Текст книги "Tripoint "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

"Relax," she said, and laughed, and bumped his foot with hers. "Step, step, step, turn—"

The room spun. He managed to breathe and move, step, step, step, turn, with Saby, and they hadn't knocked into anybody. They moved with the traffic, joined the movement around the swirling floor, the sweeping walls.

"Isn't that easy?"

She made him lose where he was. The dreadful face of the planet was coming into view—he got the count back, desperately, and took Saby's lead for a giddy turn, abandoned hope of equilibrium, and began to figure Saby wasn't going to steer him into collision, he just had to stay with it, feel when she moved, listen to the music…

"There," Saby said, "now you're getting it."

It was more commitment to Saby's guidance than he wanted, period. He'd held back. He'd maintained a stolid non-involvement and non-interest in Saby Perrault—he'd read a book, sat on his bed, they'd discussed colors and her harmless preference for coffee over tea. But he was occupied in keeping up, now, and, he guessed, by Saby's mercy, not making too much of a fool of himself—nobody was staring, and Saby seemed happy. The alcohol buzz made the images fuzz, and his heart that thumped in panic at the grand sweep of the planet, the deadly gulf of infall, found a sustainable level of adrenaline and kept time, thump, thump, thump to the music and the dizzy turns.

Silence came like a stop in the universe. He stood, hard-breathing, dizzy, with one hand where not-dancing made it too familiar, and the other sweating in Saby's grasp. Everybody applauded, the band got a second wind, and while some drifted back to the tables, Saby said it was a slow tune and she'd teach him that step, too.

It wasn't so organized as the fast step, just kind of wandering back and forth, no way for anybody to be conspicuous, the stars there beyond the shadows of other couples, Saby's body brushing his on a regular sort of movement that he… didn't really mind. Much. Often. He was wary. He asked himself if he was being seduced, or if she was—taking a stupid chance, if that was what was happening. But if Saby wanted to end this up with bed, he could agree with that, he'd been clever as long as he could, and stupid was taking over with a vengeance.

Wasn't his fault. Wasn't any way out of the trap he was in. Might as well enjoy anything that came before. There was, tomorrow, inevitably the day after. And Austin.

The dance ended.

"Want to sit?" Saby asked.

"What do you want?"

"Want to dance," Saby said. So they did, a fast one this time. He remembered. Saby floated in his arms, threw changes and embellishments into the steps and the turns he couldn't match—she was gorgeous. The light of magnified stars sparked on cut-away sleeves that fluttered against her and away again, her hair eclipsed the light like a swirl of shadow—he kept up with her, he took her cues, and when the music was done, she laughed, breathless, and applauded, dragged him back to the table when the music was done.

Two fresh drinks were sitting there. He didn't think that was a good idea. He sipped at his, out of breath, himself, with far less work, and she sipped at hers, the same, until they'd both caught their breaths and cured the dry mouths.

The music had settled to a saner pace. "Go again?" Saby asked.

"Sure," he said. He hadn't had all his drink. He wanted water, but the waiter was invisible, and Saby was happy… a yes could do that, it was easy, and it wasn't with most people in his experience—a new experience, she was, no negatives, hell, you could get too easy, you could get to likemaking Saby happy. So here he was, going out onto the floor, for one dance and then two, slow and sane dancing, just wandering back and forth. Saby leaned her head on his shoulder, and body moved against body, her instigation: he didn't want her complaining tomorrow, telling her crewmates and her captain he'd had the ideas and she hadn't.

Because maybe it wasn't a come-ahead. He couldn't figure, and all the higher brain managed was a warn-off, a wait-see. Brain-base was on slow ignite, and feedback from the lower body circuits was hitting warning, warning…

Music faded. Applause and sort-out was a reprieve. They stared at each other in the giddy dark and… he wasn't sure whose initial motion it was… joined the drift back to tables and drinks.

They rested, they got at least the moisture in the drinks—he wanted water, Saby said she did, and they tried to catch a waiter, but the next dance was starting. They danced some more, the drinks kept refilling every time they got back to the table, and by then they were immortal and impervious to successive rounds. They danced, they drank, they danced until the stars were blurry, until, in the ending of a slow number, while they moved in a slow, brain-buzzed drift, the speakers announced shift-change, and last call.

They got their breath. The waiter showed, with the reckoning. He didn't dare to ask.

"Tab us to Corinthian, "Saby said, and showed her passport. "House percentage.—And bring some water, please."

They never got any water, just sips of the last refill. And the receipt and a chocolate.

