Merchanter's Luck

“No limit within reason,” Sandor said, breaking out into the Reilly dialogue—expanded at the reaction that got from the lot of them. “That’s one advantage of a small-crew ship, few as there are. Bring anything you like. Any cabin you like.”

“You and Allison plan to double up?” Curran asked.

It was not the question; it was the silence that went after it. The look in Curran’s eyes.

“Curran,” Allison said.

“Just wondering.”

The meal started arriving, wine first; the appetizers when they had scarcely settled from that. Sandor sat and smoldered, out of appetite with the temper that was boiling in him. “I’ll tell you,” he said, jabbing a serving knife in Curran’s direction as the waiter passed finally out of earshot, “Mr. Reilly, I think you and I have a problem. I’m not sure why. Or what. But it started up there in blue section this morning and I’m not going to have it go on.”

“Stevens,” Allison said.

“I think we’d better settle it.”

“All right,” Curran said softly. “The number one says you’re all right, that goes with me. Let’s start from zero.”

“My rules, mister.”

“Absolutely,” Curran said. “Chain of command. As soon as we get that lock off.”

“Ought to be soon,” Allison said. “How about that routing application?”

“Got it,” Curran said. His sullen face lighted instantly. “Clear. We’re routed to Venture and Bryant’s, Konstantin Company commodities, on Dublin’s guarantee.”

Sandor had ducked his head to eat and stay out of it. He looked up again. “You’re talking about our route and cargo.”

“Right.”

“You take it on yourself—”

“Part of the package.”

“No. Not part of the package. You don’t set up routes or make agreements.”

“Come down, man. We’ve got you a deal better than you could get. A deal that’s guaranteed profit. With a station commerce load that doesn’t cost you, and guaranteed rate for the delivery. How do you do better than that?”

“I don’t care what you’ve got. No. I decide where Lucy goes and if she goes.”

“Slow,” Allison said, patted his arm, once, twice. “Hold it. Listen: it is part of the package. I was going to tell you. It’s a good deal. The best. The Hinder Stars opening up again, the stations being set up to operate—you know what a chance it is, to get in on the setup of a station? Dublin herself is taking on cargo and looping back to Mariner. But we go out to the Hinder Stars. Toward Sol. You see how it works? That’s Sol trade: luxuries, exotics. We take a station load out and do small runs; and as the Sol trade starts coming in, we start picking up Sol cargo. We run small cargo at first, then see about doing that conversion that’ll boost her up to speed…”

“You’ve got that pla

“Because I know this kind of economics, if you don’t. We’re not talking about dockside trading. We’re talking about ru

“We get backing that way,” Deirdre said. “Eventually we schedule to catch Dublin’s Pell loop and fu

“They’ll cut our throats. Alliance traders. Locals won’t stand for that.”

“Stop thinking like a marginer,” Allison said. “You’re linked to the Dublin operation. They won’t touch us the way they won’t touch Dublin herself. And after one run, we’ll be local. We’ll have Alliance paper.”

“And I take what deals Dublin offers.”

“Fair deals.”

He thought about it a moment, avoiding the sight of Curran Reilly, took a drink of wine. “Hinder Stars,” he said, thinking that if there was a place least likely for his record to catch up to him it had to be that, the forgotten Earthward stations. Sol goods, expensive for their mass. Rarities and luxuries. “So Dublin wants a trade link.”

“Believe it,” Allison said. “Both sides of the Line are interested… Pell, absolutely; Union, in keeping the flow of trade across the Line. You think Union wants Pell and Sol in bed together alone? No. Union’s supporting Unionside merchanters that want to trade across the Line; and there’s nothing that says we can’t set up an operation on this side.”

“We.”

“Any way you like it. You needed the bailout. And we saw the advantage. You. We. You and the lot of us on Lucy can develop a new loop that’s going to pay.”

He thought about it again, excited in spite of himself. “You plan to stay on—how long?”

“We don’t necessarily plan to go back. It’s like I said… too far to the posted ranks. We’re coming to stay.”

He nodded slowly. “All right,” he said, even including Curran in that “All right, I’ll take your deal. And the lot of you.—What about charts?”

“Got that arranged,” Curran said. “No problem with that.”

“From what I know,” Allison said, “we’re going to have a double jump to Venture and a double to Bryant’s.”

“Lonely out that direction.”

“Pell’s got some sort of security out that way.”

“Patrol?”

“They don’t say. They just put out they’ve got it watched.”

“Comforting.” He doubted it all. It was likely bluff. Or Pell was that determined to keep the Sol link open.

He looked up again, at the strangers who looked to share with him, to come onto Lucy’s deck—permanent company. So they were not all what he would have chosen. But with a Curran came a Deirdre, whose broad, cheerful self he liked on sight; and Neill Reilly, who had said little of anything and who seemed set in the background by all the others—They were Family, like any other, the rough and the smooth together. He had not known that kind of closeness… not since Ross. He wanted it, and Allison, with a yearning that welled up in his throat and behind his eyes and throughout. And it was his. It came with the wealth, the luck he still could not imagine. But it was real. It was all about him. He made himself relax, limb by limb, up to the shoulders, looked across the table at his acquired crew and felt something knotted up inside unsnarl itself.

And when di

The bill was his: he took it without flinching, gave a tip to the waiter—left a happy man in their wake and strolled out into the chill air of the dockside with his flock of Dubliners.

“Go to the offices,” he suggested, “see if we can’t get the lock off my ship.”

“Let’s,” Allison agreed. “Is it past alterdawn? We can get something done.”

“Get a ped-carrier,” Deirdre said.

“Walk,” said Neill. “We might be sober when we get there.”

They walked, along the busy docks, past Lucy’s barriered berth, weaving a good deal less when they had covered all of green dock, sweating a bit when they had come into blue, and near the customs offices.

But he came differently this time, in company, with the knowledge of Dublin’s lawyer behind them, and papers on file that put him in the right. He walked up to the desk and faced the official with a plain request, brought out the papers. “I need the lock off,” he said. “We seem to have everything else straightened away but that.”

“Ah,” the official said. “Captain Stevens.”

“Can we get it taken care of?”

The official produced a sealed envelope, passed it over.

“What’s this?”

“I’ve no idea, sir. I’m told it relates to the hold order.”

He was conscious of the others at his back—refused to look at them, tore open the seal on the message slip and read it once before it sank in. “Report blue dock number three,” he read it, looking back at Allison then. “AS Norway, Signy Mallory commanding.”

Curran swore. “Mallory,” Allison said, and it might as well have been an oath. “On Pell?”

“Arrived two hours ago,” the official said, a roll of the eyes toward the clock. “The message is half an hour old.”