Текст книги "Tripoint "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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TriPoint

by C. J. Cherryh

Chapter One

—i—

DREAM OF AN INTERFACE OF ENERGIES above the Einstein limit.

Dream of a phase-storm skimming what it can't envelop—until the storm slides down, down, down the nearest gravity-pit—

In this case, E. Eridani. Viking, Unionside, with ties to Pell, on the Alliance side of the line.

Shipyards and industry. Trade. Mining.

Hydrogen glows in the bow-shock. The ship dives for thermonuclear hell.

The field re-shapes itself. Almost. Once. Twice.

Becomes Sprite, inbound for the habitation zone.

The ring engages.

Body settles to the mattress.

Breaths come Viking-time now, ten, fifteen to the caesium-timed minute. Heart fibrillates and finds its beat.

Right hand gropes after the nutri-pack, left hand flutters off-target, trying to pull the tab. Hand to mouth is another targeting problem.

God-bloody-awful, going down. But if a man lay very, very still for a few minutes, the luxury of the off-duty tech, he'd find he felt a lot, lot better for swallowing all of it.

And Tom Hawkins, at twenty-three, had made close to two hundred such system drops, a few of them before he was born. At twenty-three, he was a veteran of the Trade, the Fargone-Voyager-Mariner-to-Cyteen circle that had been Sprite'sroutine.

Long time since they'd seen Viking—in a time-dilated childhood, longer since Viking had seen him.

Those had been the scary days, runs when you got into port and other ships told you you'd be crazy to go on as you planned… even as a kid, you caught the anxiousness in the seniors and heard the rumors. You knew, even as a kid, when a run was dangerous, and you heard, though the seniors were sure you weren't in earshot, about dead ships and Mazianni raids.

Mariner was all rebuilt now, modern and shining new. The pirates were mostly out of the picture. Pell resumed its role as gateway to ancestral Earth and its luxury trade. Cyteen and Pell had signed the long-negotiated trade treaty, with the final closing of the Hinder Stars, by the terms of which, Pell dropped its claim to Viking and agreed to tariff adjustments on haulers plying the Viking—Mariner run, thus promoting Viking commerce, since Viking hadn't much to sell exceptmachinery, raw materials, and accommodations for the long-haulers.

But, bad news for the smugglers—by the treaty just signed, Viking became a free port, Union by government, tax-free for Earth goods, shipped through from Pell, and for certain Union goods, shipped through from other ports.

Big boost for struggling Viking, that was what Mischa-captain-sir had said when they'd drawn their fat government contract. Bigger boost for themselves– Spritewasn't a warm-hold hauler, and only a few of her class had gotten into the lottery for the government contracts, though the Family hadn't even been in agreement at the outset to take the offer, being reluctant to fall out of their ordinary cycle, and miss their frequent rendezvous with decade-long friends on Pollyand Surinam;but the figures had worked out, showing them how they were going to get back into the loop with their trading partners—make two tightly scheduled, fast transits between Viking and Mariner, and they'd be meeting Pollyand Surinamon their trips back from Cyteen Outer Station, intersecting their old schedule for a loop out to Fargone once every other ship-year, making a literal figure eight with Bolivarand the Luiz-Romneys, who had likewise lusted after the contract and found the same objections. Spriteand Bolivartogether could do what the big combine ships did, perfectly legal, if they met schedule.

So it wasn't goodbye forever to old friends, off-ship lovers and favorite haunts—just wait-a-while.

And hello to Viking. He'd not been here since he was six—since an unscheduled long layover had provided the kids' loft a rare permission for the middles and olders in the loft to go downside, right out the lock and down the dock, with a close guard, in those wild years, of armed senior crew.

That had been impressive—their escort of uncles and aunts and mothers carrying guns at the hip, his first-ever view of a station dock in all his young ship-born life, a memory of cold, frosty breaths, browned metal and huge machinery the seniors said would snatch strayed children up and grind them into the fishcakes Viking sold.

At that age, he'd believed it absolutely, had particular suspicions certain two cousins in the group would feed him to the machines, and held tight to the crocodile-rope, gawking about but being very wary of sneak attacks by cousins and rapacious robot loaders.

Warehouses, long, long areas of warehouses, huge cans waiting loading, that was what he remembered: vending machines where they'd all gotten soft drinks and chips—lousy chips, but they'd never seen food drop out of a machine and it was a marvel. He remembered a long row of bars children weren't supposed to go into, but the seniors had let them look into one, which was dark and loud and full of people who stopped drinking and stared at them, moment frozen in a kid's remembrances.

