Текст книги "Merchanter's Luck "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

“Making a list.” She tapped the screen in front of her, a display of first line meals with real meat and frozen fruits and boxed pastries.

“Chocolates,” he added in a sense of fantasy. He had had chocolate once.

“Chocolate,” she said. “There we go.”

“Cancel that. It’s too expensive.”

“Chocolate and coffee. Real stuff. Leave it to me.”

“Allison—do you—get this stuff usually?”

He would have cut his throat rather than ask an hour ago. He looked into her face and suspected something as childish as his chocolates.

“For special days,” she admitted. “I got some staple stuff too.”

“I have 75 standard frozens. You can wipe that off.”

“Good enough.” She wiped the stylus over part of the order. “What about those hardware items we need?”

We, it was. He took up the seat next to her and keyed up the catalogue. “I can get better prices,” he muttered.

“There’s a discount system. Do your whole rig here and you get some off.”

“Better.” After the moment’s euphoria, his stomach was upset. He ticked through the things they really needed. He felt conspicuous sitting here, at the counter in this place, dressed as he was. The list went on growing, more and more expensive, because systems were, more than crew luxuries.

“That do it?” Allison asked finally.

He punched for the total. 5576.2 came up on the screen. He shook his head in shock. “Can’t go that.”

“Five of us, remember? And the hardware. That’s not out of line. Put the card in, there.”

He shoved it into the slot. It registered. THANK YOU, the screen said. He stared at it like some oncoming mass.

Took his card back.

She patted his shoulder. “Haircut for us both,” she said. “And clean up. We’re meeting someone for dinner.”

“Who?”

“The rest of us, who else? And why don’t you get yourself a proper patch, while we’re at it? I looked in the directory. There’s this place does them to order, all computer set up. Anything you like, on the spot. It’s really amazing how it works.”

“Lord, Reilly—does it matter?”

“I’d think it would.” She touched the misembroidered nymph on his sleeve. “You could do yourself a class job. Or they’ve got the over-the-counter stuff. If you really want.”

That was low. He scowled and she never flinched. “Mind your business,” he said. “If I like the tatty thing it’s my business.”

“You’re really going to go blank like that. They’ll think you’re a pirate for sure.”

“I’ll just get me a handful of the tatty ones. Thanks.”

Lips pursed. So she knew how far she had pushed.

“The name’s not Stevens,” she said.

That’s what you’re asking, is it?”

“Maybe.”

That’s my business.” And after a moment: “I’ll get some blamed patch. I don’t care what. But no shamrock. I’ll promise you that.”

“Didn’t think so.”

He nodded, gathered up his packages, all of them but the stuff they had ordered on catalogue, that would see ship delivery when they made the loading schedule.

When.

Chapter IX

He had his doubts—had them following Allison to the patcher; and getting trimmed and shaved and lotioned at the barber—his first time, for a haircut that gave him a sleek, blond look of affluence. Doubts again in sleepover, spoiling the hour he snatched for sleep: his privacy, he kept thinking; the life that he had—It was a miserable life, but he controlled it; there was comp, with its peculiarities; and the sealed rooms that these Dubliners would demand to open. There were things they would hear and see that were worse than public nakedness to him; that undercut his pride, and rifled through his memories.

But it had to be, he reasoned with himself. He had never had such a chance. Never could dream of such a chance. He looked at Allison looking at him in the minor—and the warmth of that drove the chill away. “You look good,” she said, to the silver-suited image of him, and he faced about toward her with a surge of confidence that sent some feeling back into his hands and feet “Reckon so?” he asked.

“No question.”

So it fed him his courage back. He drew a deeper breath, reassessed himself and the pathetic ridiculousness, the childishness of the things stored in comp, the nature of the sealed compartments and the relics he lived among. So if she thought that, so if she felt that, then she would not laugh—and the others, these strangers they went to meet—she could handle. As long as she was with him; as long as she found nothing humorous in a man trying to be what he was not—who listened to voices instead of family, who had never had the strength to clear out all the debris of the past; who kept a secret voice that talked to a child who should have long ago grown up; excruciating things. A lifetime of illusions.

