Mutiny had never taken Corinthian. Which argued for a wary captain, a good eye for picking, or cosmic good luck.
Except that Corinthian rejects never turned up on dockside. And her crew spent like fools when they were in port—certainly hired-crew had reason to want to stay with Corinthian, and could count themselves well paid.
But nobody ever got off. Not that she’d found. Not, at least, in any crew record she’d found… and she’d searched—nothing to prevent any ship in any port from drinking down the hired-crew solicitations, and reviewing the backgrounds they’d admit to: had a program for that, too. And at Viking, where Corinthian had called frequently (since the second closing of the Hinder Stars, strange to say)—there were no Corinthian ex-crew. There might have been hires. But no one let off.
You couldn’t be so lucky as to get all saints, all competent, all devoted crewmen.
So what became of the rejects? There was still a commerce in human lives—rumor said; the same commerce as during the War, when the Mazianni had stopped merchanters and impressed crew. Rumor said… some ships that dealt with the Mazianni still traded surplus crew for a fair profit in goods, and therefore hired-crew had better watch what they hired-to.
The lurkers in the dark were certainly still out there. Accidents took ships—rarely, but accidents still happened, and ships still disappeared somewhere in the dark. Couldn’t prove that Corinthian in specific had anything to do with those rumored tragedies… but it had to get your attention. You had to realize… if you were in port with the likes of Corinthian, and if they knew you were on their trail… that your odds of accident had just gone higher, too.
You had to realize, if you were the only one aboard who wanted that son of a bitch’s hide, that certain members of the Family, less motivated and habitually more timid, would sabotage you, out of concern for their own lives.
So Tom was on her side. And Tom had talked to Mischa.
So Mischa had his spy.
Well, at least that meant walking out of the ship was easier.
—iii—
THE CENTRAL QUESTION, IN TOM’S mind, was how the clearance through customs was going to work—or, at least, how it was going to look.
If Mischa believed he was leaving the ship with Marie on his business, he’d get the permission fairly easily; but Mischa wasn’t supposed to know that he’d told Marie that Mischa had put him up to it, or he wasn’t supposed to know that Marie already knew all about it and they’d agreed to go diving in station records.
It was all too damned tangled, and he’d had word from Marie, which might or might not mean Marie accepted him at face value… or that Marie had been in contact with Mischa. He didn’t know—couldn’t know without asking questions that might bring Mischa and Marie head to head.
So he didn’t wait for official clearance to come to him from Mischa’s office. He excused himself off duty with Saja, telling Saja that Mischa had said see to Marie, and got Saja’s leave to go downside the minute Sprite locked into dock. He shut down his station, left his seat and rode the lift downside, leaving the cousins to wonder—and Saja to ask Mischa was it true, and Mischa to give the permission, granting Mischa hadn’t yet figured out that he’d gone over to Marie’s camp, and wouldn’t be reporting in.
He went to Marie’s office, found Marie talking with customs on com, a routine call he’d heard her make since he’d first sat in on her duty station—at six or seven, close to when Marie’d first taken him home. He’d thought all this exchange of numbers and origins and cargo data mysterious and impressive, then; he’d rated it tedious since—but now he listened to it in suspense, hoping for some clue to Marie’s intentions and dreading intervention from Mischa at any moment.
But nothing in the conversation sounded unusual, just Marie’s easy, crisp way with station officials, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. Station, at least, showed no indication to them that Viking was in any way nervous about their presence. He didn’t hear any word of special security arrangements from station officials, didn’t hear any advisement from Marie whatsoever that there was a history between Sprite and a ship already in dock—just a welcome in from station, a little chatter of a friendly nature, a little exchange of names and procedures.
A free port meant no customs to speak of, the way he’d understood the briefing, at least not the usual meticulous accounting of goods carried in. There were rules, mostly about firearms and drug trading, and an advisement that long-haulers would be advised to stay clear of white sector.
Meaning out of the Viking local haunts, he supposed, the territory of Viking miners, dockers, construction personnel, and the occasional citizens who preferred the free and easy atmosphere of dockside to the pricier, fancier establishments above.
In that arrangement, Viking was no different than Fargone, where you didn’t go into insystemer bars and sleepovers unless you were truly spoiling for a fight.
“We copy that,” Marie said. “We’re a quiet lot. Thank you. Glad to be here, hope we can be a regular. We need to do some on-site consultation with the Trade Bureau. Can you tell me who to talk to?”
His ears pricked up. A name. Ramon French, Trade Bureau, Union Affairs. Marie made another call, said they’d been called in on short notice, hadn’t any Alliance figures, wanted access to the local Trade resource library, in the Bureau, which they’d had word at Mariner that they would be able to access under the new rules. They had to establish an account, had to take care of certain legalities. General crew would exit in about an hour after shut-down, but certain officers would as soon be through customs early so they could get the credit accounts established, could Viking arrange that?
There was a good deal of back and forth after that, on screen, Marie looking for something, the program, he supposed it was, searching at high speed through the records for the patterns it wanted, while Marie talked on the station line with m’ser French, secretary in the Viking Trade Bureau, about accounts, and arranging the data search.
“Good, good,” Marie said, signed off, and spun her chair about. “I take it you’re coming, Tommy-lad.”
“I guess I am,” he said, wondering if it was really going to be that simple to get off the ship. But Marie just closed down her boards, led the way down the corridor, and keyed them through the airlock.
He was appalled. You didn’t just… open the lock without the captain’s order. But nobody had the lock codes alarmed, evidently. Mischa had to know what Marie was likely to do, and Mischa hadn’t ordered any special security.
Which was one vote, he guessed, for Mischa having told him at least a quarter of the truth.
Which might bear on who was telling the rest of the truth… and whether he ought in fact to report back to Mischa. Scary proposition, to be first out of the ship… down the winding access, breath frosting, and out the station lock on the downward ramp.
He’d never gone through customs with Marie before. Maybe the easy attitude he saw in the officers was because Viking had just become a free port, whatever that exactly encompassed. Maybe it was just that senior crew on reputable ships didn’t get the once-over and question and warning juniors got in places like Mariner and Fargone. Marie got a wave-through from a uniformed officer, the only one visible, without even a kiosk set up, or a single glance at her papers. She said, “He’s with me,” and the customs official waved him past with her.