Cherryh, CJ – Merchanters Luck

Relinquishing things this way, he was in command of all of them… and Allison

Reilly had failed another prediction. He sensed her anger at him; and Curran’s

hate; and the perplexity of the rest—smiled a trank-dulled smile as they flashed

toward their departure—

“Five minutes,” he said, on mark. Allison gave him another look, as if to judge

his sanity, diverted her attention back to the board.

The seconds ticked off. His Dubliners, he thought. Possibly they would begin it

all again where they were going. Maybe they would do more than they had already

done. In one part of his soul he was cold afraid. But he was always afraid. He

was used to that. He knew how to adjust to things he was afraid of, which was to

grin and bluff—and he had that faculty back again.

“Minus forty-five seconds.”

“All stable,” Curran said.

“We’re going,” Allison said, and that was that: she had uncapped the switches.

(Ross… it’s not me this time. But she knows what she’s doing. In most things.

Let’s go, then. The first time—without my help. She’s good, Ross… they all are.

And I don’t know where we go from here. They don’t know either. I’m sure of

that. And I think they’re scared of what I’ll make them be…)

The vanes cycled in, Lucy tracking on the star that gave them bearings, and they

went—

—in again, a pulse down that made itself felt all along the nerves…

And no need to move, no need: Allison was there, giving orders, doing everything

that ought to be done. “Dump,” she ordered: comp, on silent, was blinking alarm.

Sandor performed the operation, neat pulses which slipped them in and out of

here and now, loaded as they were, shedding velocity into the interface, while

the dark mass lent them its gravitation, pockmark in spacetime sufficient to

hold them… friendly, dangerous point of mass…

They made it in, making more speed than they had used at the last point…

Allison’s choice. “Will she handle it?” she asked on that account.

“Ought to,” Sandor said. “In a hurry, Reilly?”

No answer.

“It’s lonely here,” Curran said. “Not a stir anywhere.”

“Lonelier than the average,” Allison said. “Didn’t they say they were monitoring

all the points?”

No answer from any quarter. Sandor took the water bottle from beside the

console, took a drink and set it back again. He unbelted.

“Going back to my quarters,” he said. “Good luck with her, Reilly.”

“Alterday watch to controls,” Allison said. “Change off at one hour.”

Maybe there was something she wanted to say. Maybe—he thought, in a moment of

hope—she had come to her senses. But there was nothing but fatigue in her face

when she had gotten up from controls. Fatigue and a flushed exhilaration he

understood. So she had gotten the ship through: that was something to her, He

had forgotten the peculiar terror of a novice; had taken Lucy into jump for the

first time when he was fourteen. Then he had been scared. And many a time since

then.

He walked to his quarters without looking back at her and Curran and the others,

solitary… back to the museum that was his cabin, and to the silence. He closed

the door, keyed in on comp with the volume very low.

“Hello, Sandy,” it said. That was all he wanted to hear. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he said back to the voice. “Still alive, Ross.”

“What do you need, Sandy?”

He cut the comp off, on again. “Hello, Sandy. How are you?”

He cut it off a second time, because while they could not access the room

channels from the bridge without the keys, someone would see the activity. He

stood there treasuring the sound, empty as it was. He could get one of the

instruction sequences going, and have the voice for hours—he missed that But

they would grow alarmed. His quarantine gave him this much of Ross back; in that

much he treasured his solitude.

He showered, wrapped himself in his robe, went out to the galley—found Allison

and Curran, still dressed, standing waiting for the oven he wanted to use. He

stopped, set himself against the wall, a casual leaning, hands in pockets of the

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