There was always the alternative, he reminded himself. He could wait for the military; in his mind he heard the laughter of the dockside searchers who might get into such privacies. Or the techs who might strip his mind down, when his scams caught up to him, discovering the twisted child he was. They would put it all together, taking it all apart; and the thought of that—of the questions; the exposure of himself—

He wore a patch, had sewn it on: LUCY, it said, white letters on a black, blue-centered circle; and that was as close as he dared come to the old one. It looked naked, too, without the swan in flight that belonged there. But someone might know Le Cygne, and Krejas; and he and Ross and Mitri had always agreed, in all the scams, to keep the Name out of it. So it was not possible now to go to station offices and say—I lied; change the name; put it the way it ought to be. That would finish everything.

And maybe, he thought, a lifetime would get him used to looking at the patch that way.

“Coming?” Allison asked him.

He walked into the restaurant arm in arm with Allison—one of those places he expected of Allison, ornate and expensive, where flash and fine cloth belonged, and stationer types occupied tables alongside spacers of the big ships, men and women with officers’ stripes: a lot of silver hair in the place. A lot of money. A waiter intercepted them—”Reilly,” Allison said; and the waiter nodded deferentially and showed them the way among serpentine pillars to the recesses of the place, deep shadows along the walls.

A silver company occupied the table he located for them, a company that rose when they arrived—Sandor did a quick scan of lamp-lit faces, heart thumping, hand already extending in response to offered hands and a murmur of courtesies—and found himself face to face with Curran Reilly.

No hand offered there. Nothing offered. “Curran,” Allison said, “Helm 22 of Dublin, my number two. Captain Stevens of Lucy. But you’ll have met.”

“Yes,” Sandor said, the adrenalin hazing everything else; and in belated time, Curran Reilly took the hand he offered, a dry palm clenched about his sweating one. A grip that he expected, hard and unfriendly like the stare. And other hands, then, earlier offeree?. “Deirdre,” Allison said, “number three”—a freckled, solid woman, dark-haired like all the Reillys, but with a grin that went straight to the heart, punctured his anger and half made up for Curran. Happiness. He was not accustomed to cause that in people.

“Neill,” Allison said of the third, another offered hand; a lank and bearded man with an earnestness that persuaded him Curran was at least unique in the lot. “Neill,” he murmured in turn, looked at the others. The waiter hovered, offering chairs. They settled again, himself between Allison and Deirdre, facing Curran and Neill.

“Would you like cocktails?” the waiter asked.

“Drinks with dinner,” Allison said. “That’s all right with everyone?”

Nods all about. The waiter whisked forth a set of menus, and for a merciful time there was that amenity among them.

He was buying; he reckoned that. The prices were enough to chill the blood, but he nerved himself and ordered the best, maintained a smile when his guests did. It was, after all, one night, one time—an occasion. He could afford it, he persuaded himself. To please these people. To give them what they were accustomed to having. On their own money.

The waiter departed. A silence hung there. “Got everything in order?” Curran asked Allison finally.

“All settled.”

“Megan sends her regards.”

A silence. A glance downward. Sandor had no idea who Megan might be; no one offered to enlighten him. “I’ll talk to her,” Allison said. “It’s not good-bye, after all. Well be meeting on loops.”

“I think she understands,” Deirdre said. “My people—they know. They know why.”

“Everyone knows why,” Allison said. “It’s forgiving it.” She laid her hand briefly on Sander’s arm. “Ship politics.” To the others: “—We got the outfitting done. First class.”

“What kind of accommodations have we got?” Neill asked.

The adjoining table filled, with all attendant disorganization. Sandor sat and listened to Reillys talk among themselves, plans for packing, for farewells, discussion of what supplies they had kid in. “Private cabins and no dunnage limit?” Deirdre exclaimed, eyes alight. “I’d thought we might be tight”

“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 planned too.”

“Because I know this kind of economics, if you don’t. We’re not talking about dockside trading. We’re talking about running full and being where trade can build.”

