C. J. Cherryh - Union Alliance -Tripoint

2024-12-07 1 0 713.94KB 307 页 10玖币
侵权投诉
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
TriPoint
a Union Alliance novel
by Caroline J. Cherryh
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
wsm
ALSO BY C. J. CHERRYH
CYTEEN:: *
The Betrayal
The Rebirth
The Vindication
RIMRUNNERS
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (1 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
HEAVY TIME
HELLBURNER
*Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
This edition published by BCA by arrangement with Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Copyright © 1994 by C J Cherryh - All rights reserved
CN
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent
Chapter One
Contents - Next
—i—
DREAM OF AN INTERFACE OF ENERGIES above the Einstein limit.
Dream of a phase-storm skimming what it can't envelop—until the storm slides down, down, down the
nearest gravity-pit—
In this case, E. Eridani. Viking, Unionside, with ties to Pell, on the Alliance side of the line.
Shipyards and industry. Trade. Mining.
Hydrogen glows in the bow-shock. The ship dives for thermonuclear hell.
The field re-shapes itself. Almost. Once. Twice.
Becomes Sprite, inbound for the habitation zone.
The ring engages.
Body settles to the mattress.
Breaths come Viking-time now, ten, fifteen to the caesium-timed minute. Heart fibrillates and finds its
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (2 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
beat.
Right hand gropes after the nutri-pack, left hand flutters off-target, trying to pull the tab. Hand to mouth is
another targeting problem.
God-bloody-awful, going down. But if a man lay very, very still for a few minutes, the luxury of the off-
duty tech, he'd find he felt a lot, lot better for swallowing all of it.
And Tom Hawkins, at twenty-three, had made close to two hundred such system drops, a few of them
before he was born. At twenty-three, he was a veteran of the Trade, the Fargone-Voyager-Mariner-to-
Cyteen circle that had been Sprite's routine.
Long time since they'd seen Viking—in a time-dilated childhood, longer since Viking had seen him.
Those had been the scary days, runs when you got into port and other ships told you you'd be crazy to go
on as you planned… even as a kid, you caught the anxiousness in the seniors and heard the rumors. You
knew, even as a kid, when a run was dangerous, and you heard, though the seniors were sure you weren't
in earshot, about dead ships and Mazianni raids.
Mariner was all rebuilt now, modern and shining new. The pirates were mostly out of the picture. Pell
resumed its role as gateway to ancestral Earth and its luxury trade. Cyteen and Pell had signed the long-
negotiated trade treaty, with the final closing of the Hinder Stars, by the terms of which, Pell dropped its
claim to Viking and agreed to tariff adjustments on haulers plying the Viking—Mariner run, thus
promoting Viking commerce, since Viking hadn't much to sell except machinery, raw materials, and
accommodations for the long-haulers.
But, bad news for the smugglers—by the treaty just signed, Viking became a free port, Union by
government, tax-free for Earth goods, shipped through from Pell, and for certain Union goods, shipped
through from other ports.
Big boost for struggling Viking, that was what Mischa-captain-sir had said when they'd drawn their fat
government contract. Bigger boost for themselves—Sprite wasn't a warm-hold hauler, and only a few of
her class had gotten into the lottery for the government contracts, though the Family hadn't even been in
agreement at the outset to take the offer, being reluctant to fall out of their ordinary cycle, and miss their
frequent rendezvous with decade-long friends on Polly and Surinam; but the figures had worked out,
showing them how they were going to get back into the loop with their trading partners—make two
tightly scheduled, fast transits between Viking and Mariner, and they'd be meeting Polly and Surinam on
their trips back from Cyteen Outer Station, intersecting their old schedule for a loop out to Fargone once
every other ship-year, making a literal figure eight with Bolivar and the Luiz-Romneys, who had likewise
lusted after the contract and found the same objections. Sprite and Bolivar together could do what the big
combine ships did, perfectly legal, if they met schedule.
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (3 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
So it wasn't goodbye forever to old friends, off-ship lovers and favorite haunts—just wait-a-while.
And hello to Viking. He'd not been here since he was six—since an unscheduled long layover had
provided the kids' loft a rare permission for the middles and olders in the loft to go downside, right out the
lock and down the dock, with a close guard, in those wild years, of armed senior crew.