Thirty years ago, station-time, that was. He lived ship-years, his own biological years. The arbitrariness of outside time had confused him when he was six—and still, though computers and numbers were his job and his livelihood, he fell into that childhood misconception when he tried to feelthe near forty years outsiders said he'd lived.

But that only mattered against history. He'd been six on that outing, not ten—body and mind, a staggering difference, but station officers always wanted your universal dates on the customs papers you had to fill out. To ship-dwellers, body-years mattered, and you knew those from Medical; computers calculated it by where your ship had been, what it hauled, and kept careful track all your life, never mind how long it took some long-ago planet to go around its star. Ship was your world. Ship was four hundred sixteen cousins and uncles and aunts, all Hawkinses, every one. Inside was Us, where you were born, where you had a ship-share and the freedom to come and go with the ship forever—a couple of weeks in any port and then out again, good-bye, see you next turn about, or never again. Spacers weren't in charge of sureties. It was always if, and plans changed, and ships went where the trade was.

Two hundred ship-years old, Spritewas. Not a big ship. Not as old as Dublinor Finity's End. Not a glamour ship, no long runs, no memorable action in the war, just a light-armed hard worker that kept the goods moving and delivered the heartbeat of civilization when she made port and the information of her last port flowed into the current ports. Data on banks, stock reports, trade figures, births and deaths, books, entertainments, news and inventions across the web of stars: the tick and pulse of everything human was in Sprite'sdatabanks when she docked. Some of it she was paid to carry; some was public information, obligatory for any ship that docked to carry, non-charge, to its next port. At Viking, Spritewould drink down an informational feed she hadn't had directly in years, the data of Earth-space and Alliance, such, at least, as Alliance was willing to spill to Unionside in this strange new era of peace.

That dataflood-to-come meant a lot of work ahead for Sprite, to make its own best use of what it learned—knowledge ultimately as valuable to the ship as the goods in her hold, data that was profit, and survival, for a ship that competed for its contracts and owned at least most of its own cargo. It took a lot of head-work and computer work to keep a small ship competitive in a market that saw new station-bound combines and cartels trying to tie up the trade and turn everything corporate…

Though captain Mischa Hawkins had said that wouldn't go down: the Beyond had fought the War to get rid of the Earth-based corp-rats, and merchant spacers would never tolerate it. The starstations that had rebelled against Earth's governance might think they were going to play that game themselves. But if stationer governments built ships to compete with the Family ships that had helped them in the War, those ships would have small, expensive accidents, nothing to cost a life—unless they pushed back. If they hired crew, they'd not be quality, or reliable. The merchanter Families ruled commerce on both sides of the Union-Alliance boundary, disdaining permanent allegiances, and they'd shut every station down cold, if stations tried to dictate to them again.

Stations knew it. Stations kept one law on their upper levels, but the docks and the sleepovers were under separate rules; and on the deck of every individual ship was that ship's own law, at dock or in space.

So the law was the same. Still, it was a new concept to Thomas Hawkins—to go out on station docks with noship he knew in port—like a first-timer, almost, which he assuredly wasn't… he'd been cruising the docks on his own since he was ship-wise eighteen, never gotten knifed, never gotten into anything he couldn't talk his way out of. Most often he scored with some spacer-femme likewise looking…

Particularly with one dark-eyed Pollycrew-brat, who he wasn't certain was using precautions, but, if you said you weren't and she didn't, that was entirely her business and Polly'sbusiness. A man just wondered… might he havea kid on some ship… somewhere… and he wouldn't see her for two years.

Mind was going random. He was sliding down into sleep again. There was a little sedative in his post-jump packet, aspirin, mostly. Didn't take much to send you under, after jump, and he wasn't scheduled for duty till next watch.

Busy time coming, then. Lot of equipment to check. Nav and cargo on their necks, meanwhile juniors got all the wonderful routine, the stuff that wasn't ops-critical, and there was always a pile of it, all the data storage, hard and matrixed…

Load the chain of records, compare and check it off: if some subspace gremlin had bombed one file it wouldn't get the backup in exactly the same way. The operations computers checked themselves, monitored by Senior technicians. For all those datafiles not regularly loaded there were the junior techs to do the job, on the auxiliary boards, why else did lower lifeforms exist?

Load another record…

Log the check…

Meanwhile test all the systems.

Good reason for a nap.

"Thomas Bowe."

