Cherryh, CJ – Merchanters Luck

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.”

She shrugged, passing off the wounds, the deaths onstation. “You bettered your

rate by a few hours… didn’t you?”

He thought back then, through the fog of realtime—the haste they had used

through the second jump, Allison in command and mutiny on the bridge. The anger

went out of him. “Maybe we did,” he said.

“We were on time, absolutely.—But you managed well enough. —Tell me… did you

tell them where to find me?”

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