insystem haulers and miners. In that sense at least, Lucy and Dublin were on the
same scale.
“Where are you based, then?” she asked, either mercy-killing the silence or
being sensibly cautious in her barside contacts. “Here?”
“Wyatt’s,” he said. The barkeeper returned with two drinks and hesitated, giving
him the kind of look which said he would like to see a credit chit if it were
him alone, but the barman slid a thoughtful eye over the shamrock patch and
moved off in silence. Sandor took both glasses and pushed the one toward A.
Reilly, who was on the last of her first.
“Thanks,” she said. He limited his swallow to less than he wanted, hoping to
make it last, and to slow her down, because they laid down more in tips in this
place than he spent on meals.
And desperately he tried to think of some casual question to ask of her in
return. He could not, because everyone knew where Dublin was based and asking
more sounded like snoopery, from someone like himself.
“You in for long?” she asked.
Three days.” He pounced on the question with relief. “Going to fill the tanks
and take on cargo. Going on to Fargone from here. I don’t have a big ship, but
she’s mine, free and clear. I’m getting a little ahead these days. Trying to
take on crew here.”
“Oh.” A small, flat oh. It was apprehension what class he was.
“I’m legitimate. I just had some bad luck up till now. You don’t know of any
honest longjumpers beached here, do you?”
She shook her head, still with that look in her eyes, wary of her uninvited
drinking partner. Sometimes such uncrewed ships and such approaches by strangers
in bars meant pirate spies; and even huge Dublin had them to fear. He saw it
building, foresaw an appeal to authorities who would jump fast when a Dubliner
yelled hazard. There were fleet officers drinking at a nearby table. Security
was heavy out on the docks, with rumors of an operation against the pirates; but
others said it had to do with Pell, or inter zone disputes, or they were
checking smuggling. He smiled desperately.
“Pirates,” he said. “Long time back… My family’s all dead; and my hired crew ran
on me and near robbed me blind, one time and the other. You know what you can
hire off the docks. It’s not safe. But I haven’t got a choice.”
“Oh,” she said, but it was a better oh than the last, indeterminate. A frown
edged with sympathy, and hazardous curiosity. “No, I don’t know. Sometimes we
get people wanting to sign on as temporaries, but we don’t take them, and we
haven’t had any at Viking that I’ve heard of. Sony. If station registry doesn’t
list them—
“I wouldn’t take locals,” he said, and then tried the truth. “No, I would, if it
got me out on schedule. Anyway, Lucy’s mine, and I was out hunting prospects,
not—”
“You rate me a prospect?”
She was laughing at him. That was at least better than suspicion. He grinned,
swallowing his pride. “I couldn’t persuade you, could I?”
She laughed outright and his heart beat the harder, because he knew what game
she was playing at the moment. It was merchanters’ oldest game of all but trade
itself, and the fact that she joined the maneuvering in good humor brought him a
sweating flush of hope. He took a second sip of the forgotten glass and she took
a healthy drain on her second. “Lost your crew here?” she asked. “You can’t have
gotten in alone.”
“Yes. Lost him here. He’d been in hospital; he hired on for passage, and caught
his ship here, so that was it.” He drank and watched in dismay as she waved at
someone she knew, an inconspicuous wave at a dark-bearded man who drifted in
from the doorway and lingered a moment beside them.
“All right?” that one asked.
“All right,” she said. He was another Dubliner, older, grim. The shamrock and
stars were plain on his sleeve, and he carried a collar stripe. Sandor sat still
under that dark-eyed, unloving scrutiny, his face tautened in what was not quite