Tripoint

Though captain Mischa Hawkins had said that wouldn't go down: the Beyond had fought the War to get rid of the Earth-based corp-rats, and merchant spacers would never tolerate it. The starstations that had rebelled against Earth's governance might think they were going to play that game themselves. But if stationer governments built ships to compete with the Family ships that had helped them in the War, those ships would have small, expensive accidents, nothing to cost a life—unless they pushed back. If they hired crew, they'd not be quality, or reliable. The merchanter Families ruled commerce on both sides of the Union-Alliance boundary, disdaining permanent allegiances, and they'd shut every station down cold, if stations tried to dictate to them again.

Stations knew it. Stations kept one law on their upper levels, but the docks and the sleepovers were under separate rules; and on the deck of every individual ship was that ship's own law, at dock or in space.

So the law was the same. Still, it was a new concept to Thomas Hawkins—to go out on station docks with noship he knew in port—like a first-timer, almost, which he assuredly wasn't… he'd been cruising the docks on his own since he was ship-wise eighteen, never gotten knifed, never gotten into anything he couldn't talk his way out of. Most often he scored with some spacer-femme likewise looking…

Particularly with one dark-eyed Pollycrew-brat, who he wasn't certain was using precautions, but, if you said you weren't and she didn't, that was entirely her business and Polly'sbusiness. A man just wondered… might he havea kid on some ship… somewhere… and he wouldn't see her for two years.

Mind was going random. He was sliding down into sleep again. There was a little sedative in his post-jump packet, aspirin, mostly. Didn't take much to send you under, after jump, and he wasn't scheduled for duty till next watch.

Busy time coming, then. Lot of equipment to check. Nav and cargo on their necks, meanwhile juniors got all the wonderful routine, the stuff that wasn't ops-critical, and there was always a pile of it, all the data storage, hard and matrixed…

Load the chain of records, compare and check it off: if some subspace gremlin had bombed one file it wouldn't get the backup in exactly the same way. The operations computers checked themselves, monitored by Senior technicians. For all those datafiles not regularly loaded there were the junior techs to do the job, on the auxiliary boards, why else did lower lifeforms exist?

Load another record…

Log the check…

Meanwhile test all the systems.

Good reason for a nap.

"Thomas Bowe."

He blinked. Thought he'd dreamed it. Shut his eyes.

"Thomas Bowe, confirm."

Eyes opened. He wishedthey wouldn't, call him that. He'd complained. That was a by-the-book tight-ass senior cousin on the bridge. He knew the voice: Duran T. Hawkins, senior Com, who didn't give a damn about his complaints.

But a by-name call, coming hard on system entry, scared him, once his brain cut in—as if—God—had somebody dropped dead on entry? They didn't call junior officers on the com for social chatter.

He rolled out of his bunk, ignored the pounding in his temples, and braced his arm on the opposite wall to push the button. "This is Tom B., confirming to com."

"Report to the captain, Thomas B., on the bridge, in good order, ship is stable, confirm."

"Confirm, " he said, and heard the com click out without a window to query, and no patience if he called back to ask questions, not with Duran at the board.

Besides, they were legitimately busy up there—it couldbe they were calling computer techs for some kind of ops emergency, in which case it was a definite hurry. His heart had begun thumping with a stupid panic, the pain in his sinuses had grown acute, the result of going vertical in a rush, but they hadn't said stat, they'd given an in good order, which meant take time to clean up.

So his mother couldn't have had an attack or something. Marie was under forty, ship-time,—healthy as the proverbial horse. They'd had breakfast together before they jumped, she'd talked about something he couldn't remember. But they called you if a relative had taken ill…

Or most of all they called you if you'd screwed something critical and they wanted to know exactly what you'd done to systems before Mischa asked you to take a hike in cold space.

But he hadn't laid a hand on the main boards since long before they left Mariner. He was absolutely sure of that.

Balance wasn't steady yet. He bashed an elbow, slid the bathroom door open—the whole end of the 2-meter-wide cabin on a circular track. He met his own confused, haggard face in the mirror, squinting at the automatic glare of white light. He peeled out of his clothes, set the shower on Conserve, for speed, slid through the shower door without losing vital parts and shut his eyes against the 30 second all-around needling of the cleaner-and-water spray. A quick, breath-taking blast sucked the water back again. The vacuum made his ears pop, and didn't at all help a nervous stomach or a sick headache.

But he was scrubbed, shampooed, shaved, and saner-looking as he shut the bath behind him. He struggled into clean coveralls, remembered the key-card while he was walking his boots on, went back and found it on his dirty coveralls, clipped it on one-handed as he opened the door onto the lower main corridor. Ship is stablemeant no take-holds expected, no clip-lines required, and he made a dash down-ring to the lift. Crew was coming and going, likewise at speed when they had to cross the ship's axis. Somebody for sure had reported ill: he could see the infirmary lit and the door open, down the positive curve of the deck.

But Com had ordered him specifically to the bridge, see the captain, and bridge it was—he found the lift idle on rimside level and rode it up, a good deal calmer in that ride, now that he wasn't jump-rattled and half-asleep—but uneasy, still, mind spi

The lift clanked into lock and let out into the dim grey plastics-and-computer light environment of the bridge. Heads turned, senior cousins interrupting their work to stare as he walked through, the way people stared at victims of mass calamities.

Which didn't help his nerves at all. But his first glance accounted for his whole personal universe of relatives he cared about: his mother, Marie, stood in the middle of the bridge, talking to Mischa. Mischa was sitting at the main console. Marie and the captain were sister and brother; and Marie was clearly all right—but what Marie was doing on the bridge during approach was another question.

God, what had he done that rated Mischa calling Marie up from the cargo office?

"Sir," he said, feeling like an eight-year-old criminal, "ma'am."

"Station schema just came in." Mischa tapped the screen in front of him, a schematic of Viking station and its berths, same as any such diagram the outsystem buoy delivered them when they dropped into system. He didn't understand at first blink, or second, since he had nothing reasonably to do with that input or the system that put it up.

Mischa said, " Corinthian. Austin Bowe's in port."

Hit him in the gut, that did. He couldn't look at Marie. Mischa pointed to a certain berth on the station schema. "They're scheduled for undock nine days from now, we're in for fifteen days' turnaround, and we'll make dock tomorrow morning. Figure right now that there'll be ample time after he's left to do any personal touring you want to do around that berth. I'm giving an absolute order, here, that applies to you, Marie, and you, Tom, and everyone in this crew. No contact, no communication with Corinthianin any way, shape, or form that doesn't go through me, personally. We can't afford trouble. I'm sure Corinthiandoesn't want it either. I swear to you, I'm not going to look the other way on this, Marie. On government contract, we've no latitude here, none, do you read me clear on that?"