Tripoint (35 page)

He didn’t take it for a given. Not now. Not any longer. And that touched a personal investment he hadn’t thought he had in Beatrice’s unasked-for offspring. It affected him. It made him personally, painfully angry.

He stood there, asking himself why he gave a damn, and since when.

—vi—

LONG TRIP THROUGH THE LIFT system, alone for some of the trip, but they didn’t talk—too many drinks, probably, Tom decided, a headache coming.

And an inevitable reckoning, tomorrow, the prospect of which, now that the music had died, and Saby’s manner had gone remote and still, didn’t sustain the mood for bed-sharing. He wasn’t up to intricate personal politics. He wished he was gone enough to skip the excuses and the assurances, just to go face-down and maybe get some sleep that might, in the face of a not very pleasant tomorrow, desert him all too easily.

They reached the
Aldebaran’s
doors. Saby screwed the access code twice, couldn’t find her manual key card, and swore, going through all her pockets.

“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “Damn.”

“It’s all right,” he found himself saying. “Maybe we could phone
Corinthian’s
board. “ It could only, he told himself, mean a shorter station stay. “Central’d have to put us through.”

“Oh, hell,” Saby said. “No. Let me think. It’s eight-six-one…”

“Five?” He’d watched her code it a dozen times. “It’s not bottom row.”

“Eight-six-one… You’re screwing me up. Eight-six, eight-six, eight-six—”

“Five.”

“It’s not five.”

“Eight-six-five-one—”

“Two-one. Eight-six-two-one-nine-nine-one. “ Saby leaned on the wall and coded it into the pad. The light turned green, the latch opened, they were in, and the same code worked all the way to the room.

The card, figure it, was on the table. Right by the door.

“Damn,” Saby said, and took it and put it in the coveralls she probably was going to wear tomorrow. She looked tired and out of sorts, and went to the bath and ran one ice-water. And a second one.

“Cheers,” she said, bringing him his.

He was sitting on his bed. She was standing. They drank the ice-water they hadn’t gotten. Saby laughed, then, tired-sounding.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just a thought.”

“Fools that trust Corinthians?”

A frown. “No.”

Sexual tension was gone, no echoes but a remote regret it hadn’t, couldn’t, have lasted. Maybe, he thought, that was her rueful laughter. He asked, cool and curious, “—Were you supposed to seduce me?”

“No. Not. Nada. “ She squatted down, peered up at his face, bleary-eyed herself, and shook at his knee, an attention-getting. “Tom, it’s going to be all right. Believe me.”

“Yeah.—Truth. Who really got the tab tonight?”

“The captain. Cross my heart. “ She did. Almost fell on her rear. She didn’t look like a conspirator.

“What? Fatherly generosity?”

“Christian shouldn’t have done what he did. That’s all. “ She patted his knee and got up, turned out the light, then, before she wobbled over to her bed and threw back the covers, evidently at the limits of her sobriety. They never had gotten undressed together—just took the boots off. Shared a room. She sat down in the night-light and kicked her flimsy shoes off, one foot and the other—he shoved his own off and hauled back his sheets. Horizontal for eight hours seemed very attractive right now.

So, with regret, did the woman crawling into covers. Pretty backside, when he looked that direction. Pretty rest of her. Not highly coordinated, getting her blanket over her fully-dressed rump.

“Damn nice guy, Tom. You are. Wish you were just a little, little bit not so nice.”

God, now, now, she invited him, when his skull had started to fog from the inside and the rest of him hadn’t a desire for anything but face down in the pillow.

But, hell, Bed Manners, his
Polly
spacer used to say, and taught him ways at least to see she got to sleep.

So he hauled himself up off the mattress, came over to sit on her bed. She hadn’t left much room at the edge and she was fading, but he’d made the trip—he took her hand in his—pretty hand, limp hand. Fingers twitched. Eyes opened.

He leaned over and kissed her mostly on the mouth. Her fingers twitched again. He figured he’d done his bit for politeness and told himself bed was waiting on the other side of the room, but… but she was so damn pretty, she was so damn crazy, he just sat, her hand in his, thinking how with his
Polly
girl you didn’t need much to figure what she was thinking.

But with Saby… with Saby…

Hell, he thought. He was physically attracted, he was in the mood and now
she
was zeroed out.

He shifted down to the end of the bed, not too gently, hoping to rouse a little attention by quasi-accident. Didn’t work. He wanted her. Still. And worse. He grabbed her ankle under the blanket. Shook her foot. Hard.