That had been impressive—their escort of uncles and aunts and mothers carrying guns at the hip, his first-
ever view of a station dock in all his young ship-born life, a memory of cold, frosty breaths, browned
metal and huge machinery the seniors said would snatch strayed children up and grind them into the
fishcakes Viking sold.
At that age, he'd believed it absolutely, had particular suspicions certain two cousins in the group would
feed him to the machines, and held tight to the crocodile-rope, gawking about but being very wary of
sneak attacks by cousins and rapacious robot loaders.
Warehouses, long, long areas of warehouses, huge cans waiting loading, that was what he remembered:
vending machines where they'd all gotten soft drinks and chips—lousy chips, but they'd never seen food
drop out of a machine and it was a marvel. He remembered a long row of bars children weren't supposed
to go into, but the seniors had let them look into one, which was dark and loud and full of people who
stopped drinking and stared at them, moment frozen in a kid's remembrances.
Thirty years ago, station-time, that was. He lived ship-years, his own biological years. The arbitrariness of
outside time had confused him when he was six—and still, though computers and numbers were his job
and his livelihood, he fell into that childhood misconception when he tried to feel the near forty years
outsiders said he'd lived.
But that only mattered against history. He'd been six on that outing, not ten—body and mind, a staggering
difference, but station officers always wanted your universal dates on the customs papers you had to fill
out. To ship-dwellers, body-years mattered, and you knew those from Medical; computers calculated it by
where your ship had been, what it hauled, and kept careful track all your life, never mind how long it took
some long-ago planet to go around its star. Ship was your world. Ship was four hundred sixteen cousins
and uncles and aunts, all Hawkinses, every one. Inside was Us, where you were born, where you had a
ship-share and the freedom to come and go with the ship forever—a couple of weeks in any port and then
out again, good-bye, see you next turn about, or never again. Spacers weren't in charge of sureties. It was
always if, and plans changed, and ships went where the trade was.
Two hundred ship-years old, Sprite was. Not a big ship. Not as old as Dublin or Finity's End. Not a
glamour ship, no long runs, no memorable action in the war, just a light-armed hard worker that kept the
goods moving and delivered the heartbeat of civilization when she made port and the information of her
last port flowed into the current ports. Data on banks, stock reports, trade figures, births and deaths,
books, entertainments, news and inventions across the web of stars: the tick and pulse of everything
human was in Sprite's databanks when she docked. Some of it she was paid to carry; some was public
information, obligatory for any ship that docked to carry, non-charge, to its next port. At Viking, Sprite
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (4 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
would drink down an informational feed she hadn't had directly in years, the data of Earth-space and
Alliance, such, at least, as Alliance was willing to spill to Unionside in this strange new era of peace.
That dataflood-to-come meant a lot of work ahead for Sprite, to make its own best use of what it
learned—knowledge ultimately as valuable to the ship as the goods in her hold, data that was profit, and
survival, for a ship that competed for its contracts and owned at least most of its own cargo. It took a lot
of head-work and computer work to keep a small ship competitive in a market that saw new station-bound
combines and cartels trying to tie up the trade and turn everything corporate…
Though captain Mischa Hawkins had said that wouldn't go down: the Beyond had fought the War to get
rid of the Earth-based corp-rats, and merchant spacers would never tolerate it. The starstations that had
rebelled against Earth's governance might think they were going to play that game themselves. But if
stationer governments built ships to compete with the Family ships that had helped them in the War, those
ships would have small, expensive accidents, nothing to cost a life—unless they pushed back. If they
hired crew, they'd not be quality, or reliable. The merchanter Families ruled commerce on both sides of
the Union-Alliance boundary, disdaining permanent allegiances, and they'd shut every station down cold,
if stations tried to dictate to them again.
Stations knew it. Stations kept one law on their upper levels, but the docks and the sleepovers were under
separate rules; and on the deck of every individual ship was that ship's own law, at dock or in space.
So the law was the same. Still, it was a new concept to Thomas Hawkins—to go out on station docks with
no ship he knew in port—like a first-timer, almost, which he assuredly wasn't… he'd been cruising the
docks on his own since he was ship-wise eighteen, never gotten knifed, never gotten into anything he
couldn't talk his way out of. Most often he scored with some spacer-femme likewise looking…
Particularly with one dark-eyed Polly crew-brat, who he wasn't certain was using precautions, but, if you
said you weren't and she didn't, that was entirely her business and Polly's business. A man just
wondered… might he have a kid on some ship… somewhere… and he wouldn't see her for two years.
