walking through the section arch to green. “Big ships take care of themselves,
but small ships have worries. I really need those goods.”
Continued silence. Finally: “You hear anything down the line?” the man asked.
“Nothing solid. Mazianni hitting ships—Hang, what can I do? I don’t have the
kind of margin I can take out and not haul for months like some others might do.
I don’t have it. Little ships like me, combine forgets about us when trouble
hits on that scale. WSC is stationer-run, and they’re going to say haul, come
what may. And some of their big haulers are going to hide out while the likes of
me gets caught in the middle. But who’ll keep the stations going? Marginers and
independents and the like. I’d really like those frozen goods.”
“Cost you extra.”
“No way. You stung me for the two. I do it again and I get closer and closer to
a company audit, man. You think two thousand’s nothing? In an account my size
it’s something.”
“You think your combine’s pulling you out of here?”
“Don’t know what they’re going to do.”
“Running under-the-table courier, it sounds like they want you out of here.”
“I don’t know.”
Silence again. “Bet they’re not going to check that account too closely. Bet
they’ll be more than glad to get their ships herded in to safer zones if there’s
action around here. They’re realists. They know their ships have got to protect
themselves. In all senses. You know the gold market?”
His pulse sped. “I know I’m not licensed to transport.” Times like these, value
goes up. The less on a station, value goes up. A lot of merchanters like to
carry a little in pocket”
“I can’t do that kind of thing. WSC’d have my head.”
“Get you, say, some oddments. Little stuff. You put fourteen more with that
extra thousand, and I know a dealer can get you station standard price plus
fifteen percent, good rate for a merchanter, same as the big ships get.”
The station air hit his face with a sickly chill, touching perspiration. “You
know you’re talking about felony. That’s not skimming. That’s theft”
“How worried are you? If your combine pulls you out, if it gets hot, maybe it’s
going to cost you heavy. As long as you put it in again where you’re going,
you’re covered, and you can pocket the increase it’s made.”
“Won’t increase that much, going away from the trouble.”
“Oh, it will. It always does. It’s the smart thing. Always good on stations.
Can’t be traced. Buys you all kinds of things. And if there’s any kind of
trouble—it goes up.”
He swallowed the knot in his throat. “Right. Well, you get me that check and
I’ll do it, but I don’t handle it at any stage.”
“It’ll cost you another thousand on all that deal: my risk.”
“If I’m first on the docking schedule and those goods get aboard while I’m
filling.”
“No problem.”
He was loaded in two hours, signed, cleared, and belted in, undocking from
Viking with a gentle puff of Lucy’s bow vents, which eased him back and back and
tended to a little pitch. He let the accustomed pitch increase, which was a
misaimed jet, but he knew Lucy and had never fixed it. The pitch always set her
for an axis roll and a little aft venting sent her over and out still within her
given lane, because she was small and could pull maneuvers like that, which were
usually for the military ships. He never showed more flash than that in a
station’s vicinity. He had more potential attention than he wanted. He had
committed felony theft, faked papers, faked IDs, had unlicensed cargo aboard,
and it was time to change Lucy’s name again—if he had had the time.
He put on aft vid and saw Dublin Again, had gone right past her, that silver,
beautiful ship all aglow with her own running lights and the station’s floods,
in station shadow, so that she shone like a jewel among the others. Not so far
away, a Union dartship stood off from dock, dull-surfaced and ominous, with
vanes conspicuously larger than any merchanter afforded. It watched, its frame