—v—

SO THE SECOND CHIEF NAVIGATOR wanted to board and talk. Capella had to pass on an urgent piece of news. Capellahad to talk to him. Of course Christian wasn't in the vicinity.

Like bloody hell, Austin thought, and it didn't take a master intellect, once Capella showed at the lock, to predict it had to do with the dustup on the dock, that the dustup had a lot to do with Christian asking extra security outside, and had a damned lot to do with Christian's scouring around and making more noise on the information market than Corinthianhabitually liked.

Which, logic argued, might just drop a small amount of fault for the situation on the captain's own plate, for not yanking Christian's authorizations and codes before they docked, but, hell, he expected at least eighteen years worth of maturity out of the twenty ship-years the kid had lived, he expected a degree of basic sense of consequences, and hewouldn't have sneaked Hawkins out the lock, or involved Christophe Martin, which was the start of the whole info-blowup. It could have racketed clear to the stationmaster's office if he hadn't put a fast brake on it. Right now he could wring the young fool's neck, Christian knew it, and damned right Capella came alone, soft-footing it into lower main, trading on her connections. You got a Fleet navigator on quasi-permanent loan, all right, but you consequently had to ask yourself what that individual could and would do if you came to cross-purposes, and you had to ask yourself a second time, when said individual immediately locked on to your admittedly attractive mainday chief officer-and-offspring, whether it was wholly as physical an attraction as Christian's young ego could assume it was. Warn him, yes. Repeated warnings. Like pouring current into a non-conductor. Of course Christian knew all that, Christian knew everything, Capella was just a good time. Capella was intelligent, Capella was good conversation.

Capella screwed his brains into overload and Christian had revelatory insights, oh, damned right he did.

Heredity didn't warn him at all. Paternal experience was irrelevant. The wages of sin walked down the corridor and arrived face to face.

"Sir," Capella said. "There's a spotter for somebody out there. Guy named Patrick, that's all I know."

"The hell that's all you know. " Worst-case became, in a single, disastrous instant, the present case, and you didn't know how far it had proliferated: but Capella if not Christian knew why she'd asked for a hearing– knewshe'd let a situation slip over a line past-which-not, by this unaccustomed and stark quiet of manner.

"Can we talk, sir?"

"We can talk," he said. And maybe he should run scared of her connections, but hell if he was going to. "Do I assume somebody's screwed up? Do I assume this involves your solution to the problem?"

No bluff. No flinch. An arrogant stare. "If I could have caught him, yessir, I should've done, but I couldn't account for the four with him and I didn't want the cops."

"So what's your recommendation?"

"Lie in port. It's not a sure bet Sprite'scoming in. It isa fact that that something's already here."

"Who? What?"

Forget getting all the truth out of Capella. It took her a couple of beats to censor. Or lie.

"Renegade. Scavenger. Little stuff. No threat to us. But he'll track us. He'll find the dump. He'll kill us if he can… to shut meup."

"I can understand that motivation."

Capella's chin came up, eyes a clear try-me, and he gave it back:

"You are an arrogantsumbitch. My son's just a good lay, is he? Good boy, a little dim, do anything you like on his watch? Or did he scare you into this?"

Long, long silence in the corridor, and Capella's nostrils flared.

"Didn't think it would go this far."

"Yeah."

"Yes, sir, I fucked up. I considerably fucked up."

He let the silence hang there. He'd never been sure what captain or what interests Capella served. But it was down to basics, now. When something threatened the ship you were on… it was suddenly damned basic; and he let that admission hang there long enough for Capella to hear it herself.

"But in some measure," he said ever so quietly, so she wouldhear it, "your friends are something we can deal with outside Pell system. In some measure, you're up to that, aren't you?" He'd never challenged howshe handled navigation, or her other faculties. It was the closest pass he intended to make to that touchy matter. He challenged her nerve. And her skill. And waited for his answer.

"I think—" she began to equivocate. It wasn't ordinary for her.

"I know," he said, cutting her off. "I know. Period. If Spritegets here, what action do you suggest, second chief navigator, to prevent a search of our records?"

"It's our deck, sir."

"That's fine. We can lose docking privileges pending our release of those records. This isn't the War, second chief navigator. We may be necessary to the Fleet, but our little hauling capacity isn't necessary to Pell Station, and our brother and sister merchanters aren't just apt to rally round Corinthianin a quarrel with other merchanters, does that occur to you, second chief navigator?"