“We get backing that way,” Deirdre said. “Eventually we schedule to catch Dublin’s Pell loop and funnel Sol goods into Union territory; and that’s big profit. Dublin’s not doing a total act of charity.”

“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 dinner was done, down to a fancy fruit dessert, when they had drunk as much as merchanters were apt to drink on liberty—they found things to laugh at, Dubliner anecdotes, tales on each other. He laughed and wiped his eyes, as he had not done in longer than he had forgotten.

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.”

“What’s the military doing in this?” Curran asked. “Those papers are clear.”

“I don’t know, sir,” the official said. “Answering ought to clear it up.”

The fear was back, familiar as an old suit of clothes. “I’d better get out there and take care of this,” Sandor said. “I don’t see there’s any reason for you to go.”

They walked out with him, that much at least, back out onto the dock facing the military ships… the schedule boards showed it plainly: NORWAY, the third berth down occupied now, conspicuously alight. He looked at the Dubliners, at worried faces and Curran’s scowl.

“Don’t know how long this may take,” he said. “Allison, maybe I’d better call you after I get back to the sleepover. Maybe you’d better go on back to Dublin”

“No,” Allison said. “If you don’t get out of there fairly soon, we’ll be calling some legal help. They don’t bluff us.”

That was some comfort. He looked at the rest of them, who showed no inclination to take any different course. Nodded then, thrust his hands into his pockets, crumpling the message in the right

He prepared arguments, countercharges, mustered the same indignation he had used on authorities before. It was all he knew how to do.

But it was hard to keep the bluff intact walking up to the lighted access of Norway, where uniformed troops—these were troops, far different from any stationside militia—took him in charge and searched him. They were rejuved, a great number of these men and women—old enough to have fought in the war, silver-haired and some of them marked with scars no stationsider would have had to wear. They were not rough with him in their searching, but they were more thorough than the police had been. They frightened him, the way that ship out there frightened him, behind that cheerful lighted access, a huge carrier bristling with armaments, a Company ship, from another age. They brought him toward the ramp that led up into the access. And standing in the accessway… Talley, grim and waiting for him.

He kept walking. So the man was part of this action. He was somehow not surprised. The Dubliners, he was thinking, ought to get back to their ship. The military would think twice about demanding that a merchanter family of the Reillys’ size give up some of its own to questioning. But alone, far from Dublin, they were vulnerable, unused to authorities who ran things as they pleased.

He encountered Talley, a bleak, pale-eyed stare from the Alliance officer, a nod in the direction he should go. So he had acquired a certain importance: a man with commander’s rank took him in personal charge and escorted him into the heart of this row-accessed monster. Dim corridors: a long walk to a wider area and a lift to the upper levels. He stared through Talley on the way up in the car. Conversation could do him no good. One never gave anything away. One always regretted it later.

A walk afterward down a narrower corridor—bare, dull metal everywhere, nothing so cheerful as Lucy’s white, age-scarred compartments. Coded identifications on the exposed lines, on the compartments. Everything was efficiency and no comfort. They reached the door of an office and got a come-ahead light: the door opened, and Talley brought him through.

“Captain,” Talley said, “Stevens of the merchanter Lucy.”

The silver-haired woman was already looking at him across her desk, already sizing him up. “Mallory,” she identified herself. “Sit down, Captain.”

He pulled the chair over and sat facing her across the desk, while Talley settled himself against the cabinet, arms folded. Mallory pushed her chair back from the desk and leaned back in it– rejuved, young/old, staring at him with dark eyes that said nothing back.

“You’re getting clearance to go out,” she said. “On the Venture run. I understand there’s some question about your ID, Captain.”

His wits deserted him. It was not the question. It was the source. One of the nine captains, one of the Mazianni from the war years, who had gotten supplies by boarding merchanters, by taking supplies and personnel. Who had killed. It might have been this one, those years ago, this ship that had locked onto Lucy and boarded. He might be that close to the captain who had ordered it, among troops who had been inside the armor, who had killed all his family. He had thought if he met one of them he would kill barehanded, and he found himself sitting still and staring back, paralyzed by the quiet, the tenor of the moment

“You don’t have any comment,” Mallory said.

