Текст книги "Tripoint "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Sleepovers that made you think you were camping on Down-below surface. With virtual rainstorms.

Walk-through theater.

Venus Hotel. Adults-only tape links. Experience your partner. Luxury accommodations. Restaurant class A pass. 200c and up. On-premises security. Ship registration and age ID required. >

He Captured that address. . 1 Itwouldn't look as if he didn't want to be found. And if, or when—Austin did come asking… He pushed another button, got the ship list back.

He'd hoped for somebody like Emilia. No such luck. Christophe Martinand Mississip, both Earth-bound, were the best of a chancy lot. He put his bet on Martin, with a departure listed for 36 hours; and on the fifteen thousand hard-won credits he had in Alliance Bank. Five thousand might tempt Martin'srecruitment officer. But 'might' was too chancy a word. Ten. It hurt, it really hurt, but ten was a sure thing.

The closer he got to the decision, the closer Corinthiandrew to Pell and dock, the scarier it got. Not that elder brother had a shred of evidence against them, not even ID, if he didn't give it back, and he didn't intend to.

In point of fact he was scared stiff. Austin might not have figured out yet that Hawkins was a threat. But he had. Too damned clean. Give brother priss a year or two to get an eyeful and an earful of Corinthian'sbusiness. Family Boy that he was, he'd start to pull back, just too, too clean for Corinthian, just too by-the-book. He'd leave them, sooner or later he'd leave them or he'd slip the evidence to somebody about the trade Corinthianran.

Hesaw the problem coming. Think ahead, Austin kept saying. So he did.

Sometimes, dammit, you did things you knew you'd pay for—because you could see far enough to know where doing nothing was going to leave you. Sometimes you did what was good for the ship.

Wasn't that what Austin used to say to him?

Didn't mean Austin wouldn't have him in the brig when they left port.

But he could get out of that. He could survive that. He couldn't survive Austin finding out older brother was ever so much more spit 'n polish and ever so much more yessir, johnny on the spot, sir, than Christian. Older brother might even have trade figures in his head that Austin might very much like to know. Older brother could get himself worked into Corinthianif they didn't watch out, worked in so deep that younger brother Christian just didn't know anything anymore—point in fact, he'd seemed to know less and less the harder he worked to get Austin to admit he knew anything at all.

Point in fact, Corinthiancouldn't survive Hawkins' attack of law-abiding conscience when it came. He saw it. He even halfway likedHawkins, for the same straight-up mentality that attracted and infuriated Austin, he saw that, too. But Austinhad illusions he wasrighteous, Beatrice had that pegged.

Trouble was, Austin wasn't damned righteous with the authorities in Hawkins' case. It was the righteous sons of bitches who didn't have any doubts when they did you in, and Hawkins was so straight you could feel honesty dripping off him—feel it in the way Austin went slightly crazy dealing with him. Hawkins being more right than Austin… got Austin dead center, and to prove he was God, Austin was just going to suck older brother deeper and deeper into Corinthian, never understanding what stupid younger brother understood as a fact of life: that wars between two righteous asses ended up in double-crosses and a wide devastation.

Righteous had never described him, at least. On Corinthianthere could only be one, clearly Austin, and the rest of them slunk around the edges of Austin's principles and Austin's absolute yesses and absolute noes—and kept the ship out of hock.

—v—

"THAT'S WELCOME, CORINTHIAN, you're in queue as you bear. Pretty entry, compliments to your pilot and your navigators. Market quotes packet will accompany, trade band. Mark one minute."

"Flattery, flattery, Pell Control. Can it get us a berth near green 12? Acknowledge receipt nav pack. Stand by for Corinthianinformation packet, band 3. Transmitting in thirty seconds. Please signify receipt and action on signal."

Light-lag still bound conversation. Compressed com was an artform. You jumped from topic to topic and had to remember several threads of conversation at once, with your answer and more of their conversation coming a large number of minutes later.

As well as trusting the com techs to snatch the hard compression data when it came, a squeal the computers read. Beatrice was preening, most likely. Austin propped one heel on the other ankle and sighed, hoping for that berth.

They could always breathe easier at Pell. Wholly different rules… a completely independent station with a bias toward instead of against ship-law, ship-speak, and captain's rights. Run by a council only part of which station elected, at least two of which were always merchanters or merchanters' legal representatives… nothing got done, in fact, that merchanters didn't want done.