Mind was going random. He was sliding down into sleep again. There was a little sedative in his post-
jump packet, aspirin, mostly. Didn't take much to send you under, after jump, and he wasn't scheduled for
duty till next watch.
Busy time coming, then. Lot of equipment to check. Nav and cargo on their necks, meanwhile juniors got
all the wonderful routine, the stuff that wasn't ops-critical, and there was always a pile of it, all the data
storage, hard and matrixed…
Load the chain of records, compare and check it off: if some subspace gremlin had bombed one file it
wouldn't get the backup in exactly the same way. The operations computers checked themselves,
monitored by Senior technicians. For all those datafiles not regularly loaded there were the junior techs to
do the job, on the auxiliary boards, why else did lower lifeforms exist?
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (5 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
Load another record…
Log the check…
Meanwhile test all the systems.
Good reason for a nap.
"Thomas Bowe."
He blinked. Thought he'd dreamed it. Shut his eyes.
"Thomas Bowe, confirm."
Eyes opened. He wished they wouldn't, call him that. He'd complained. That was a by-the-book tight-ass
senior cousin on the bridge. He knew the voice: Duran T. Hawkins, senior Com, who didn't give a damn
about his complaints.
But a by-name call, coming hard on system entry, scared him, once his brain cut in—as if—God—had
somebody dropped dead on entry? They didn't call junior officers on the com for social chatter.
He rolled out of his bunk, ignored the pounding in his temples, and braced his arm on the opposite wall to
push the button. "This is Tom B., confirming to com."
"Report to the captain, Thomas B., on the bridge, in good order, ship is stable, confirm."
"Confirm, " he said, and heard the com click out without a window to query, and no patience if he called
back to ask questions, not with Duran at the board.
Besides, they were legitimately busy up there—it could be they were calling computer techs for some
kind of ops emergency, in which case it was a definite hurry. His heart had begun thumping with a stupid
panic, the pain in his sinuses had grown acute, the result of going vertical in a rush, but they hadn't said
stat, they'd given an in good order, which meant take time to clean up.
So his mother couldn't have had an attack or something. Marie was under forty, ship-time,—healthy as
the proverbial horse. They'd had breakfast together before they jumped, she'd talked about something he
couldn't remember. But they called you if a relative had taken ill…
Or most of all they called you if you'd screwed something critical and they wanted to know exactly what
you'd done to systems before Mischa asked you to take a hike in cold space.
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (6 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
But he hadn't laid a hand on the main boards since long before they left Mariner. He was absolutely sure
of that.
Balance wasn't steady yet. He bashed an elbow, slid the bathroom door open—the whole end of the 2-
meter-wide cabin on a circular track. He met his own confused, haggard face in the mirror, squinting at
the automatic glare of white light. He peeled out of his clothes, set the shower on Conserve, for speed, slid
through the shower door without losing vital parts and shut his eyes against the 30 second all-around
needling of the cleaner-and-water spray. A quick, breath-taking blast sucked the water back again. The
vacuum made his ears pop, and didn't at all help a nervous stomach or a sick headache.
But he was scrubbed, shampooed, shaved, and saner-looking as he shut the bath behind him. He struggled
into clean coveralls, remembered the key-card while he was walking his boots on, went back and found it
on his dirty coveralls, clipped it on one-handed as he opened the door onto the lower main corridor. Ship
is stable meant no take-holds expected, no clip-lines required, and he made a dash down-ring to the lift.
Crew was coming and going, likewise at speed when they had to cross the ship's axis. Somebody for sure
had reported ill: he could see the infirmary lit and the door open, down the positive curve of the deck.
But Com had ordered him specifically to the bridge, see the captain, and bridge it was—he found the lift
idle on rimside level and rode it up, a good deal calmer in that ride, now that he wasn't jump-rattled and
half-asleep—but uneasy, still, mind spinning around and around the handful of guesses his experience
afforded him.
The lift clanked into lock and let out into the dim grey plastics-and-computer light environment of the
bridge. Heads turned, senior cousins interrupting their work to stare as he walked through, the way people
stared at victims of mass calamities.