A Fleet navigator wasn't an entity to piss off. You agreed to take on the inevitable Gift from the Fleet and you agreed not to ask questions; you agreed that was grounds for very severe action in certain quarters. In effect, you took a ticking bomb aboard, and you hoped to hell nothing ever set it off: there was nothing but Capella's personal inclinations and physical restraint to keep said navigator from walking out on that dock, finding this Patrick, and turning coat in five minutes. It was a hell of a chance to take.

But it had gotten, thanks to Capella and Christian and Marie Hawkins, down to a similar hell of an alternative.

"Yes, sir," Capella said, equally quietly, "it does occur to me. But if we don't get Hawkins back… we're still screwed, no matter whether Spritecomes in here or not, which isn't proven they will, sir, that's my thought."

"I am so glad, I am so very glad we agree on that, second chief. But take it from me that we aregoing to board call tomorrow on schedule, that this is the course we're taking, and that, while I have thought of spacing Christian, I expect his ass in that airlock, safe, sober, and in your company. After that, I expect your professional talents to be on, period, capital letter, On. Can we agree on this, second chief?"

No blink, just analysis, like the face she wore on the bridge.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Good. That's real good. Because I appreciate the seriousness of what's happened out there. And I value officers who do. Ahead of my son, at this moment. Do you copy that?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's all, then."

Capella nodded a courtesy, turned with a touch more precision than the habit of the crew, and walked… you could see the military in the backbone, the way you could see her move around her station on the bridge, economy of everything.

Damn-all worst woman in the available universe for Christian to take to bed. Marie Hawkins was safer. Much.

He'd said, just now,—he was sure Capella had heard him: Choose a side. Get the hell to them, or take orders from me.

It remained to see, it did, how much she'd fill Christian in—how much she'd dare fill Christian in, if she meant to stay on Corinthian—because Christian wasn't going to be an automatic choice to succeed to the captaincy, not now, not since Viking, and damned well not since the stunt he'd pulled here… was still pulling, staying clear of him, not coming in to report, himself. There were times to revise priorities, there were times to be sure messages got through… you didn't hand off to a bedmate not even remotely connected to the crew, if Christian had even made the decision that brought Capella in to report what couldn't go over com.

He didn't take it for a given. Not now. Not any longer. And that touched a personal investment he hadn't thought he had in Beatrice's unasked-for offspring. It affected him. It made him personally, painfully angry.

He stood there, asking himself why he gave a damn, and since when.

—vi—

LONG TRIP THROUGH THE LIFT system, alone for some of the trip, but they didn't talk—too many drinks, probably, Tom decided, a headache coming.

And an inevitable reckoning, tomorrow, the prospect of which, now that the music had died, and Saby's manner had gone remote and still, didn't sustain the mood for bed-sharing. He wasn't up to intricate personal politics. He wished he was gone enough to skip the excuses and the assurances, just to go face-down and maybe get some sleep that might, in the face of a not very pleasant tomorrow, desert him all too easily.

They reached the Aldebaran'sdoors. Saby screwed the access code twice, couldn't find her manual key card, and swore, going through all her pockets.

"I'm sorry," she kept saying. "Damn."

"It's all right," he found himself saying. "Maybe we could phone Corinthian'sboard. " It could only, he told himself, mean a shorter station stay. "Central'd have to put us through."

"Oh, hell," Saby said. "No. Let me think. It's eight-six-one…"

"Five?" He'd watched her code it a dozen times. "It's not bottom row."

"Eight-six-one… You're screwing me up. Eight-six, eight-six, eight-six—"

"Five."

"It's not five."

"Eight-six-five-one—"

"Two-one. Eight-six-two-one-nine-nine-one. " Saby leaned on the wall and coded it into the pad. The light turned green, the latch opened, they were in, and the same code worked all the way to the room.

The card, figure it, was on the table. Right by the door.

"Damn," Saby said, and took it and put it in the coveralls she probably was going to wear tomorrow. She looked tired and out of sorts, and went to the bath and ran one ice-water. And a second one.

"Cheers," she said, bringing him his.

He was sitting on his bed. She was standing. They drank the ice-water they hadn't gotten. Saby laughed, then, tired-sounding.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just a thought."

"Fools that trust Corinthians?"

A frown. "No."

Sexual tension was gone, no echoes but a remote regret it hadn't, couldn't, have lasted. Maybe, he thought, that was her rueful laughter. He asked, cool and curious, "—Were you supposed to seduce me?"

"No. Not. Nada. " She squatted down, peered up at his face, bleary-eyed herself, and shook at his knee, an attention-getting. "Tom, it's going to be all right. Believe me."