Corinthianwasn't an Alliance merchanter—couldn't get that clearance and didn't try. There were too many hard feelings, and there were records Corinthiandidn't want to produce. But they didn't need the certification to trade here. They did get the protections of ships' rights that the merchanters' Alliance had written into their contract with Pell. They got the benefits of Pell banking, which kept ships' accounts at a very favorable interest, and backed them with a guarantee of services to the ship out of an emergency fund: Corinthianwas signatory to it and Corinthianpaid into it—if you ever got into trouble that let you limp anywhere, you made for Pell and its shipyards in preference to Viking or Fargone if you could possibly make it.

Which Corinthianhad done on one notable occasion.

But mostly… the law Unionside (and never mind Viking's new status, he personally counted Viking as Union law) couldn't run inquiries here. Pell didn't cooperate. Matter of principle.

Sovereign government—mostly consisting of ships. Matter of principle indeed. You could get trade figures, the same as everywhere. But the internal records couldn't be probed.

Damned nice port to be registered to.

And if you were Pell registry, you got a priority on the berths you wanted, the docking services, all sorts of amenities. So Corinthianwasn't Alliance, but she wasPell-registered, and that made it home, much as Corinthianowned one.

"Number twelve is free, Corinthian,"Pell Central said. "How long will you require dock? You have personal messages accumulated. That transmission will follow, in one minute. Mark."

"Thank you, thank you, Pell-com, for the accommodation. Request you schedule us for a ten-day. I'll turn you back to Corinth-com, now, Pell, thank you. Helm's in charge."

Beatrice shot him a look. He smiled, unbelted, Corinthianrunning stable as she was, and went over to Helm. Squeezed Beatrice's shoulder.

"Shift change. Twenty minutes. See you."

"Yeah," Beatrice said, not cheerfully.

Berth 12, opposite the warehouse, easy transport. If it of any trouble that could possibly catch up with them.

There was, however, Hawkins.

He'd a few places he personally liked to go at Pell, and he was ready to go mind-numb and forget his problems. There weretimes he and Beatrice worked admirably well together, and there were times not. This run was one of the times not. He was anxious to have breathing room.

But there was Hawkins.

Still might be smarter to ship Hawkins out from here. He didn't want to. He didn't know why. Curiosity, maybe, what Hawkins was. Maybe the thought that Hawkins was a bargaining piece if Marie Hawkins did at some point show.

Maybe, deep down, the thought that the boy wasn't all Hawkins. That he had some investment in the boy, and thatmight make the boy worth something, if he could get past twenty years of Marie Hawkins' brainwashing.

Had to deal with the kid. Had to do something, he supposed, If he packed him off to Earth or parts elsewhere, he'd ask himself what he'd given up, what the kid had become… he didn't know why in hell he should care.

But he'd worry, among other things, that the kid's path might cross his again, in the way of ships coming and going, and he might have an older, cannier enemy by then.

That was the reasoning that had been nagging his subconscious. He usually discovered good, sane reasons for what, seemed instinct in himself. He'd stayed alive and kept his ship alive. He'd made his mistakes before he took over the ship. Since, he'd been far more careful.

Sober responsibility, mature judgment and all that.

In that light, he probably ought to have the kid up to his office and find out if scrub duty and another jump had mellowed him.

But probably it wasn't a good idea to do it now, when he had a mild headache and the kid might have the same. He'd satisfied his curiosity back at Tripoint. He was going off-duty, he needed to stretch out and let the kinks out of his back… hell, after dock was soon enough. Let the kid see all the crew get liberty, while he was stuck aboard, let him ferment a while in absolute boredom.

But Hawkins was going to mean keeping extra security aboard. And somebody wasn't going to be happy to be in charge of that.

Do a split watch, bonus pay, give a couple of the guys an extra five hundred apiece and let them spend it on reduced dock time. He could find volunteers.

Hawkins was already going to cost the ship a thousand c, not even figuring the early undock at Viking. Not even figuring the future security costs, when they made Viking port again.

It wasn't like having a second son. It was like having something stuck to your boot, that, try as you might, you couldn't shake off.

Chapter Seven

—i—

THE GALLEY DIDN'T SHUT DOWN on approach to dock, no, it was up to its elbows in business. Tink was doing special pastries for the security detail that had to remain aboard… because of him, Tom thought glumly, neither Tink nor Austin being privy to Christian's plans.

