Merchanter's Luck

“Allison,” the Old Man said. Rose and offered his hand. She took it, slump-shouldered and leaden in the moment, her sweat-limp hair hanging about her face as theirs did, her crew, her companions, both of them. “You all right?”

“All right, sir.”

“There wasn’t a way to warn you. Just to back you up. You understand that.”

“I understand it, sir. Megan said.”

“Small ship,” the Old Man said. “And expendable. That’s the way they reckoned it.” He gestured toward the bench near his chair. She folded her hands behind her, locked her aching knees.

“Won’t stay long,” she said.

“You don’t have to have it that way.” The Reilly sat down. “You can turn your post over to Second Helm… take a leave. You’re due that.”

She sucked at her lips. “No, sir. My crew can speak for themselves. But I’ll stay by Lucy”

“Same, sir,” Deirdre said, and there was a like murmur from Neill.

“They owe us,” she said. “They promised us hazard rate for what we’re hauling, and I’m going to Mallory to collect it.”

The Reilly nodded. Maybe he approved. She took it for dismissal, collected her crew.

“You can use Dublin facilities,” the Old Man said. “During dock. We’ll help you with any sorting out you need to do.”

She looked back. “Courtesy or on charge?”

“Courtesy,” the Old Man said. “No charge on it.”

She walked out, officer of a small ship, a poor relation come to call. Dubliners lined the corridor, stared at her and her ions, and there was something different. She did not bother to reason what it was, or why cousins stared at them without speaking, with that bewilderment in their eyes. She was only tired, with more on her mind than gave her time for politenesses.

Chapter XVIII

Dublin was in port: he had heard that much, when they took Curran out and left him behind, among the station wounded. He lay and thought about that, putting constructions together in his mind, none of which made particular sense, only that somewhere, as usual lately, he had been co

So there was a reason Dublin had handed out a paper half million; and Norway had landed on the case of a petty skimmer with customs problems. He had pursued his fate till it caught him, that was what.

Allison. All of Lucy’s crew was safe. They had told him that too, and he was glad, whatever else had happened. He had no personal feeling about it—or did, but he had no real expectation that Allison would come down into the depths of Norway to see him. He made a fantasy of such a meeting; but she failed to come, and that fit with reality, so he enjoyed the fantasy and finally stopped hoping.

He was, before they took out the station casualties, a kind of hero—at least to the few men next to him, who had gotten him confused with the captains of ships like Dublin and Finity’s End and, he had heard, even the Union ship Liberty, who had done the liberating of their station. Mostly Norway. Mostly the tough, seasoned troops of the Alliance carrier had invaded the halls and routed out what pockets of Mazia

It was someone to talk to, until they moved the stationers out.

“When do I get out?” he asked, hoping that he was going to.

“Tomorrow,” the medic promised him, whether or not that came from official sources.

He was not in the habit of believing official promises, and he was trying to sleep the next morning after breakfast when the medic came to ask him if he could walk out or if he had to have a litter.

“Walk,” he decided.

“Got friends waiting for you.”

“Crew?”

“So I understand.”

He took the packet the medic tossed down, his own shaving kit. A change of clothes. So they had come. He was heartened in spite of himself, reckoned that somehow it had turned up convenient in Dublin’s books.

It got him out of Norway. That much. He shaved with the medic’s help—no easy trick with one arm immobilized. Got dressed .—”Here,” the medic said, stuffing a paper into his pocket. “That’s the course of treatment. You follow it. Hear me?”

He nodded, only half interested. A trooper showed up on call to take him out. “Thanks,” he told the medic, who accepted that with a dour attention; and he left with the trooper. “Got to walk slow,” he told the woman, who adjusted her pace to suit.

It was not a far walk—not as far as it might have been on something Norway’s size. He came down the lift and out the lock, taking it as slowly as reasonable, only half light-headed.

And they were there, Allison, Deirdre, Neill; and Curran, at the foot of the ramp. He went down and met offered hands, took Curran’s. “You all right?” he asked Curran.

“Right enough,” Curran said, embraced him carefully with a hand on his sound shoulder. Looked at him with that kind of gratitude the stationer had had, which he took in the same understanding.

“Allison,” he said then, and took her hand—a forlorn pain went through him, a flicker of the dark eyes. “Well, you did it right, Reilly, top to bottom. Must have.”

“I should have come after you,” she said. “I didn’t know you were on the dock.”

Then how could you? No way. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Got us all in one piece.”

“I’m usually right.” He touched Deirdre’s arm and took Neill’s hand, looked back at Allison and saw a trooper beckon.

“Captain’s waiting,” the trooper said, waved a hand toward the dockside offices.

“Mallory,” Allison said.

He nodded. His heart had turned over. He started that way—at least it was not far across the dock; the same office, the place of recent memory. He felt numb in the cold, and no little disoriented.

“Dublin’s in on the conference,” Allison said. The Old Man; our legal counsel—you’ve got that behind you.”

“Good to know,” he said.

“You don’t believe it.”

“Of course I believe it. You say so.”

She gave him one of those looks as they went into the office, into a gathering thick with military in blue and merchanters in silver and white.

Repeat scene: only it was Mallory behind the desk, and Talley close by her… one of the breed exchanged for another.

“Captain,” she said, a courteous nod.

He paid her one in return. He looked further about him, noted the patches: Dublin’s shamrock on the silver, and on the white, the arrogant black sphere of Finity’s End, a Name so old they had no insignia at all: and rejuv-silvered hair other than Mallory’s, a gathering of senior officers in which one Sandor Kreja would have been a small interest—give or take a bogus cargo and half a million credits.

“Wanted to straighten a matter out with you,” she said, “—Need a chair, Captain?”

“No.” An automatic no, half-regretted; but no one else was seated but Mallory… he refused to be the center of things along with her; but he was: he reckoned that.

“Any time you change your mind,” she said, “feel free. It’s really not fair to call you in like this, but Norway’s prone to sudden departures. And I’m sure others don’t want to log too much dock time.—Are you sure about the chair, Captain?”

He nodded. A small trickle of sweat started down the side of his face. Small talk was not Mallory’s style. He disliked it, them, this whole gathering.

“You played it straight,” she said. “I rather hoped you might, Captain. But I was a little surprised by it”

“You were a little late.” He recovered his sense of balance, pulse rate getting up again. “You took our arrival rate. You cut it pretty long on our side.”