He blinked. Thought he'd dreamed it. Shut his eyes.

"Thomas Bowe, confirm."

Eyes opened. He wishedthey wouldn't, call him that. He'd complained. That was a by-the-book tight-ass senior cousin on the bridge. He knew the voice: Duran T. Hawkins, senior Com, who didn't give a damn about his complaints.

But a by-name call, coming hard on system entry, scared him, once his brain cut in—as if—God—had somebody dropped dead on entry? They didn't call junior officers on the com for social chatter.

He rolled out of his bunk, ignored the pounding in his temples, and braced his arm on the opposite wall to push the button. "This is Tom B., confirming to com."

"Report to the captain, Thomas B., on the bridge, in good order, ship is stable, confirm."

"Confirm, " he said, and heard the com click out without a window to query, and no patience if he called back to ask questions, not with Duran at the board.

Besides, they were legitimately busy up there—it couldbe they were calling computer techs for some kind of ops emergency, in which case it was a definite hurry. His heart had begun thumping with a stupid panic, the pain in his sinuses had grown acute, the result of going vertical in a rush, but they hadn't said stat, they'd given an in good order, which meant take time to clean up.

So his mother couldn't have had an attack or something. Marie was under forty, ship-time,—healthy as the proverbial horse. They'd had breakfast together before they jumped, she'd talked about something he couldn't remember. But they called you if a relative had taken ill…

Or most of all they called you if you'd screwed something critical and they wanted to know exactly what you'd done to systems before Mischa asked you to take a hike in cold space.

But he hadn't laid a hand on the main boards since long before they left Mariner. He was absolutely sure of that.

Balance wasn't steady yet. He bashed an elbow, slid the bathroom door open—the whole end of the 2-meter-wide cabin on a circular track. He met his own confused, haggard face in the mirror, squinting at the automatic glare of white light. He peeled out of his clothes, set the shower on Conserve, for speed, slid through the shower door without losing vital parts and shut his eyes against the 30 second all-around needling of the cleaner-and-water spray. A quick, breath-taking blast sucked the water back again. The vacuum made his ears pop, and didn't at all help a nervous stomach or a sick headache.

But he was scrubbed, shampooed, shaved, and saner-looking as he shut the bath behind him. He struggled into clean coveralls, remembered the key-card while he was walking his boots on, went back and found it on his dirty coveralls, clipped it on one-handed as he opened the door onto the lower main corridor. Ship is stablemeant no take-holds expected, no clip-lines required, and he made a dash down-ring to the lift. Crew was coming and going, likewise at speed when they had to cross the ship's axis. Somebody for sure had reported ill: he could see the infirmary lit and the door open, down the positive curve of the deck.

But Com had ordered him specifically to the bridge, see the captain, and bridge it was—he found the lift idle on rimside level and rode it up, a good deal calmer in that ride, now that he wasn't jump-rattled and half-asleep—but uneasy, still, mind spinning around and around the handful of guesses his experience afforded him.

The lift clanked into lock and let out into the dim grey plastics-and-computer light environment of the bridge. Heads turned, senior cousins interrupting their work to stare as he walked through, the way people stared at victims of mass calamities.

Which didn't help his nerves at all. But his first glance accounted for his whole personal universe of relatives he cared about: his mother, Marie, stood in the middle of the bridge, talking to Mischa. Mischa was sitting at the main console. Marie and the captain were sister and brother; and Marie was clearly all right—but what Marie was doing on the bridge during approach was another question.

God, what had he done that rated Mischa calling Marie up from the cargo office?

"Sir," he said, feeling like an eight-year-old criminal, "ma'am."

"Station schema just came in." Mischa tapped the screen in front of him, a schematic of Viking station and its berths, same as any such diagram the outsystem buoy delivered them when they dropped into system. He didn't understand at first blink, or second, since he had nothing reasonably to do with that input or the system that put it up.

Mischa said, " Corinthian. Austin Bowe's in port."

Hit him in the gut, that did. He couldn't look at Marie. Mischa pointed to a certain berth on the station schema. "They're scheduled for undock nine days from now, we're in for fifteen days' turnaround, and we'll make dock tomorrow morning. Figure right now that there'll be ample time after he's left to do any personal touring you want to do around that berth. I'm giving an absolute order, here, that applies to you, Marie, and you, Tom, and everyone in this crew. No contact, no communication with Corinthianin any way, shape, or form that doesn't go through me, personally. We can't afford trouble. I'm sure Corinthiandoesn't want it either. I swear to you, I'm not going to look the other way on this, Marie. On government contract, we've no latitude here, none, do you read me clear on that?"

