"Listen," Christian said, settling, a weight on the mattress edge beside him. "The guys made a mistake. I don't want it blown up into an incident that can sour this trip, you read me clear? Mad crew can make a lot of trouble."
It sounded like an actual honest reason. A serious reason. He wasn't brought up a total fool—a ship in space was wholly vulnerable. This ship in particular was vulnerable to its hire-ons or any total crazy they happened to get aboard. Was Christian saying they were already running scared of the crew, or what, for God's sake? And was Christian in some kind of personal bind about what had happened?
His head hurt too much to figure it out. Christian meanwhile got up and rummaged through his clothes locker, after something, he didn't figure what, or want to know. He just wanted back in the galley or back in the brig without being used or manipulated into something that could bring their mutual father to bounce his already aching body off the bulkhead again, that was his chief concern. He'd just had it fairly good where he was, today, and he didn'twant a set-to with anybody right now.
Except—
Christian came back, threw some clothes onto the end of the bed. "You concussed? Anything broken?"
He ran his tongue around his mouth as he lay there. Stared at Christian down his nose. There were cuts. Teeth ached. Everything ached. "Ribs, arm, maybe cracked. I don't know. " He couldn't help it, couldn'tkeep his mouth shut and give up a fight with a guy who had one due. "What's it to you?"
"All right, all right. " Christian waved his arms. "Cancel, stop, go back. Bad start, all right? Bad start. My damn temper.—But I caught hell for bringing you aboard. Austin calls me a fool. Everybody calls me a fool. But it was a judgment call. Don't ask me what I was supposed to do! You're the one went poking into what didn't involve you, and now everything's my fault. When I'm wrong I catch hell for it. When I'm right I catch hell. When I'm right and they're wrong I catch double hell, but I didn't plan this, I did the best I could, all right? I got you out of there. Probably Austin would've, if he was there, just the same, but it's my fault since I did it and he didn't have to, you understand me?"
Most guys wouldn't. Not half. But he'd lived with Marie. "Yeah," he said, and struggled to sit up, with a hand pressed against his forehead, because his brain hurt.
"So I'm sorry," Christian said. "Bad start. Austin pounded meagainst a wall. And he didn't pass the warning to all the guys. The ones that pounded you, they won't, twice. They'll walk wide of you, and me. I have it over them in spades right now. They'll do me favor points, you, too, if you don't make a case. Rough guys, but they know they're on notice."
"I won't be anybody's target. Not anybody's. Not theirs. Not yours."
"I said I was sorry. I'd had my own run-in with Austin, all right?—There's a shower. Clean clothes. Couple of days yet before jump and then you can lie still and let it heal. You'll be fine. Won't even scar."
Christian could say that. But a shower was attractive. Realattractive. Clean clothes… it felt as if the coveralls had grown to his skin. He'd sweated in them. He'd bled over them. He loathed the feel of them. And the loan of a shower and clean clothes… was a bribe worth a peace treaty, far as he was concerned. He started to get up.
"You make it on your own?" Christian asked.
"Yeah," he said, and hauled himself up, one hand on the wall.
A little dizziness then. But his sight was mostly back. He got up in the unaccustomed great space of the biggest junior officer's cabin he'd seen, and wobbled back to the shower.
Forgot the clean clothes. He turned around to trek back again, but Christian brought them to the bath and left him alone, afterward, to knock around the small mirrored space, getting undressed.
After that was warm water vapor, luxury detergent, the kind-to-abused-skin sort, and he could have sunk to the bottom of the shower and stayed there a year, but it had an auto-cycle he hadn't set right and it went to blow dry long before he wanted it.
He opened the door a crack and snaked an arm out for the clothes, such as they were. He'd never tried skintights. Never had the budget and never wanted the cousins laughing at him.
Black. Shimmer-stuff. Damned little left to the imagination, one size fit all, or you definitely shouldn't think about it.
He hadn't a mirror inside the shower and he wasn't at all sure, except they were clean, dry, more comfortable than they looked, and the shirt—blue—at least was tunic-style. Tabs at the side that made the waist fit—another one-size, and the loose sleeves, anybody could wear who didn't have arms to their knees. He wasn't sure. He felt like a fool coming out of the shower, and stopped in the doorway for a mistrustful glance at the mirror.
"Better," Christian said, "A little style, Hawkins, couldn't hurt."
Heat from the shower hadn't made him steadier. He wobbled. He glared at this implied deficiency in Hawkins taste. He stuck his foot in his boot in the doorway, and leaned on it, working the heel on while he braced a hand against the wall.
"So you want off this ship," Christian said.
Escape? A deal with Christian? No way in hell did he trust it. He balanced and shoved the other foot in the other boot.
"This is a true or false. Possible even for a Hawkins. Fifty percent chance of being right. Do you want off this ship?"
Christian might want rid of him. That part he could believe, the way he couldn't readily believe Christian's stepping into a brawl only to save him. He didn't know how obvious his suspicions were, or what it could cost him to challenge Christian with the truth. But he decided on confrontation, for good or for ill. "Not to any Mazianni carrier, if that's the trade you're in."
"Yeah, yeah, we just load up the fools and Mazian pays top price, loves to buy those fools. Use your damn head. Where are we going?"
"Pell's what I've heard."
"Not a bad place to ship from. Civilized port. Lot of ships. Go where you like. Can't beat that."
Christian left a silence in which he might be expected to say something. He didn't. He didn't trust anything about the offer, didn't trust Christian's motives—
"Look," Christian said. "Sit down. " Christian indicated the end of the bed, and reluctantly, because his knees weren't that steady, he went back to the bed and sat. "You may have noticed," Christian said, leaning against the wall near him, one booted ankle over the other, working the heel back and forth, "that Austin is a difficult sod. I said we hadn't an auspicious beginning. Much less so with maman, Beatrice, who doesn'tlike your presence. We are the victims of two ferocious women, one of whom wants to kill us and the other of whom wants to kill you before you kill us."
"I've no desire whatever—"
"I'm perfectly certain you're an independent and difficult spirit, yourself, but maman, understand, Beatrice… will absolutely not tolerate you on this deck, not as Marie Hawkins' offspring, certainly not as Austin's, competing, shall I say it, with me? Shall I say plainly that Beatrice wants you out of here, you most certainly want to go… and it seems to me that you have no evidence against us, nothing but a merchanter quarrel,—and we all know how quickly stations wash their hands of our untidy affairs. I would never tie myself up with station police and lawyers, on the Alliance side of the Line, lawyers and court dates and station law—you don't like station lawyers, do you, Hawkins? You're not that crazy."
"No."
"Not going to be that crazy."
"No."
"Pell has customs. But you've got your passport…"
God. They wouldhave it. Withhis papers, that said he worked computers.