“One more call,” he said, and went across the room to the phone.
Station line. It was clearer than the com with the music going full bore. He shielded one ear and listened to Miller’s chief tell him one more time that they were doing what they could, they’d gotten the part, well, yes, but with the union rules, they just couldn’t get a crew on.
“Yeah, I know that dance,” he said. “Look. I’m going to be traveling the next while. I’ll keep calling. You get somebody’s ass in there. Call in debts. You like dealing with us. You call in debts.”
“Look,” the answer came back, “there’s a limit to what we can do—”
“Look, sir. “
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bowe, I understand that. I’m sorry, but—”
“Senior captain’s going to be in there, if this doesn’t get moving.”
“Yes, sir. I know. We’re working.”
He hung up, walked back to the bar and signed the tab. Capella showed up at his elbow and they left for the next bar, Capella doing this odd little step down the deck-plate joints.
Crazy as they came, but hyperspace operators of Capella’s ilk were, if possible, crazier than pilots, stayed high the whole ride and did as they damned well pleased—danced to a beat they claimed to hear in space, claimed to hear the stars, the echoes of the planets. Mean as hell, Capella was, but that was the high she gave when she tripped, the way she was tripping now—she’d take him, she’d take anything if he funked out, and watching over their junior apprentice hyper-jock and keeping her out of jail was Assignment Two. Austin wouldn’t like him if he let that happen, either… Capella wouldn’t be wrong, the hyper-jocks were never quite wrong, for the very reason the senior, book-following navigators and engineers never quite listened to them.
“Slow down, you.”
Capella danced back and grabbed him, whisked him into the next bar and onto the dance floor.
Capella was hell and away more fun than Miller Transship. Capella was a drug, a natural high—glitz flickered in the strobing lights, found patterns on her skin. The snake on her arm came alive and its eye on her wrist glowed metal red, leaving trails of fire. The bracelet of stars and Bok’s Equation glowed green—they could do that in the tattoo shops on Pell.
It drew attention. One drunk sod with a Knight patch on his sleeve wanted to dance with Capella, wanted to get up close, and there was damn all for her companion to do but object to that if Capella minded, but Capella grabbed the drunk and skipped away, contrived to maneuver him right off the dance zone and right into a tableful of Lodestar’s finest, who didn’t like their drinks spilled.
“Come on,” Capella laughed, grabbed his hand and ducked for the door before the riot spread beyond Lodestar’s vicinity.
Sunfire was the next bar, all gold and neon reds, big glowing sun holo in the middle of the bar, and mirrors everywhere, sending the images up and down at angles to the original. The bar served up a specialty about the same colors, with a kick like a retro, and the dance floor was up a step, where if you weren’t sober you’d slide right down the edge. They were doing this number that involved back to back and turn, and then front to front and up close—
Which between the dizziness of the mirrored suns and the warmth of bodies and the shortness of breath, made the slanting edge a precarious thing.
Out onto the dock, then, carrying a couple of drinks—he’d remembered to sign the tab, that sober, at least, but they knew deep-haulers on leave, and they’d have tagged Corinthian, seeing the patch on him and on Capella—there had to be a hundred Corinthians on the dock at the moment, and somebody’d have signed the tab, if they’d have blown it, or they’d have gone to Austin, which you didn’t want to happen…
Meanwhile he’d gotten crazy enough he was linked arm in arm with Capella and trying to do her skip-step and pattern down the deck-plates.
“Chris!” someone female yelled from behind him.
Which confused his navigation, since the female he was with was beside him.
Which let him know he wasn’t thinking clearly, and that reminded him…
“Hell. I haven’t called Millers.”
“Christian!”
Familiar voice. Crew. Cousin.
“Oh, screw it,” Capella said, as he veered about. “She’s no fun.”
He blinked, sweating in the cold chill of dockside. A drop of condensation came down, splat! off some pipe overhead. That was Sabrina, ten years senior, and dead, dead serious, he saw that on her face.
“Christian, where in hell’s your com?”
He felt of his pocket. Pulled it out, and disengaged his arm from Capella.
The red light was on. God knew how long. Must have been beeping from time to time—somewhere under the music in the bar.
“You and Capella,” Saby said. “Deaf as rocks, both of you. Sprite’s inbound.”
Took him a couple of heartbeats. He was at a low ebb.
“Shit all,” Capella said, in the same second he placed the name and realized this was a definite emergency.
“Austin know?”
“Austin’s on it. What’s this about Miller? What’s this about a transport down?”
“They’re next-shifting it, I’ve been trying to move them. “ His navigational sense was shot to hell. He was on green dock, he could figure that. He ran a hand through his hair, blinked at Saby’s righteous sobriety. “Electrical problem, they tagged it, they know what it is. It’s the damn Viking unions, Miller could do the job themselves, except nobody can touch it.”
“We may be pulling out of here,” Saby said. “Austin’s furious, nobody can find Beatrice. I’d just get your rear down to Miller and tell them get the next shift up early, put it on our tab. We’re on recall, everybody with no business out. I’ll call in, say I’ve found you.”
“We’ve got cargo on dock,” he said, in the beginning of a cold, sober sweat. Austin was going to kill him. If worse didn’t come down. “We got cans on the dock.”
“Beatrice—” Saby began, but that was nonsense.
“Find Beatrice, if you can, and good luck—Capella, you get down to Miller and tell him his trade is on the line, don’t tell him why, tell him it’s major trouble, and if we get screwed we’ll take him with us.”
“Where are you going?”
Visions of cans in the warehouse, half of them re-labeled and half not. Visions of a broken transport stalled God knew where between Corinthian and Miller Transship’s warehouse with God knew what aboard, and he didn’t want to guess.
Sprite.
Hawkinses.
He had a brother on that ship. Half-brother, at least.
He was, on one level, curious. On another, he wasn’t. Not until they got those cans labeled.
“Tell Austin,” he said to Saby, “I’ll be in the warehouse, I’ve got the com on, I’m listening. Just let me straighten this out.”
“Christian,—”
“I’m fine, I’ll fix it.”
“Hell,” Capella said. “Listen to the woman.”
“Christian,—”
“We are exposed as hell,” he said to Saby, walking backward, a feat proving his sobriety, he decided, considering his recent alcohol intake. Austin didn’t want excuses. It was his watch.