When the com called him to the bridge an hour ago as Thomas Bowe—the way Marie had enrolled him on the ship's list, three days after he was born?
"You're not the most popular young man aboard," Mischa said slowly. "I think you know it. I know you've had special problems. I know they're not all your fault. But some things are. You've got try-me written all over you. You're far too ready with your fists, even in nursery you were like that."
"Other kids—"—went home with their mothers, he started to say, and cut that off. Mischa would only disparage that excuse.
"Other kids, what?"
"I fought too much. My father's temper. I've heard it all."
"You got a bad deal. I'm sorry, but, being a kid, you didn't make it better. Do you know that?"
"I gave back what I got. Sir."
"You listen to me. You made some mistakes. I'm saying if you get through this situation clean, it could help Marie. And it could change some minds, give you a position in this Family you can't buy at any other price. For God's sake, use your head with Marie. She's smart, she's manipulative as hell, she'll tell you things and sound like she means them. Above all else, get that temper of yours well in hand. I can't control what everybody on this ship is going to say or do in the next few days. That's not important. Getting this cargo offloaded and ourselves out of this port with all hands aboard—is. Don't embarrass Marie. Let's get her out of here with a little vindication, if we can do that, and hope to hell we don't cross Bowe's path for another twenty of our years."
Mischa Hawkins gave good advice when he gave it. Didn't domuch for him, the son of a bitch, but what did Mischa Hawkins actually owe him?
"I'll do my best," he said. "I'll do everything I humanly can."
Mischa stared at him a moment, estimating the quality of the promise, or him, maybe. Finally Mischa nodded.
"Good," Mischa said, pushed the desk button that opened the door, and let him out.
Do something to clean up hisreputation. What in hell had hedone?
God!
He didn't punch the wall. Didn't even punch the nearest cousin, who passed him in the corridor, with a cheery, "Well, what's the matter with you, Tommy-lad?"
He went downside to the deserted gym, dialed up the resistance on the lift machine, and worked at it until he was out of breath, out of brain, and draped completely limp onto the bar.
Things had been going all right until that blip showed up on the display.
Marie had been all right, he'd been all right, he'd gotten his certificate, grown up like the rest of Sprite'sbrat kids, passed the point of teenage brawls, gotten his life in order…
Go rescue Marie from blowing Austin Bowe's brains out? On some days he'd as soon wish her luck and hope they got each other. He didn't want to meet his biological father. There were days of his life he wanted nothing more than to space Marie.
There were whole hours of his life he knew he loved her, no matter what she did or how crazy she was, because Marie was, dammit, his mother—not much of one, but he was never going to get another one, and he always felt—he didn't know how—that somehow if he could grow smarter or act better, he could eventually fix what was wrong.
Take-hold rang. He went to the back wall of the gym and stood there while the passenger ring went inertial and the bulkhead slowly became the deck. They were headed in.
One could walk about the walls during gentle braking, if one had somewhere urgent to be and a good idea how long the burn was going to last. Easier just to shut the eyes and lie on the bulkhead and let the plus-g push straighten out a tired, temper-abused back.
Fool to go at the weights in a fit of temper. Only hurting yourself, aunt Lydia would say. He was. But that was, Marie's own claim, at least his choice, nobody else's.
—iii—
PROGRAM CAME UP, PROGRAM RAN, categorizing and digesting the informational wavefront from the station, and Marie made a steeple of her fingers, watching the initial output.
She regretted the dust-up on the bridge, but, damn it, Mischa had known he was pushing. Mischa deserved everything he got.
Crazy, Mischa called her, in private and behind her back.
And so, so considerate of Mischa to spare her feelings… in public, and all.
Viking was at mainday at the moment, halfway into it, the same as Sprite'sship-time. But Corinthianwas an alterday ship. Corinthianran on that shift. Her principal officers awake during that shift: that meant the juniors were on duty right now.
That suited her.
Rumor had always maintained that certain merchanters had close operational ties to Mazian's Fleet, back in the War. The Earth Company called them loyalists, Union called them renegades. Merchanters called them names of fewer letters. Most merchanters had taken no side during the early stages of the War—Earth Company, Union, it was all the same: whoever had cargo going, at first you hauled it—until the EC Fleet stopped ships, and appropriated cargoes as Military Supply and took young crew at gunpoint, as draftees. After that, most merchanters wouldn't come near the Fleet.
And when, at the end of the War, Mazian hadn't surrendered, but kept on raiding shipping to keep the Fleet alive, there were certain few ships who, rumor had it, still tipped him about cargoes and schedules—and picked off the leavings of the raids, pirates themselves, but a small, scavenging sort.
And, no less despicable, some ships still reputedly traded with the Mazianni… ships that disappeared off the trade routes and came back again loaded. The stations, blind to what happened outside the star-systems, were none the wiser, and with the Union and Alliance governments limited by the starstations' lack of interest in the problem.
But deep-spacers whispered together in the bars, careful who was listening. And sheregularly caught the rumors, and sifted them through a net of very certain dimensions—since stations claimed they didn't have the ability to check on every ship that came and went… since stations were mostly interested in black market smuggling of drugs and scarce metals and other such commodities as affected their customs revenues.
Very well. Viking didn't give a damn until the mess landed on its administrative desk. Viking certainly didn't remember what lay forty years in the past as Viking kept time. Viking wasn't going to call Corinthianand say there was a problem. Oh, no, Viking, like every other station, was busy looking for stray drugs or contraband biologicals.
And the fact that particular ship was on alterday schedule might give Spritethat much extra time to get into port before senior Corinthianstaff realized they had a problem: their arrival insystem had to come to Corinthianoff station feed, since a ship at dock relied on station for outside information—and how often did a ship sitting safe at dock check the traffic inbound?
Not bloody often. If ever. Though Corinthianmight. Bet there was more than one ship that had Corinthianon its shit-list.
She owned a gun—illegal to carry it, at Viking or in any port. She kept it in her quarters under her personal lock. She'd gotten it years ago, in a port where they didn't ask close questions. Paid cash, so the ship credit system never picked it up.
Mischa hadn't figured it. Or hadn't found where she kept it.
But it was more than Austin Bowe that she tracked, not just the whole of Corinthianthat had aided and abetted what Bowe had done, and there was no more or less of guilt. Nobody got away with humiliating Marie Kirgov Hawkins. Nobody constrained her. Nobody forced her. Nobody gave her blind orders. She worked for Spritebecause she was Hawkins, no other reason. Mischa was captain now, yes, because he'd trained for it, but primarily because the two seniors in the way had died—she was cargo chief not because she was senior, but because she was better at the job than Robert A. who'd been doing it, and better than four other uncles and aunts and cousins who'd moved out of the way when her decisions proved right and theirs proved expensively wrong. No face-saving, calling her assistant-anything: she was damnedgood, she didn't take interference, and the seniors just moved over, one willingly, four not. The deposed seniors had formed themselves an in-ship corporation and traded, not too unprofitably, on their ship-shares, lining their apartments with creature-comforts and buying more space from juniors who wanted the credits more than they minded double-decking in their personal two-meter wide privacy. So they were gainfully occupied, vindicated at least in their comforts.