Tripoint

Punched keys. Nothis favorite job. Maxie's job, and, thanks to brother Thomas and his crazy mother, no last tour on dock-side, no chance to slip back to the shop for the earrings Capella had lusted after, no chance to go back to the vid shop for the tapes he'd eyed… you didn't load up on stuff while you were on liberty, you waited till the last minute, if you didn't want to pay delivery.

Cheap cost, on this occasion.

Saby shot him a feed from her terminal. Lots and lots of boring serial numbers and clearances.

"So is anybody asking about this kid?" Saby asked.

"How would I know? Austin's not talking. Beatrice is hung over as hell and on station. Damned Family-ship prig."

"I'd be scared," Saby said. "In his place, I'd be damned scared."

"He's a Family Boy. Ship-share, all the best, don't you know. I wish I'd left him. Say he must've hid out after the fight, we wouldn't have this problem." He set the computer to scan for WH's and location, the sole intellectual function the job needed for the pass."His mother's out there looking for

Austin, Austin's hiding aboard, hauls the whole damn crew in, it's damned ridiculous. Now my half-brother's gone poking about in Miller's and we've got ourselves a problem,"

"What was he doing in Miller's?"

"Looking for his mama, what else?"

"I'd like to know what mama was looking for. It wasn't Austin."

Cousin Sabrina had a brain. Cousin Sabrina was using it. He shoved back from the console, turned the chair and looked at her, rethinking, absent temper, whatThomas Bowe-Hawkins had been doing scraping labels.

"What's her source?" he asked Saby. "Since you know so much."

"I don't know what her source is. He might."

Saby'd wiped his nose when he was a brat—till he got older and Saby had justly told him go to hell. Now he ran with Capella, Saby supered the computer techs, handled Hires, trouble-shot cargo functions at need, and took her lovers on dock-side. With all the dockside willies to choose from, she hadn't hired or slept with a psych-case yet.

Better than Austin could claim. Austin listened, when Sabysaid who was crazy and who wasn't.

So where did she always see that far ahead of him, damn her?

The computer came up with a Warm-Hold headed for the wrong hold, and beeped.

Damn, damn, and damn. "Who in hell checked that through? Can anybody in our crew read, or just maybe use the laser, God! I don't believe this." He punched through to the dock chief. "—Co

Co

Half-brother. With a mother out there looking for Austin's hide. And a real interest in the cans.

Yeah.

Tom Hawkins knew.

"If the program finds another mis-route, handle it, will you?"

"Where are you going?—You better not go out there."

"I'm not going any damned where. It's a good question." He put in a call for Austin's office, the direct link. "Austin?"

" What's the problem?" came back, not patiently.

"Austin? My half-brother down here? Saby's got a real interesting idea. Marie Hawkins being onto something… half-brother knows how, and who, and if there's cops mixed up in it."

Silence from the office.

"So we should ask him," he said, since Austin didn't draw the conclusion.

"Are you finally figuring that out?"

"I'm not fucking stupid, sir!"

Which wasn't the brightest thing to do with Austin when Austin was looking for a fault. He heard the com cut out. He tried the re-call.

Ignored. Ignored, ignored and ignored.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, at no one accessible, and slammed his fist onto the console.

Co

"Get it out," he said. And when Co

" That's against union—"

"You carry it, Co

"Yessir."

He cut the co

So he wasn't reasonable. So was Austin? So was Beatrice? So was anybody in the upper end c-oh-c, reasonable? It wasn't a job requirement.

—v—

ANESTHETIC AFTEREFFECTS DIDN'T make a body feel at all good, Tom decided. He'd never had anesthetic before, assuming it was something medical and not outright illicit—but once he'd decided that hecouldn't get the bracelet off, that he couldn't reach any useful switch panel and he couldn't do anything, in general, except wait, sweat, and nurse his headache, he figured he could just as well do that flat on his back on the bunk. There was a white-diamond patch on a let-down on the wall over the bunk—universal symbol for deep-space emergency supplies. He flipped it in idle curiosity and it was stocked with trank and nutri-paks. He was tempted, about the trank—just time-out and let the hours pass. But you didn't abuse the stuff. And the packs were for emergency—you left them for that. You toughed it out, that was all, though, please God, he wasn't going to need them, they'd get him out of here.

His stomach was upset, his head hurt more than the wrist did—that he was outright scared might account for a good part of the upset, but he kept trying to keep a reasonable attitude. Corinthian, in his best theory, was hanging on to him as insurance for Marie's good behavior. Corinthiandidn't want him. It was going to be all right. Somehow the captains would sort it out and get Marie back and him back and Corinthianwould leave Viking port before anybody got hurt.

Or Marie would figure the game, notify the cops, call the lawyers and get him out of this herself. Beat out Austin Bowe for good and all, and maybe after that, please God, get her life turned around.

Make her peace with him, and Mischa, and the universe in general.

Yeah. And Viking would reverse its spin and the sun would burn black. He couldn't even recognize the Marie that scenario would ask to exist.

Meanwhile the thump in the guts of Corinthiankept up, regular as a heartbeat. Nobody interrupted the loading, no contingent of police came looking. Wherever Marie was, she couldn't or wouldn't stop the flow of goods into Corinthian.

A man passed the cell and stopped. Tom lifted his head, stared at the man between his feet, the man looked at him as if he was a museum exhibit, and walked on. Skuzzy-looking bastard, Tom thought with a prickling of defensive instincts. Wouldn't like to meet that one on dockside, and that was walking the corridors out there.

That was the first.

Then others, not much better—older guys, a few in green coveralls: the rest in the skintights that were getting to be popular, earrings, glitz-stripes on the skin, jewelry… not a real tidy lot, he said to himself, a few of them worse than others—and with no front wall and no privacy in the cell he was sitting there for all of them to stare at.