military might be watching his back, taking notes on his associations.
“What was it?” Allison asked. “Trouble?”
He shook his head and swept them up with a motion of his arms. “Come on. We’ve
got our clearance. They’re going to load.”
“Like that?”
“Like that.” He looked at Curran as the five of them headed down the dock at a
good pace. “The Konstantin cargo just got cancelled. We’ve been handed military
stuff. Hazard rate. Immediate loading, undocking at 0900 mainday.”
“Military.” For once Curran was taken aback. “What, specifically?”
“No word on that. I talked with Mallory. The lock was hers. The cargo’s hers. I
think she wants rumors spread, or she wouldn’t spill what she spilled.”
“Like what?”
“That Union’s occupying the nullpoints along the Line, hunting Mazianni, and
Alliance is doing the same.”
“Lord, you’ve got to tell that to the Old Man.”
He walked along in a moment’s silence—that it took that much for them to suggest
him and the Reilly talking face to face. They were scared. He saw that.
Deirdre’s face had lost all its cheer, pale under its freckles. Allison’s—had a
hard-eyed wariness like Curran’s. Neill just looked worried. “I’ll make a call
from Lucy” Sandor said. “When I get clear and boarded.”
“They’re on a hunt?” Neill asked.
“I think I was told what she wants told in every bar on dock-side. And I don’t
know what the percentage is.”
“She say anything else?” Curran asked.
“She knows about the deal. She talked about the profit there might be for a
route from Sol into Union. Direct to the point. Said they’re going to be at the
nullpoints of the Hinder Stars, keeping an eye on things.”
“For sure?” Allison said.
“I don’t trust anything I was told.—I know I want to be down there if they’re
taking the security seal off the hatch. I want to see what they’ve had their
fingers into on my ship.”
“We’re going to take a look and go straight back to Dublin? Allison said, “as
soon as we’re sure we’ve got that lock open. Got some good-byes to say, all of
us. If they’re going to load for a 0900 undock, then you can use some crew over
there.”
“Could,” he agreed. “Could.”
He had help, he was thinking, an unaccustomed comfort. He had his Dubliners who
were not leaving him at the first breath of trouble. He felt a curious warmth in
that thought.
Legitimate, he kept reminding himself. With connections. Mallory could not touch
him. Might not want to, wanting to keep on the good side of a powerful Unionside
merchanter, with all its connections.
He tried to believe that
But he had looked Mallory in the eyes, and doubted everything.
Downers surrounded the lock, the barriers having been removed… Downers in the
company of one idle dockworker, who rose from the side of the ramp and gave them
all a looking at. “Business here?” the man asked.
“Stevens,” Sandor said. “Ship’s owner.”
The dockworker held out his hand. “Be happy to turn her over to you, sir, with
ID. Otherwise I have to report”
It was insane, such bizarre security interwoven with the real threat of Alliance
military. It was Pell, and they did things in strange ways. He took out his
papers and showed them.
“He good?” a Downer asked, breather-masked and popping and hissing in the
process. Round brown eyes looked at them, one Downer, a whole half-circle of
Downers.
“Good paper,” the dockworker confirmed. “Thank you, sir. Good day to you, sir;
or good night, whichever.”
And the dockworker collected his assortment of Downers, who bowed and bobbed
courtesies in the departure, trooped off with shrill calls and motion very like
dancing.
“Lord,” Allison said.
“Pell,” Sandor said. He turned, led the way up the ramp in deliberation, into
the lighted access, with thoughts now only for his ship. He walked the tube
passage, into the familiar lock. Home again. He kept going to the lift—five of
them to fill the space, to make an unaccustomed crowd in the narrow corridors.
The lift let them out on the main level, into the narrow bowed floor of the
in-dock living quarters and the bridge; and he stood by the lift door and