Free Tripoint by C. J. Cherryh

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,