Which didn't help his nerves at all. But his first glance accounted for his whole personal universe of
relatives he cared about: his mother, Marie, stood in the middle of the bridge, talking to Mischa. Mischa
was sitting at the main console. Marie and the captain were sister and brother; and Marie was clearly all
right—but what Marie was doing on the bridge during approach was another question.
God, what had he done that rated Mischa calling Marie up from the cargo office?
"Sir," he said, feeling like an eight-year-old criminal, "ma'am."
"Station schema just came in." Mischa tapped the screen in front of him, a schematic of Viking station
and its berths, same as any such diagram the outsystem buoy delivered them when they dropped into
system. He didn't understand at first blink, or second, since he had nothing reasonably to do with that
input or the system that put it up.
Mischa said, "Corinthian. Austin Bowe's in port."
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (7 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
Hit him in the gut, that did. He couldn't look at Marie. Mischa pointed to a certain berth on the station
schema. "They're scheduled for undock nine days from now, we're in for fifteen days' turnaround, and
we'll make dock tomorrow morning. Figure right now that there'll be ample time after he's left to do any
personal touring you want to do around that berth. I'm giving an absolute order, here, that applies to you,
Marie, and you, Tom, and everyone in this crew. No contact, no communication with Corinthian in any
way, shape, or form that doesn't go through me, personally. We can't afford trouble. I'm sure Corinthian
doesn't want it either. I swear to you, I'm not going to look the other way on this, Marie. On government
contract, we've no latitude here, none, do you read me clear on that?"
"Perfectly clear, " Marie said. Too cheerful by far, Tom thought. Marie's calm ran cold fingers up and
down his spine. "Bygones can be bygones—unless, of course, Austin Bowe comes onto our dock."
"I don't like that attitude, Marie. I've half a mind to hold you and him and the whole crew aboard until he's
out of here. And nobody's going to be real damn happy with you if that's what I have to do."
"And how would that look? You want Viking saying we're afraid of him?"
"Viking, hell. I'll lay odds no stationer here remembers any problem between us and them."
"I'll lay equal odds that ships at dock remember."
"This is our business. And it is business, Marie. No personal vendetta of any member of this crew is worth
our legal standing, and anybody sane is going to understand that. This isn't the War. The man's a senior
captain now. We're talking about our entire livelihood at stake."
"I absolutely agree. I don't see a problem."
Lying through her teeth, Tom thought again, hands locked behind him, face absolutely neutral. Mischa
knew Marie was lying, and couldn't get her to engage with him.
"Bygones, is it? You listen to me, Marie. You, too, Tom. You listen up Government contract and
government cargo means we've got clearances, we've got special ratings, we're in first on the port they've
been negotiating for the last twenty years, and the Board of Trade isn't going to care about excuses.
Neither is the rest of the Family."
"We're in the middle of the damn bridge, Mischa, why don't we just throw the com open so the whole
Family can hear it? Send the kids to the loft and let's just tuck down and hide in our ship until Corinthian
goes away, why don't we? We know we can't defend ourselves. Rape's a lovely experience if you just lie
back and enjoy it. God, I can't believe I'm hearing this!"
"Quiet it down, Marie!"
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (8 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
"I'm going to do my job, Mischa! I'm not sitting in this ship. I'm not hiding I didn't commit any crime. I'm
not a rapist, in case you got it backwards at Mariner, and I've nothing to be ashamed of! If Corinthian
wants trouble, they can come looking. If they don't—"
"—if they don't?"
There was quiet all around. Tom stood there remembering, to breathe, and felt a tremor in his whole body
when he heard Marie say, quietly, reasonably, "I'll do my job, Mischa. I'm not crazy, " and heard the
captain say to her, then,
"You do that, Marie, you damn well do it, and nothing else. That goes for every member of this crew."
Marie walked out. The captain's sister, cargo chief, Marie Kirgov Hawkins, challenged the captain to lock
her in quarters for the duration—and walked out, with the whole ops section watching.
Mischa possibly could have handled it better—but you never knew where you were going with Marie.
Mischa could have been easier on Marie—but she'd lied to him the minute she'd said bygones could be
bygones with that ship. She'd lied to his face, and her brother, as ship's senior captain, had laid the law
down.
Drawn a line Marie Hawkins shouldn't cross—and that was a mistake with Marie, on a good day.
Her son said, quietly as he could, "May I be excused, sir?"
