Merchanter's Luck

Hers. Her post. She had gotten that for the others as well, done more for them than they could have hoped for in their lives. And they were hers, in a sense more than kinship and ship-family. If she said walk outside the lock, they walked; if she said hands off, it was hands off and quiet; and that was a load on her shoulders— this Stevens, who figured to have a special spot with her. They might misread cues, her cousins, take chances with this man. No, no onboard sleepovers, no muddling up their heads with that, making allowances when maybe they should not make them. It was not dockside, when a Dubliner’s yell could bring down a thousand cousins bent on mayhem. Different rules. Different hazards. She had not reckoned that way, until she had looked in the lockers. But somewhere not so far away, she reckoned, Curran slept in someone’s abandoned bed and spent some worry on it And the others-She turned onto her stomach, fumbled after an unfamiliar console, punched in on comp.

Nothing. The room screen stayed dead.

She pushed com one, that should be the bridge. “Allison in number two cabin: I’m not getting comp.”

A prolonged silence.

Everything unraveled, the presumed safety of being in Pell System, still in civilized places… the reckonings that there were probably sane explanations for things when all was said and done… she flung herself out of bed with her heart beating in panic, started snatching for her clothes.

A maniac, it might be; a lunatic who might have done harm to the lot of them… She had no real knowledge what this Stevens might be, or have done. A liar, a thief—She looked about for any sort of weapon.

“Allison.” Neill’s voice came over com. “Got lunch ready.”

“Neill?” Her heart settled to level. In the first reaction she was ashamed of herself.

In the second she was thinking it was stupid not to have brought her luggage into the cabin; she had a knife in that, a utilitarian one, but something. She had never thought of bringing weapons with her, but she did now, having seen what she had seen… sleeping in a cabin that could become a trap if someone at controls pushed the appropriate buttons.

“You coming?” Neill asked.

“Coming,” she said.

It was better, finally, Sandor reckoned, with all of them at once in the bridge sleeping area, with trays balanced on their laps, a bottle of good wine passing about. It was the kind of insane moment he had never imagined seeing aboard Lucy, a thing like family, unaffordable food—Neill had pulled some of the special stuff, and the wine had been chilling since loading; and it all hit his empty stomach and unstrung nerves with soothing effect. He listened to Dubliner jokes and laughed, saw laughter on Allison’s face, and that was best of all.

“Listen,” he said to her afterward, catching up to her when she was taking her baggage to her quarters—he met her at the entry to the corridor, loaded with bundles. “Allison—I want you to know, back then with the controls—I wasn’t thinking how it sounded. I’m sorry about that”

“You don’t have to walk around my feelings.”

“Can I help you with that?”

She fixed him with a quick, dark eye. “With ulterior motives? I don’t sleepover during voyages.”

He blinked, set hard aback, unsure how to take it—a moment’s temper, or something else. “So, well,” he said. “Not over what I said… Allison, you’re not mad about that.”

“Matter of policy. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“It’s hard, you know that.”

“I don’t think I’d feel comfortable sharing command and bed. Not on ship. Sleepover’s different.”

“What, command? It’s home. It’s—”

“Maybe Dublin does things differently. Maybe it’s another way on this ship. But it’s not another way that quickly. You know, Stevens, I’ll share a sleepover with an honest spacer and not care so much what Name he goes by, but on ship, somehow the idea of sharing a cabin with a man whose Name I don’t know—”

“You handed me half a million credits not knowing—”

“I rate myself priceless, man. One of a kind. I don’t go in any deal.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t.”

“Allison, for God’s sake, you twist everything up. You’re good at that.”

“Right. So you know you can’t talk your way around me.” She thrust past with the baggage. He caught a strap on her shoulder, peeled half the bundles away, and she glared back at him through a toss of hair. “Don’t take so much on yourself, mister.”

“Just the baggage.”

“I don’t need your help.” She snatched at the straps he held and failed to get them back. “Just drop them in the corridor. I’ll come back and get them.”

“You can’t take any help, can you?”

She walked off. “From the man who took a half million credits with never a thanks—” She stopped and looked back when he started after her with the bag, almost collided. “You choke on the words, do you, Stevens?”

“Thanks,” he said. “That do it?”

“Just bring the bags.” She turned about again, stalked one door farther and opened the compartment, tossed her belongings through the door and stood aside outside it, a wave of her hand indicating the way inside.

He tossed them after the first. “What about thanks?” he said.

“Thanks.” She shut the door, still outside it.

“Look, you think you have to go through this to tell me no? I can take no. I understand you.”

“What’s the real name?” Quietly asked. Decently asked.

“Think it’d change your mind?”

“No. Not necessarily. But I think it says something about no trust.”

“First name’s Sandor.”

A lift of both dark brows. “Not Ed, then.”

“No.”

“Just—no. Nothing further, eh?”

He shrugged. “You’re right. It’s not dockside, is it?” He looked into dark eyes the same that he had seen one night in a Viking bar, and he was as lost, as dammed up inside. “Can’t break things up when they get tangled.”

“Can’t,” she said. “So you understand it: I might sleepover with you when we get to Venture. I might sleepover with someone else instead. You follow that? I came. But if you reckon I came with the loan, figure again.”

“I never,” he said, “never figured that.”

She nodded. “So we take this a little slower, a lot slower.”

“So suppose I say I’d like to take it up again at Venture.”

She stared at him a moment, and some of the tenseness went out of her shoulders. “All right,” she said. “All right. I like that idea.”

“Like?”

“I’m just not comfortable with it the other way.”

“Might change your mind someday?”

“Ah. Don’t push.”

“I’m not pushing. I’m asking whether you might see it differently.”

“The way you look at me, Stevens—”

“Sandor.”

“—makes me wonder.”

“I understand how you feel. About being on the ship. Maybe my talking like that, in front of the others back there—is a good example of what you’re worried about. I didn’t think how it went out. I know you know what you’re doing. I just had my mind full… I’ve just got some things with the ship I haven’t got straight yet. Things—never mind. I just have to get over the way I’m used to doing things. And dealing with the kind of crew I’m used to getting.”

She tightened her mouth in a grimace that looked preparatory to saying something, exhaled then. It seemed to have slipped her. “All right. I understand that too. You mind fixing comp in my quarters while we’re at it?”

His heart did a thump, attack from an unexpected direction. “I’ll get it straightened out. Promise you. After jump.”

“Security locks?”

They seemed like a good thing when I had unlicensed crew aboard.”

“Well, it’s a matter of the comp keys, isn’t it?”

It was not a conversation he wanted. Not at all. “Look, we haven’t got time for me to get them all down or for you to memorize them. We’re heading up on our exit.”

“Is there something I ought to know?”

“Maybe I worry a bit when I’ve got strangers aboard. Maybe that’s a thing I’ve got like you’ve got attitudes—”