IT WAS MIDDAY ON the port by the time Khat cleared the paperwork and took receipt of her pay. By her own reckoning, it was nearer to sleep-shift, which activity she intended to indulge in, soon as she raised the lodgings.
Her step did break as she passed by the Ship'n Shore, but the prospect of ten hours or more of sleep was more compelling than a brew and a bite, so she moved on, and caught a tram at the meeting of the cross streets.
She was in a light doze when her stop was called; got her feet under her and bumbled down the steps to the street, where she stood for far too long, eyes narrowed against the glare, trying to sort out where, exactly, she was, with specific relation to her cubby and her cot. Eventually, she located the right building, mooched on in at quarter-speed, swiped her key through the scanner and took the lift to the eighth floor.
The Gobelyn Family Unit was, thanking all the ghosts of space, quiet and dim. Khat charted a none-too-steady course across the main room to her cubby, stripping off her clothes as she went. She stuffed the wad of them into the chute, pushed aside the drape and fell into her cot, pulling the blanket up and over her head.
It occurred to her that she ought to hit the shower; her being at least as ripe as her clothes, but she was asleep almost as soon as she'd thought it.
"ALL CREW ON DECK!"
There are those things that command a body's attention, no matter how deep asleep it is. Khat jerked awake with a curse, flung the blanket aside and jumped for the common room, stark naked and reeking as she was.
Seeli stood in the center of the room, hands on hips and looking none too pleased. Apparently Khat was the sole crew the all-hands had roused.
"Are you the only one here?" Seeli snapped, which wasn't her usual way. Seeli snapping was Seeli upset, so Khat made allowance and answered civil.
"I'm guessing. Place was empty when I come in—" she looked across the room at the clock. "Two hours ago."
Her cousin vented an exasperated sigh.
"It's our shift, then," she muttered, and then appeared to see Khat's condition for the first time. "Just down from the free-wing job?"
"Two hours ago," Khat said. "They had me running solo. Sleep is high on the list of needfuls, followed by a shower and food."
Seeli nodded. "I'm sorry. If there was anybody else to hand—but it's you an' me, an' it's gotta be now." She pointed to the 'fresher. "Rinse an' get decent. I'll fix you a cup o'mite and some coffee. You can drink it on the way."
Khat stared. "What's gone wrong?"
Seeli was already moving toward the galley, and answered over her shoulder. "Iza got in a cuffing match with the yard boss, and the port cops have her under key."
"Shit," Khat said, and sprinted for the 'fresher.
Seeli'd gone down to the yard, to talk with the boss and smooth over what she could, which left Khat to bail Iza out.
It was a cross-port ride on the tram, by which time the 'mite and the caffeine were working, and she walked into the cop shop more or less awake, if none too easy in the stomach.
"Business?" The bored woman behind the info counter asked.
"Come to pay a fine and provide escort," Khat said, respectfully. She wasn't over-fond of port police—what spacer was?—but saw no reason to pay an extra duty for her attitude. The ghosts of space bear witness, Iza had likely scored enough of that for the crew at large, if they'd interrupted her in a cuffing match.
"Name?" the cop asked.
"Iza Gobelyn. Brought in this afternoon from the yards."
The cop looked down at her screen, grunted, and jerked her head to the right.
"Down the end of the hall. If you step lively, you can get her out before the next hour's holding fee kicks in."
"Thank you," Khat said, and made haste down the hall, there to stand before another counter just like the one at the front door, and repeat her information to an equally bored man.
"Kin?" he asked, peering at her over the edge of his screen.
"Yessir. Cousin. Khatelane Gobelyn."
"Hmph." He poked at some keys, frowned down at the screen, poked again. Khat made herself stand quiet and not shout at him to hurry it along, and all the while the big clock behind the counter showed the time speeding toward the hour-change.
