"I don't. I've no window into Marie's head. She said it. It scared hell out of me. She only said it once, before we jumped out of Mariner. Frankly—I didn't tell your grandmother, it would have upset her, I didn't tell Lydia, I didn't want that spread all over the ship, and Lydia's not—totally discreet. I didn't even know it was valid in the way I took it. She'd been through hell, she never repeated it in any form—it's the sort of thing somebody might say that they wouldn't mean later."
"Have you asked her about it?"
Mischa shook his head, for an answer.
"Shit."
"Thomas. Don't youask her. She and I—have our problems. Let's just get your mother through the next week sane, that's all I'm asking."
"You throw a thing like that at me, and say… don't ask?"
" Youasked."
He felt… he wasn't sure. He didn't know who was lying, or if Marie was lying to herself, or if Mischa was deliberately boxing him in so he couldn't go to Marie, couldn'task her her side.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Has she talked—down below—about killing anyone?"
"She said—she said she wants to get at him through the market. Legally."
"You think that's true?"
"I think she's good at the market. I think—there's some reason to worry."
"That she might pull something illegal? Damaging to us?"
If Mischa's version of Marie was the truth—yes, he could see a danger. He didn't know about the other kind of danger—couldn't swear to what Marie had said, that she wouldn't take to anybody with a cargo hook, that it wasn't her style. Cargo hook was Marie's imagery. He hadn't thought of it.
"What are you going to do?" he asked Mischa.
"Put Jim Two on it—have him watch her market dealings every second. Have yougo with her any time she goes onto the docks. And you remember what she pulled on me and Saja. You don't take your eyes off her."
"You're going to let her go out there."
"It's a risk. It's her risk. It's forty years ago station-time, like I said, probably Viking has no idea it's got a problem—but ships pass that kind of thing around. Somebody out there knows. Damned sure Corinthianhasn't forgotten it, and I'm hoping Bowe isn't as crazy as Marie is. He's got no good reputation, Corinthian's still running the dark edges of the universe—damned right I've kept track of him over the years—and I don't think he wants any light shining into his business anywhere. If he's smart, and I've never heard he was a fool, he'll find reason to finish business early and get out of here. I'll tell you I'm nervous about leaving port out of here with him on the loose—war nerves, all over again. But there's nothing else I can do. We've got a cargo we've got to unload, we've got servicing to do, we just can't turn around faster than he can and get out of here."
"You really think in this day and age, he'd fire on us?"
"He didn't acquire more scruples in the War. Damned right he would, if it served his purpose. And if he hasn't tagged Marie as a dangerous enemy, he hasn't gotten her messages over the years."
"She's communicated with him?"
"Early on, she sent him messages she was looking for him. That she'd kill him. She's dropped word on crew that use his ports. Left mail for him in station data. Just casually."
"God."
"Dangerous game. Damned dangerous. I called her on it. Told her she was risking the ship and I told Heston. But stopping Marie from anything is difficult. I don't thinkshe kept at it."
"And you're asking me to keep tabs on her?"
"You better than anyone. Take her side. There's nobody else she'd possibly confide in."
"Why, for God's sake? Why should she tell me anything?"
"Because you're Austin Bowe's son. And I think you figure somewhere in her plans right now."
"My God, what do you think she's going to do, walk onto his ship and shoot him?"
"If she's got a gun it's in spite of my best efforts. They're not that easy to get nowadays. And Marie may not have ever expected to have her bluff called. I haven't gotten information on Bowe's whereabouts all that frequently—frankly, not but twice in the last six years, and that had him way out on the fringes. I didn'texpect to run into him here. No way in hell. But he is here. And even if she was bluffing—she's here, and it's public. This isn't going to be easy, Thomas. I may be a total fool, but I think she'll go right over the edge if she can't resolve it now, once for all. She's my sister. She's your mother. She has to go to the Trade Bureau like she always does, she has to do her job, she has to walk back again like a sane woman, and get on with her life. If Corinthianleaves early, that's a victory. Maybe enough she can live with it. But it's going to scare hell out of me."
"You think he will leave?"
" Ithink he will. I think he's on thin tolerance at certain ports. I think he's Mazianni, I've always thought so. His side lost. I don't think he'll want to do anything. Just her crossing that dock with you is a win, you understand me? Calling his bluff. Daring him to make a move."
"Does he know about me?"
"I think she's seen to it he knows."
That scared him. Anonymity evaporated, and anonymity was the thing he cultivated on dockside, for a few days of good times notto be Thomas Bowe, just Tom Hawkins, just a crewman out cruising the same as everybody else on the docks. He was famous enough on Sprite, with every damn cousin, and his uncles, his mother and an aunt hovering over him every breath, every crosswise glance, every move he made subject to critique, as if they expected he'd explode. And now captain Mischa was sending him out dockside with Marie?
Two walking bombs. Side by side. With signs on them, saying, Here they are, do something, Austin Bowe.
He sat there looking at Mischa, shaking his head.
"If she goes out there and she does something," Mischa said, "the law will deal with her. And do you want Marie to end up in the legal system, Tom, do you wantthem to take her into some psych facility and remove whatever hate she's got for him? Do you want that to happen to Marie?"
He couldn't imagine permanent station-side. Never moving. Dropping out of the universe. Foreign as an airless moon to him. And as scary. Mind-wipe was what they did to violent criminals. And they'd do that to Marie if she went for justice. "No, sir," he said. "But you're trusting me?"
Mischa said, "Who have I got? Who willshe deal with? There'll be somebody tagging you. You won't be alone. You just keep with her. If you can't do it any other way, knock her cold and bring her back on a Medical, I'm completely serious, Tom. Don't risk losing her."
Nobody trustedTom Bowe-Hawkins. Saja hadn't trustedhim when he'd passed his boards, as if he was going to blow up someday and do something illicit and destructive to the ship's computers.
"You know," Mischa said, "if youdid anything to Corinthiancrew, you'd fare no better in the legal system. Station law doesn't know you. Station doesn't give a damn for ship-law. It's not a system you'd ever want to be part of."
"Yes, sir," he said. Mischa'd had to say that last, just when he'd thought Mischa might have trusted him after all. "I hear you. Does this make me one of you?"
Silence after that impertinence. Long silence.
"Where does that come from?" Mischa asked.
Didn't the man know? Didn't the man hear? Was the man blind and deaf to what he was doing when he pulled his psych games?
When the kids in the loft painted Korinthianon his jacket?