“Mazian’s, Mallory’s, Percy’s… the Fleet’s pieces, the pieces that have their own partisans, their own spooks and their own suppliers… you work for Mazian, that’s the truth. But not all do. Some ships are dead, Mallory turned coat, the rest… “ Capella ran out of breath, and didn’t find another immediately. “I’ll tell you this. There’s two needs here. There’s Corinthian, wanting everything the same forever, and there’s us, who can’t make that happen, Christian, captain-papa won’t understand that, but there’s those that want me so bad…”
“Why? Because you can do what you do?”
“You might say. Because I know places.”
“What places?”
“Places they want. Badly.—I can’t let Corinthian get boarded. It’s not in my own interest, you copy that? If the captain asks,—make him believe it. And we’re running with guns live this jump. Take my side on that, if there’s any argument on it.”
It was crazy. He was up to his ears in the Hawkins business, he couldn’t think about anything else, but Capella was telling him about waking up the guns they’d used once in his lifetime, about the ordinance Michaels maintained and serviced and kept viable, through all these ship-board years. It didn’t happen. A chance encounter on a dockside didn’t lead to live guns, when a crazy woman was trying to get them hauled in by port authorities.
But a spook had gone invisible… which could well mean some other ship at Pell was in an unannounced board-call at this very moment.
Hell in a handbasket, that was what it felt like. He wanted to break a Hawkins neck, and two or three others, but suddenly he was perceiving a threat that didn’t give him time for that. Austin might not take it seriously. Austin had his mind on Hawkinses, on Marie Hawkins in particular. That was who was ruling Corinthian’s movements. Hawkinses had them going out instead of lying in port until at least they had the advantage of not being a target.
A genuine spook didn’t carry cargo. It could overjump them, just traveling higher and faster in hyperspace. It had engines the power of which it didn’t admit, and if it decided to beat them out to their next stop, hell…
But Austin wasn’t thinking down that track, no, Austin was busy with a woman who’d been threatening to kill him for twenty plus years, and who now wanted her son back…
But Capella had said it when she came back from talking to Austin, and confessing to him what she’d stirred up… that Austin hadn’t listened, damn him. Austin had known he could get Hawkins back, and therefore that became Austin’s immediate problem, the one Austin daren’t be caught in port with; and damn Austin and his whole elaborate joke… Austin wasn’t going to listen to anything beyond that hazard. They couldn’t even prove that Marie Hawkins was inbound, there being no reasonable prospect that a merchanter should leave its schedule for one lost crewman. Marie wasn’t in charge of Sprite, and Austin was still running—scared, was what it amounted to, outright embarrassing to the ship.
And after Austin’s cheap little piece of humor at his expense, he was the one who had to get his priorities straight, forget personal issues with Hawkins and cousin Saby Perrault, and listen to the ship’s second navigator, who was trying to tell them they could get their butts shot off.
So it was up to him again, save their collective asses by doing what had to be done—talk to Michaels, tell their one-time gunner to dust off the simulator during system passage, lock himself in with it, and flip that armament switch when they went otherside.
Michaels would listen. Michaels wasn’t the optimist Austin was, the hell with the regs about live guns at Pell.
He didn’t want to die at twenty. Didn’t want to go up in a fireball. Or, God help all of them, get conscripted aboard a spook.
“We’re not on duty. Screw it all. Come on.”
He was a willing abductee. Didn’t want to deal with Saby, or Hawkins, Austin, or—least of all, maman, until he’d cooled down. Considerably.
They’d come in at the last minute. Let somebody head-count, and worry—if Austin wasn’t blinded by Hawkins’ reasonable, dutiful, likeable self.