Cargo chief, market and commodities expert, as he got the make on the Marie Hawkins—looking for a way to get him, which might not be with a gun or a knife, give the woman credit for brains and professional expertise, which he hadn’t, the night he’d made one of the prime mistakes of his life.
And gotten a son who was reputedly on that inbound ship, as Marie Hawkins had continually been solicitous to let him know.
Damn. Damn and damn.
Station probably didn’t remember the incident. Stationers had a lot of trouble figuring ship-time, and hell if any ship actively helped them do it. Mariner’s records were blown to cold space, nothing he knew of had transferred, and Corinthian was clean at Viking.
So far.
“Aus-tin?”
“Damn you, you pay the tab, I’m fucking bored!”
He keyed the exit, he left at a fast clip, he didn’t know why he’d ever thought the stationer fool worth the price of the room, except Beatrice had her agreement, and they kept it, and that meant Beatrice had probably found herself some young piece foolish enough to think he could handle an exotic experience.
Which, if she’d snugged in for the duration of their scheduled layover, meant that finding Beatrice wasn’t a minor problem, either.
Beatrice wasn’t on cargo duty. Christian was. Austin walked out the fancy doors and onto the docks and took out the pocket com.
“This is Austin. Bianco, any information?”
“Sabrina’s looking,” Corinth-com said. “Christian’s been in touch off and on. I think he’s on green, right near the Transship office. He’s been in and out of there.”
“That’s just real good. Where’s our friend coming in?”
“Berth 19. Orange.”
Considerably separated from them, around the rim. That was a vast relief. “They request it?”
“I don’t know, captain. I didn’t think—”
“Right. I copy. I’m coming back to the ship. General recall, all staff who aren’t on a job.”
“I’m on it,” Bianco said.
As well say Red Alert. He didn’t want to talk cargo where station could pick it up, although he didn’t expect Viking to have any suspicion of trouble. Marie’s brother was captain on Sprite now, he’d heard that. Possibly Sprite had had no idea Corinthian was here, but it wasn’t Sprite’s ordinary route. Possibly they’d come in on the new station status.
Or possibly Hawkins had gotten information that made this no chance meeting at all.
And Hawkins, with her particular skills, was extremely bad news.
He started walking, looking for a ped-transport. Corinthian being on alterday schedule, meant dealing with second-tier station authorities, who didn’t always ask close questions, as well as avoiding some of the traffic that clogged mainday official channels. It had its advantages. But on the docks mainday and alterday were meaningless; the bars and shops were always open and there was always night, always darkness above the floodlights that lit the girders, up where the lights and the cold of the pipes made their own weather.
Warehouses. Processing areas. Factories. Food production. Fabrication. The place dwarfed everything but the ship-accesses and the machines that served them.
And a crew scattered on a two-week liberty with all of Viking Station to lose themselves in—was no easy matter to locate, individual by individual, in every tiny sleepover and bar on the strip. Christian had a com. The duty staff all had corns. Certain people weren’t answering.
One of Marie Hawkins’ most logical targets wasn’t damned well answering.
—v—
You didn’t expect a happy hello from Marie. You interrupted her at work and you took your chances. But Tom thought he should at least try, after the burn. The market figures were up on the screens. Marie, two senior cousins and four juniors were sorting through the usual welter of incoming stock market and commodities data off station feed.
But not the usual. He’d lay odds Corinthian’s arrival date and market dealings