And the pans of food for two hundred plus crewmen during their outbound hours… all had to be ready. They went into the freezer.

Meanwhile the mess-hall vid screens had come on, with what might be a canned view of Downbelow, with its perpetual clouds, greenhoused, he understood, so you could rarely see the continents or the oceans. The indigenes below that cloud cover looked heavenward in hopes of a glimpse of their lord Sun. Made amazing large-eyed statues to do the job for them in the case someone lapsed in duty, he supposed—divine stand-ins.

When he'd been a kid he'd dreamed of Downbelow. Never looked to see it, seeing how the War brought a border between them. He never…

"H' lo, there," a voice said, out of other dreams, the deep, echoing dark of hyperspace. Blond, in an officer's fatigues—Capella arrived, drew a cup of coffee.

And said hello, for God's sake. Hello didn't mean an assault. No reason for his gut to go to jelly or uncertainty to rise right through his knees.

"Feeling better, are we, Tommy-person?" She came and leaned elbows on the counter to sip her coffee. "H'lo, Jamal, hi, Tink. Smells good in here. Pasta stuff?"

"Pasta," Jamal said. "No samples."

"Spoilsport.—Tommy-person. " She reached across the counter and touched the back of Tom's hand with her little finger. "Tommy-person. You can come scrub myquarters anytime. Some of us appreciate quality."

They were about to dock. He was about to leave the ship. And Capella came to harass him a last time. Parting gesture. He hadn't seen her since system-drop. He was seeing black from second to second, was acutely aware of his own skin, and the touch of ghostly fingers in his sleep.

"Eh?" Capella asked. "What do you think, Tommy-person?"

"I don't think the captain would approve."

"Do you do everything he says?"

"Right now I do. Yes, ma'am."

"Ma'am," Capella laughed, and he remembered Saby hadn't liked it either. "Oh, come on, Tommy-pretty. You can call me chief, on duty, and I'll call you Hawkins. On my own time, and we are on my own time, here, Capella's just fine. " Her finger traced down the bone above his index finger. "I bet they could spare you for a cup of coffee and a small sit. Especially if I pull rank. How about?"

"I can't."

"Jamal?"

"I don't—"

Christian… arrived in the door and paused there, just the single beat it took to say Christian hadn't expected Capella to be there, and he didn't like what he was seeing. He had an instant guilty feeling, and he didn't immediately know for what; a fear Christian might take jealous offense, and screw the escape, if he ever intended it—a fear Capella's purpose wasto screw it. It was quiet in the galley. Jamal and Tink had stopped work, and didn't say a thing.

"Time for older brother to go back in his box," Christian said cheerfully, walking up to the counter. "Put the toys away, Cappy."

"Aww," Capella said, and shoved away from the counter—tossed the cup into the disposal. She looked at him—she had a wicked look, a naturally predatory look. He didn't even think she intended it. Or it was supposed to tell him something he didn't know how to read. She gave him a theatrical sulk, and a lift of the chin, flashed a dazzling grin at Christian Bowe. "I'll take him back."

"Not a chance. " Christian had a key. Tom let him unlock the bracelet, endured Christian's proprietary hand on his shoulder, asking himself what he should believe. "I'll handle it. See you. The promise stands."

"Going to cost you," Capella said.

And didn't say a thing more as Christian nudged him into motion.

But he couldn't go without a look at Tink and Jamal. Couldn't say a good-bye that wasn't supposed to happen—that from second to second he wasn't sure was going to happen, or that he wanted to happen. He only looked to fix their faces in his mind, and chanced to see a very different Capella standing by the counter, a Capella all business and grim as hell's gates.

Christian swung him around abruptly, took him the familiar route back to the brig. A quiet route. The lowerdecks crew were doing their last minute scurrying about, and half the passenger ring would be securing for dock, crew and stations that belonged there gathering thick in docking stations, corridors crowding up along the take-holds.

There were lewd comments, offers to take 'the new boy' onto the docks. Christian didn't spare a glance, just hurried him around the turn to the brig, a corridor full of its own offers and comments… worrisome comments from dockers at take-holds up and down, waiting for the grapple-to and the lock to open. Rough crowd. Rude crowd. They held it down when Christian said stow it, but Christian didn't have to wait out the docking in an open-fronted cell, and it wasn't aimed at him.

Besides which, Capella had made Christian mad, and Christian wasn't talking to him, until Christian took him inside the brig and to the far rear by the bath, face to face with him.

