Tripoint

Capella didn't even start with: What happened? She dived straight to: "Where is he?"

"I don't know! How should I know? The damn fool bolted, kited off, I don't know where he is!"

"Fine. Fine. Withthe passport?"

"He thinks. " He patted the pocket where he had the real one. "He's not going anywhere without this. He'd be a fool to go to the cops. He knows it."

"Yeah," Capella said, implying, to his ears, that people had been fools before. That she was looking at one.

"He wasn't in any danger, Martin'sa fair ship—he just—took off when he saw the guys waiting, I don't know what got into his head. We've got to find him."

"We've got to find him," Capella echoed. "Yeah."

He wanted to hit her. He knew better. That bracelet wasn'ta forgery. "Pella, we've got a problem. We've got a major problem out there. Yeah, it's mine, but it's the ship's problem if we don't get him before the cops do. We can't go out of here and leave him loose—God knows what he'd do. We've got to use this port."

"Well, maybe we should stand here, I mean, if he wants Corinthians, he can just walk right up to the ramp and ask."

"Don't be an ass!"

"I'm not the ass, Chris-baby."

"Chris-tian."

That was Austin. He'd left the pocket-com on.

" Youtold him!"

"Not this spacer," Capella said. "Was your trail that immaculate?"

"Chris-tian."

He thumbed the com up. "Yessir, I hear you."

"Do you want to come aboard, Christian?"

No shouting. No cursing. Panic hit him. He wanted Austin to yell at him, swear at him, just simply bash him against a bulkhead and beat hell out of him. He'd never heard Austin so calm about something he'd done.

No, he didn't want to come aboard. He wanted to take a bare-ass walk in deep space rather than come aboard.

"Yessir," he said past the obstruction in his throat. He threw a condemned man's look at Capella, an appeal to the living. "Organize a search. Find him. Get him back."

"With what promises?" Capella hissed. "A pay raise? Promotion to tech chief?"

He couldn't stay to argue. Capella was his only hope. He mounted the long ramp, got his wave-through from customs, and walked the tube to the airlock.

Austin didn't meet him there. The i

"Sir," Christian said when they were face to face. He still expected Austin to hit him.

"Where's your brother?" Austin asked him.

"I don't have a—" The answer fell out, faster than he wanted. He shut up. Austin waited.

And waited.

"He was trouble," he said to Austin's steady stare. "He'd be trouble. He's too scrubbed- clean, he'd find out we're not and he'd go straight to the cops, some time we'd never know it."

"So?" Austin said. And waited.

"I set it up with Martin, down the row. Trip to Sol. They'd leave him there. He'd stay gone."

Another silence, the longest of his life. "I have a question," Austin said finally.

"Sir?"

"Who appointed you captain?"

"Nobody. Sir."

"Who told you your judgment was more important than mine?"

"Nobody, sir."

Another silence. He'd never dealt with Austin in this mode. He'd never seen it in his life. He didn't want to see it again.

"This ship doesn't agree with your judgment, then."

"Nossir. " He saw himself busted to galley scrub. For years. He saw Austin selling him to the Fleet. Beatrice wouldn't like it. But Beatrice herself might be on the slippery slope with Austin right now.

"I have a suggestion," Austin said.

"Sir. " He asked what Austin wanted, he did what Austin wanted. He only hoped to stay alive. Hitting him would have blown off Austin's temper. He prayed for Austin to hit him and call it quits. This… didn't promise forgiveness. Ever. No confidence in him. Ever again.

"I want you to go out and find him," Austin said softly. "I want you to get him back here without tripping any alarm. What are we agreed to with Martin?"

"Ten thousand c."

"You paid it?"

"Yes, sir. " It was the only defense he could claim. "My money."

Austin only nodded. "You'd better get out there."

"Yessir," he said, paralyzed.

"So why are you standing there?"

"Yessir," he said, and backed off a pace before he dared turn and make for the lock, feeling Austin's stare on his back all the way.

Chapter Eight

—i—

AUSTIN WAS ASKING HIMSELF BY NOW whether he needed a son. Asking himself maybe what Beatrice had had to do with the older brother affair. Or what Capella had done.

Guilt was a contagion. That was what Christian discovered. No one of his associates was going to thank him for what he'd involved them in. He couldn't even find most of them.

He walked the docks with no notion in this star system or the next where it made sense to look, or where a fool with a forged passport was going to run. He hadn't caught up with Capella, who, for all he knew, was lodged in some sleepover with a stranger she'd yanked off the docks, the hell with him, Tom Hawkins, and the mess he'd made… she'd raided the safe for him, she'd told him he was out of his mind, and if Capella caught hell from Austin, she knew how to pass it along. No Capella. No Michaels. Nobody answered his pages. He'd thought at least he could rely on Martin'screw to join the search. Martin'scaptain having ten thousand of his money, it ought to buy something.

But Martinwas pulling out of dock on schedule. The same reason he'd picked Martinwas taking that resource out of reach.

He couldn't go to the police. He thought of excuses… he could say he'd forgotten to give his brother his passport and if the fool would just go along with it… but you couldn't rely on Hawkins taking the cue and keeping his mouth shut. Hawkins wouldn't benefit from ending up in the hands of the police, but Corinthianwould benefit far less, and Austin would skin him alive. With salt and alcohol. He didn't want the cops. God, he didn't want the cops—or the customs authorities.

He'd searched every bar in ru

But the son of a Hawkins bitch wasn't buying.

He didn't want to call a general alarm with Corinthiancrew, over what was bound to be scuttlebutted as his fault. The rumor had to be going around. There hadn't been any witnesses to that scene in lower main, but something was going to get out, and the whispers were going to run behind him for years, he knew they were. Bad enough as it was, if he somehow could retrieve the situation—and Hawkins.

But it looked grimmer and grimmer.

Then he did spot a familiar backside. A shock of blond, spiked hair. A familiar swing to the walk.

"Capella!"

Said swinging walk never interrupted at all. He sprinted, overtook, grabbed an elbow. Gingerly.

"Not a sign," Capella said darkly. "Not a perishing sign. And I've called in favors."