"Perfectly clear, " Marie said. Too cheerful by far, Tom thought. Marie's calm ran cold fingers up and down his spine. "Bygones can be bygones—unless, of course, Austin Bowe comes onto ourdock."

"I don't like that attitude, Marie. I've half a mind to hold you and him and the whole crew aboard until he's out of here. And nobody'sgoing to be real damn happy with you if that's what I have to do."

"And how would thatlook? You want Viking saying we're afraid of him?"

"Viking, hell. I'll lay odds no stationer here remembers any problem between us and them."

"I'll lay equal odds that ships at dock remember."

"This is our business. And it isbusiness, Marie. No personal vendetta of any member of this crew is worth our legal standing, and anybody sane is going to understand that. This isn't the War. The man's a senior captain now. We're talking about our entire livelihood at stake."

"I absolutely agree. I don't see a problem."

Lying through her teeth, Tom thought again, hands locked behind him, face absolutely neutral. Mischa knew Marie was lying, and couldn't get her to engage with him.

"Bygones, is it? You listen to me, Marie. You, too, Tom. You listen upGovernment contract and government cargo means we've got clearances, we've got special ratings, we're in first on the port they've been negotiating for the last twenty years, and the Board of Trade isn't going to care about excuses. Neither is the rest of the Family."

"We're in the middle of the damn bridge, Mischa, why don't we just throw the com open so the whole Family can hear it? Send the kids to the loft and let's just tuck down and hide in our ship until Corinthiangoes away, why don't we? We know we can't defend ourselves. Rape's a lovely experience if you just lie back and enjoy it. God, I can't believe I'm hearing this!"

"Quiet it down, Marie!"

"I'm going to do my job, Mischa! I'm not sitting in this ship. I'm not hiding Ididn't commit any crime. I'mnot a rapist, in case you got it backwards at Mariner, and I've nothing to be ashamed of! If Corinthianwants trouble, they can come looking. If they don't—"

"—if they don't?"

There was quiet all around. Tom stood there remembering, to breathe, and felt a tremor in his whole body when he heard Marie say, quietly, reasonably, "I'll do my job, Mischa. I'm not crazy, " and heard the captain say to her, then,

"You do that, Marie, you damn well do it, and nothingelse. That goes for every member of this crew."

Marie walked out. The captain's sister, cargo chief, Marie Kirgov Hawkins, challenged the captain to lock her in quarters for the duration—and walked out, with the whole ops section watching.

Mischa possibly could have handled it better—but you never knew where you were going with Marie. Mischa could have been easier on Marie—but she'd lied to him the minute she'd said bygones could be bygones with that ship. She'd lied to his face, and her brother, as ship's senior captain, had laid the law down.

Drawn a line Marie Hawkins shouldn't cross—and that was a mistake with Marie, on a goodday.

Her son said, quietly as he could, "May I be excused, sir?"

"I want to see you. In my office. One hour. I've got my hands full right now. You leave your mother alone. You don't need her advice. Hear me, Thomas?"

"Yes, sir." At least, at twenty-three, he'd outgrown 'boy.' Other uncles managed to say 'son' to their sisters' offspring. Mischa never had. It was 'your mother' when he disavowed Marie, it was 'Marie' when they agreed, and 'Thomas' when hisbehavior was in question. "Yes, sir, I hear you."

"Go on." Mischa gave him a back-of-the-hand wave.

He walked back to the lift. Other heads averted quickly, back to business, except the most senior cousins, who gave him analytical stares, wondering, quite probably, whether Thomas Bowe-Hawkins was in fact part of the Hawkins family, or whether, because of that ship sitting at Viking dock, he was going to do something lethally stupid.

"Son."

Saja. Tech chief. Likewise giving him a warning stare, turning in his seat to do it.

But Saja was senior on duty right now and couldn't break away, so that was one heart-to-heart lecture he could duck, although if he had to choose, he'd take Saja's over the captain's, no question.

The lift came up from downside, where Marie had left it. He punched Down, hoping Marie had gone to her office, and left the corridor. She'd beworking, after this, nonstop, and God help anybody in the Family who walked through her office door. He knew her fits: Marie worked when she was mad, Marie worked when she was upset, Marie got up for no reason at all in the middle of the night and went to the office, staying there nonstop, thirty-six, forty, fifty hours, when she got in a mood, and he wouldn't go near her now by any choice.

