(He didn't, really, but Lydia said he wasn't going to be capable of it, yet. Like the prince in the fairy story, he was going to be crazy until somebody loved him… )
But if he had loved anybody it was Marie, and he hadn't loved anybody, if not her, and right now the place where Marie ought to fit—felt like a twisty hollow spot, filled up with anger and hurt where she'd lied to him and ducked out on him, and absolute terror that he'd never see her again and never know what had happened to her.
Because Marie was the edges of the universe. Marie was right and wrong. Marie was the place to go to for the answers and he didn't have a map without her.
Lydia'd say that wasn't normal either. But it was all he had. And nobody else was going to get him out of this. Nobody else gave a damn.
Lydia didn't. Lydia said he was a misfit and a time bomb on the ship. Lydia'd said he'd go off the edge someday, and they ought to find him a nice safe berth on a station, where he could get adopted.
He had nightmares about Lydia finding ways to leave him. Like Lydia convincing Mischa, who didn't like him anyway. And when Marie would send him back to the nursery because she was sick of him, and when the nursery would complain that he was too old, he hurt the younger kids and he wouldn't take their sleep cycle, because all the other kids and all the mothers except Marie were on mainday…
And the nursery workers all wanted to watch vids while the kids were asleep, but they wouldn't let him watch the ones they did, they said go to bed, go to sleep, if he just behaved himself Marie might take him back…
The siren sounded again. Warning of jump imminent.
"Count is five… four… "
He squeezed the pack. Felt the sting of the needle.
"… three… two… "
Marie wasn't coming, wasn't ever coming to get him, where he was going.
—iii—
THE WAVEFRONT OF CORINTHIAN'Spassage was still coming at them when the clock on Sprite'sbridge said to anybody who knew anything that Corinthianhad just left the system.
That information hit Marie in the gut—for God knew what reason, because, dammit, she didn't owe the kid. It was the other way around. Highly, the other way around. She'd searched up and down the frontage where she'd left him, she'd gone back to Spriteto pursue matters as far as she dared with the police, almost to the point of getting swept up and detained herself. It hadn't been a good experience, and meanwhile Spritecrew wholesale was still out searching every nook in every bar and shop they could think of for a damned elusive twenty-three-year-old offspring who ought occasionally to read the schedule boards.
Miller Transship claimed to know nothing. The station police called station Central, and Central called the stationmaster, who called Corinthianlong-distance, himself, big deal, while Corinthianwas outbound.
Surprise: Corinthiandenied all knowledge of Hawkins personnel aboard.
Then Corinthiansaid, which they needn't have said… that if they should turn out to have a stowaway, they'd drop him at their next port.
The stationmaster said, all mealy-mouthed, Do that, and signed off.
Injustice… there wasn't a choice about it. There wasn't a ship in hell or Viking system that could chase that bastard down once they'd finally roused the stationmaster with word something could be wrong… even Sprite, mostly empty. Couldn't, with the head start he'd have had, and their tanks still drawing… and for a station to call an outbound ship to dump vand limp back the long slow days it would take to reach station from where they were, plus buck the outbound traffic, against all regulation… meant big lawsuits if station couldn't prove their case; and catch-me-if-you-can if the merchanter in question wanted to claim they were in progress for jump and missed the transmission. By the time they got back again, witnesses had scattered and it was, again, better have good evidence and a good reason.
So they had to watch the son of a bitch become a blip on station scopes.
And that last, that unnecessary bit of information about stowaways, was a clear message from Bowe, damn his smug face— sheknew. They could just as well pull in the search teams, Tom wason that ship, Bowe had taken away the only thing she had of his, and the remark about dropping Tom 'at their next port' was a threat, not a reassurance. God knew what their 'next port' was, if it wasn't some Mazianni carrier in want of personnel.
If there'd just been proof to give the police, if there'd been any concrete evidence of a kidnapping…
But what could they have done? If she got the evidence now, the station administration could bar Corinthianfrom coming back—supposing the evidence was iron-clad. But it wouldn't be. It was all circumstantial. If the station needed their commerce more than they needed justice done…
But Viking was just newly a free port. Viking didn't want any dirty, unfathomable merchanter quarrel on its shiny new trade treaty. Spritewas from one side of the Line. Corinthianwas from another. The next time Corinthiandocked, was Viking going to search Corinthianfor personnel Corinthianhad plainly just told the stationmaster wasn't going to be aboard next time?
"It's gone," Mischa said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Nothing we can do."
Nothing we can do.
Nothing we can bloody do.
A sanctimonious shrug from Mischa, who'd been watching the clock—and was damned well satisfied to wash his hands of Tom Bowe-Hawkins.
"Nothing we can do," she echoed him. "You son of a bitch, you mealy-mouthed, self-serving son of a bitch, you knowhe's on that ship!"
"That's far from certain, Marie."
"Oh, nothing's ever absolute with you, nothing's ever just quite clear, is it?"
"Marie. This is the bridge. You're on the bridge. Control it, can we?"
"'Control it, can we?' 'Control it?' 'Just shut up, Marie? We know you're not quite stable, Marie? Too bad about your kid, Marie, you can get another one? Why don't you go get laid, Marie, and cure your Problem while you're at it, Marie!"
"Reel it in, Marie, you never gave a damn about that boy!"
"I never gave a damn? Oh, let's talk about giving a damn, Mischa, excuse me, captainHawkins. They could sell him to the Fleet for all we know—they're always short of personnel, he's a good-looking kid, and we know what happens to good-looking kids they get their hands on, don't we, captain Hawkins?"
"We don't even know he's not on dockside. Let's talk about ducking orders, let's talk about kiting off on your own, why don't we? The kid had orders to keep up with you and keep in touch. He violated those orders or we wouldn't be asking where he is right now."
"Oh, now it's hisfault! Everything's someone else's fault."
"Fault never lands in your lap, does it? You ditched your tag, Marie. I'd have thought you'd have learned your lesson twenty years ago."
"Damn your interference! If I hadn't had to dodge you, I'd have the evidence on that son of a bitch, we'd have him screwed with the port authority and Tom wouldn't be in Bowe's ship right now!"
"There is nothing we can do, Marie."
"There was nothing you could do on Mariner, either, was there? I know what it feels like, Mischa, I know, and I don't take 'nothing we can do. ' That son of a bitch is laughing at us, he's laughingat us, do you hear? Or do you give a damn?"