"I want to see you. In my office. One hour. I've got my hands full right now. You leave your mother
alone. You don't need her advice. Hear me, Thomas?"
"Yes, sir." At least, at twenty-three, he'd outgrown 'boy.' Other uncles managed to say 'son' to their sisters'
offspring. Mischa never had. It was 'your mother' when he disavowed Marie, it was 'Marie' when they
agreed, and 'Thomas' when his behavior was in question. "Yes, sir, I hear you."
"Go on." Mischa gave him a back-of-the-hand wave.
He walked back to the lift. Other heads averted quickly, back to business, except the most senior cousins,
who gave him analytical stares, wondering, quite probably, whether Thomas Bowe-Hawkins was in fact
part of the Hawkins family, or whether, because of that ship sitting at Viking dock, he was going to do
something lethally stupid.
"Son."
Saja. Tech chief. Likewise giving him a warning stare, turning in his seat to do it.
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (9 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
Caroline J. Cherryh - [a Union Alliance novel] Tripoint
But Saja was senior on duty right now and couldn't break away, so that was one heart-to-heart lecture he
could duck, although if he had to choose, he'd take Saja's over the captain's, no question.
The lift came up from downside, where Marie had left it. He punched Down, hoping Marie had gone to
her office, and left the corridor. She'd be working, after this, nonstop, and God help anybody in the
Family who walked through her office door. He knew her fits: Marie worked when she was mad, Marie
worked when she was upset, Marie got up for no reason at all in the middle of the night and went to the
office, staying there nonstop, thirty-six, forty, fifty hours, when she got in a mood, and he wouldn't go
near her now by any choice.
The lift stopped. The door opened. Marie was waiting for him on lower deck, leaning against the opposite
wall, arms folded.
"What did you say to him?"
"Nothing. I swear. Nothing."
Marie's eyes were grey, black-penciled like her brows; and cold, cold as a moon's heart when she didn't
like you. In point of fact, she didn't always like her son. She was undoubtedly thinking about Corinthian,
maybe seeing Bowe's face on him… he didn't know. He'd never known. That was the hell of it.
So now Austin Bowe was Corinthians senior captain. Mischa and Marie kept current using dockside
sources he didn't have, clearly they did.
"I've done my job, " Marie said, "I've worked for this ship. Where does he get off, calling me on the deck
like that, in front of the whole damned crew?"
"I think he just wanted you to know, before the word got out—he couldn't leave…"
"The hell he couldn't! The hell he couldn't manage the intercom. Wake up, Marie, oh, by the way, Marie,
could you come up here, Marie? Damn him!"
"I'm sorry." When Marie blew, it was the only safe thing to, say. Teenaged cousins clustered in the
corridor, now, down by the infirmary. Probably it was a shock case, some young fool cheating on the
nutri-packs. Every half-grown kid thought he knew what was enough—at least once in his life.
"Mischa's going to be talking to you, " Marie said. "I know his ways. He's going to be telling you all his
good reasons why poor Marie can't be trusted outside. Poor Marie's just too emotional to do her job.
Marie who got raped and beaten half to hell while her mother and her brother dithered about station law
just might do something like go down the dock and take a cargo hook to the son of a bitch that did it,
because poor Marie just never got over it. I chose to have you because I choose what happens to me, and
Mischa doesn't trust poor Marie to manage her own damned life! Well, poor Marie is going to go around
file:///F|/rah/C.%20J.%20Cherryh/Cherryh,%20C%20J%20-%20Tripoint%20[v2].html (10 of 307) [1/28/03 10:31:05 PM]
摘要：

CarolineJ.Cherryh-[aUnionAlliancenovel]TripointTriPointaUnionAlliancenovelbyCarolineJ.CherryhContentsChapterOneChapterTwoChapterThreeChapterFourChapterFiveChapterSixChapterSevenChapterEightChapterNineChapterTenChapterElevenChapterTwelvewsmALSOBYC.J.CHERRYHCYTEEN::*TheBetrayalTheRebirthTheVindication...

展开>> 收起<<
C. J. Cherryh - Union Alliance -Tripoint.pdf

共307页,预览10页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：10玖币 属性：307 页 大小：713.94KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-07

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

关键 人际关系 提高情商 科学方法 情商提升 实用指南 成功人生 职场竞争力 培养情商 自信
/ 307
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载
客服
关注