"Yeah.—Truth. Who really got the tab tonight?"

"The captain. Cross my heart. " She did. Almost fell on her rear. She didn't look like a conspirator.

"What? Fatherly generosity?"

"Christian shouldn't have done what he did. That's all. " She patted his knee and got up, turned out the light, then, before she wobbled over to her bed and threw back the covers, evidently at the limits of her sobriety. They never had gotten undressed together—just took the boots off. Shared a room. She sat down in the night-light and kicked her flimsy shoes off, one foot and the other—he shoved his own off and hauled back his sheets. Horizontal for eight hours seemed very attractive right now.

So, with regret, did the woman crawling into covers. Pretty backside, when he looked that direction. Pretty rest of her. Not highly coordinated, getting her blanket over her fully-dressed rump.

"Damn nice guy, Tom. You are. Wish you were just a little, little bit not so nice."

God, now, now, she invited him, when his skull had started to fog from the inside and the rest of him hadn't a desire for anything but face down in the pillow.

But, hell, Bed Manners, his Pollyspacer used to say, and taught him ways at least to see she got to sleep.

So he hauled himself up off the mattress, came over to sit on her bed. She hadn't left much room at the edge and she was fading, but he'd made the trip—he took her hand in his—pretty hand, limp hand. Fingers twitched. Eyes opened.

He leaned over and kissed her mostly on the mouth. Her fingers twitched again. He figured he'd done his bit for politeness and told himself bed was waiting on the other side of the room, but… but she was so damn pretty, she was so damn crazy, he just sat, her hand in his, thinking how with his Pollygirl you didn't need much to figure what she was thinking.

But with Saby… with Saby…

Hell, he thought. He was physically attracted, he was in the mood and now shewas zeroed out.

He shifted down to the end of the bed, not too gently, hoping to rouse a little attention by quasi-accident. Didn't work. He wanted her. Still. And worse. He grabbed her ankle under the blanket. Shook her foot. Hard.

Not a twitch. He sat there a moment, thinking it was a hell of a thing to do to a guy.

But if he woke her out of this sound a sleep she was going to come out of it mad.

Which wasn't the reaction he wanted.

The bed was wide enough. It was the last night before board-call, and he didn't think he was going to sleep, now, he was just going to lie there, wide awake, and worry.

But hell, too, if he was going to turn up in somebody's bed uninvited. There was a rude word for that. So he got up and headed for the bath and a—he glanced at the clock—an 0558 hours shower.

"Tom."

Nowshe was awake. She sat up on an elbow. The glitz blouse sparked blue in the night-light. "You want to?"

"Want to, what?" He was in a mood to be difficult. Now she wasn't. She reached out a glitter-patterned arm, a mottling of shadow and light.

"Do it, you know."

"Were you asleep?"

"No," she said, to his surge of temper. "Curious."

"Curious, hell! I'm not interested!"

"I've got a ship to protect!"

Loose logic always threw him. He got as far as the bathroom door. And stopped. And looked back.

"From what? From me? I'm not the one walking the corridors in the deep dark, thanks, I've beenscrewed, or something like it, by one of your night-walking shipmates, and nobody asked mypermission."

"Shit," Saby said, and sat upright. "You're kidding."

"It's no damn joke. I'm notflattered.—I prefer to be awake, thank you, the same courtesy I give anybody else."

"Shit, shit, shit. " It was dismay he heard. Saby got out of bed. " 'Scuse me. It's not me that did it. I know who. Damn her. I'm sorry."

That was fine. So it wasn't Saby crawling the corridors. He never had thought so. And he didn't need the shower, now, but he wasn't inclined to sleep, now, any time soon, and the bath was an excuse not to deal with Saby.

"Tom."

"I'm not in the mood, now. Forget it."

"Tom. Wait. Talk."

"What's the difference? I'm going back. Nothing in hell else I can do. You win. You've got all the answers."

"It's not going to be like it was."

"Like what? Shanghaied off my ship? Is that going to change?"

"Other things can change. You can work into crew. The allowances are huge, I mean, it's not just the captain picking up the tab, the hired-crew lives real well. You couldn't do better on Sprite. "

Some things maybe you didn't want to question. Some things could be real trouble to question. But he was in it, deep, and deeper.

"What's Corinthianhaul?"

"No different than Sprite. "

"The hell it isn't."

"We sell, we buy, no damn difference—"

"Then where? Is that the question? Where do you haul it to? Can we handle that one?"

