Most spacer-men never met their offspring. And vice-versa.
Which seemed, from where he sat, now, an eminently sensible idea. He hadn't had a sister. Not even a female cousin. He'd have been spared shipboard offspring in the lateral orthe vertical sense—if Beatrice hadn't double-crossed him and tossed her contraceptive.
Damn the woman. She'd had no right, no bloody right, to do that in the first place, and none at all, now, to play the jealous fool with him over a woman he cared absolutely nothing about and the offspring he'd never remotely planned to deal with.
"Mark. Three to jump," came from Beatrice.
Go on dockside separately, they did, he and Beatrice, that was the agreement. They didn't account to each other for their bedmates, they trusted each other for basic good taste—and suddenly Beatrice went green-eyed jealous over a cold-natured Family bitch whose primary interest the first and only night they'd slept together was in seeing him fried?
He had an uncomfortable idea precisely on what inspiration Beatrice's birth control had failed, now that he thought of it. And why Corinthian'schief pilot had inconvenienced herself at least long enough to deliver that statistically rare failure into the universe, Beatrice talking, like a fool, about personal curiosity, and biological investment, and primal urges…
Bull shitif Beatrice had primal urges that didn't involve Beatrice's immediate and personal convenience.
He'd been disinterested, then intrigued by the birth process, and subsequently bemazed by the unique life they'd generated—which he didn't think of then as a power game.
But that life unfortunately didn't spring to full-blown intelligence, rather languished in fetal helplessness, doddering inconvenience, juvenile silliness, juvenile rebellion, and finally juvenile half-assed confidence in its own damned ability.
Hawkins was a shade older than Christian. A shade more deliberate (Christian planned by the second), a shade more reluctant to open his mouth (Christian had no brake on his), a damned sight more apt to studied ambush (Christian was subtle as an oncoming rock), and, to an unanswered degree, capable of deceit.
Get the truth out of Hawkins. That was essential. The boy'd lied about his license, knew a comp tech was persona non grata on a hostile ship. He'd thought that through, at least.
Get Hawkins to figure out the rules of the real universe, and that included the basic folly of bucking a ship's captain. The kid needed an understanding of practicalities.
"Mark one," came from Beatrice.
Kid. Hell. Christian was a kid. Hawkins… wasn't.
By what degree not a kid and with what intention currently in his mind remained to be seen, but it wasn't a juvie temper fit that had sent Hawkins away from that wall headed for his throat, it was a man pushed to the limit he was willing to be pushed, and he knew to a fair degree, now, where the flash point was with Hawkins.
Hawkins himself didn't know. But Hawkins would discover it. Hawkins would learn, in the process, what his options were—because—he himself had realized it at an instinctive level in the moment when he'd sent Hawkins to the galley—you couldn't turn Hawkins loose and expect him not to come back at you. You learned, running hired-crew, who would and who wouldn't be safe under what conditions. You bet your life on your decisions in that department, your life, your livelihood, and the ship and everyone in it on your understanding of human nature. You learned to assess who had brains and who was just fucking mean, and howthey'd move when they moved—you knew it even if the man himself didn't know.
And this Hawkins could maybe forget an ongoing personal grievance for maybe a day, a week, however long it took things to sort out around him. But this Hawkins, when he'd made you a serious case, didn'tforget, didn't give up, once he had his feet under him. Never give Tom Hawkins room to lay plans. Never give Tom Hawkins the idea you were going to do harm where he had an allegiance.
"Mark ten seconds to jump. Eight… seven…"
Son of abitch. Hawkins was.
"… six… five… four… three… two… one…"
Gone.
Bad luck to you, Marie Hawkins.
—ii—
SPRITEDROPPED IN… electronic impulses probed the dark.
Found no echoes, no substance but the nearest radiating mass.
Which didn't surprise Marie.
Didn't have a hope Bowe was here. She knew his habits. Knew the way he thought. He wouldn't take the chance. Hadn't tracked the man for twenty years without understanding howhe worked and what his tactics were.
So he was out of Tripoint, maybe spending a day or two he knew he could afford, but he wouldn't cut the margin fine enough to compromise the gap between them. He wanted all the loading time at Pell he could get. He'd run through Tripoint fast enough to make him comfortable, not fast enough, of course, that it could possibly seem to his crew that he was running from a confrontation with little, unarmed Sprite, and with Marie Hawkins.
But he'd struck at her—personally. Spitefully. She was supposed to lose her composure—possibly make bad decisions. Push the Family into a dry run?
Lose money, maybe fatally for Spriteand its operations? The Family wasn't crazy and Sprite'scargo officer knewthe Pell market, though she'd never been there. She knew it because it was part of the web, she knew it the way she'd known the specific figures of adjacent markets for twenty years, always holding herself ready to divert Spriteon short notice if she found Bowe in reach.
Planned ahead, damned right.
Sorry, Austin. I'm not a fool.
And I've gotthe votes in Spritecrew. Mischa didn't want an election called.
" He's not here,"Mischa called down to say.
Bravo, Mischa, late again. I know that.
"Marie?"
"I hear that. " She bit her tongue short of the acid remark she wanted to make. She left Mischa nothing, nothing to take hold of. It drove him crazy.
"We're transiting the point as fast as we can. Exit as soon as we run the checks. "
That was the prior agreement. Mischa needed to call her, early on in their arrival at Tripoint? Mischa surely had a point to make.
"Maybe Tom's worked right in, do you think?"
Oh, Mischa wasbitter. Rubbed salt into it.
" You always said,"Mischa purred into the silence of the ship, insidious as the systems-sounds, " like father, like son. "
"Did I? Maybe he will. Maybe he'll use the figures I taught him."
"What figures?"
"Mischa, Mischa, what do I deal with? In and out of my office all the time… why do you thinkSaja put Tom on main crew?"
Electronic pop. The com had been bridge-wide until then. She'd bet on it.
"I've had about enough, Marie. "
"Yeah," she said. "Only this time we're doing something."
"Don't push me, Marie. "
"Don't put me on broadcast again."
Click.
Straight out of jump and into a personal argument. Marie sipped the nutri-pack and shut her eyes, alone in the cargo office. Jump-point entry didn't need cargo officers but one, in case something went egregiously wrong and they had to blow the holds and shed mass. But now entry was a fact, the rest of Cargo main shift came straying in, to start checking readout from the warm-cans, and the other specific-conditions cans in the hold, checking the computer records, making sure nothing had changed in data and nothing had screwed in programs… big excitement. She was trying to recover a train of thought from before jump, she always insisted to do that.