He'd said, just now,—he was sure Capella had heard him: Choose a side. Get the hell to them, or take orders from me.

It remained to see, it did, how much she'd fill Christian in—how much she'd dare fill Christian in, if she meant to stay on Corinthian—because Christian wasn't going to be an automatic choice to succeed to the captaincy, not now, not since Viking, and damned well not since the stunt he'd pulled here… was still pulling, staying clear of him, not coming in to report, himself. There were times to revise priorities, there were times to be sure messages got through… you didn't hand off to a bedmate not even remotely connected to the crew, if Christian had even made the decision that brought Capella in to report what couldn't go over com.

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'sdoors. 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'sboard. " 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 Pollyspacer 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 Pollygirl 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 shewas 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."

Nowshe 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 beenscrewed, or something like it, by one of your night-walking shipmates, and nobody asked mypermission."

"Shit," Saby said, and sat upright. "You're kidding."

"It's no damn joke. I'm notflattered.—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.