silent, sullen—was Mazianni in all but name. He got a lock on the reference
star, saw the figures come up congruent, fed them in and sent the information
over to Allison’s console.
“Got it clear,” Allison said. “Still want me to take it, or do you want to hold
it?”
He caught his breath, sent a desperate look over all the board in front of him.
Vid showed them nothing but stars; other sensors showed the G well itself, the
mass, the heat of an almost-star that was the nullpoint. And the pockmark that
was Norway. A situation. A raw Dubliner recruit asking for the board, maybe not
particularly anxious to have control at the moment. He shunted things over to
the number two board. “She’s yours.” His voice was hoarse. He pretended
nonchalance, let go the restraints, reached for the water bottle and drank.
“Here.”
Allison looked aside, a distracted flick of her eyes, took the bottle and drank
a gulp, passed it back. He slipped it back into the brace and hauled his way out
of the cushion.
Looked back again, toward the screens, with a tightness about his throat.
Norway. And Mallory was saying nothing. The presence did not surprise him.
Somehow the foreboding silence did not either.
“Mainday shift,” he said, “let alterday have it.”
“Sir,” Neill muttered, the first courtesy of that kind he had gotten out of
them. Natural as breathing from a Dubliner on a bridge. Spit and polish, and he
finally got it out of them. Neill stirred out of his place.
“Got another one,” Deirdre said suddenly. “Got another ship out there.”
Sandor crossed the deck to his chair in a stride and a half, flung himself into
it.
“ID as Alliance ridership Thor” Deirdre said. “Coming out of occultation with
the mass.”
“One of Mallory’s riders,” Allison muttered.
“If they’ve got the riders deployed—” Neill said, back at his own post.
No one made any further surmises.
“Second signal,” Deirdre said. ‘The ID is ridership Odin.”
“Deployed before we dropped in here,” Sandor said.
“What do you know about it?” Curran asked.
“Sir,” Sandor said.
Curran turned his head. “From back at Pell, sir—did you expect this? What was it
Mallory said?”
“That she’s watching the nullpoint. I’m not at all surprised she’s here. Or that
she’s not talking. What would you expect? A good morning?”
“Lord help us,” Allison muttered. “And what kind of cargo have they handed us,
that we get Mallory for a nursemaid?”
“I don’t ask questions.”
“Maybe we should have,” Curran said. “Maybe we should get ourselves a couple of
those canisters open.”
“I’m reckoning you’d find chemicals and station goods,” Sandor said. “I’d even
bet it’s Konstantin Company cargo, the same as we would have gotten. I don’t
think that’s what Mallory’s interested in at all. I think we’re being prodded
at.”
“Because they’re still breathing down your neck: that’s what we’ve
inherited—your own record with them. It’s some kind of trap, something we’ve
walked into—”
“You applied for Venture routing, Mr. Reilly. Dublin handed a marginer a half a
million, stifled an inquiry, and headed us for Pell’s most sensitive underside.
A Unionsider. Put it together. Union and Alliance may be at peace, but Mallory’s
got old habits. Maybe you’d better think like a marginer, after all. Maybe you’d
better start figuring angles, because they have them in offices, the same as
dockside. And the powers that be on Unionside had them, when they got
cooperative and wanted Dublin this side of the Line. But maybe you’d know that.
Or maybe you should have sat down and figured it”
“If you’ve got it figured, then say it. Let the rest of us in on it”
“Not me. I don’t know. But we’re not making any noise we don’t have to. We
tiptoe through this point and get that cargo to-”
“Moving,” Deirdre said. “Thor’s moving on intercept”
Sandor dived for the board, a sweat broken out on his sides, sickly cold on his
face. He stopped his hand short of the controls, clenched it there in the
reckoning that there was nothing they could do… No arms the equal of that; no
ability to run, loaded as they were.