and shut down. Most of the work they did now besides monitor was connected to
the cargo facility and to the com links with station. The Old Man had taken his
seat in his chair among the rows and rows of dormant instruments and controls,
with the few on-duty crew working in the far distance forward on the huge
bridge. She went up to that post like a petitioner going to the throne, that
great gimballed black chair in the pit which oversaw anything the captain wanted
to look at Anywhere. Instantly.
“Sir,” she said.
The Old Man stared at her—white-haired and powerful and young/old with rejuv
that took away more hope than it gave… for the ambitious young.
“Allison.” Not Allie; Allison. She was always that with him. He rested his
elbows on the arms of the chair and locked his hands on his middle. “You’ll be
interested to know that it’s all stalled off. Dancer’s the ship that made the
complaint. I’ve talked to their Old Lady. Says she doesn’t have anything
personal involved, and there hasn’t been word of other witnesses. I take it
you’re still set on this.”
“Yes, sir.” Soft and careful. “By your leave, sir.”
He stared at her with that humorless and unflappable calm that came of being
what he was. “Sit down. Let’s talk about this.”
She had never sat in the Old Man’s presence, not called in like this. She looked
nervously to her left, where a small black cushion edged the main vid console,
there for that purpose. She settled, hands on her knees, eye to eye with Michael
Reilly.
“Applying to take a tour off Dublin,” the Old Man said. “Applying for finance
into the bargain. Let me see if I can quote your application: ‘a foot in Pell’s
doorway, a legitimate Alliance operation… outweighing other disadvantages.’ You
know where the sequence of command falls, 21, if we buy into another ship. Could
that possibly have occurred to you?”
“I know that council could have voted it down, and Second Helm approved.”
“If I thought you were the mooncalf dockside paints you, I’d give you the
standard lecture, how a transfer is a major step, how strange it can be, on
another ship, away from everything you know, taking orders from another command
and coping with being different in a crew that—however friendly—isn’t yours. But
no. I know what you’re in love with. I know what you’re doing. And I’m not sure
you do.”
“There’s worse can happen to him than Dublin’s backing.”
“Is there? You look at your own soul, Allison Reilly, and you tell me what you’d
do and what you’re buying into. You come making requests we should throw our
Name behind a ne’er-do-well marginer, we should stop a complaint an honest ship
has filed —all of that. And I’ll remind you of something you’ve heard all your
life. That every Dubliner is born with one free judgment call. Always… just one.
Once, you’ve got the right to yell trouble on the docks and have the Old Man
blow the siren and bring down every mother’s son and daughter of us. And every
time you do it right, that buys you only one more guaranteed judgment call. No
Dubliner I can think of has taken much more on himself than you. You know that?”
“I know that, sir.”
“And you apply to keep your status.”
To guarantee the loan, sir, begging your pardon.”
“Not so pure, 21.”
“Not altogether, no, sir.”
“You’re jumping over the line of succession; you’re ignoring the claims your
seniors might make ahead of you, if we bought that ship outright. Alterday
command right off, isn’t it, and not waiting the rest of your life without
posting. It’s a maneuver and every one of us knows it It’s a bald-faced
conniving maneuver that oversets those with more right, and you’re doing it on a
technicality. And how do I answer that?”
Her heart was beating more than fast, and heat flooded her face. “I’d say they
voted and passed it, sir. I’d say they have the same chance I’m taking, and
there’s dozens more marginers like Lucy. Maybe they don’t want to take that kind