“Look,” Christian said. “Sit down. “ Christian indicated the end of the bed, and reluctantly, because his knees weren’t that steady, he went back to the bed and sat. “You may have noticed,” Christian said, leaning against the wall near him, one booted ankle over the other, working the heel back and forth, “that Austin is a difficult sod. I said we hadn’t an auspicious beginning. Much less so with maman, Beatrice, who doesn’t like your presence. We are the victims of two ferocious women, one of whom wants to kill us and the other of whom wants to kill you before you kill us.”
“I’ve no desire whatever—”
“I’m perfectly certain you’re an independent and difficult spirit, yourself, but maman, understand, Beatrice… will absolutely not tolerate you on this deck, not as Marie Hawkins’ offspring, certainly not as Austin’s, competing, shall I say it, with me? Shall I say plainly that Beatrice wants you out of here, you most certainly want to go… and it seems to me that you have no evidence against us, nothing but a merchanter quarrel,—and we all know how quickly stations wash their hands of our untidy affairs. I would never tie myself up with station police and lawyers, on the Alliance side of the Line, lawyers and court dates and station law—you don’t like station lawyers, do you, Hawkins? You’re not that crazy.”
“No.”
“Not going to be that crazy.”
“No.”
“Pell has customs. But you’ve got your passport…”
God. They would have it. With his papers, that said he worked computers.
“—Found it on you. No problem. Just get you out the airlock all legitimate and you take a walk.”
“And end up dead.”
“Hawkins. Hawkins. I had my chance in the warehouse. But the fact that you’re, realtime, my slightly older brother, suggests to certain members of this crew that you might find a niche aboard, that you might pose some threat to interests that have worked a long time to secure the positions they have, do you see? Not that I’m immune. I could rather like you, as a human being. You have certain engaging qualities, occasional flashes of actual intellect, you don’t know the depth of dimness I have to deal with in the crew, God! you’d be such a relief! But I’m not about to see you become a focus of dissension, or find partisans. This is a rough crew. We manage very borderline individuals. We simply can’t afford anyone challenging an officer’s authority, do you see? So for various reasons, and peace with maman, who is our chief pilot, far more essential than either of us, and a perfect bitch when she’s taken a position, I’m perfectly willing to have you disappear at Pell.”
“And if something goes wrong?”
“If something goes wrong you end up back aboard. Or with the Pell cops. Choose aboard, is my advice. You wouldn’t like the cops.”
No spacer liked the cops.
This spacer didn’t like the idea of being shanghaied into another crew, either.
And it scared him that Christian’s logic halfway persuaded him.
“So?” Christian said. “Deal?”
He shrugged. He’d had a lifetime of Mischa ducking questions, apologizing his way past personnel decisions. He didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth. Didn’t like what this maneuver implied about Christian’s style of command. ‘We can’t afford anybody challenging an officer’s authority. ‘ Hell.
So Christian helped him escape?
“Yeah,” he said, not daring, not wanting to say anything that could change Christian’s mind. It wasn’t for him to critique whatever got him back to Sprite.
Christian got up.
“Better get you back,” Christian said. So the deal seemed done.
—v—
OLDER BROTHER WAS THINKING ON the way back to the brig. Older brother was limping, too—the guys had exceeded suggestions, and that was a problem. “Tell anybody that asks,” Christian said, “that it was me that gave you the black eye.”
“Is it black?”
“It will be.”
Damned odd, Christian thought, everything was so placid of a sudden. They came to the brig, and he figured then that all the rules still applied, in Austin’s book, and therefore in his, no matter that older brother wasn’t in fighting form. “Cable,” Christian said, and Hawkins went inside, picked it up off the floor and locked the bracelet on his own wrist. “Let me see it.”
He shut the grid. Hawkins came to the bars and let him inspect the bracelet. The wrist and hand were bruised dark, ugly and painful looking. And the lock was solid.
“Yeah,” he said, thought about offering to change hands with the lock, but, hell, they weren’t a charity. He started off down the corridor, to leave older brother to his own amusement, or to get to sleep, or whatever, but it occurred to him then that there were reasons security might lock down tight after the rumors got topside, lock down in ways that would screw everything. Besides, older brother might do something entirely stupid if Austin came down in Austin’s morning to check on the rumors that were bound to get started—he didn’t trust Jamal’s discretion or Tink’s to hold them off five minutes longer than it took a casual mention to get up to the bridge.
So he went back to the bars, leaned there. Hawkins had sat down on his bunk.
“Hawkins. A warning. If our mutual papa says you’re scum, say yes, sir, thank you, sir. That’s all. No matter what.”
Hawkins’ jaw set. You could see the muscle clench. “Man’s an ass.”
“Hawkins. A small touch of sanity. You’re already on scrub. You want to find yourself working four shifts on scrub? No sleep? That’s your choice. You keep your mouth under control.”
A moment of surly silence.
“Son of a fool bitch,” he said, “I’m trying to get you out of here. I’m trying to save your ass. Can we have a yes out of the savee? Can we have a thank you, just a trial run?”
Hawkins kept glaring at him. Didn’t trust him, and properly so. But then Hawkins said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Mouth, Hawkins-brother?”
“Yeah. “ Hawkins dropped his stare, at least. Tucked a foot up under the other leg and winced. “I hear. I understand you.”
“Easy to pronounce, please and yessir. Get you out of a lot of situations.”
Hawkins didn’t say a thing.
“Damned fool,” Christian said with a shake of his head, but he knew the look, he saw it on Austin, he saw it in mirrors when he’d had a run-in with authority. He withdrew his arms from the bars and went on down the corridor with his own blood pressure up, and with an intense urge to do bodily harm to Hawkins before he got off this ship.
So it didn’t make sense that the bloody mess the guys had left Hawkins in should turn his stomach queasy, or make sense that the bruises he’d left had touched the same nerves. He’d seen worse. He’d probably done worse, he didn’t keep count.
Didn’t know why, when he got up to the bridge and went through his initial shift-change checks—an hour late—he kept flashing on that parting argument and Hawkins’ bruises—his fault—and how, just quite strangely, in a ship full of hire-ons you couldn’t trust and a handful you knew you could rely on to guard your back, he had an instant expectation of Tom Hawkins’ behavior, the body language, the way he worked, an expectation what he was thinking and what it took to get him off a point he wanted to hold…
But, dammit, he had no choice.
He walked the aisles, monitored their course. They’d been lazing along for a full run of the clock in the dark of Tripoint, eating, sleeping, checking and fixing and maintaining. Midway through his watch they’d do a long burn, no traffic problems here, get up to speed on their outbound vector toward Pell.