She got a breath. She was absolutely paper white, staring at him with white-edged eyes, mouth open—he was shaking. She could still do that to him, he didn’t know why, except that she could make him mad and that when he was mad he didn’t think. He could hit her in his temper and maybe hurt her, maybe want to hurt her, that was the fear that paralyzed him.
She got her breath. She stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“I didn’t know there was a side!”
“You damned well believe there’s a side! Don’t you talk to Mischa behind my back! I didn’t have to have you. I didn’t have to keep you. And what’s fair—what’s fair, Tom, your talking to Mischa, when Mischa never did one damned thing to help me, my own ship never did a damned thing to help me—like it was all my fault—”
“I know what you feel, Marie, I don’t blame you, but you don’t know—”
“You don’t know what I feel! You don’t know any part of what I feel. Don’t give me that!”
“I don’t want this ship to leave you in some station psych unit!”
“I’m not stupid, boy! Does Mischa think I’m stupid?”
“Mischa doesn’t have a damned thing to do with my being here, I’m here for you, Marie, for God’s sake, don’t act like this! Listen to me!”
“Get away from me!” She shoved him off, ran along the frontages, and he ran after her, caught her, but she started hitting him.
“Marie,—”
“Hey!” somebody said, a voice he didn’t know. Someone grabbed him hard from behind and shoved him, Marie broke and ran, and he was staring at an angry spacer a head taller and a good deal wider, yelling, “What’s your problem?”
“That’s my mother, dammit!”
The man grabbed him by the collar. “You treat your mama like that?”
“She’s in trouble! Let me go!”
“What trouble?”
“Let go!” He broke the hold and ducked, ran toward Corinthian’s berth, and stopped, having lost all sight of Marie. Someone came running behind him, and he swung around, held up both hands in token of peace, ducked the man’s attempt to grab him again.
“I’m telling you that’s my mother, it’s crew business, I’m not after a fight—just leave me the hell alone, she’s breaking regs, I got to find her!”
He shoved the man off, ran down the dock closer to Corinthian, hoping he’d find some hidey-hole Marie might have found—there were bars and he skidded into one, hoping for a service door—saw one, but it was behind the bar. He kited back along the wall as the damnfool spacer came in looking for him. He slipped out the door behind the man’s back, then ran down the row to the second bar over, and into the far dim back of the room, in case the man should give it another try. He was out of breath, hoped the man hadn’t called the cops. He saw a public phone and went to it—it was too far around the station rim to rely on the pocket-com. He punched in the universal number for ship-lines, Sprite’s berth at orange 19, then the internal number for bridge-corn.
“This is Tom Hawkins. Put me through to the captain, this is an extreme emergency.”
Mischa came on, immediately, with, “Where did she lose you?”
“Green 10,” he said, shamefaced. God, not even a What happened?
“Kid, stay put, do you copy? Where are you right now?”
He had to look up at the bar name on the back wall. “The Andromeda. “
“You don’t budge from there. Do you copy? Don’t budge. Saja’s on the dock. He’s had you in sight. He’s been trying to catch up to you since you left, damn your hide.”
Chasing us, he thought. Why? They had the com. Why didn’t they just call us?
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll be here. “ Imagination painted what Marie might be up to, trying to get on board Corinthian, lying in ambush for their crew on dockside—getting caught at it, and arrested, because Corinthian had probably gathered all sorts of evidence on Marie’s intentions over the years, if Mischa was right about the messages she’d sent.