Silence, the other side of the dark. Then: "Ask Austin."

" Austin, is it?"

"Most of the time. To us. To regular crew. You could do what you trained to do—"

"On a damn pirate?"

"Just a hauler. Nothingwe're ashamed of. We're damn proud of our ship. We've reason to be proud."

He wanted to believe that. He had no idea how many dicings of logic it might take to believe it didn't matter… who you traded with, or for what, or with what blood on it.

Silence again. And dark. Then: "I've already said more than I should. Aboard the ship, I'll tell you. You don't talk in sleepovers. Some stations bug rooms. Pell doesn't—that we know of. But still—"

He'd never heard that. But no station had ever had a motive to bug Spritecrew's rooms. And it didn't change anything.

"Yeah," he said, "so the pay's good. That says a lot."

"I'm not a criminal. Austin isn't."

"That's not the rumor."

"I sleep at night."

"Is that a testimony to your character?"

"You don't know our business, you don't know a damn thing. You're assuming."

"I'm going back because I can't go to the cops without get ting stuck on this station. That's all you need. That's as much as you can buy, I don't care what else you're selling."

Another silence. A thunderous, long one before Saby returned to her bed, shadow in shadow, a rustling in the dark. She sat down. He couldn't see detail by the night-light, it was too close to her. He couldn't see her face, whether she was just mad, or hurt.

Didn't need to have said 'selling. ' Wrong word. Real wrong word. He'd been on the receiving end of words too often not to feel it racket through his nervous system.

"Sorry," he said. "I can believe you. Not him."

Silence. A long time. He didn't want the solitude of the bath, now, but he didn't think he was going to sleep. Still, she didn't move.

Not for as long as he waited.

"Saby, dammit, I'm sorry."

"Sure. No problem. " The voice wobbled. Unfair. "Go to bed. I said no sex. I don't need the damn favor, all right?"

"Saby. This is stupid."

"Fine."

"My father told you to get me in bed?"

"No!"

Wrong step, again. He couldn'tsleep with Saby hating his guts. He wasn't going to sleep. Shewas going to talk to him and calm down. "I liked tonight, Saby. For God's sake, I did. I had a good time. " He couldn't restrain the barb. "When papa lets me out of the brig I'd like to do it again, somewhere."

Long pause. "There's still tonight."

"I'm not in the damn mood! God!"

Another watery silence.

"Dammit," he said, "I'm worried.—I'm scared, all right? I'm making the wrong choice, I'm doing something stupid, maybe I shouldstay here and deal with the cops, maybe it's better I get stranded for the rest of my life, I don't know!"

"Tom."

"God,—fuck off, will you?"

He hadn't meant to say that. He was rattled. He was cornered. It was six in the damn morning of the day he had to go back or go nowhere for the rest of his life.

He saw the shadow lie down, heard the rustle of sheets drawn up.

"Saby."

Silence.

"Saby, dammit. " He went over to the bed. He sat down on the edge, shook her foot.

Jerk of that foot, out of his vicinity. "No favors. I'm sorry. Forget it."

He sat there a moment, obdurate against the silence. He tried to think how to patch it. Found the foot again and patted it, a lump under the covers.

She didn't move.

"It was an experience," he said, unwilling to break it off in her angry silence. "It's been a good time. " More silence. But no jerk away from him. "It's just over, is all. Bills come due. Don't know if I can handle this one."

Foot moved. Second one joined it. Wiggled toes against his leg, once, twice.

He patted it, too. "Get some sleep. " He started to get up.

"Tom. " Saby reached out an arm. "Tom,—"

"Don't play games. Go to sleep."

"It's not games, dammit. I can't talk to you, I can't make sense."

Still upset. She'd found his arm, he found her knee. He sat there, just glad he'd made some kind of peace, moved his hand, she moved hers, a clumsy, mutual peace-making that wasn't, then, only that, he wasn't sure if it was him, or her, going past that, but they were past that, her arm sliding up, his sliding down, bodies shifting—

"Tom—"

He wasn't thinking, then. Lower brain took over. His hand moved, found a hip, whatever, among the sheets—mouth found mouth, hands moved at liberty, knees looked for places to be, amid a tangle of covers, and covers grew more tangled, bodies more urgent, brain going lower by the second. Knew he was in trouble. He'd never wanted sex as much as now and he hadn't even solved the damn sheet-tangle. She was doing better with his shirt. He started on hers. Yes-no was out the airlock. Decompression. He was breathing, that was all he could swear to. They were one creature, with the damn sheets somewhere involved, but clothes went, buttons, zips, whatever was in the way—went, until breathing itself was in jeopardy.