"What did Capella say?"

"Didn't. I don't know what she wanted. She hadn't gotten that far. " His back was against the wall. It wasn't a position he wanted in a fight. At least the cable wasn't on, this time.

But Christian didn't shove him further. Instead, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a dozen passports, Union red and Alliance blue. Thumbed open the topmost, red.

To his picture, his name. His passport, his papers, all the freedom to pass customs and take hire, even to prove his identity and origin. Everything was in that red folder. He reached for it—but Christian snapped it shut and held it with the others.

Christian's terms. Everything was, and Christian was smug and smooth.

"After," Christian said. "After we walk out. Duty officer carries the papers on all the dockers, that's the way we work. They go out first. It's going to look like you slipped through… I was taking you to Medical, right?"

"I guess."

"You hit your head during dock. Only on the way to Medical, you broke and ran for it, and mixed in with outbound crew. Probably you faked the bump. Got it? Only that's just the story I tell about how you got out, am I doing this in small enough words, slower brother? I do things like always, take these guys out and you just come along with me through customs… these guys have zero percentage in calling me a liar. They have to deal with me tomorrow, and they won't notice a thing when papa asks, how's that?"

"I need my papers."

"What I've got here," Christian said, pocketed the passports, and reached in a side pocket for a short stack of notes, Alliance cash. "That's two hundred, immediate save-your-ass cash. I can give you a name, a ship that'll take hire. Name's Christophe Martin. I'll walk you down there, myself. Get you hired, get you papers, Martin's going out tomorrow."

"Where?"

"Viking. Meet your approval?"

Breath came short. "Yeah. " He suddenly had to revise everything. The two hundred, he hadn't imagined—and the recommendation to another, outbound ship, immediately, without having to hang around Pell. It was everything he could hope to get on his own, heaped up and running over, if he could get his hands on those papers.

It only didn't add on Christian's side, on thisship—the passport missing, on a guy who also turned up missing from Christian's escort… Christian was going to catch hell for it, was what it looked like.

Maybe that was why Capella had wanted to talk to him, maybe that was why the voice in his dreams kept saying Don't trust Christian… and maybe becausethe warning had come in hyperspace it threaded its way into his waking mind without any denying it… that voice was Capella, too, he was sure it was, and he couldn't help doubting, and couldn't figure what Christian was doing.

An expensive favor. Clearly. He might have to revise his opinion on Christian. Maybe Christian was paying a price for what he did, and hadto shove him out the door hard and fast and for his own selfish reasons, but Christian hadn't had to give him the money.

Christian left, without putting the cable on—left him to the catcalls and promises of the crew outside. He'd heard the door lock. For the first time he was glad it was locked, and he hoped opening it wasn't just a button push.

"Hey, pretty-boy," someone yelled.

He went to his bunk and sat down. In a moment more, the take-hold sounded, and he took a firm grip on the inset handhold, next to the e-panel.

Interminable minutes, then, to dock. He sat and tried not to chase those circular paths of thought again, why, or how, or what the choices were. His were all made.

Maybe there was a chance of seeing Marie again. Of his own quarters, on Sprite.

Hell, they'd have bumped somebody into his space. There was always a waiting list, and his cousins wouldn't have waited till the sheets were washed.

Didn't bloody miss them. That was the unhappy truth. Marie… Marie wasn't an affection, she was a bleeding wound. But she was his bleeding wound. He couldn't but ask himself where she was and what was happening to her. He likedTink. He was glad he'd met Tink. He couldn't say that about a lot of people. But he had to get back. Something about bad pennies always turning up.

Mischa was going to be so glad to see him. Rodman was going to die. It was a kind of revenge. Let them think they were rid of him. He didn't know what Rodman would say. He was almost homesick to hear it. Didn't even want to beat hell out of him. They were getting old for that solution. In a couple of weeks subjective time, he'd suddenly arrived at that point of maturity.

Give him a couple of weeks with Rodman, he'd recover his edge.

Bump and touch. It wasn't easy to claim a head injury with thatdock. No fault to find in the station's computers, the ship's engineers, or the pilot at the helm.

Butterflies hit his stomach. As soon as that touch came, the crew outside the bars left their take-hold points and started for the airlock, while the echo of the grapples locking was still ringing through the hull. The corridor emptied. Fast.

Then he thought… maybe Christian won't come. Maybe it's all a joke.

