“What’s he running around there, with a sector frozen down? Contraband, you
reckon?”
“I don’t know.—Curran, have you tried the doors on the cabins —the other cabins?
Something terrible happened on this ship. I don’t know when and I don’t know
what. Hit by the Mazianni, he says; but this—The loft is frozen; the cabins
left—you know how they were left… there’s a slept-in bed around there, frozen
down.”
“I tell you this,” Curran said in the faintest of whispers, “I don’t sleep
well—in that cabin. Maybe he’s worried for himself— about us doing to him what
occurs to him to do to us. I don’t like it, Allie. Most of all I don’t like that
comp being locked up. That’s dangerous. And you know why he got us out of there…
not to look over his shoulder while he works, that’s what. I wouldn’t put it
past him, spying on us. Or murder, if it came to it”
“No,” she said, a shake of her head. “I don’t think that I never have.”
“You ever been wrong, Allie?”
“Not in this.”
He frowned, a look up from under his brows. “Maybe the record’s still good. And
maybe we go on like this and we have a run-in with the military—what’s he going
to do, Allie? Which way is he going to jump? I don’t like it.”
“He’s strung out I know it. I know it’s not right.”
“Allie—” He reached out, touched her shoulder, cousin for the moment and not
number two. “Man and woman—he thinks one way with you and maybe he thinks he can
get around you; but you let me talk it out with him and I’ll straighten it out.
And I’ll get those comp keys. No question of it.”
“I don’t want that”
“You don’t want it, I don’t want it. But we’re in trouble, if you haven’t
noticed. That man’s off the brink and he’s going farther. I propose we have it
out with him… we. Me. No chaff with me. He knows that. You just stay low, stay
out of it, go to your cabin and we’ll put the fear in him.”
“No.”
“You think of something that makes as good sense? You going to ask him and he’ll
come over? I’ll figure you tried that.”
She bit at her lip, looked up the corridor, where Neill and Deirdre came down
the horizon. “Sorry,” Neill said again; and Deirdre: “Who’s minding the ship?”
“He is.—What was it, around there?”
“Loft,” Deirdre said. She clenched her arms about her. “A mess —things ripped
loose—panels askew—didn’t see all of it, just from the section door. Dark in
there.—Allie…”
“I know,” she said. “I figured what was in there,” She thrust her hands into her
pockets, started back.
“Where are you going?” Curran asked.
“To my cabin.” She looked back, straight at Curran, straight in the eyes. “I’m
off. It’s your shift. Maybe you’d better get back to the bridge. I’ll be there—a
while.”
Chapter XIII
Lucy had gotten along, running stable under auto: Sandor shut down comp and
stared a moment at scan, numb, the dread of the warship diminished now. It was
not going to jump with them: had no capacity to do that. Mallory herself was
sitting still, watching— he could not imagine that much patience among the
things they told of Mallory. He did not believe it: she was waiting for
something, but it had nothing to do with him. He began to hope that she just
wanted them out of her way.
And if it was other Mazianni she was hunting—if she expected other traffic. He
got up, looked once and bleakly at the couch he had quit. There was a little
time left in mainnight. But the effort to sleep was a struggle hardly worth it,
lying there awake for most of the time, to sleep a few minutes and wake again.
He had done that all the night. Nervousness. And no chance of banking out. Not
as things were.
He headed for the shower, trusting the autopilot—a scandal to the Dubliners: he
imagined that. They wore themselves out sitting watch and he walked off and left
it. There were things that wanted doing—scrubbing and swabbing all over the