Nothing logical, no cautions, no stop-waits, Saby made him crazy and he didn't know why it was different.

He arrived, blind-deaf-red flashes in deep dark, no breath at all until he sank into a sweating, gasping tangle of sheets and skin, Saby's fingers wandered up and down his neck—she didn't say anything, wanted more, maybe, than he could do, and it was going to be awhile, for him, but not for her, so he made love to her, careful, oh, so careful, afraid he'd been too rough—didn't want to hurt anybody, never had, just everybody trapped him, everybody had their own agenda, and Saby, latest and least involved jailer he had, just wanted more—was that news?

She didn't say anything, the dark told him nothing his hands didn't find out, but she had a second and, quickly after, a third trip, holding to him, saying finally, oh, God, oh, God, over and over, didn't know if it was all right, but Saby was having a good trip out of it, that was all he picked up, and he knew Austin had hurt Marie, but he wasn't hurting Saby, she just held tighter to him and wanted until he wondered how long she could go on and whether he could do damage—but: The last night, kept racketing through his skull, and: Last chance. 'Nuf, she said once, and, oh, God, but her hands and her body were still saying something else, after which… after which he hit that quick, mind-numbing flashpoint. Lower brain took control again, and the night warped around him, long, long, release—

Then nowhere for a while, floating in that chaos-place where time didn't run the same, or directionally, or anything, hadn't the Voice said it to him? He went there, every which direction, he didn't think what he was doing, sensation just Was, and still echoed.

Came to with a body draped over him, that waked and stirred when he moved a leg that had fallen asleep. Body burrowed against him and held on, keeping him warm against the air… didn't know who it was for a moment, didn't know where he was, but he remembered, then, it was Saby, and he couldn't see the rest of his life in front of him. It was all dark, all blank, after where he was.

"You awake?" Saby asked him.

"Yeah," he said, and she moved over him, payback, he thought, sure he'd been too rough, but she wasn't—he kept expecting it and not admitting it, and she grew scary and strange to him as the night-walker—or the walker wasn't ever who he thought. Maybe nothing on the ship was what it seemed, nothing safe, not his life, not his freedom from kinship to them, not his sanity, not since he'd gone out in that warehouse and made jump with Corinthian. His anger wasn't there anymore, his fear wasn't, Saby'd taken it all inside, left just the no-place in front of him, the dark that wrapped him around and invited him, dared him, wanted him…

Saby pulled him in, Saby held on to him, Saby said she'd make everything all right: she was down to promises, like his Pollycrewwoman, who always said she liked him, never that she loved, and he wouldn't have believed that, anyway—it wasn't in his universe, wasn't here, just… Saby, Saby, in the corridor, on Sprite…Saby, pushing him away…

"What's the matter?" Saby asked, and passed a hand over his shoulder, but he'd gone shivery and a little spaced, and asking himself where his mind was, that he made that jump, Saby to Marie. Bad navigation, crazy stuff she'd called up in him. It made him ashamed, and scared again, as if he'd crossed some strange space where identities and faces changed, floating lights, like the chaos around the night-walker.

He twitched, bad jump, quick intake of breath, couldn't help it, he was falling for a second.

But Saby had him, Saby brought him back with a pass of her hand across his forehead, down his face.

"You all right?" Saby asked. That was a trap. Serious trap. If you believed she gave a damn…

If you thought Marie cared… if you ever thought that…

"Tom? Hey. Hey. Bad dream?"

He drew a breath, let it go, relieved Marie had retreated from conscious level. Didn't want to think about Marie, she got into dreams and they turned in strange directions… Marie held him close in the dark. He was eight, maybe nine, too old to sit on anybody's lap, the lights had cycled off, but Marie was in a mood to talk, and she held him and rocked him and told him about rape, and murder.

Other kids had fairytales for bedtime, but he got this story. He felt mama's arms hard and angry… and heard about sex and pain…

"Tom? For God's sake,—"

Air was cold. He felt chilled.

Sheets whispered and slid. The lights went on, dim though they were. She just looked, that was all. He didn't have anything to say. He didn't want to work himself in deeper than he was.

She reported to his father, no question.

She knew he was a hazard to the ship. He could do anything he wanted in bed, she didn't mind, but it didn't change him being Hawkins.

"Station's no good place," she said. "You don'twant to be here."

Jerked him back to the real choices, she did. He was that transparent. If she saw more than that, she might be scared, herself.