“I thought it was settled.”

“Is there an irregularity, Captain?” Softly. Staring straight at him.

“Look, I just want the lock off my ship. I’ve got a cargo lined up, I’ve got everything else in order. Because some muddled-up merchanter mistakes my ship…”

“Let me see your papers, Captain.”

It took the breath out of his argument. He hesitated, off his mental balance, pulled them out of his pocket and leaned forward as she did, passing them into her extended hand across the desk, close, that close to touching. She leaned back easily, looked through them, lingered over them.

“But these are new,” she said. “Except for the title papers, of course.” She felt of the older paper, the title, itself false. “You know this kind of paper gets traded on the market. Has to get from one station to the other, after all; and across docks, and I know places where you can get it. Don’t you, Captain?”

“I’m legitimate.”

“So.” She passed the papers back to him, and he thrust them quickly back into his pocket, his fingers gone cold. “So. Linked up with Dublin Again, are you? A very respectable operation. That does say something for you. Unionsider.”

“I plan to operate here. On the Alliance side.”

“Oh, relations are very good with Union at the moment They’re supplying ships and troops all along the Line. We have no quarrel with Union origins. You plan to stay here, do you? Operate as Dublin’s pipeline out of the Sol trade?”

“I don’t know how things will work out.” He stepped slowly through the argument, aware of maneuvering on the other side, not understanding it. Mallory was not taken in. Was prodding at him, to find some provocation.

“Your certification comes through us,” she said. “We’ve got a problem, Captain. We’ve got Mazianni activity between us and Sol, into the Hinder Stars. Does that bother you?”

“It bothers me.”

“They’d like to cut us off, you understand. It’s a lot of territory to patrol. And they win, simply by scaring merchanters out of that run. We’ve got two stations coming back into operation, and we’re doing what we can to keep the zones clear. We’ll be out at the nullpoints, making sure you’re not ambushed there. We’ve got a rare agreement on the other side of the Line. Union’s sealing up Tripoint and Brady’s and any other point you can name.” The eyes shot up to lock on his, abrupt and invasive. “You play the shy side of legal, do you? Marginer. I’ll reckon you’re no stranger to the fringes. Lying off in space. Operating out of the nullpoints. Doing trading on the side, without customs looking on. I’ll bet you have a fine sense of what’s trouble and what’s not. A fine sense.”

He said nothing. Tried to think of an excuse to look away and failed in that too.

“Might stand you in good stead,” she said. “It’s a place out there—that makes raw nerves survival-positive. We’ll be there, Captain. I really want you to know that”

It was delivered very softly, with the same stare. It promised-he had no idea what.

“You can go,” she said. “You’ll find the obstacles clear. But I have news for you. Your Konstantin Company cargo is cancelled. You’ll be carrying military cargo. You’ll be paid hazard rate. An advantage. You’ll be taking it aboard in short order and undocking at 0900 mainday.”

“Like that?”

“Like that.”

“I thought—I was under military investigation.”

“You are,” she said. “Good evening, Captain.”

“Maybe I don’t want this. Maybe I want to change my mind.”

“Do you, Captain? I’d prefer not.”

The silence hung there. “All right,” he said. “You protect us, do you?”

“As best we can, Captain.”

Never Stevens. She never used the name. He stood up, nodded a reflexive courtesy. Not a response: dead eyes stared into him. He turned then and walked out, and Talley followed him into the corridor, hand-signaled a trooper who came down the corridor to walk him out.

Down the lift and out to the ramp again, the cold of the dock-side coming as a shock after the metal closeness of the warship. He walked down the slant past the guard that stood there, past uniformed troops and idle, hard-eyed stares… He reached the dockside and walked away, taking larger breaths the farther he got from the perimeter. He felt as if he had been picked up and shaken. Dropped hard.

He saw the Dubliners waiting for him, out by the lighted fronts of the offices. Allison and the others. He went toward them with the consciousness that the military might be watching his back, taking notes on his associations.

