They passed the section doors and rolled into green. He didn’t know Corinthian’s exact berth, but he had it pegged from the visual display as somewhere a third of the way into green out of blue.
He wasn’t ready for Marie’s hop off the transport as it slowed for a flag-down. He jumped, and tagged her quick pace along the frontage of bars and sleepovers, overtook her as she stopped and waited for him.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Marie, what are you doing? Tell me when you’re getting off!”
“The berth’s right down there,” Marie said, gazing down-ring, deeper into green. “They’re showing as offloading.”
He could see the orange light, but only a single transport was sitting, loaded, at the berth. “Not moving.”
“Taking their own time, for certain. I want a look at the warehouse and the company where that’s going. The transport logo says Miller.”
It sounded better than shooting at Corinthian crew. “What are we looking for, specifically?”
“What we can find. What they’re dealing in. “ She grabbed his sleeve and drew him back against the frontage of a trinket shop as a man walked past them. He was confused for a moment, looking for obvious threat on the man, but Marie didn’t let up.
“That’s a Corinthian patch. Corinthian officer.”
Sleeve-patch on the light green coveralls showed a black circle, an object he understood was some kind of ancient helmet. Crossed missiles. Spears. He’d learned that word from Marie. The patch had never looked half as much merchanter as military.
But, then, that described Corinthian to a tee.
And that might even be a cousin, striding along as if he owned the dock. Or a cousin’s shipmate, he amended the thought, considering that the slurs about hire-ons and sex as a pre-req for employment that he’d heard all his life from his cousins were probably entirely true. He found himself nervous, unaccountably afraid, even in this degree of proximity to the ship and a side of his life he didn’t want to meet.
“Come on,” Marie said, and tugged at his arm, urging him closer to that berth.
“No!” He disengaged, grabbed her arm and drew her back. “You said you’d settle with them in the market. You said you were looking for. something in the data.”
“Scared?”
“You can’t go down there, I won’t let you go down there.”
“Won’t let me?”
“I won’t. If they spot a Sprite patch, they’re going to be all over us. It’s crazy, Marie! If you can fix him through the market, do it, I’m with you, I’ll help you, but I’m not going to see you go down there and do something stupid!”
“I’m fine. What’s to worry about? Afraid to say hello to your father? I’m sure he’d be interested.”
The cousins who gave him trouble had nothing on Marie. “I doubt he knows I exist. Unless you know a reason for him to.”
“Interesting question.”
“Marie,—for God’s sake—”
“It’s not a problem, Tom, I don’t know why you’re making it a problem. We just go a little closer, have a look around…”
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Marie, what do you care now? After twenty years, for God’s sake, what could you possibly care about that man? I don’t. I don’t give a damn where he is, what he does, I don’t want to meet him, I don’t want to know anything about him.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No, I’m not afraid, but—”
“Liar yourself.”
“Do you want him to rule your life, Marie? Is what happened twenty years ago going to govern your whole damned career?”
Marie’s hand was in motion, and he’d gotten faster over the years. He blocked it. It stung, even so.
“Don’t you lecture me!” Marie hissed. “Don’t you lecture me, Thomas!”
“‘Bygones be bygones.’ Hell!”
He wasn’t looking for the second try. He didn’t intend the force of the hand that blocked it.
“Cut it out, Marie!”
“Don’t you lift a hand to me, don’t you ever lift a hand, you hear me? Damn you!”
“I said cut it out!” He intercepted the third try, realized he was holding too tight and let go. “I’m not him, dammit, Marie, I’m not him, God, stop—stop it, Marie!”