Cheap cost, on this occasion.
Saby shot him a feed from her terminal. Lots and lots of boring serial numbers and clearances.
“So is anybody asking about this kid?” Saby asked.
“How would I know? Austin’s not talking. Beatrice is hung over as hell and on station. Damned Family-ship prig.”
“I’d be scared,” Saby said. “In his place, I’d be damned scared.”
“He’s a Family Boy. Ship-share, all the best, don’t you know. I wish I’d left him. Say he must’ve hid out after the fight, we wouldn’t have this problem.” He set the computer to scan for WH’s and location, the sole intellectual function the job needed for the pass.”His mother’s out there looking for
Austin, Austin’s hiding aboard, hauls the whole damn crew in, it’s damned ridiculous. Now my half-brother’s gone poking about in Miller’s and we’ve got ourselves a problem,”
“What was he doing in Miller’s?”
“Looking for his mama, what else?”
“I’d like to know what mama was looking for. It wasn’t Austin.”
Cousin Sabrina had a brain. Cousin Sabrina was using it. He shoved back from the console, turned the chair and looked at her, rethinking, absent temper, what Thomas Bowe-Hawkins had been doing scraping labels.
“What’s her source?” he asked Saby. “Since you know so much.”
“I don’t know what her source is. He might.”
Saby’d wiped his nose when he was a brat—till he got older and Saby had justly told him go to hell. Now he ran with Capella, Saby supered the computer techs, handled Hires, trouble-shot cargo functions at need, and took her lovers on dock-side. With all the dockside willies to choose from, she hadn’t hired or slept with a psych-case yet.
Better than Austin could claim. Austin listened, when Saby said who was crazy and who wasn’t.
So where did she always see that far ahead of him, damn her?
The computer came up with a Warm-Hold headed for the wrong hold, and beeped.
Damn, damn, and damn. “Who in hell checked that through? Can anybody in our crew read, or just maybe use the laser, God! I don’t believe this.” He punched through to the dock chief. “—Connie, Connie, do you hear? I want a number pulled off the list, fast, 987-7. Get that mother upside into warm 2 before they load it in, that’s not for deep cold.”
Connie took his time writing it down. Connie said they’d look for the number. Christian ran his hand through his hair and wondered how long it had been since he’d slept.
Half-brother. With a mother out there looking for Austin’s hide. And a real interest in the cans.
Yeah.
Tom Hawkins knew.
“If the program finds another mis-route, handle it, will you?”
“Where are you going?—You better not go out there.”
“I’m not going any damned where. It’s a good question.” He put in a call for Austin’s office, the direct link. “Austin?”
“What’s the problem?” came back, not patiently.
“Austin? My half-brother down here? Saby’s got a real interesting idea. Marie Hawkins being onto something… half-brother knows how, and who, and if there’s cops mixed up in it.”
Silence from the office.
“So we should ask him,” he said, since Austin didn’t draw the conclusion.
“Are you finally figuring that out?”
“I’m not fucking stupid, sir!”
Which wasn’t the brightest thing to do with Austin when Austin was looking for a fault. He heard the com cut out. He tried the re-call.
Ignored. Ignored, ignored and ignored.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled, at no one accessible, and slammed his fist onto the console.
Connie came back on with, “I think it already went in, Chris. We got to reverse the loader to get it back.”
“Get it out,” he said. And when Connie came back on with, Can we wait till we’re finished loading? he checked the contents, only about 50,000 credits worth of fancy liquor that didn’t like freezing, and said, kindly, nicely, “No, you get the sod that passed this list, have him find two volunteers, and you have him hand-carry that mother topside through the lift.”
“That’s against union—”
“You carry it, Connie, or you get it carried! Those are your choices! Hear me?”
“Yessir.”