Tripoint

The door opened. The crowd in front vacated the lift. Christian shoved his way through and he tried to follow, but Christian turned around, furious, the other side of the threshold. "Get to hell out of my life, Hawkins!"

Shocked faces, around Christian. He'd started forward, to leave the lift. It seemed useless, then, with Christian opposed, to pursue anything with anyone in command.

Downbound crew flooded in, pushing him back against the rail. The doors shut, the lift went down and let out downside. The other passengers got off. He did.

Straight face-on into Saby.

"Tink said—" Saby began, and grabbed his arm as they worked their way outward, against the five or six upbounds trying to get in the doors.

He wasn't coherent. He waved a hand, made a helpless gesture as they got clear, back at the corridor wall. "No luck. Waste of time."

"I could have told you," Saby said. "Tom, let me talk to him."

"Not Austin. Christian. Damn him. Attitudinal son of a bitch. "

"Him, too. " Saby made a flustered gesture and punched the lift button. One car had gone. The other was downbound. "He's being a fool."

"You don't go up there!"

Saby turned around with a furious stare. "I'm going upthere because this is my shift, and I'm late!—And leave it to me who I talk to!"

"It's my life, dammit!"

The lift arrived. Saby ducked in with a last few upbound crew. The doors shut. He stood there, having embarrassed himself, generally, having made a public scene with Christian, up and down the lift system, and disagreed with Saby, in public.

There was nothing but a shut door to talk to. There was nothing to do but walk back to the galley where he'd agreed to be. Forever.

Right now he wanted to strangle Christian. He'd blamed Saby. He'd blamed himself. He'd blamed Marie and Austin and fate.

But right now he saw only one person responsible for what had happened to Christian, and to him, and for the misunderstanding with Saby, and every damn thing else.

Wasn't Saby's fault she'd been drafted as surrogate mama to a jealous brat whose universe insisted every problem was somebody else's fault.

He slammed his fist into the paneling as he walked. It hurt as much as he remembered. He pounded it two, three, four, five times, until the corridor thundered and the pain outside equalled the explosion inside his chest.

Somebody put his head out of ops and ducked back again. Fast.

He hit the wall four more times, until his knuckles showed blood.

Nobody asked. Nobody came out. He got as far as the next traverse, with the mess-hall in sight, when the siren sounded, and the PA thundered, " Take-hold, take-hold, long bum in one minute. This is your warning. "

He didn't run. He walked, deliberately, counting the seconds, down the mess-hall center aisle, made it to the comfortable side, the stern wall, this time, where Tink and Jamal were getting set.

"Fix it?" Tink asked.

"Waste of time. Waste of effort. Nobody listens."

Tink raised his brows. He remembered he was supposed to be seeing about bed-sheets. "Yeah," Tink said, and held out a bag of candy. "Lot of that going around today. Have one. Have two."

He did. His hand was ski

The burn started, smooth, clean, steady, this time.

Mainday crew was the heavy load for the galley, the dockers, who seemed to keep whatever schedule they fancied—but figure that the horde would hit the galley hall for supper once the burn cut out. Sandwiches out to the working stations. Everybody to feed before they made jump.

Gentle burn. Reasonable burn.

"Easy does it now," Tink said. "Pell is the most reg-u-lated place in the ports we do. You sneeze and gain a tenth of a k in their zones, you got a fine. One k ain't nothing. Pilot knows."

"Runs in the genes," he muttered, while that 'ports we do' hit the conscious part of his brain, the assumptions he'd made, the questions he'd asked himself and not asked, because the routes were so laid down by physics and what points a ship could reach from where they were that he'd assumed Earth, Tripoint, and Viking. From Pell, they could make Earth, spooky enough thought, strange, overcrowded place. But that had been where Christophe Martinwas bound. Christian wouldn't ship him where Corinthianwas already going. From Pell… if they went really off the charts they could reach the Hinder Stars, the old bridge of stars the sub-lighters had used for stepping-stones out from Earth—shut down, now, dead,

… civilized powers couldn't keep the Mazia

So they said.

"Tink. " He felt stupid asking, at this late date. "Where are we going?"

"Tripoint. Just Tripoint to Viking."

So mundane it shook him, after the giddy speculation he'd just made. He wasn't even sure he'd have believed it, if it hadn't come from Tink.

"Where's the Fleet co

And a silence.

Then: "Tripoint," Tink said. That was all. The silence outweighed curiosity, reminding him Tink wasn't i

He'd been in a position, while he was free, to do everything Marie would have done—whatever it might have cost him. But he hadn't. Hadn't wanted to—thinking about himself. Then Tink. Then Saby, after which… he guessed now he was where he wanted to be, scared, lost—queasy at the stomach as the burn kept up, getting them up to the vPell would let them carry in its i

And very, very lonely, just now. Cut off from everything and everyone he'd grown up with. From everything he'd been taught was right and wrong, good and bad.

Burn cut out.

"That's about 10 kips," Tink said. "Out andaway from Downbelow's pull. We're outbound now."

"How long have we got? Days? Hours?"

"Four hours inside the slow zones," Jamal said. "Two meals to two shifts, fast as we can turn 'em, and all the resupply at the posts. You make coffee?"

"I can learn. " He stood away from the wall, steady on his feet. Movement was starting down the corridor, a drift of mainday crew past the tables… "Serving line's not open yet,"

Jamal yelled out, which roused no complaint, but faces were grim-Ship, he heard. People weren't happy, and it didn't have to do with the line not being open. While Jamal and Tink hauled the serving-pans out and settled them on the counter, he opened up the cabinet and got out the coffee and the filters, listening all the while.

Something about a ship following them.

Marie? he asked himself. His heart skipped a beat, two, recalling what Austin had said, that Marie might come here.

Then he heard another word. Mazia

Didn't they supply the Fleet? Weren't they on the same side?

He looked at Tink. Tink looked grim, too.

"Aren't they friendlies?" he asked Tink. "What are they talking about?"

"Du

—ii—

"I DON'T FEEL SORRY FOR YOU," Austin said, for openers. "Not one damn bit. Am I going to hear you whimper, or what?"