Not a twitch. He sat there a moment, thinking it was a hell of a thing to do to a guy.

But if he woke her out of this sound a sleep she was going to come out of it mad.

Which wasn’t the reaction he wanted.

The bed was wide enough. It was the last night before board-call, and he didn’t think he was going to sleep, now, he was just going to lie there, wide awake, and worry.

But hell, too, if he was going to turn up in somebody’s bed uninvited. There was a rude word for that. So he got up and headed for the bath and a—he glanced at the clock—an 0558 hours shower.

“Tom.”

Now
she was awake. She sat up on an elbow. The glitz blouse sparked blue in the night-light. “You want to?”

“Want to, what?” He was in a mood to be difficult. Now she wasn’t. She reached out a glitter-patterned arm, a mottling of shadow and light.

“Do it, you know.”

“Were you asleep?”

“No,” she said, to his surge of temper. “Curious.”

“Curious, hell! I’m not interested!”

“I’ve got a ship to protect!”

Loose logic always threw him. He got as far as the bathroom door. And stopped. And looked back.

“From what? From
me
? I’m not the one walking the corridors in the deep dark, thanks, I’ve
been
screwed, or something like it, by one of your night-walking shipmates, and nobody asked
my
permission.”

“Shit,” Saby said, and sat upright. “You’re kidding.”

“It’s no damn joke. I’m
not
flattered.—I prefer to be awake, thank you, the same courtesy I give anybody else.”

“Shit, shit, shit. “ It was dismay he heard. Saby got out of bed. “ ‘Scuse me. It’s not me that did it. I know who. Damn her. I’m sorry.”

That was fine. So it wasn’t Saby crawling the corridors. He never had thought so. And he didn’t need the shower, now, but he wasn’t inclined to sleep, now, any time soon, and the bath was an excuse not to deal with Saby.

“Tom.”

“I’m not in the mood, now. Forget it.”

“Tom. Wait. Talk.”

“What’s the difference? I’m going back. Nothing in hell else I can do. You win. You’ve got all the answers.”

“It’s not going to be like it was.”

“Like what? Shanghaied off my ship? Is that going to change?”

“Other things can change. You can work into crew. The allowances are huge, I mean, it’s not just the captain picking up the tab, the hired-crew lives real well. You couldn’t do better on
Sprite. “

Some things maybe you didn’t want to question. Some things could be real trouble to question. But he was in it, deep, and deeper.

“What’s
Corinthian
haul?”

“No different than
Sprite. “

“The hell it isn’t.”

“We sell, we buy, no damn difference—”

“Then where? Is that the question? Where do you haul it
to
? Can we handle that one?”

Silence, the other side of the dark. Then: “Ask Austin.”

“
Austin
, is it?”

“Most of the time. To us. To regular crew. You could do what you trained to do—”

“On a damn
pirate
?”

“Just a hauler.
Nothing
we’re ashamed of. We’re damn proud of our ship. We’ve reason to be proud.”

He wanted to believe that. He had no idea how many dicings of logic it might take to believe it didn’t matter… who you traded with, or for what, or with what blood on it.

Silence again. And dark. Then: “I’ve already said more than I should. Aboard the ship, I’ll tell you. You don’t talk in sleepovers. Some stations bug rooms. Pell doesn’t—that we know of. But still—”

He’d never heard that. But no station had ever had a motive to bug
Sprite
crew’s rooms. And it didn’t change anything.

“Yeah,” he said, “so the pay’s good. That says a lot.”

“I’m not a criminal. Austin isn’t.”

“That’s not the rumor.”

“I sleep at night.”

“Is that a testimony to your character?”

“You don’t know our business, you don’t know a damn thing. You’re assuming.”

“I’m going back because I can’t go to the cops without get ting stuck on this station. That’s all you need. That’s as much as you can buy, I don’t care what else you’re selling.”

Another silence. A thunderous, long one before Saby returned to her bed, shadow in shadow, a rustling in the dark. She sat down. He couldn’t see detail by the night-light, it was too close to her. He couldn’t see her face, whether she was just mad, or hurt.

Didn’t need to have said ‘selling. ‘ Wrong word. Real wrong word. He’d been on the receiving end of words too often not to feel it racket through his nervous system.

“Sorry,” he said. “I can believe you. Not him.”

