TriPoint, a Union Alliance novel by Caroline J. Cherryh

Michaels might find some excuse to use that spring baton he carried clipped to his belt; and he was vastly glad that they went straight down to the galley, with no detours and not a word exchanged.

Except Michaels said, when he delivered him to Jamal, at the galley section counter—”Kid’s shaky. Light duty.”

Shook him as badly as a curse. The dreaded Michaels personally braceleted his left wrist to the cable coiled up on the counter and walked out, all the while the cold traveled a meandering course to the nerve centers and started a tremor in the gut, in the knees, in the chest. Oh, God, he thought in disgust, but he couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t walk away and pretend it wasn’t going on—it went to all-over shakes. Reality was coming apart on him, in red and blue flashes, right over the white galley walls.

“Hey. “ Jamal pried him loose from the counter and about that time Tink arrived in the galley—”Kid sick?” Tink asked, grabbed his other arm, and between his shaking and his attempts to walk on his own, the two of them got him into a chair at a mess table. They hovered over him, debated calling somebody—”No!” he said, and somehow they materialized a cup of real fruit juice, a cup of the nutri-pack stuff, an offer of coffee or tea… he just sat there like a fool and shook, trying to drink the fruit juice… it was real, and rare, and he wasn’t about to waste it… with Tink patting him on the shoulder and saying how he should just sit there until he felt like moving, it was all right.

Damned near shook the cup out of his hand when Tink said that. He tried to figure why it made the shakes worse, and couldn’t, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the lonely feeling he not only couldn’t leave Tink, he didn’t want to leave Tink… don’t trust Christian, kept ringing in his head, but he didn’t know if that was any truer than Christian’s offer.

Crazy, he told himself finally, when he could set the cup down without slopping it, when he could glance up at the mundane white and blues and chrome of the galley and realized he’d been seeing something darker and less organized, some place with black patches and some place that was Sprite’s corridors, and cousins, and Marie’s office, and the muted beiges of Marie’s apartment. He was suddenly close to tears. He didn’t know why. He didn’t understand himself.

He didn’t need to understand. He needed out of this ship. On any terms. Any at all.

He got up, tossed the cups, got a sponge and set to work on the counters with a vengeance. Didn’t know, didn’t know, didn’t know, there was a lump in his chest where certainties had used to be. Pell system was where they were now, but its docks were a foreign place, and the rules were foreign—he didn’t know what Christian was going to do.

A voice in his head still kept saying, Don’t trust him.

Had to be Capella.

Why, for God’s sake, did Capella get off on tormenting him? Because he was there? Because she sensed he’d crack? Because he was the new guy and the rest of the crew knew her tricks?

It was as crazy-patchwork as all the rest of his thinking. Nothing made sense.

Capella’s little joke, maybe… but he wasn’t to play games with. His father took him seriously. Christian at least seemed to consider him a threat. He didn’t know why Capella shouldn’t.

Point of vanity, maybe. But he deserved more precaution than that. He deserved more respect than that.

Dammit!

—iv—

LONG APPROACH, THREE WHOLE days to dock—Pell was a huge, busy system: outlying shipyards, auxiliary stations for heavy industry, and refining—local traffic, but in the ecliptic, which an inbound long-hauler scorned. In at solar zenith, a quick slow-down and a lazy plowing along through the solar wind toward the inner system. You figured on an easy on board schedule if nothing had gone fritz—did your routines, pursued your hobbies, if any.

And made reservations for liberty dockside, where needed.

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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