TriPoint, a Union Alliance novel by Caroline J. Cherryh

A door opened behind him. His heart thumped. He heard voices, decided he’d better go ahead with his charade. So he clipped his ID back to his pocket and walked out to see who’d come in, to give his story about being lost.

Personnel came in wearing heavy coats, in gloves; then a handful of spacers in no more protection than he stood in—in the same green he’d seen on Corinthian crew.

He decided to bluff it through, giddy and shivering as he was. “There you are,” he declared. “I was wondering if there was someone in charge.”

“What in hell are you doing in here?”

“Door was open,” he said, walking toward them, scared as hell and trying not to show it. “Sorry. I thought there’d be somebody in the warehouse, if nothing else. “ He didn’t want Corinthian crew to see the patch on his sleeve, please God, he just wanted to deal with the warehouse owners. “Lost my mates, got off at the wrong stop… I was supposed to go down to Hercules Shipping, I forgot the damn number…”

“He was with her,” one of the spacers said.

Shit, he thought, desperate, and made a throwaway gesture, measuring the distance to the door. “I was with my crew, except I got off too soon. Sorry if I’ve inconvenienced anybody, I was just looking for a number…”

His legs were stiff from the cold. He wasn’t sure he could run with any speed. The spacers came closer, the warehouse workers saying things about the dangers of cold cans, about not wanting any trouble on their premises.

Fine, he thought, he’d go through them, not the spacers. And he bolted for the door.

But the warehousers grabbed him, all the same, and swung him around to face the spacers. Six of them.

“Sprite crew,” one of them said, and the young man who looked like an officer of some sort said, “Looking for an address, are you?” The young man walked up and undipped the ID from his pocket. Looked at it.

Clean-cut young officer. Stripes on his sleeve. Didn’t look like as much trouble as the crew might be. Looked at the ID. Looked at him.

“Thomas Bowe-Hawkins.”

Bowe, the pocket tab on the officer said. C. Bowe. Cousin of his, he thought, and didn’t welcome the acquaintance.

“Well, well, well,” the young man said. “Marie Hawkins’ darling offspring. Search the place.”

“She’s not here.”

The Corinthian clipped the tab back to his pocket, one-handed. Straightened his collar, a familiarity he didn’t like.

“Thomas. Or Tom?”

“Suit yourself,” he muttered. He was scared. He’d been in cousin-traps a hundred times. But there were a dozen ways to get killed in this one.

“Tommy Hawkins. I’m Christian Bowe. Papa’s other son.”

Other son.

More than possible. He hadn’t known, he hadn’t guessed, and he looked at this Christian Bowe, wondering whether kinship was going to get him out of this or see him dead.

“Where’s your mama?” Christian Bowe asked him. “Hmmn?”

“I don’t know. She’s not here.”

“So you just went walking in the warehouses, did you? Looking for something in particular?”

“I know Miller’s handling your stuff. I thought she might have come here. But she didn’t.”

“Come here for what?”

He didn’t answer. One of the men came back from a circuit of the area. “He was scraping at the labels, “ that man said. “Or somebody was.”

“Marie Hawkins?” Christian shouted at the empty air. The voice echoed around the vast, cold warehouse, up among the racks. “You want your kid back?”

Marie didn’t, Tom thought. Not that much.

Or maybe not at all. Echoes died into silence. He stood there, with two men holding on to his arms, and hands and face numb with the cold. Eyes were frosting around the edges, the stiffness of ice.

“He knows too much,” somebody said, at his back.

“Don’t know a thing,” he said.

“The hell,” Christian said, and turned his shoulder, hand rubbing the back of his neck, while he thought over what to do, Tom supposed, while all of them froze, but he was getting there faster.

“Put him out,” Christian said then. He thought he meant out of the warehouse, and hoped, when the man holding his right arm quit twisting it.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162

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