“What was it?” Allison asked. “Trouble?”

He shook his head and swept them up with a motion of his arms. “Come on. We’ve got our clearance. They’re going to load.”

“Like that?”

“Like that.” He looked at Curran as the five of them headed down the dock at a good pace. “The Konstantin cargo just got cancelled. We’ve been handed military stuff. Hazard rate. Immediate loading, undocking at 0900 mainday.”

“Military.” For once Curran was taken aback. “What, specifically?”

“No word on that. I talked with Mallory. The lock was hers. The cargo’s hers. I think she wants rumors spread, or she wouldn’t spill what she spilled.”

“Like what?”

“That Union’s occupying the nullpoints along the Line, hunting Mazianni, and Alliance is doing the same.”

“Lord, you’ve got to tell that to the Old Man.”

He walked along in a moment’s silence—that it took that much for them to suggest him and the Reilly talking face to face. They were scared. He saw that. Deirdre’s face had lost all its cheer, pale under its freckles. Allison’s—had a hard-eyed wariness like Curran’s. Neill just looked worried. “I’ll make a call from Lucy” Sandor said. “When I get clear and boarded.”

“They’re on a hunt?” Neill asked.

“I think I was told what she wants told in every bar on dock-side. And I don’t know what the percentage is.”

“She say anything else?” Curran asked.

“She knows about the deal. She talked about the profit there might be for a route from Sol into Union. Direct to the point. Said they’re going to be at the nullpoints of the Hinder Stars, keeping an eye on things.”

“For sure?” Allison said.

“I don’t trust anything I was told.—I know I want to be down there if they’re taking the security seal off the hatch. I want to see what they’ve had their fingers into on my ship.”

“We’re going to take a look and go straight back to Dublin? Allison said, “as soon as we’re sure we’ve got that lock open. Got some good-byes to say, all of us. If they’re going to load for a 0900 undock, then you can use some crew over there.”

“Could,” he agreed. “Could.”

He had help, he was thinking, an unaccustomed comfort. He had his Dubliners who were not leaving him at the first breath of trouble. He felt a curious warmth in that thought.

Legitimate, he kept reminding himself. With connections. Mallory could not touch him. Might not want to, wanting to keep on the good side of a powerful Unionside merchanter, with all its connections.

He tried to believe that

But he had looked Mallory in the eyes, and doubted everything.

Downers surrounded the lock, the barriers having been removed… Downers in the company of one idle dockworker, who rose from the side of the ramp and gave them all a looking at. “Business here?” the man asked.

“Stevens,” Sandor said. “Ship’s owner.”

The dockworker held out his hand. “Be happy to turn her over to you, sir, with ID. Otherwise I have to report”

It was insane, such bizarre security interwoven with the real threat of Alliance military. It was Pell, and they did things in strange ways. He took out his papers and showed them.

“He good?” a Downer asked, breather-masked and popping and hissing in the process. Round brown eyes looked at them, one Downer, a whole half-circle of Downers.

“Good paper,” the dockworker confirmed. “Thank you, sir. Good day to you, sir; or good night, whichever.”

And the dockworker collected his assortment of Downers, who bowed and bobbed courtesies in the departure, trooped off with shrill calls and motion very like dancing.

“Lord,” Allison said.

“Pell,” Sandor said. He turned, led the way up the ramp in deliberation, into the lighted access, with thoughts now only for his ship. He walked the tube passage, into the familiar lock. Home again. He kept going to the lift—five of them to fill the space, to make an unaccustomed crowd in the narrow corridors. The lift let them out on the main level, into the narrow bowed floor of the in-dock living quarters and the bridge; and he stood by the lift door and watched them walk about the little zone of curved deck that was accessible… silver-clad visitors come home to scarred Lucy, to pass their fingers over her aged surfaces, to touch the control banks and the cushions, to look this way and that up the inaccessible curve of her cabin space and storage corridors, wondering aloud about this and that point of her design. He was anxious in that scrutiny, watched their faces, their smallest reactions, more sensitive than if they had been looking him over.