The lift stopped. The door opened. Marie was waiting for him on lower deck, leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded.

"What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I swear. Nothing."

Marie's eyes were grey, black-penciled like her brows; and cold, cold as a moon's heart when she didn't like you. In point of fact, she didn't always likeher son. She was undoubtedly thinking about Corinthian, maybe seeing Bowe's face on him… he didn't know. He'd never known. That was the hell of it.

So now Austin Bowe was Corinthianssenior captain. Mischa and Marie kept current using dockside sources he didn't have, clearly they did.

"I've done my job, " Marie said, "I've workedfor this ship. Where does he get off, calling me on the deck like that, in front of the whole damned crew?"

"I think he just wanted you to know, before the word got out—he couldn't leave…"

"The hellhe couldn't! The hellhe couldn't manage the intercom. Wake up, Marie, oh, by the way, Marie, could you come uphere, Marie? Damnhim!"

"I'm sorry." When Marie blew, it was the only safe thing to, say. Teenaged cousins clustered in the corridor, now, down by the infirmary. Probably it was a shock case, some young fool cheating on the nutri-packs. Every half-grown kid thought he knew what was enough—at least once in his life.

"Mischa's going to be talkingto you, " Marie said. "I know his ways. He's going to be telling you all his good reasons why poor Marie can't be trusted outside. Poor Marie's just too emotional to do her job. Marie who got raped and beaten half to hell while her mother and her brother dithered about station law just might do something like go down the dock and take a cargo hook to the son of a bitch that did it, because poor Marie just never got over it. I chose to have you because Ichoose what happens to me, and Mischa doesn't trust poor Marie to manage her own damned life! Well, poor Marie is going to go around to her officeand study the market reports and see if there's any way in hell to screw Austin Bowe's ship lit the financial market, legally, because that's my arena! So when dear Mischa calls you in to tell you you've got to spy on poor Marie, for the sake of the ship, you'll know just what to tell him."

"He wants to see me."

"How could I not guess? Tell him to—" Marie shut her mouth. "No, tell him whatever you want to tell him. But I'm not crazy, I'm not obsessed. Motherhood's not my career, I've always been clear on that, but you've turned out all right." She reached—in teenage years he'd flinch—she'd fought that piece of hair all his life. She brushed it away from his eyes. It fell. "Tell Mischa he's an ass and I said so.—It was a long time ago I told you kill that son of a bitch that fathered you. It was a bad time, all right? I made some mistakes. But you've turned out all right."

It was the first time Marie had ever admitted that. She paid him a compliment, and he latched on to it with no clear idea how much she meant by it—like a fool, he tucked it into that little soft spot he still labeled mama, and knew very well that Marie of all people wasn't coming down with an attack of motherhood. She was absolutely right. It wasn't her specialty—though she had her moments, just about enough to let on maybe there was something there, enough to make you want a whole lot more than Marie was ever going to give, enough sometimes to make you feel you'd almost attained something everybody else was born having.

She walked away, on her way to her office.

The general com blasted out the announcement that juniors should be careful about the nutri-packs, and take their dosages faithfully.

You could guess. Some kid down in infirmary had muscle cramps he thought he'd die of and a headache to match.

Always a new generation of fools. Always the ones that didn't believe the warnings or read the labels.

He'd trade places with that kid—anything but show up in Mischa's office and listen to Mischa's complaints about Marie. Mischa couldn't tell Marie to sit down and shut up. He didn't know why, exactly, Mischa couldn't. But something Marie had said a moment ago, about her mother and Mischa waiting for station law—that was another bit in a mosaic he'd put together over the years, right pieces and wrong pieces. Put them in and take them out, but never question Marie too closely or you never got the truth.

Sometimes you got a reaction you didn't want. His nerves still twitched to tones in Marie's voice, nuances of Marie's expression. Sometimes she'd strike out and you didn't know why.

Not a good mother—although he likedMarie most of the time. Sometimes he admitted he loved her, or at least toyed with the idea that he did, because there was no one else. Gran was dead at Mariner. He didn't remember her except as a blurry face, warm arms, a lap. Saja… Saja was solving a staff problem, by taking his side. And Mischa…

Well, there was Mischa.

—ii—

"How's your mother taking the situation?" Mischa asked, leaning back, with the desk between them.

That was a trap, and a broad one. Mischa, monitor the lower corridor? Spy on his own crew and kin?

Maybe.

