Tripoint

"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 Corinthiancrewmen were looking their direction, maybe out of frame from what Marie saw.

"Marie. Marie, they're looking at us. Let's just walk."

"Nerves. All right. " Marie put the camera back in her pocket and they started away, but the men started across the dock, four of them.

"Damn," Tom said. "Marie,—"

"Just keep walking."

"We could go into a bar. It's safer."

"I don't like to be inplaces."

God. Marie was sane ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. And then you got the schitzy tenth percent.

"I don't care, we should get off the dock… get where we've got protection…"

Marie threw a look over her shoulder. Started ru

They knocked into a woman coming out of a bar, knocked her flat, and kept going. People were shouting.

Then he saw people start to run toward them from down the dock in the other direction, and realized it was Saja in the lead.

Marie started to change direction. "It's Saja!" he yelled at her, and grabbed her and ran for oncoming reinforcements.

But Corinthianperso

Except Marie wouldn't go, Marie had a piece of chain, too, and it whipped about and caught a Corinthiancrewman across the neck. There was a pile-up of bodies as the man went down, Marie went down, and the nearest bar emptied out more Corinthians.

"Security!" somebody yelled, on their side or Corinthian'sor the bystanders, he wasn't sure, only a number of people had mixed into it that weren't Corinthianor Sprite, people yelling that the cops were coming, about the time a fist came out of nowhere and hit him in the temple.

He couldn't see. He stumbled over somebody's leg or arm and went down, trying to fend off the attack with his uplifted arm, hearing chains flying and people yelling—he heard somebody yell cops, and look out, and he couldn't find Marie, couldn't find anything but the deck-plates. He scrambled for what he thought was a clear zone, and met what might be the frontage wall, he wasn't sure. Hands helped him up, held onto him as the dark gave way to hazy sight and an orbiting couple of red spots.

Flashing blue, then. The cops were coming in, breaking it up with stun-sticks and bare hands. He didn't see Marie. He didn't know what to do. They were hauling people out of the tangle on the deck and arresting them and he found space to retreat at his back, people just pushing past him to shout information, who'd swung, who'd done what, the cops were shouting to calm down, they wanted officers, and they wanted them now.

He heard Saja saying he was an officer, dammit, and Corinthians started it, and somebody else shouting it was Spriteand there was a crazy woman trying to kill their captain, but Marie wasn't anywhere in sight, Marie was loose somewhere and she was liable to do anything… or some Corinthiancould have dragged her off, he didn't know and he didn't take station police as going to listen to a spacer quarrel.

He had the chance. He just backed away, just turned and kept walking, dizzy, his head hurting. He wasn't aware of where he was walking, only it turned out to be toward Corinthian, and where they'd come from, and then he knew where Marie would go if she was loose. If she wasn't crazy, she'd want the evidence to prove to the universe Corinthianwas guilty and they'd had the motive to attack her, she'd fry Austin Bowe if it was the last and only thing she could do, and the evidence, if she couldn't get at Corinthian'sown data, was at an address.

His head hurt. He couldn't think of it. It was in the twenties on the same dock, and that was a long hike down from Corinthian'sberth at 10, but nobody was offering to stop him, he was just any spacer walking on the dock, staggering a little, but spacers did, on the Strip, that was why safe, moral stationers didn't come walking here, it was spacer territory, spacer logic, even with the cops… couldn't say they'd actually arrest anybody if nobody landed in hospital, just fine hell out of both ships, you didn't know, you couldn't predict…

Support column came up in his face. He grabbed it, leaned against it, head hurting, vision doing tricks again.

Couldn't blame Marie for ru

But what did you expect of Marie? She was what she was. She didn't deserve to be in any psych ward, please God.

She'd pulled the same thing on Mischa twenty years ago. He wasn't any brighter.

She'd said she had trade information, she said she was working on Corinthiandoing something illegal, at least something borderline—she said if she could get some information out of the trade office,—and she had an appointment… everything looked good… but that wasn't where she'd gone. She'd come here…

Wandering the ever-night of the docks, the clash and crash of loaders, the echoing of distant voices. He was walking again. He didn't remember since when.

Abundant places to hide. Abundant places to lose oneself in, if one were determined, and Marie was that. Spacers passed him. He saw patches on sleeves but he didn't know the ships. Strange to him. And he'd never been a place in his life where that was true.

Past the frontage of a sleepover. He felt his hands sweating despite the cold, his heart pumping and not keeping up with the oxygen demand. Opposite berth 18, it was. Looking for the twenties, he said to himself, and saw a transport go past.

Saw a sign, not a big one. Hercules Shipping. Commercial district. And warehouses. The character of the zone changed that quickly. Suddenly it was all warehouses, some with open doors, cans standing inside in the light, most with doors shut.

Transshippers, Marie had said. Couldn't remember the name or the number, until he saw the sign.

Miller.

Miller Transshipping.

The doors weren't open. Looked closed, except shippers didn't ever close. No neon about the sign, easy to miss, on the frontage like that, with no lights. But Miller was the name, he was sure of it.

He tried the perso

But nobody was in the office. The side door wasn't locked, either, and that led into the lighted warehouse.

Going there was a little chancier, but he could still say he was lost and looking for somebody… please God the vacancy in the office wasn't because Marie had done something, like killing somebody.

He was lost, he'd tell them, if he ran into workers inside. He'd gotten separated from his crewmates in the transport crush, he didn't know where he was.

He walked among tall shipping canisters, cold-hauler stuff, up in racks, like a ship's hold, only more brightly lit. The cans drank up heat from the air, made the whole warehouse bitter cold. They were covered in frost.