Merchanter's Luck

The alarm went off—the door down the curve opened from their side, jolting his heart. He scrambled up—staggered into the wall and straightened.

Allison by herself. The door closed again; the alarm stopped. He stared at her and the numb spot gained feeling and focus, an ache that settled everywhere. “So, well,” he said, “got around to figuring how it is?”

“Look, I’m here. You want to talk or do you want me to let be?”

“I won’t give it to you.”

She walked closer, the length of the corridor between them. Stopped near arm’s length. “I won’t pass it to Curran. I’m sorry.— Listen to me. I reckoned maybe we were too close for reason. I just figured maybe Curran could get the sleepover out of it; maybe— Hang it, Stevens, you’re strung out on no sleep and you’re risking our lives on it. Not just mine. Theirs; and I got them into it You don’t trust them. Maybe not me. But I figured if you and Curran could sort it out—maybe it would all work. That maybe if you got it straight with them, if all the heat blew out of it—”

“Misfigured, did you?”

“Don’t be light with me. Say what you think.”

“All I want—” His throat spasmed. He thrust his hands into his pockets and disguised a second breath with that. “I don’t give you the time of day, Reilly. Let alone the comp keys. Now we can go on like this. And maybe you’ll think of other clever ways to get at it. But you loaned me money; you didn’t buy me out You figure —what? To trump up something to get me between you and the police at Venture? And then to offer me another deal? Sorry. I’ve got that figured out. Because if they get me, Reilly, you’re stuck on a ship you can’t even get out of dock. Embarrassing. Might raise questions about your title to her. Might cost you a long time to get that straightened out, long-distance to Pell and wherever Dublin might be. Not to mention—if they send me in for restruct —I’ll spill what happened here, all in the little pieces of my mind. And there goes the Reilly Name. So refigure, Reilly. Nothing you do that way’s going to work.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

“You know, I really took precautions. I signed on drunks and docksiders and insystemers, and I got through with all of them. I figured a big ship like Dublin might try to doubledeal me, but you’re pirates, Reilly—I never figured that. Mallory’s out there hunting Mazia

Her face flushed. He had that satisfaction. “You don’t take that seriously, do you?”

“I don’t see a difference.”

“Stevens-”

“Sandor. The name’s Sandor.”

“I’m sorry for what happened. I told you why; I told you— Look, Curran thought you’d bluff. That was his thinking. Now he knows better. So do all of us. You want to come back to the bridge and sort this out?”

He ran that through his mind several ways, and none of it eased the ache. Stood there, obstinate, only to make it harder.

“Stevens—what’s it take?”

“Worried, are you? We’re not even near the Jump point. And what when we’re across it? A replay? I only go for this once,

Reilly. The next time you lay a hand on me if it’s war. You’ll get me. Sure you will. I’ve got to sleep, after all. But let’s just lay it on the table. You may not be able to haul it out of me. And then what? Then what, Reilly?”

“It’s crazy to talk like that.”

“How much do you want this ship?”

“A lot. But not that way. I want us working with each other. I want our hands clean and all of us in one piece, not killed because you’re still ru

“It doesn’t work. You take it on my terms. That’s all you’ve got. Up the ante, and that’s still all you’ve got.”

“All right,” she said after a moment, stood there with a look in her eyes that seemed halfway earnest She nodded toward the section seal. “Let’s go.”

He nodded, walked along with her. “They’re listening,” he said in a low voice. “Aren’t they?”

She looked at him, a sudden, disturbed glance. They reached the section seal and she stopped and reached for the button. He was quicker, his hand covering it. He looked her in the eyes, that close, and the closeness murdered reason for the instant. The scent of her and the warmth and the remembrance of Viking and Pell.

“You could have had it all,” he said. “You know that.”

“You never trusted us. Not from the start”

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

She was silent a moment. “Maybe not.”

The quiet denial shot around the flank of his defenses. He turned his head, pressed the button.

The siren went. The door shot open. He was facing Curran and Neill. He was somehow not surprised.

“He’s coming back,” Allison said. She closed the door again. The siren stopped. “We’ve got it settled.”

The faces in front of him did not believe it. He reacquired his own doubts, nerved himself with the insolence of a thousand encounters with docksiders. Offered his hand.

Curran took it, a small shudder of hesitation in the move, a grip that spared bruised knuckles—but Curran’s hand was in no better condition; Neill’s next—Neill’s earnest expression had a peculiar distress.

“Sorry,” Neill said.

He meant it, Sandor reckoned. One of them meant it And knew it was all a sham. He felt a pang of sympathy for Neill, which was insane: Neill would be with the rest of them, and he never doubted it.

“Deirdre’s on watch, is she?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to have my breakfast and wash up. And I’ll rest after that… find myself a cabin and rest a few hours. You’ll wake me if something comes up.”

He walked on—away from them. Stopped in the galley and opened the freezer, pulled out a decent breakfast, pointedly keeping his back to the rest of them as they passed.

It was a quiet supper, hers with Curran. Curran was eating carefully, around a sore mouth, and not in a mood for idle conversation. Neither was she. “You think he’ll go along with it all the way to Venture?” Curran asked once. “Maybe,” she said. “I think he’s had the angles figured for years. We just walked into it.”

And a time later: “You know,” Curran said, “the whole agreement’s a lie. Look at me, Allie. Don’t take on a face like that He’s a liar, an actor—he knows right where to take hold and twist I knew that from the start If you hadn’t stepped in when you did—”

“What would you have done? I’d like to have known what you would have done.”

“I’d have beaten a straight answer out of him. He says not But that’s part of the act. He’s harder than I thought, but I’d have peeled the nonsense away and gotten right where he lives, Allie, don’t think not Wouldn’t have killed him; not near. And it might have settled this. You had to come out the door—”

“It didn’t go your way the first time. How much would it take? How many hours?” Her stomach turned. She pushed the food around on her plate, made herself spear a bite and swallow. “You heard what he said. We’ve got him working now. Another set-to—”

“You go on believing what he says—”

“What if it is the truth? What if it’s the truth all along?”

“And what if it’s not? What then, Allie?”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t redirect You know what the stakes are. We’re talking about trouble here. You sit the number one; you’ve got to have the say in it But you’re thinking below the belt.”

That’s your assumption.”

“Don’t tell me a male number one wouldn’t have gotten us in this tangle.”

“Ah. There we are. What if it were a woman and it were you calling the shots? Dare I guess? You’d take it all, wouldn’t you? You think you would. But would you sleep sound in that company? No. You think it through. I’m not sleeping with him. And he even asked.”

“Maybe you should have.”

She was reaching for the cup. She slammed it down, spilling it. “You need your attitudes reworked, Mr. Reilly. You really do. Maybe we really need to figure the logic that carries all that. Let’s discuss your sleepovers, Mr. Reilly—or don’t they have any bearing on your fitness to command?”