Amazing. He thought he could like being senior crew, if that was what it meant. And Viking might be a grim, utilitarian place, as grim and browned-steel as his childhood memory of this station, but if it meant wave-throughs from customs, and no standing in long lines of exiting crew, he thought he could like Viking port’s attitude.
Except for the other clientele.
—iv—
BERTH 19 ORANGE SECTOR WAS moderately convenient to Viking’s blue section, where the Trade Bureau maintained its offices, a long walk or a relatively comfortable ride on one of the slow-moving public transports. There was, uncommon on stations Tom was familiar with, plenty of sitting room on the transport benches. You stepped aboard—if you weren’t able-bodied you could flag it to a complete stop—and it also would do a full stop at any regular Section Center, but otherwise you just intercepted it when it made one of its scheduled rolling stops, stepped up as you grabbed the boarding rail, and stepped off the same way.
One of those full stops was, of course, the station offices in blue sector. Marie got up, as the stop came up. He waited beside her, hanging onto the rail until the transport slowed down. A crowd was waiting to board, confronting a good number getting off. You could always figure that blue would be the highest traffic area on the station, give or take the insystemer bars at maindark or alterdark shift-change, or the occasional concert or public event: blue held all the station business offices, the administrative offices, the main branches of all the banks, the embassies and trade offices, the big corporate offices, and the station media centers. You saw people in business suits, people in coveralls—half the crowd carried computers or wire-ins, pocket-coms, you could take your pick of accountants and security officers, official types—those usually in single cab-cars that wove in and out of foot traffic, and hazardously close to the ped-transports: step off without looking and you could get flattened.
Heart-stopping, close call, that, just then, cab and pedestrians, human noise of a sort you only heard in places this dense with people. It gave him the willies… just too many people, all at once, going in chaotic directions, not caring if they hit each other. Marie stepped off in the middle of it. He stepped off beside her, his eyes tracking oncoming traffic.
“Straight on,” Marie said, as if she’d had an inborn sense where things were—or maybe she’d checked the charts. He hadn’t. He really didn’t like the jostling and the racket—he’d looked all along the dockside they passed for Corinthian patches, or for any reaction at all from Marie, as if she’d seen something or might be looking for something other than what she said, but Marie was cold and calm, all business, Marie tolerated people shoving into them, which was steadier nerves than he had, and fell back as the crowd surged toward the stopped transport. He caught his balance as a man shoved him, looked around for Marie as the transport started to roll, with people still trying to grab the rails and board.
Marie was back on the transport.
People shoved past him in a last-moment rush for available deck-space. He elbowed back and tried to catch the boarding rail, but others were in front of him and the transport was gathering speed, faster and faster.
“Marie!” he yelled, knocked into a man in a suit, and into a rougher type, who elbowed him hard. He wasn’t interested in argument. He ran, chasing the transport in the wake it made in the crowd, knocked into a woman as they both made a frantic grab for the standing pole on the rear of the transport flatbed. He caught it, and clung to it.
The woman had gone down. Others were helping her up, he saw them diminishing as, having gained the platform, he spared the glance back. He hoped the woman wasn’t hurt. He didn’t know what else he could have done, and he’d made it.
Wobbly-kneed and out of breath, he excused himself past several pole-hangers on the standing-room-only transport, worked his way up to where Marie was standing, likewise holding to the pole.
She awarded him a cold glance.
“Dirty damned trick,” he panted. “I knocked a woman down, Marie! Where in hell do you think you’re going? Where’s this about appointments with Records?”
“Did I bring you up to be naive?”
“Dammit, you brought me up to tell the truth!”
“That’s to me. Don’t expect any favors from the rest of the universe. Why don’t you jump off at the next stop?”
“Because I didn’t lie to you! I want to help you! Can’t you take loyalty when you get it?”
“I take it. For what it’s worth.”
“God, Marie!” He couldn’t get his breath. He hung on to the pole as the transport swerved. “This is crazy!”
“I’m crazy. Hasn’t Mischa told you? Poor Marie’s just not that stable.”
“You’re acting like it!” There were people all around them, giving them room, determinedly avoiding their vicinity even standing shoulder to shoulder with them. He couldn’t get breath enough to argue. He felt crushed by the crowds. He clung to the pole with one hand, people sitting behind them, the dock business frontage passing in a blur. Green sector was coming after blue, where, according to what they’d seen coming in, Corinthian was docked. “Where are we going? The obvious?”
“Not quite,” Marie said, leaving him to wonder, because they couldn’t discuss murder on a crowded transport.
He didn’t want Marie arrested. Marie wasn’t going to give him an answer here anyway, and he wasn’t entirely sure, by that last answer and by Marie’s sarcasm about poor Marie and Mischa, that Marie wasn’t still on to something that didn’t involve attacking Corinthian bare-handed, or doing something that could get both of them… he recalled Mischa’s warning all too vividly, and had a sickly and immediate fear in the pit of his stomach… caught by station police and ground up fine in station law.
Held on station while the ship went on without them. Psych-adjusted, however far that went, until they didn’t threaten anyone.
Stationers wouldn’t kill you, no, they didn’t believe in the death penalty. When the psychs were through with you, you couldn’t even wish you had that option. That was what Marie was risking, and he shut up, because he didn’t know what the local law was; he didn’t know whether just suspicion of intent to commit a crime could get you arrested—it could, on Cyteen Outer Station, and he didn’t want to talk about specifics or name names with witnesses all around them. He just clung to the pole on the overcrowded transport, watched Marie for some evidence of an intent to bolt, and watched the numbers pass as they trundled along from blue dock, where the government and the military ships came in—a government contracted cargo didn’t entitle them—toward green dock, ordinary merchanter territory, closer and closer to Corinthian.
The transport stopped just before the green section doors. Three passengers got on, maybe ten or fifteen people got off. A transport passed going the other direction, and stopped near them. He stood ready to move in case Marie should try to lose him again, and go the other way around the station rim. But she stayed still, refused when he pointed out to her that there was a seat free. Someone else took it. Marie held to the pole, not saying anything, but sharp and eager and not at all distraught—happy, he kept thinking, uneasily, happy and alive to her surroundings in a way he’d never seen in his life.