"I don't know, sir. We did talk. She wanted to."

"She did." Mischa didn't seem to believe that, just stared at him a beat or two. "I don't know how much of the detail she ever gave you…"

Plenty. Much too much, and he didn't want a rehash from Mischa, but he'd found out one and two things he'd not heard before in the last hour, just by listening, and he sensed a remote chance of more pieces.

He shrugged, nerved himself not to blow, and waited.

"We pulled into Mariner," Mischa said. "Like now, Corinthianwas at dock. Ten other ships. It was the middle of the War, stations were jittery, you didn't know what side the ship next to you might be on. Corinthianwas real suspect. Had a lot of money, crew throwing it around. The ship smelled all over like a Mazianni sellout, but you couldn't prove it. We had a caution on them. And my sister—" Mischa rocked the chair, regarded him a moment, frowning. "Austin Bowe's the devil, Granted. Marie was seventeen, sweet, happy kid—in those years nobody could know for sure who was running clean and who wasn't. You stayed close to kin and you didn't spill everything you knew in sleepovers with strangers. That was the atmosphere. And this was her first time cruising the docks, not sure she's going to do it, you know, but looking. 'Stay close to Family, ' mama said. 'Stick with your cousins. ' Two ships in port, we knew real well. We—Saja and I—tried to set her up with a real nice guy off Madrigal. We arranged a meeting, we were going to meet some of their crew in a bar, but Marie ducked out on us. Wouldn't go with us, no. We waited. We had a drink, we had two. Marie knew the name of the bar, she had her pocket-com, she didn't answer a page, I was getting damn worried, I was stupid—Saja kept saying we should call in, I figured Marie was doing exactly what she did, she wouldn't go with any guy her brother set up, oh, no, Marie was going to do things her way, and Heston—he was captain, then—was going to kill her, you know what I mean? I was covering for her. I figured she wasn't too far away. Wrong, again. We started searching, bar to bar, quiet, not raising any alarm. Next thing I know I've got a call from the ship saying they'd had a call relayed through station com, clear around Manner rim, Marie's in trouble in some sleepover she doesn't know the name of, she's crying and she's scared."

Marie didn't cry. Never knew Marie to cry. He didn't recognize the woman Mischa was telling him about. And he couldn't fault Mischa on what Mischa said he'd done.

"What we later reconstructed," Mischa said, "your mother'd hopped a ped transport that passed us. That was how she ducked out. She'd gone into blue sector—we were in green—pricier bunch of bars, not a bad choice for a kid looking for action, and here's this complete stranger, tall, good-looking, mysterious, the whole romantic baggage… Corinthianjunior officer gets her drunker than she ought to be, talks her into bed, and it gets kinkier and rougher than she knows how to cope with. She gets scared. Guy's got the key—mistake number two. Mama—your gran—gets the com call. At which point I get the call, mama's on her way over to blue with Heston, and they've called the cops. At least Marie had the presence of mind to know the guy was Corinthian, she could tell us that. So the cops called Corinthian, Corinthianprobably called Bowe—but Bowe's Corinthian'ssenior captain's kid, so you know Corinthian'snot just real eager to see him arrested, and in those days, stations weren't just real eager to annoy any ship either. Supply was too short, they were scared of a boycott, the government wasn't in control of anything, and they assumed they just had a sleepover quarrel on their hands. Bowe took the com away from your mother, we didn't have any other calls, Corinthianwas in communication with Bowe—we still didn't know what sleepover he was in. But Corinthiancrew knew. They occupied the bar, maybe intending to get their officer out and back to the ship where the cops couldn't get him, maybe going to take Marie with them, we had no idea. We couldn't get any information out of station com, the police weren't feeding us Corinthian'scommunications with them or with Bowe, ours were breaking up if we didn't use the station relay, but by now we had no doubt where Marie was—I was on the station direct line trying to get the stationmaster to get the police off their reg-u-lations to get in there, but nobody wanted to wake him up, the alterday stationmaster was an ass, insisted they were moving in a negotiating team. Meanwhile Heston and mama and some of the rest of the crew went into the bar after Marie. Corinthiancrew had opened up the liquor—you can imagine. Things blew up. A Corinthiangot his arm broken with a bar chair, the station cops got into it, theycouldn't force the doors. By time we got the mainday station-master out of bed, a cop was in station hospital, six of your future cousins were in our infirmary, about an equal number of Corinthiancrew were bleeding on the deck, and things were at a standoff, with station section doors shut."