Tripoint

Except the cable, he was glad to have the duty, anything but lie in a cell with nothing to do but think about his problems, and Tink said, joking, Be careful, if Cook found out how clean things could be, he could get stuck on permanent scrub.

He decided Tink probably looked like he'd cut your throat because really he'd rather not have to. Tink turned out to be a nice guy, a genuinely nice and overall kind individual—he didn't recall anybody he'd ever run into who just gave things away like Tink… the chocolates-offer when Tink was drunk he decided hadn't been a come-on, at all. He'd been stuck in a cell, Tink had a bag of rare imported extravagance, and Tink would have probably given him three or four just because he looked sad, that was the way Tink seemed to operate. No systems engineer, for sure, but if Tink had thought he'd screwed up something in installing the filters, Tink would have fixed it himself and never told the cook.

So he took Tink's advice and didn't scrub so hard, for fear Cook would demand the same out of Tink… and it couldn't be Tink's favorite job.

Tink's favorite, in fact, seemed to be doing the pastry stuff, making ripples and curls and sugar-flowers that probably nobody in this crew was going to appreciate. But Tink made them anyway. He said it made the food look good and if the food looked good the ship got along better. He said if you hired on crew it was important they felt like they got quality food and quality off-shift entertainment and quality perks on dock-side. That way you got them back aboard with no trouble.

"This ship treat you all right?" he asked Tink. The cable that linked him to a safety-line bolt didn't inspire belief in the system.

"Real good," Tink said, making another sugar-flower. "Big allowance dockside. I tell you, there's guys didn't appreciate the captain when they started, but they know where that allowance comes from. You stay on his right side and you don't hear from him; and I tell you, he give a few guys a chance or two, that's not bad. Never cut their allowance. Just put a tag on 'em. That's pretty good, anywhere you look for work."

Didn't say what happened if they got altogether on his bad side. Or if you were his unwanted son. "They beat this guy. I heard it."

"Yeah, well, Michaels."

"He's the officer."

"He's the round-up man. Gets the crew in. Guy pulled a knife, he knew better."

"He live?"

"Oh, yeah. Busted ribs, busted hand, guy name of Tolliver. I tell you if he don't come about and do right after this, crew'll kill him."

"Seriously kill him?"

"Out the lock," Tink said, and a flower happened, and a curlicue. "This crew got no need for a guy who don't appreciate what we got here. " Tink pursed his lips and concentrated on embellishments for the moment, so he was scared Tink didn't take to the question. Tink added, frowning, "Suppose a Family ship's got better. Some of us ain't got that option, you know?"

"I don't know. If Spritegot a look at that cake, they'd steal you fast."

Tink gri

"So it really is pretty good here."

"Best deal us hard-ass hired-crew's going to get. " Tink shot him an under-the-brows look. "Captain's your papa. You should make officer real easy."

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" He gave the cable a shake. But he didn't want to turn bitter with Tink, who clearly didn't know. "Maybe. " He laughed, to throw Tink off the track. "Maybe out the lock next, who knows?"

Tink was quiet a bit, starting another frosted pastry, thoughtful-looking, his lip caught in his teeth. "Didn't know my father or my mother. Don't know what ship I was. Ship was blew to hell, there was pockets, you know, and they got some of us out. That ship passed me on, I don't remember the name. " Tink's brow knit. "Don't remember either name. I remember standing in the airlock. I remember the crossover when we come aboard. But I can't remember the names. And then there was another ship, and then Mariner, till she blew. Some things I remember. I remember Mariner all right. But not the ships. Don't know why that is."

He could guess. Thousands of people blown to cold space, a handful of survivors, most of them kids… even stationers put the kids inmost and protected from hull breach.

"I hear," he said cautiously, because he wasn't sure Tink had ever been through school in the sense a Family kid had, "I hear a lot of the Mariner kids don't remember."

"Yeah. Fu

"That's beautiful."

"Huh. " Tink looked at him as if to see was he kidding. Gri

"You could get a job anywhere. Station chef'd hire you."

"No station. I ain't getting blowed to hell, not Tink."

"Can't blame you for that."

"No damn way."

"How long have you been with Corinthian?"

"Fifteen years. Fifteen years. " He looked at the pastry. "That do it?"

"That's real pretty."

"I seen roses on Pell," Tink said then. "That's what the flowers are, is roses. They got this big greenhouse, you can take a guided tour. Cost you five c. It's worth it."

"Pell's where we're going?"

"Yeah. If you get dock time, if you want to go, you can come with me. It's an hour tour."

"I don't think they're going to let me."

"More'n you just backtalked the captain, isn't it?"

Tink wasn't so slow. "Yeah," he said. "Don't think he's ever wanted me alive, let alone on his ship."

"Huh," Tink said. That was all. And his estimate of Tink's common sense went way up.

—iv—

THE LIGHTS DID THAT BRIEF DIMMING and rebrightening that was maindawn and alterdark, that ancient re-set of biological clocks for the two main shifts together, that odd time that two entire crews who shared the same ship should meet and cross and exchange duties. One shift's first team was eating breakfast, one shift's first team was eating supper, while the seconds of one shift were making ready for switchover and the seconds of the other were at supper if they liked, or rec, or sims or whatever… it was a great deal the same as on Sprite, a great deal, Tom supposed, the same on every ship in space, a lot the same on stations, so it must say something about what Earth did or had done… he'd never figured, but he supposed so.

Officers' mess was elsewhere… Tink put pans on a cart, no different at all went into it than the general crew got, by his observation. One pastry went to the officers, one to the crew, set out on the sideboard, on display, and on the breakfast-di