Silence. A long time. He didn’t want the solitude of the bath, now, but he didn’t think he was going to sleep. Still, she didn’t move.

Not for as long as he waited.

“Saby, dammit, I’m sorry.”

“Sure. No problem. “ The voice wobbled. Unfair. “Go to bed. I said no sex. I don’t need the damn favor, all right?”

“Saby. This is stupid.”

“Fine.”

“My father told you to get me in bed?”

“No!”

Wrong step, again. He
couldn’t
sleep with Saby hating his guts. He wasn’t going to sleep.
She
was going to talk to him and calm down. “I liked tonight, Saby. For God’s sake, I did. I had a good time. “ He couldn’t restrain the barb. “When papa lets me out of the brig I’d like to do it again, somewhere.”

Long pause. “There’s still tonight.”

“I’m not in the damn mood! God!”

Another watery silence.

“Dammit,” he said, “I’m worried.—I’m scared, all right? I’m making the wrong choice, I’m doing something stupid, maybe I
should
stay here and deal with the cops, maybe it’s better I get stranded for the rest of my life, I don’t know!”

“Tom.”

“God,—fuck off, will you?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. He was rattled. He was cornered. It was six in the damn morning of the day he had to go back or go nowhere for the rest of his life.

He saw the shadow lie down, heard the rustle of sheets drawn up.

“Saby.”

Silence.

“Saby, dammit. “ He went over to the bed. He sat down on the edge, shook her foot.

Jerk of that foot, out of his vicinity. “No favors. I’m sorry. Forget it.”

He sat there a moment, obdurate against the silence. He tried to think how to patch it. Found the foot again and patted it, a lump under the covers.

She didn’t move.

“It was an experience,” he said, unwilling to break it off in her angry silence. “It’s been a good time. “ More silence. But no jerk away from him. “It’s just over, is all. Bills come due. Don’t know if I can handle this one.”

Foot moved. Second one joined it. Wiggled toes against his leg, once, twice.

He patted it, too. “Get some sleep. “ He started to get up.

“Tom. “ Saby reached out an arm. “Tom,—”

“Don’t play games. Go to sleep.”

“It’s not games, dammit. I can’t talk to you, I can’t make sense.”

Still upset. She’d found his arm, he found her knee. He sat there, just glad he’d made some kind of peace, moved his hand, she moved hers, a clumsy, mutual peace-making that wasn’t, then, only that, he wasn’t sure if it was him, or her, going past that, but they were past that, her arm sliding up, his sliding down, bodies shifting—

“Tom—”

He wasn’t thinking, then. Lower brain took over. His hand moved, found a hip, whatever, among the sheets—mouth found mouth, hands moved at liberty, knees looked for places to be, amid a tangle of covers, and covers grew more tangled, bodies more urgent, brain going lower by the second. Knew he was in trouble. He’d never wanted sex as much as now and he hadn’t even solved the damn sheet-tangle. She was doing better with his shirt. He started on hers. Yes-no was out the airlock. Decompression. He was breathing, that was all he could swear to. They were one creature, with the damn sheets somewhere involved, but clothes went, buttons, zips, whatever was in the way—went, until breathing itself was in jeopardy.

Nothing logical, no cautions, no stop-waits, Saby made him crazy and he didn’t know why it was different.

He arrived, blind-deaf-red flashes in deep dark, no breath at all until he sank into a sweating, gasping tangle of sheets and skin, Saby’s fingers wandered up and down his neck—she didn’t say anything, wanted more, maybe, than he could do, and it was going to be awhile, for him, but not for her, so he made love to her, careful, oh, so careful, afraid he’d been too rough—didn’t want to hurt anybody, never had, just everybody trapped him, everybody had their own agenda, and Saby, latest and least involved jailer he had, just wanted more—was that news?

She didn’t say anything, the dark told him nothing his hands didn’t find out, but she had a second and, quickly after, a third trip, holding to him, saying finally, oh, God, oh, God, over and over, didn’t know if it was all right, but Saby was having a good trip out of it, that was all he picked up, and he knew Austin had hurt Marie, but he wasn’t hurting Saby, she just held tighter to him and wanted until he wondered how long she could go on and whether he could do damage—but: The last night, kept racketing through his skull, and: Last chance. ‘Nuf, she said once, and, oh, God, but her hands and her body were still saying something else, after which… after which he hit that quick, mind-numbing flashpoint. Lower brain took control again, and the night warped around him, long, long, release—