Cherryh, CJ – Merchanters Luck

“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 conned.

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 Mazianni remained holding stationer hostages. The same troops

had found him holding Curran, trying to keep him from bleeding to death, which

was how he had spent the battle for Venture Station, crouched down in a small

spot and confused about who was fighting whom. The gratitude embarrassed him,

but it was better than admitting what he really was, and fighting a silent war

across the space between cots, so he took it with appropriate modesty.

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

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