But what could they have done? If she got the evidence now, the station administration could bar Corinthian from coming back—supposing the evidence was iron-clad. But it wouldn’t be. It was all circumstantial. If the station needed their commerce more than they needed justice done…
But Viking was just newly a free port. Viking didn’t want any dirty, unfathomable merchanter quarrel on its shiny new trade treaty. Sprite was from one side of the Line. Corinthian was from another. The next time Corinthian docked, was Viking going to search Corinthian for personnel Corinthian had plainly just told the stationmaster wasn’t going to be aboard next time?
“It’s gone,” Mischa said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Nothing we can do.”
Nothing we can do.
Nothing we can bloody do.
A sanctimonious shrug from Mischa, who’d been watching the clock—and was damned well satisfied to wash his hands of Tom Bowe-Hawkins.
“Nothing we can do,” she echoed him. “You son of a bitch, you mealy-mouthed, self-serving son of a bitch, you know he’s on that ship!”
“That’s far from certain, Marie.”
“Oh, nothing’s ever absolute with you, nothing’s ever just quite clear, is it?”
“Marie. This is the bridge. You’re on the bridge. Control it, can we?”
“‘Control it, can we?’ ‘Control it?’ ‘Just shut up, Marie? We know you’re not quite stable, Marie? Too bad about your kid, Marie, you can get another one? Why don’t you go get laid, Marie, and cure your Problem while you’re at it, Marie!”
“Reel it in, Marie, you never gave a damn about that boy!”
“I never gave a damn? Oh, let’s talk about giving a damn, Mischa, excuse me, captain Hawkins. They could sell him to the Fleet for all we know—they’re always short of personnel, he’s a good-looking kid, and we know what happens to good-looking kids they get their hands on, don’t we, captain Hawkins?”
“We don’t even know he’s not on dockside. Let’s talk about ducking orders, let’s talk about kiting off on your own, why don’t we? The kid had orders to keep up with you and keep in touch. He violated those orders or we wouldn’t be asking where he is right now.”
“Oh, now it’s his fault! Everything’s someone else’s fault.”
“Fault never lands in your lap, does it? You ditched your tag, Marie. I’d have thought you’d have learned your lesson twenty years ago.”
“Damn your interference! If I hadn’t had to dodge you, I’d have the evidence on that son of a bitch, we’d have him screwed with the port authority and Tom wouldn’t be in Bowe’s ship right now!”
“There is nothing we can do, Marie.”
“There was nothing you could do on Mariner, either, was there? I know what it feels like, Mischa, I know, and I don’t take ‘nothing we can do. ‘ That son of a bitch is laughing at us, he’s laughing at us, do you hear? Or do you give a damn?”
“Marie,—”
“Marie, Marie, Marie! We know his vector, I know that ship, I know what his elapsed-time is like, he’s going for Tripoint, and on to Pell, and we can catch him there. He won’t be expecting it.”
“Out of the question.”
“Hell with you!”
“Marie, let’s talk sanity. He may not be going on to Pell. You may not know his schedule as well as you think you do. We’re not going off in the dark with that ship. We’re not equipped for that. No way in hell, Marie. No way in hell!”
She looked at the clock, jaw clenched, arms folded, as the minutes kept going. Let Mischa think he’d won. Let Mischa think he’d made his point.
“I can make the credit at Pell, Mischa. You load us for Pell and I can turn a profit.” She lifted her hand. “Swear to God.”
“Out of the bloody question.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“For God’s sake, that’s across the Line, they’d charge us through the nose for a berth, we’ve no account there, and if you’re right about Bowe, the kid will never see Pell…”
“The kid, the kid, the boy’s got a name.”
“Thomas Bowe-Hawkins.”
Tried to make her blow her composure. But she knew what she was going to do, now. She knew. And when she knew, she smiled at him, cold and immovable as a law of physics.