. That meant the children battened down in the cushioned Tube in the loft, in which they could take most any vector-shift; and crew off and on duty found themselves a definite place to Be for the duration.

Which in Marie's case was her office; and in a junior computer tech's, it was the bridge. Load the file, wait for the check, load another file, wait for the check.

It left too much time for said junior tech to think, between button punches, in his lowly station sandwiched in with seven other cousins at the tail of the bridge.