Merchanter's Luck

“Mallory.”

He sat back a fraction, playing it with a scant flicker; but the hate in Edgar’s eyes was mortal—So, he thought, having tried that perimeter. Play it without principles. All the way. “Her cargo aboard,” he said. “She hauled me in before undock, said she was watching. And she’s out there. Overjumped us. Just watching. That’s what I know. I’m not particular. You want Mallory’s cargo, welcome to it And if you want trade done somewhere across the Line, I’m willing—but not Pell. Not and answer questions back there.”

Edger was a mass murderer. So was Mallory. But there was a febrile fixation to Edger’s stare that tightened the hairs on his nape. No dockside justice ever promised Edger’s kind of dealing.

“Suppose we discuss it with your man back there,” Edger said.

“Discuss what?”

“Mallory.”

“I’ll discuss Mallory. I’ve got no percentage in it”

“Where is Norway?”

“Last time I saw her she was off by James’s Point”

“Doing what?”

“Waiting for something. She’s working with Union. That’s the rumor. They’ve got all the nullpoints sewed up and Union’s working with her. So they say.”

Edger was silent a moment. Shifted his eyes to his lieutenant and back again. “What cargo?”

“I don’t know what cargo. I didn’t want Mallory on my neck. I didn’t break any seals.”

“Junk, Captain Stevens. Junk. We looked. Recycling goods.” Edger’s voice rose and fell again; and Sander’s mind went to one momentary blank.

“She set me up,” he exclaimed. “That bastard bitch set me up. She knew what was here and sent me into it.”

No reaction from Edger: nothing. The eyes stayed fixed on him, feverish and still, and the noise of his protest fell into that silence and died.

“Look, I don’t know anything. I swear to you, I’m a marginer with legal troubles; and Mallory offered me hazard rate for a haul —offered me a way out, and a profit, and she set me up. She bloody well set me up.”

“I’m touched, Stevens.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s a setup, Stevens, you’re right in that much.—Hagler, take a detail and persuade Stevens he’s hired; get that ship working.”

“Hired for what?”

“Don’t press your luck, Stevens. You may survive this voyage… if you learn.”

A hand descended on his shoulder. He got up, without protest, calculating wildly—to get back aboard again, get sealed in there with a crew and take care of them… Allison and her cousins would be there; and there was suddenly a way out—

Everyone was moving, the gathering adjourning elsewhere with some dispatch. They were pulling out, he reckoned suddenly. They could not afford to sit at rest if they suspected Mallory was on the loose. A warship out of jump, not dumping its velocity—he did the calculations mentally, fogged in the terror of them, let himself be taken by the arm and steered for the door, a gun prodding him in the back. A ship like Norway could be down their throats scant minutes behind its lightspeed bow wave of ID and interference… could blow them out of this fragile, antique shell of a station.

There never had been a major settlement here, he surmised. It was a setup, all of it, all the leaks of routes and trade—and he had not betrayed Mallory: Mallory had primed him with everything she wanted spread to her enemies. Canisters of junk for a cargo-He looked about him as they went out onto the open dock, so chill that breath hung frosted in the air and cold lanced to the bone. They herded him right, the jab of a rifle barrel, all of them headed out… and he looked back, saw them taking Curran off in the other direction.

“Curran!” he yelled. “Hold it! Blast you, my crewman goes with me—”

Curran stopped, looked toward him. Sandor staggered in the sudden jerk at his arm, the jab of a rifle barrel into his ribs—Kept turning, and hit an armored trooper a blow in the throat that threw the trooper down and sent a pain through his hand. He dived for the gun, hit the floor and rolled in a patter of shots that popped off the decking. The fire hit, an explosion that paralyzed his arm. He kept rolling, for the cover of the irregular wall, the gun abandoned in panic. “Move it,” someone yelled. “Get him.”

A second shot exploded into his side, and after that was the cold pressure of the deck plates against his face and a stu

“Give up the freighter,” he heard called. “You just shot the bastard and it’s no good. Come on.”

He was bleeding. He had trouble breathing. He lay still until the sounds were done, and that was the best that he knew how to do.

Then he lifted his head and saw Curran lying face down on the plates a distance away.

He got that far, an inching progress across the ice cold plates, terrified of being spotted moving. The wounds were throbbing, the left arm refused to move, but he thought that he could have gotten up. And Curran—

Curran was breathing. He put his hand on Curran’s back, snagged his collar and tried to pull him, but it tore his side. Curran stirred then, a feeble movement. “Come on,” Sandor said. “Out of the open: come on—let’s try for the ship.”

Curran struggled for his feet, collapsed back to one knee; and blood erupted from the burn in his shoulder. Sandor made the same try, discovered he could get his legs under him, offered a hand to Curran and steadied him getting up. “Get to cover,” he breathed, looking out at all that vacant dock, foreign machinery more than a century outdated, a dark pit of an access. That was Australia back there, two berths down, dark and blank to the outside; and Lucy was in the other direction… Lucy—

They made it twenty meters along the wall; and then the cold and the tremors got to them both. Sandor hung onto the wall, eased down it finally, supporting Curran and both of them leaning together. “Rest a minute,” he said.

They’ll blow the station,” Curran predicted, “Hard vacuum.— Come on, man. Come on.” It was Curran hauling him up this time; and they walked as far as they could, but it was a long, long distance to Lucy’s berth.

Curran went down finally, out of strength; and he was. He held onto the blood-soaked Dubliner, both of them tucked up in the cover of a machinery niche, and stared at what neither one of them could reach.

Seals crashed. Australia was loose, preparing for encounter. Sandor went stiff, and Curran did, anticipating the rush of decompression that might take them; but the station stayed whole.

Then a second crash of seals.

“Allison,” Sandor said, and Curran took in his breath.

Lucy had prepared herself to break loose. Someone with the comp keys was at controls.

They’re wanting an answer,” Neill said from com—turned a sweating face in Allison’s direction.

“No,” Allison said.

“Allie—those are guns out there!”

“They know comp’s locked and their man might not answer. No, don’t do it.”

They’re moving,” Deirdre said.

Vid came to her screen, a view of a monster warship, the twin of Norway, a baleful glow of ru

“They’ve broken communication,” Neill said, and Allison said nothing, waiting, watching, hoping that the behemoth that passed near them would reckon their man’s silence a communications lockup. And that they would not, in passing, blow them and the station at once.

“Movement our starboard,” Deirdre said, and that image came too: another ship had been around the rim, and it was putting out “Freighter type,” Deirdre said.

“One of theirs,” Allison surmised.

There was a silence for a moment “Get down there,” she said then, “and get those port seals complete. We’d better be ready to move.”

“Both of us?” Deirdre asked.

“Go.”

All the functions came to her board; her cousins scrambled for the lift back in the lounge that would take them down to the frame. They had to get the seals complete or blow the dock and damage themselves, with no dockside assistance in their undocking.