"Gobelyn," the cop muttered, head bobbing as he bent over the screen. "Here we are: public display of hostility, striking a citizen, striking a port employee, striking a law enforcement officer, swearing at a law enforcement officer, Level Two arrest, plus transportation, booking, three hours' lodging, usage fees, tax and duty, leaving us with a total due of eight hundred ninety-seven bits." He looked up. "We also accept trade goods, or refined gold. There is a surcharge for using either of those options."
Sure there was. Khat blinked. Eight hundred—
"Duty?" she asked.
The cop nodded, bored. "You're offworld. All transactions between planetaries and extra-planetaries are subject to duty."
"Oh." She slipped a hand into her private pocket, brought out her personal card, and swiped it through the scanner on the front of the counter. There was a moment of silence, then the cop's screen beeped and initiated a noisy printout.
"Your receipt will be done in a moment," he said. "After you have it, please go down the hall to the first room on your left. Your cousin will be brought to you there."
"Thanks," Khat muttered. She took the printout when it was done with a curt nod went to wait for Iza to be brought up.
"LEVEL TWO ARREST" involved sedation—the construction of the drug, duration of affect, known adverse reactions, and chemical antidotes were all listed at the bottom of the two-page receipt. Khat scowled. The drug lasted plus-or-minus four hours. Iza had been arrested three-point-five hours ago. There wasn't enough credit left on her card to rent a car to take them cross port, and the prospect of woman-handling a half-unconscious Iza onto the tram was . . . daunting, not to dance too lightly on it.
She'd barely started to worry when the door to the waiting room opened, admitting a port cop in full uniform, a thin woman in bloodstained overalls and spectacularly bruised face walking, docile, at her side.
"Khatelane Gobelyn?" The cop asked.
"That's me." Khat stepped forward, staring into Iza's face. Iza stared back, blue eyes tranquil and empty.
"She's good for about another forty minutes," the cop said. "If I was you, I'd have her locked down in thirty. No sense running too close to the edge."
"Right," Khat said, and then gave the cop a nod, trying for cordial. "Thank you."
"Huh." The cop shook her head. "You keep her outta trouble, space-based. You copy that? She put Chad Perkin in the hospital when he tried to get the restraints on her—broken kneecap, broken nose, cracked ribs. You hurt a cop on this port once, and you're a good citizen ever after, because there ain't no maybes the second time."
Khat swallowed. "I don't—"
"Understand?" The cop hit her in the chest with an ungentle forefinger. "If your buddy here gets into another fistfight and the cops are called on it, she ain't likely to survive the experience. That plain enough for you, space-based?"
"Yes," Khat breathed, staring into the broad, hard face. "That's plain."
"Good. Now get her outta here and tied down before the stuff wears out."
"Yes," Khat said again. She reached out and took Iza's hand, pulling her quick time down the hall.
THE TRAM WAS WITHIN two blocks of the lodgings and the time elapsed from the cop shop was rising onto forty-two minutes, when Khat felt Iza shift on the seat beside her. The shifting intensified, accompanied by soft growls and swear words. Khat bit her lip, in a sweat for the tram to hurry—
"'scuse me." A hand landed, lightly, on Khat's shoulder. She looked up into the face of an older grounder woman.
"'scuse me," the woman said again, her eyes mostly on Iza. "Your friend just fresh from the cop shop?"
"Yes."
"You take my advice—get her off this tram an' down. That drug they use has a kick on the exit side. M'brother threw seven fits when it wore offa him—took all us girls to hold him down, and my uncle, too."
"Damn dirtsider," Iza muttered beside her. "Trying to cheat me. Short my ship, will he. . . "
Khat grabbed her arm, leaned over and yanked the cord. The tram slowed and she leapt to her feet, dragging Iza with her.
"Thank you," she said to the grounder woman, and then thought to ask it—"What happened to your brother?"
The woman shrugged, eyes sliding away. "He was born to trouble, that one. Cop broke his neck not a year later—resisting arrest, they said."
