"Not yet," she said. It had to be the truth. It left him room to run. "I hear you didn't like Christian's arrangements."
"I don't trust him," he said. "Less, now."
"The captain wasn't in on it."
"I never thought so," he said.
"Christian's in deep trouble," Saby said. "Have your soup."
"I'm not hungry."
"Listen. The captain wants you to come back. The passport's a fake. There's just all kinds of trouble. There's some real nice people who could get hurt."
The waiter came over, offered a menu.
"Just coffee," Saby said. "Black."
The waiter left. Tom stirred his tea with no purpose, thinking desperately what kind of bargain he could make, and thinking how it was a ploy, of course it was. But a captain had a ship at risk because of him, a ship, his trade, his license, all sorts of things.
Which meant once Saby made that phone call, all hell was going to break loose, and they'd take him back, they'd takehim back, come hell or station authorities. Couldn't blame anyone for that. Any spacer would.
"He'd really like it if you'd come back," Saby said.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess he would."
"I don't think he'd have you on scrub anymore."
"I like scrub fine. It's good company."
"We don't want trouble."
"I know you don't. I don't. Just give me my passport and you won't hear a thing from me."
Saby looked at the table. The waiter brought the coffee. She sipped it, evidently satisfied. "So why did you come here?" she asked him, then.
"I heard about the gardens. It was a place I knew to go."
"I didn't plan to find you. I just happened here.—But if I called the ship, you know, if I told them you were coming back, I think it would make them rethink everything. I don't think you'd end up in the brig again. I really don't."
"I get to be junior pilot, right?"
"I don't think that."
"It's not a damned good offer."
"What do you want?"
He didn't know. He didn't think any of it was true. He shook his head. Took a spoonful of cooling soup.
"Well," Tink said out of nowhere. Torn looked up. "They're looking for you, " Tink said.
Last hope. A ball of fire and smoke.
"Did you tell her?"
"Tell her what?" Tink asked.
"That I'd be here."
"I didn't know you'd be here," Tink said, sounding honestly puzzled.
It was too much. He shook his head. He had a lump in his throat that almost prevented the soup going down.
"Tink was going to the gardens," Saby said. "He always does. I said I'd meet him here."
"Not like a date or anything," Tink said, sounding embarrassed. "She's an officer."
"Tink's a nice date," Saby said. "Knows everything there is about flowers."
"I don't," Tink said.
He'd been caught by an accident. By the unlikeliest pair on Corinthian. Nothing dramatic. Tink and Saby liked flowers. What was his life or what were his plans against something so absolutely unintended?
"Call the ship," he said. Tink clinched it. He didn't want the cops. He didn't want station law. "Tell them… hell, tell them you found me. Say it was clever work. Collect points if you can get 'em."
"You seen the gardens?" Saby asked.
He shook his head.
"You like to?" Saby asked.
Of course he would. He just didn't think she was serious.
"You got to," Tink said. And to Saby: "He's got to."
"You want to?" Saby asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"You through?" Saby asked, and waved a hand. "Finish the salad. We've got time."
"Good stuff here," Tink said. "We're taking on a load of fresh greens. Tomatoes. Potatoes. Ear corn. Goodstuff…"
He'd only gotten potatoes and corn in frozens. He thought about the galley. About Jamal. Ahead of Austin Bowe, damned right, about Jamal, and Tink. A homier place than the accommodation his fatherassigned him. The pride Tink had in his work… he envied that. He wanted that. There were things about Corinthiannot so bad.
If one had no choice.
"You want to go the tour, then?" he asked Saby. "I swear I won't bolt. I promise. I don't want you guys in trouble."
"No problem," Saby said. "I give everybody one chance."
He shoved the bowl back. Half soup. Half salad. He hated to waste good food, especially around Tink. But he didn't trust more Corinthians wouldn't just happen in, on somebody's phone call, and it had gotten important to him, finally, to see the place' he'd seen beyond the doors, the path with the nodding giants he thought were trees. He'd heard about Pell all his life, some terrible things, some as strange as myth. He'd not seen a Downer yet. But he imagined he'd seen trees, in his view through the doors.
And if he'd only a little taste of Pell… he wanted to remember it as the storehouse of living treasures he'd heard about as a kid. He wanted the tour the kid would have wanted.
Didn't want to admit that to his Corinthianwatch, of course. He thought Tink was honest, completely. But he wasn't sure Saby wasn't just going along with anything he wanted until reinforcements arrived.
"I got a phone call to make first," Saby said.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess you do."
He was surprised she was out in the open about it. It raised his estimation of Saby, and made him wonder if she had after all come here, like Tink, with Tink, just to see the trees.
He watched her walk away and outside the restaurant. He went to the check-out and paid the tab, in cash. He went out with Tink, toward the ticket counter, finally.
"Let me get the tickets," he said to Tink. "It's on my brother. He gave me funds."
Tink didn't seem to understand that. Tink seemed to suspect something mysterious and maybe not savory, but he agreed. Tink looked utterly reputable this mainday evening, which was Tink's crack of dawn morning—wearing Corinthian-greencoveralls that hid the tattoos except on his hands. His short-clipped forelock was brushed with a semblance of a part. He had one discreet braid at the nape. Most men looking like that were looking for a spacer-femme who was also looking. Not Tink. And he understood that. At twenty-three, he began to see things more important than the endless search after encounters and meaning in some-one. Some-thing began to be the goal. Some-thing: some credit for one's self, some achievement of one's ambitions, some accommodation with the illusions of one's misspent childhood.
Saby came back from her phone call, all cheerful, her dark hair a-bounce, mirth tugging at the corners of her mouth. "The captain says about time you reported in. I told him you were waiting to take the tour. He said take it, behave ourselves, and we're clear."
"He said that?" He didn't believe it. But Saby didn't look to be lying. She was too pleased with herself.
"Come on. Let's get tickets."
"Got 'em," Tink said.
"Christian's compliments," he couldn't resist saying. "His money."
Saby outright grinned. And pulled him and Tink, an elbow apiece, toward the staging area.
—ii—
IT WAS ROSES TINK FAVORED. But trees and the concept of trees loomed in his mind and forever would, palms and oaks and elms and banyans and ironhearts, ebony and gegypaand sarinat. They whispered in the fan-driven winds, they shed a living feeling into the air, they dominated the space overhead and rained bits and pieces of their substance onto the paths.
"If a leaf's fallen," the guide told them, "you can keep it. Fruits and flowers and other edibles are harvested daily for sale in the garden market."
Leaves were at a premium. Tourists pounced on them. But one drifted into his reach, virtually into his hand, gold and green.