Mischa came on, immediately, with, “Where did she lose you?”
“Green 10,” he said, shamefaced. God, not even a What happened?
“Kid, stay put, do you copy? Where are you right now?”
He had to look up at the bar name on the back wall. “The Andromeda. “
“You don’t budge from there. Do you copy? Don’t budge. Saja’s on the dock. He’s had you in sight. He’s been trying to catch up to you since you left, damn your hide.”
Chasing us, he thought. Why? They had the com. Why didn’t they just call us?
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll be here. “ Imagination painted what Marie might be up to, trying to get on board Corinthian, lying in ambush for their crew on dockside—getting caught at it, and arrested, because Corinthian had probably gathered all sorts of evidence on Marie’s intentions over the years, if Mischa was right about the messages she’d sent.
He hung up. He followed the edge of the room, around the tables, not to leave the bar, but because he wanted not to be visible from the door. Traffic was moderate in the establishment. A group of spacers came in and went to the bar. He spotted a darkness about the patch. It could be Corinthian. He couldn’t tell from his vantage; and the man that was following him hadn’t shown. He thought he might just sit down in the corner and order a drink, but it wasn’t a table-service kind of place, you had to go up to the bar, and he wasn’t eager to go up there with the newcomers.
He took a look outside, a careful look-see, anxious whether there was any sight of Sprite personnel, or whether the man who’d followed him into one bar was still searching.
No sign of either. But he saw Marie, down the row, just standing in front of some shop, looking across the wide dock to Corinthian’s operations zone.
He could go back and call Mischa. He could lose her, that way. He stayed where he was, thinking Saja and his group could spot him that way, and thinking to keep Marie in sight.
But Marie started to walk along the frontage, still in the direction she’d been going, with consistent looks toward Corinthian’s area.
Stalking them. He stood watching, looked frantically for Saja to show up, and. saw Marie getting further and further away.
Screw it, he thought. Mischa knew where he was better than he was going to know where Marie was if he didn’t move. He started walking as fast as he could—he figured running would draw attention he didn’t want. He just tried to look like someone on business, without making the noise that would alarm Marie or drive her to cover down some service access that on some docksides you found unlocked.
She stopped and took something from her pocket, he was scared to death it was a gun; but it was an optic of some sort, maybe a camera, he wasn’t sure. She was looking toward Corinthian and he took the chance to run, as lightly and quietly as he could, in her direction.
She saw him at the last moment, spun about in alarm and then scowled at him.
“Dammit,” he panted. “What are you looking at?”
“Damn yourself. The answer’s Miller Transship, 23 green, no long distance from 10. They’re onloading. But that’s a Miller company transport. You’d know that son of a bitch was going to deal all inside.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s not hiring outside help. No freight handling by any outside party. He sells to Miller, he buys from Miller, Miller’s his transport, his commissioned supplier…”
“That’s not illegal, is it?”
“No, it’s not illegal. It does mean there’s minimal contact with people who might ask questions. God, I wish we’d been here just five days ago.”
“When he was offloading.”
“Damn right when he was offloading. The market’s just so smooth right now. Can you imagine a ship arriving and the market not showing a single change on the boards?”
He couldn’t. The market always reacted. “I don’t think so.”
“Bravo. You don’t think so.”
“So what do you think?”
“Oh, just coincidence. Corinthian just carries such a mix of average goods you just don’t get a tick at all. Goods Miller warehoused the instant that ship hit system. And you still don’t get a tick.”
“Why doesn’t station spot it?”
“Station may have spotted it. But it’s not illegal for Miller to hold a shipment off the boards, either. They’re a transshipper. They don’t have to declare in a free or a dutied port, not since the War. Transshipped goods are technically still in transit until they deliver them elsewhere.”
“With the cargo broken up and dribbled out in patterns that don’t make patterns.”
“Brilliant. You must have gotten deviousness from his side.”
“The hell I did. What are you going to do about it?”
“Just take a few pictures. “ Marie lifted the camera that probably, he thought, had a close-up function that meant business.
And a couple of Corinthian crewmen were looking their direction, maybe out of frame from what Marie saw.
“Marie. Marie, they’re looking at us. Let’s just walk.”
“Nerves. All right. “ Marie put the camera back in her pocket and they started away, but the men started across the dock, four of them.
“Damn,” Tom said. “Marie,—”
“Just keep walking.”
“We could go into a bar. It’s safer.”
“I don’t like to be in places.”
God. Marie was sane ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. And then you got the schitzy tenth percent.
“I don’t care, we should get off the dock… get where we’ve got protection…”
Marie threw a look over her shoulder. Started running. He did, casting a fast look back, and they had, and he caught up to Marie, grabbed her arm as they were running and tried to drag her into the nearest bar, but Marie started fighting him and he let go and put on double speed as the Corinthian crewmen came pounding up the deck behind them.
They knocked into a woman coming out of a bar, knocked her flat, and kept going. People were shouting.
Then he saw people start to run toward them from down the dock in the other direction, and realized it was Saja in the lead.
Marie started to change direction. “It’s Saja!” he yelled at her, and grabbed her and ran for oncoming reinforcements.
But Corinthian personnel weren’t giving up the chase. They reached Saja and three of the cousins, and Saja had pulled a length of light chain from his pocket, the cousins had come up with other contraband, and there wasn’t time to think about anything but getting Marie out of there.
Except Marie wouldn’t go, Marie had a piece of chain, too, and it whipped about and caught a Corinthian crewman across the neck. There was a pile-up of bodies as the man went down, Marie went down, and the nearest bar emptied out more Corinthians.
“Security!” somebody yelled, on their side or Corinthian’s or the bystanders, he wasn’t sure, only a number of people had mixed into it that weren’t Corinthian or Sprite, people yelling that the cops were coming, about the time a fist came out of nowhere and hit him in the temple.
He couldn’t see. He stumbled over somebody’s leg or arm and went down, trying to fend off the attack with his uplifted arm, hearing chains flying and people yelling—he heard somebody yell cops, and look out, and he couldn’t find Marie, couldn’t find anything but the deck-plates. He scrambled for what he thought was a clear zone, and met what might be the frontage wall, he wasn’t sure. Hands helped him up, held onto him as the dark gave way to hazy sight and an orbiting couple of red spots.