bristling with armaments and receptors. Viking’s sullen star swung behind it as
he moved, silhouetting it in bleeding fire, and he lost sight of Dublin in the
glare—shut vid down, listening to station central’s ordinary voice giving him
his clear heading for the outgoing jump range, for a supposed jump for Voyager
Station.
Chapter II
It was no small job, to clear Dublin Again for undock. Gathering and accounting
for the crew was an undertaking in itself: 1,082 lives were registered to
Dublin, of which the vast majority were scattered out over the docks on liberty,
and most of those had been gone for four days, in one and the other sleepover
around the vast torus of Viking, not alone on green dock, but spread through
every docking section but blue and the industrial core. They knew their time and
they came in, to log their time at whatever job wanted doing, if there was a job
handy—to shove their ID tags into the slot when they were ready for absolute and
irrevocable boarding, passing that green line on the airlock floor and walls,
that let them know they were logged on and would be left without search or
sympathy if they recrossed that line without leave of the watch officer.
One hundred forty-six Dubliners were entitled to wear the green stars of
executive crew; of that number, 76 wore the collar stripe of senior, seated
crew, mainday and alterday. Four wore the captain’s circle, one for each of four
duty shifts; 24, at one level and the other, were entitled to sit the chair in
theory, or to take other bridge posts. And 16 were retired from that slot, who
had experience, if not the physical ability; they advised, and sat in executive
council. It took seven working posts at com to run Dublin in some operations, at
any one moment; eight posts at scan, with four more at the op board that
monitored cargo status. Twenty-five techs and as many cargo specialists on a
watch kept things in order; and with all told, posted crew and backup personnel,
that was 446 who wore the insignia of working crew; and 279 unposted, who
trained and waited and worked as they could. There were the retired: over 200 of
them, whose rejuv had given out and whose health faded, some of whom still went
out on dockside and some of whom took to their quarters or to sickbay and
expected to die when jump stress put too great a burden on them. There were the
children, nearly 200 under the age of twenty, 120 of whom had duties and took
liberty when Dublin docked, and 40 of those on the same privilege as the crew,
to sleepover where they chose.
And at mainday 1550 hours, Dublin’s strayed sons and daughters headed aboard
like a silver-clad flood, past the hiss and clank of loading canisters. Some of
them had had a call for 1400, and some for 1200, those in charge of cargo. All
the Reillys—they were all Reillys, all 1,082 of them, excepting Henny Magen and
Liz Tyler, who were married aboard from other ships (everyone forgot their alien
names and called them Reillys by habit, making no distinction)—all the Reillys
were headed in, out of the gaudy lighted bars and glittering shops and
sleepovers, carrying purchases and packages and in many cases lingering for a
demonstrative farewell to some liberty’s-love on the verge of Dublin’s
clear-zone. No customs checked them off the station: they came as they liked,
and Allison Reilly walked up the ramp and through the yellow, chill gullet of
the access tube to the lock, carrying two bottles of Cyteen’s best, a collection
of microfiches, two pair of socks, a deep-study tape, and six tubes of hand
lotion—not a good place to shop, Viking, which was mostly mining and
shipbuilding: there was freight and duty on all of it but the microfiches and
the tape, but they were headed Over the Line into Alliance territory, and most
everyone was buying something, in the thought that goods in that foreign
territory might be different, or harder come by, and there was a general rush to
pick up this and that item. She needed the socks and she liked the particular