The tram stopped, the side door slid open. "Mud sucker!" Iza yelled, and Khat jumped for the pavement. Perforce, Iza followed; she staggered, swearing, and Khat spun, twisting her free hand in Iza's collar, using momentum and sheer, naked astonishment to pitch the older woman off the main walk and into a gap between two buildings.
"Cheat! Filth!" shouted Iza. Khat hooked a foot around her ankle, putting her face down into the mud, set a knee into the small of her back, and pulled both arms back into a lock.
Iza bucked and twisted and swore and shouted—to not much effect, though there were a few bad seconds when Khat thought she was going to lose the arm-lock.
After half an hour or an eternity, the thrashing stopped, then the swearing did, and all Iza's muscles went limp. Cautiously, Khat let the lock down, and eased her knee off. Iza lay, face down, in the mud. Khat turned her over, checked her breathing and her pulse, then, stifling a few curses herself, she got Iza into a back carry and staggered off toward the lodgings.
The lodgings were in sight when Seeli showed up on Khat's left. Wordlessly, she helped ease Iza down, and then the two of them got her distributed between them and walked her the rest of the way. Seeli swiped her key through the scan and they maneuvered Iza into the lift, then through the common room and into her own quarters, where they dropped her, muddy and bloody as she was, atop her cot.
"How bad at the yard?" Khat asked Seeli as they moved toward the galley.
"Bad enough," Seeli said after more hesitation than Khat liked to hear. She sighed, and opened the coldbox. "Brew?"
"Nothing less. And some cheese, if there's any." She closed her eyes, feeling the electric quiver of adrenaline-edged exhaustion in her knees and arms.
"Brew," Seeli said, and Khat heard a solid, welcome thump on the table before her. She opened her eyes just as a block of spicy local cheese and a knife landed next to the bottle.
Sighing, she had a mouthful of brew, then sliced about a third of the cheese.
Seeli sat down across, cradling her brew between her two hands, and looking about as grim as she got.
"How bad," Khat asked between bites of cheese, "is bad enough?"
Seeli sighed. "The yard wants an extra bond posted. They want a guarantee that Iza will be kept from their premises. They want the name and contact code for somebody—not Iza—who is empowered to speak for the ship. That person will be allowed in the offices of the yard no more than once per port-week, at pre-scheduled times. Monthly inspection of progress stays in force, so long as the inspector ain't Iza Gobelyn. Any further disturbance, and the yard will invoke breach and impound the Market."
Khat had another piece of cheese and a swallow of brew.
"That's bad enough," she allowed, and pointed at the cheese. "Eat."
"Later," Seeli said, and made a production out of sipping her beer.
Khat sighed. "Understand, there was a couple bad minutes when the drug went over, but I gathered that Iza had reason to believe the yard was cheatin' us."
"There might be some of that. Problem is, Iza going off the dial put us into the disadvantage with regard to amicable discovery. I've got a call in to Paitor. Crew meeting here, tomorrow port-night."
"What about Cris?"
Seeli shrugged, and stared hard down into her brew. "I beamed a precis and a plea for a recommend to his ship. Could be we'll have his answer by meeting." She looked up, face hard, which was Seeli when she'd taken a decision, no different from her ma. "We gotta settle this, Khat. Iza goes off the dial again, we could lose the Market. It's that near the edge."
"I hear it," Khat said, and finished her brew. "I'm for sleep, coz. Central's got me on for a hop to the station tomorrow middle day. I'll be down in plenty of time for the meeting." She stood and stretched. "Best thing would be for Iza to take a temp berth—you know she's always crazy on the ground."
"I know," Seeli said, too soft. "Sleep sound, cousin. 'preciated the assist, today."
Khat nodded and headed for the door. Before she got there, she checked and looked over her shoulder.
"Almost forgot—eight hundred ninety seven paid out from my personal account."
Seeli closed her eyes briefly. "I'll authorize the transfer from Ship's General,"
"'preciate it," Khat said, and left, on a course for sleep.