Maybe Austin caught him with the documents. Maybe Capella spilled the whole business.

Inner lock opened, then the outer, crash-crash-thump, with the slight rush of air you almost always got. It smelled… of something he'd never in his life smelled. Exotic and fresh, and wonderful. It was Pell. Downbelow.

He wanted to go. He truly wanted to.

The grid started retracting. Christian showed up, outside. "Hurry up," Christian snarked at him, and he hurried, out and along with Christian, overtaking the crew in the airlock. Christian yelled for quiet, ordered a line-up along the wall, started calling out names and sorting through the passports and papers.

"Anybody I didn't call, stay the hell aboard, go find the chief and tell her you need documents."

There was one, who swore and complained he'd turned in his fuckin' papers, he hadn't had them, it was a Corinthianscrew-up.

"It's a clerical, all right. Just get back there," Christian said, and strode along the ragged line, holding him by the elbow, the fistful of passports in the other. "Come on. Stay a damn line, for God's sake! Look like business, and don't mouth off to Pell customs, they got a nasty habit of dropping you out of computers, screw your accounts, you don't need that kind of trouble, so shut up!"

There were hoots and catcalls that died fast as Christian led the way down the access, the crew and Christian in coats, himself in his shirt sleeves, which he hoped to God nobody in customs was going to question. He might be hyperventilating—the cold made his breaths too short, and made his chest hurt. Frost whitened every surface but the heated floor. Heated plates, too, as they came down the ramp and into the vast echoing shadow of the dock, under white lights that, like stars, glared from far aloft in the girders, lighting nothing until the light reached the metal decking and the waiting customs agents, at the check-through at the bottom of their ramp. Neon from the bar frontages pierced through the dark and the spots, faint traceries of bar and shop signs, freedom, just that close ahead.

If breath was short before, it was all but choked now. Don't look nervous, he said to himself, every spacer kid learned it, never look nervous with customs, don't look like you're carrying anything, don't get too friendly, please God there's no glitch with the papers…

God, I didn't get an entry stamp at Viking, do you get an exit stamp at a free port? Last I got was Mariner, four months, maybe, four months realtime…

Agents didn't even look at the stamps. If you strongly looked like your passport picture, if you were approximately the right gender, that was fine, they didn't even run the microchecks or fingerprints or anything… just go on, keep the line moving, and you were through. He couldn't believe it was that easy.

Christian grabbed his elbow. "Not far," Christian said. "Everything's set."

"I need my passport. " It was always the sticking-point in the plan. Christian neededit aboard ship to support his story. He needed it far worse. His actual license was in Sprite'srecords. His files were the other side of the Line. He'd never felt his identity, his whole claim on existence, so tenuous as it was with that red folder in Christian's hands.

"Just keep walking. Let's do this fast, for God's sake, I've got to get back. You'll get your damn passport."

"What berth?"

"We're at 12. Martinis 22."

Ten berths wasn't a pleasant hike at the tempo Christian took it. The air felt heavy to him, giving him more than he wanted, but laden with scents that made it seem thick to him. Breaths didn't steam on this dockside, but, maybe it was the chill he'd gotten in the tube, maybe it was the raw fear of something going wrong, that fast walking couldn't break a sweat—he was keeping up with Christian, a step behind at times, thinking maybe it would have made sense to hop a ped-transport, it surely would have made better sense…

But the display boards were saying Berth 20, and 21, and that was 22 ahead.

A group of four men was standing in their path. "You just go with them," Christian said. "Everything's set. It's all right. Here's your passport, there's your escort aboard, you don't need papers, they'll fix you up whatever papers you need. You've got the two hundred."

"Yes. " He took the red passport folder, tucked it into his pocket as they walked toward the four men meeting them. Couldn't see any departure boards from here… he wanted to see was the ship on schedule and he lagged a step to turn and get a look back over his shoulder, at the section/berth display for 20 through 25. He picked out the 22 under Berth, and right beside the reassuring digital Christophe Martin, Pell Registry, was, in smaller letters: Sol Station One, +30: 23h.

Christian grabbed his arm, jerked him around.

He didn't think. He broke the grip and bolted for the dock-side wall, into the thickest traffic he could find.

"Hawkins!" Christian yelled after him. And: "Get him, dammit!"

