a smile. The older man lingered, just long enough to warn; and walked on out the
door.
Sandor stared after him, turned slightly in his seat to do so, still
ruffled—turned back again with the feeling that A. Reilly would be amused at his
discomfiture. She was.
She took the second drink down a third. Her cheeks were looking flushed. “What
kind of hauling is your Lucy? General?”
“Very.”
“You don’t ask many questions.”
‘What does the A. stand for?”
“Allison. What’s the E.?”
“Edward.”
“Not Ed.”
“Ed, if you like.”
“Captain.”
“And crew.”
She seemed amused, finished the drink and tapped a long, peach-lacquered
fingernail against the glass, making a gentle ringing. The barkeeper showed up.
I’ll stay with the same,” she said, and when he left, looked up with a tilt of
her head at Sandor. “I mixed that and wine on Cyteen once and nearly missed my
ship.”
“They don’t taste strong,” he said, and with a sinking heart cast a glance at
the bartender who was mixing up another small glass of expensive froth… and
second one for him, which was a foul trick, and one they could pull in a place
like this.
“Love them,” she said when the bartender came back and set both down. She picked
up hers and sipped. “A local delicacy, just on Viking and Pell. You come all the
way from Wyatt’s, do you? That’s quite a distance for a smallish ship. What
combine is that? I didn’t hear you say.”
“WSC.” He was close to panic, what with the bill and the questions which were
hitting into areas he wanted left alone. Misery churned in his stomach which the
frothy drink did nothing to comfort. “I run margin, wherever there’s room for a
carrier. I’m close to independent. But Dublin fairly well runs her own combine,
doesn’t she? You go the whole circle. That’s independent.” He talked nonsense,
to drag the question back to Dublin, back to her, staring into her eyes and
suspecting that all this was at his expense, that some kind of high sign had
just been passed between her and her bearded kinsman who had strayed through the
door and out again. Possibly someone was waiting outside to start trouble. Or
she was going to have her amusement as far as frustrated him and walk off,
leaving him the bill. He was soberer after this one more drink than he had been
when he came in here, excepting a certain numbness in his fingers, and while she
looked no less beautiful, his desire was cooled by that sobriety, and by a
certain wry amusement which persisted in her expression. He put on a good face,
as he would do with a curious customs agent or a dock-side dealer who meant to
bluff his price down. He grinned and she smiled. “None of the chatter means
anything to you,” he said. “What questions am I supposed to ask?”
“You buy me a drink,” she said, and set hers down, half-finished. “You don’t buy
anything else, of course, being wiser than some stationers I know, who don’t
know how far their money goes. Thank you, Stevens. I did enjoy it. Good luck to
you, finding crew.”
The bartender, operating on his own keen reflexes, was headed his way in a
hurry, seeing who was leaving and who was being left to pay. Sandor saw that
with his own tail-of-the-eye watch for trouble, felt in his pocket desperately
and threw down what he had as Allison Reilly headed for the door and the lighted
dock. He was off the stool and almost with her when the voice rang out: “You!
You there, that’s short.”
Sandor stopped, frozen by that voice, when in another place he might have dodged
out, when in ordinary sanity he would not be in that situation. The military
officers had looked up from their drinking. Others had. He felt theatrically of
his pocket. “I gave you a twenty, sir.”
The bartender scowled and held out the palm with the chits. “Not a twenty. Demis
and a ten.”
Sandor assumed outrage, stalked back and looked, put on chagrin. “I do beg
pardon, sir. I was shorted myself, then, next door, because I should have had a