“God, I hate you.”
Humor left Austin’s expression, ever so briefly. And returned, like a mask. “You used to say that when you didn’t get your way. Sorry, this one depends on that ship out there. I say again, don’t screw it.”
There was silence. He got up, slowly, and walked out. The door hissed shut.
He stood outside, against the wall, for some few moments, telling himself calm down, actually confusedly sorry about that parting shot, for the way Austin had looked for half a heartbeat. He’d never scored on Austin like that. Never gotten Austin’s real expression in an argument. In retrospect, maybe that was what scared him. As if Austin was somehow and for a moment wide open to him—as if, maybe Austin wasn’t expecting to come out of this mess.
But, hell, Austin had been in the War, Austin had shepherded Corinthian through fire and mines and stray ordnance, only a couple of times taken damage, Austin had gotten them out of far worse, while he’d shivered inside the pillow-padded storage bin where Saby hid with him, Saby swearing it was going to be all right, the ship was going to move hard for a while, Austin and Beatrice were doing it, don’t be scared, Chrissy, don’t be scared—while Saby shivered, too, and half-broke his bones when the g-force built, and you didn’t know when it would stop, or when it did, you didn’t know why, or what could hit you, or when.
Never forgot those years. The nerves had still been there when he was sixteen, worse, maybe, that he’d only heard later what was going on, never so that he could pin this sensation to that movement… impressions all muddled up in a three-year-old’s memory, a five-year-old’s terror.
For sixteen, seventeen years he’d been spooked by jump, by the g-forces, by the whole feeling of a ship doing what a ship did. But Capella had laughed him through his terrors, Capella had snared him in other sensations, taught him to enjoy the craziness, to see the dimensions as other than up and down and falling. Austin was wrong about her—Capella had come to him on the docks, not the other way around: he hadn’t thought of that argument against Austin’s suspicions, he always thought of the telling ones after the door was shut.
He could trust her. Trust her with his life, absolutely.
With his half-brother—hell, cancel that. Don’t think about it. Elder brother was stronger, faster, smarter, any adjective you wanted, he was also god-awfully clean-minded, noble, true, and honest. A thorough-going bore.
Dance, she’d said, light flickering around her, the music drowned in the drum-beat, the equation of a different space glowing below the bracelet, and no damn guarantee the enemies she was avoiding weren’t going to walk through that door.
They’d been in mortal danger. He hadn’t thought about it. Capella had been waiting for it. Wanting, maybe, a chance at it on the dockside, where her enemies were much more vulnerable.
Or… maybe keeping Austin guessing, whether she’d board or not. And making Austin know he might force her to board—but work for him?
God. God, he’d been blind. Focused on the wrong problem. Again. He had to get the pieces together, had to pull it out, if Austin was sinking into some self-destructive funk… Austin and Beatrice were feuding, you could feel it in the way the ship moved; the ship could lose more than trade, it could lose, out there in the dark, where if they didn’t make that pick-up, they couldn’t guarantee there’d be another. And if an enemy found that supply dump… they couldn’t guarantee anything, either. Not even their getting out alive.
Capella sat on main crew, this trip. Had to. He was supposed to set things up… and no changes in routine, Austin said?
When they were running into ambush, and Austin knew it?
Had to talk to Michaels, that was what. Had to be sure that capped switch was thrown and the guns were up when they made the drop at Tripoint. Elder brother and that matter… didn’t matter, in that context. A non-issue, until they got to Viking. If they got to Viking.