He dodged pedestrians, a taxi, a can transport. He ran as far and as fast as he could. A stitch came in his side. His knees began to go, tendons aching. Obstacles blurred. He kept missing them, as long as he could keep going, finally jogged down to a walk, sweat burning off in the icy dry air, throat raw, legs and arms going increasingly to rubber. He didn't bend over to get rid of the stitch, nothing to make him obvious in the traffic. Shirt and black skintights weren't unusual in the crowd near the heated frontage, just too recognizable. He expected Corinthiancrew at any moment to overtake him and ship him off to Sol, where he'd never get back again, never, ever match up with Sprite'scourse, too many variables, too far from everything he knew. Besides that, Earthers were weird, with weird, irrational laws, and he didn't want to go where, for all he knew, Martinmight be under agreement to dump him.

Legs wobbled under him. Spacer-boys didn't run distances.

Do anything you like in null– g, maybe sprint the length of lower main, but no races on dockside. Only thing in his favor, Christian and the guys from Martindidn't have station-legs, either. And terror was on his side.

Nobody overtook him. If they'd lost track of him somewhere, they'd have had to factor in the chance he'd dived into a shop or a bar, or taken a lift up to the station's upper levels, and once they did that, Pell was a huge station, not easy to search with any degree of quiet. He ought to go to the cops, he ought to, but no way in hell was that an option. Best was the lifts, while he was still ahead of the search and they hadn't a chance to post watch by the doors.

He had the credit chits Christian had given him—a gift to salve Christian's conscience or just property Martinwould have taken from him to pay his bills aboard, he didn't intend to find out. He had the passport Christian had given him—maybe that was conscience-salving, too, because Christian could have stranded him for good and all if he had just handed that over to Martincrew.

He took it out of his pocket. It was the right official cover. But it didn't have the thumb-dent on the edge his had. He opened it and it was just color repro inside, a good, professional forgery.

The wind went out of him, then. He wasn't sure where he was walking. He flipped through the pages, dodged pedestrians, told himself he was a fool, he'd seen the folder, he'd believed it—but no customs agent was going to pass it at close inspection. Christian had switched it on him, maybe had the real one and the fake in his pocket, and he was on Pell without a legitimate passport to let him go to the station offices, or apply for work. His license was there, all repro, nothing he could legitimately take to any ship's master.

He bumped into a man—excused himself. He was lightheaded and close to panic, and, with that near-incident, he shoved the passport into his pocket and kept walking, half-blind, heart beating in great, heavy thumps.

Stupid, he kept saying. Stupid, stupid. The only worse thing that he'd escaped… was being on Christophe Martin.

—ii—

NOT GOOD, WAS ALL CHRISTIAN could say to himself as he reached Corinthian'sdockside. Not good, in the way an oncoming rock wasn't good.

Michaels had seen to the details—had the cargo crew taking care of business, setting up with Pell transport. A glance around told him at what stage routine was at the moment and Austin couldn't fault him for that—Michaels was on his job and it wasn't as if he'd kited off with things undone.

What he haddone was a trouble he couldn't even graph. It wasn't supposed to have happened that way. Things weren't supposed to have skewed off like that, they had no right not to have gone the way they should.

"Chris-tian."

Capella's voice. He waited. Capella overtook him at the edge of the ramp.

"Well?" Capella said.

"Son of a bitch," he said.

Capella didn't even start with: What happened? She dived straight to: "Where is he?"

"I don't know! How should I know? The damn fool bolted, kited off, I don't know where he is!"

"Fine. Fine. Withthe passport?"

"He thinks. " He patted the pocket where he had the real one. "He's not going anywhere without this. He'd be a fool to go to the cops. He knows it."

"Yeah," Capella said, implying, to his ears, that people had been fools before. That she was looking at one.

"He wasn't in any danger, Martin'sa fair ship—he just—took off when he saw the guys waiting, I don't know what got into his head. We've got to find him."

"We've got to find him," Capella echoed. "Yeah."

He wanted to hit her. He knew better. That bracelet wasn'ta forgery. "Pella, we've got a problem. We've got a major problem out there. Yeah, it's mine, but it's the ship's problem if we don't get him before the cops do. We can't go out of here and leave him loose—God knows what he'd do. We've got to use this port."

"Well, maybe we should stand here, I mean, if he wants Corinthians, he can just walk right up to the ramp and ask."

"Don't be an ass!"

"I'm not the ass, Chris-baby."

"Chris-tian."

That was Austin. He'd left the pocket-com on.

" Youtold him!"