Tripoint

There were hoots and catcalls that died fast as Christian led the way down the access, the crew and Christian in coats, himself in his shirt sleeves, which he hoped to God nobody in customs was going to question. He might be hyperventilating—the cold made his breaths too short, and made his chest hurt. Frost whitened every surface but the heated floor. Heated plates, too, as they came down the ramp and into the vast echoing shadow of the dock, under white lights that, like stars, glared from far aloft in the girders, lighting nothing until the light reached the metal decking and the waiting customs agents, at the check-through at the bottom of their ramp. Neon from the bar frontages pierced through the dark and the spots, faint traceries of bar and shop signs, freedom, just that close ahead.

If breath was short before, it was all but choked now. Don't look nervous, he said to himself, every spacer kid learned it, never look nervous with customs, don't look like you're carrying anything, don't get too friendly, please God there's no glitch with the papers…

God, I didn't get an entry stamp at Viking, do you get an exit stamp at a free port? Last I got was Mariner, four months, maybe, four months realtime…

Agents didn't even look at the stamps. If you strongly looked like your passport picture, if you were approximately the right gender, that was fine, they didn't even run the microchecks or fingerprints or anything… just go on, keep the line moving, and you were through. He couldn't believe it was that easy.

Christian grabbed his elbow. "Not far," Christian said. "Everything's set."

"I need my passport. " It was always the sticking-point in the plan. Christian neededit aboard ship to support his story. He needed it far worse. His actual license was in Sprite'srecords. His files were the other side of the Line. He'd never felt his identity, his whole claim on existence, so tenuous as it was with that red folder in Christian's hands.

"Just keep walking. Let's do this fast, for God's sake, I've got to get back. You'll get your damn passport."

"What berth?"

"We're at 12. Martinis 22."

Ten berths wasn't a pleasant hike at the tempo Christian took it. The air felt heavy to him, giving him more than he wanted, but laden with scents that made it seem thick to him. Breaths didn't steam on this dockside, but, maybe it was the chill he'd gotten in the tube, maybe it was the raw fear of something going wrong, that fast walking couldn't break a sweat—he was keeping up with Christian, a step behind at times, thinking maybe it would have made sense to hop a ped-transport, it surely would have made better sense…

But the display boards were saying Berth 20, and 21, and that was 22 ahead.

A group of four men was standing in their path. "You just go with them," Christian said. "Everything's set. It's all right. Here's your passport, there's your escort aboard, you don't need papers, they'll fix you up whatever papers you need. You've got the two hundred."

"Yes. " He took the red passport folder, tucked it into his pocket as they walked toward the four men meeting them. Couldn't see any departure boards from here… he wanted to see was the ship on schedule and he lagged a step to turn and get a look back over his shoulder, at the section/berth display for 20 through 25. He picked out the 22 under Berth, and right beside the reassuring digital Christophe Martin, Pell Registry, was, in smaller letters: Sol Station One, +30: 23h.

Christian grabbed his arm, jerked him around.

He didn't think. He broke the grip and bolted for the dock-side wall, into the thickest traffic he could find.

"Hawkins!" Christian yelled after him. And: "Get him, dammit!"

He dodged pedestrians, a taxi, a can transport. He ran as far and as fast as he could. A stitch came in his side. His knees began to go, tendons aching. Obstacles blurred. He kept missing them, as long as he could keep going, finally jogged down to a walk, sweat burning off in the icy dry air, throat raw, legs and arms going increasingly to rubber. He didn't bend over to get rid of the stitch, nothing to make him obvious in the traffic. Shirt and black skintights weren't unusual in the crowd near the heated frontage, just too recognizable. He expected Corinthiancrew at any moment to overtake him and ship him off to Sol, where he'd never get back again, never, ever match up with Sprite'scourse, too many variables, too far from everything he knew. Besides that, Earthers were weird, with weird, irrational laws, and he didn't want to go where, for all he knew, Martinmight be under agreement to dump him.

Legs wobbled under him. Spacer-boys didn't run distances.

Do anything you like in null- g, maybe sprint the length of lower main, but no races on dockside. Only thing in his favor, Christian and the guys from Martindidn't have station-legs, either. And terror was on his side.

Nobody overtook him. If they'd lost track of him somewhere, they'd have had to factor in the chance he'd dived into a shop or a bar, or taken a lift up to the station's upper levels, and once they did that, Pell was a huge station, not easy to search with any degree of quiet. He ought to go to the cops, he ought to, but no way in hell was that an option. Best was the lifts, while he was still ahead of the search and they hadn't a chance to post watch by the doors.

He had the credit chits Christian had given him—a gift to salve Christian's conscience or just property Martinwould have taken from him to pay his bills aboard, he didn't intend to find out. He had the passport Christian had given him—maybe that was conscience-salving, too, because Christian could have stranded him for good and all if he had just handed that over to Martincrew.

He took it out of his pocket. It was the right official cover. But it didn't have the thumb-dent on the edge his had. He opened it and it was just color repro inside, a good, professional forgery.

The wind went out of him, then. He wasn't sure where he was walking. He flipped through the pages, dodged pedestrians, told himself he was a fool, he'd seen the folder, he'd believed it—but no customs agent was going to pass it at close inspection. Christian had switched it on him, maybe had the real one and the fake in his pocket, and he was on Pell without a legitimate passport to let him go to the station offices, or apply for work. His license was there, all repro, nothing he could legitimately take to any ship's master.

He bumped into a man—excused himself. He was lightheaded and close to panic, and, with that near-incident, he shoved the passport into his pocket and kept walking, half-blind, heart beating in great, heavy thumps.

Stupid, he kept saying. Stupid, stupid. The only worse thing that he'd escaped… was being on Christophe Martin.

—ii—

NOT GOOD, WAS ALL CHRISTIAN could say to himself as he reached Corinthian'sdockside. Not good, in the way an oncoming rock wasn't good.

Michaels had seen to the details—had the cargo crew taking care of business, setting up with Pell transport. A glance around told him at what stage routine was at the moment and Austin couldn't fault him for that—Michaels was on his job and it wasn't as if he'd kited off with things undone.

What he haddone was a trouble he couldn't even graph. It wasn't supposed to have happened that way. Things weren't supposed to have skewed off like that, they had no right not to have gone the way they should.

"Chris-tian."

Capella's voice. He waited. Capella overtook him at the edge of the ramp.

"Well?" Capella said.

"Son of a bitch," he said.