“Bygones, is it? You listen to me, Marie. You, too, Tom. You listen up Government contract and government cargo means we’ve got clearances, we’ve got special ratings, we’re in first on the port they’ve been negotiating for the last twenty years, and the Board of Trade isn’t going to care about excuses. Neither is the rest of the Family.”
“We’re in the middle of the damn bridge, Mischa, why don’t we just throw the com open so the whole Family can hear it? Send the kids to the loft and let’s just tuck down and hide in our ship until Corinthian goes away, why don’t we? We know we can’t defend ourselves. Rape’s a lovely experience if you just lie back and enjoy it. God, I can’t believe I’m hearing this!”
“Quiet it down, Marie!”
“I’m going to do my job, Mischa! I’m not sitting in this ship. I’m not hiding I didn’t commit any crime. I’m not a rapist, in case you got it backwards at Mariner, and I’ve nothing to be ashamed of! If Corinthian wants trouble, they can come looking. If they don’t—”
“—if they don’t?”
There was quiet all around. Tom stood there remembering, to breathe, and felt a tremor in his whole body when he heard Marie say, quietly, reasonably, “I’ll do my job, Mischa. I’m not crazy, “ and heard the captain say to her, then,
“You do that, Marie, you damn well do it, and nothing else. That goes for every member of this crew.”
Marie walked out. The captain’s sister, cargo chief, Marie Kirgov Hawkins, challenged the captain to lock her in quarters for the duration—and walked out, with the whole ops section watching.
Mischa possibly could have handled it better—but you never knew where you were going with Marie. Mischa could have been easier on Marie—but she’d lied to him the minute she’d said bygones could be bygones with that ship. She’d lied to his face, and her brother, as ship’s senior captain, had laid the law down.
Drawn a line Marie Hawkins shouldn’t cross—and that was a mistake with Marie, on a good day.
Her son said, quietly as he could, “May I be excused, sir?”
“I want to see you. In my office. One hour. I’ve got my hands full right now. You leave your mother alone. You don’t need her advice. Hear me, Thomas?”
“Yes, sir.” At least, at twenty-three, he’d outgrown ‘boy.’ Other uncles managed to say ‘son’ to their sisters’ offspring. Mischa never had. It was ‘your mother’ when he disavowed Marie, it was ‘Marie’ when they agreed, and ‘Thomas’ when his behavior was in question. “Yes, sir, I hear you.”
“Go on.” Mischa gave him a back-of-the-hand wave.
He walked back to the lift. Other heads averted quickly, back to business, except the most senior cousins, who gave him analytical stares, wondering, quite probably, whether Thomas Bowe-Hawkins was in fact part of the Hawkins family, or whether, because of that ship sitting at Viking dock, he was going to do something lethally stupid.
“Son.”
Saja. Tech chief. Likewise giving him a warning stare, turning in his seat to do it.
But Saja was senior on duty right now and couldn’t break away, so that was one heart-to-heart lecture he could duck, although if he had to choose, he’d take Saja’s over the captain’s, no question.
The lift came up from downside, where Marie had left it. He punched Down, hoping Marie had gone to her office, and left the corridor. She’d be working, after this, nonstop, and God help anybody in the Family who walked through her office door. He knew her fits: Marie worked when she was mad, Marie worked when she was upset, Marie got up for no reason at all in the middle of the night and went to the office, staying there nonstop, thirty-six, forty, fifty hours, when she got in a mood, and he wouldn’t go near her now by any choice.
The lift stopped. The door opened. Marie was waiting for him on lower deck, leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded.
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing. I swear. Nothing.”
Marie’s eyes were grey, black-penciled like her brows; and cold, cold as a moon’s heart when she didn’t like you. In point of fact, she didn’t always like her son. She was undoubtedly thinking about Corinthian, maybe seeing Bowe’s face on him… he didn’t know. He’d never known. That was the hell of it.