four-day binge, a tendency to wince at noise. Allison folded her own arms and
disdained to lean against the wall, being unposted exec, and not general crew,
but her knees ached and her feet ached from walking, while she thought with
longing of her own soft bunk, in her quarters topside.
“Good night?” someone asked. She blinked placidly at another unposted who had
been with her in Tiger’s last night
“Yes,” she said, thinking about it for a moment, drew in a breath and favored
Curran with a thoughtful glance. “What happened to yourself?”
Curran grinned. That was all. The lift arrived, and seniors went on first; there
was room for the three of them, herself and Deirdre and Curran, and a jam of
others after that. The lift whisked them up to second level, and they lost the
juniors, who were bound for their own territory; it stopped again on main, and
they let the seniors off first, then followed through the corridor into the main
lounge, into the din of laughter and conversation in a room as big as most
station bars, curve-floored and with the float-based furniture now tilted out of
trim with the ship’s geometries. Posted crew and seniors gathered in the lounge
beyond, and Allison wove her way through the center standing area to the
archway, looked inside to find her mother, Megan, who was posted scan 24.
“I’m back, she hand-signed past the noise, the gathering in the two lounges.
Megan saw her and walked over, across the white line into the unposted lounge to
talk to her. “I worried,” Megan said.
“Huh. I’m not about to miss the bell. Have a good stay?”
“Got some new tapes.”
“Nothing else?”
Her mother grinned and went sober again, irrepressibly reached out and
straightened her collar. “The number ones are still in conference. We think
we’re going to get undocked on schedule. The military’s talking to the Old Man
now.”
“No question about clearance, is there?” She straightened her collar herself,
minor irritance. “I thought that was settled.”
“Something about some papers on the cargo. Trans-Line protocols. Viking
stationmaster is insisting we re-enter Union space via Viking; we make no
promises, and the military’s backing us on it. The bell’s going on schedule, I’m
betting.”
“I don’t see it’s Viking’s prerogative.”
“Balance of trade, they say. They’ll raise a fuss all the way to Council.”
She frowned—glanced about as a heavy hand came down on her shoulder; it was her
mother’s half-brother Geoff, dark-bearded, brows knit. “Allie,” her uncle said,
“you mind how you go on the docks.”
“He was safe,” Allison said.
“Huh,” Geoff said, and looked past her at Megan. “Mind this one, Meg. Did that
fellow ask questions, Allie? Did you answer any?”
“He wasn’t curious and no, nothing he couldn’t get by asking anywhere. I asked
the questions, Geoff, sir, and I was soberer than he was.”
“Stay to Names you know,” Megan said. “Nowadays particularly.”
“Ma’am,” Allison said under her breath. “Sir.” Drew breath and ducked past with
a pat on the shoulder as her half-sister Connie showed up to report in,
relieving her of more discussion. There was no great closeness between herself
and Connie, who was pregnant and occupied in that, whose study was archives and
statistics. “Lo, Connie,” and “Hello, Allie,” was all that passed between them.
Curran was closer, Geoff was, or Deirdre, but Megan loved freckled Connie, so
that was well enough with Allison who moderately liked her, at the distance of
their separate lives. “Hello,” she said to Eilis, who made a touch at her as she
passed through the crowd; and “Ma’am” to her grandmother Allison, who on rejuv
was silver-haired, sterile, and looked no more than forty (she was sixty-two).
And there was greatgrand Mina, Scan 2, who also looked forty, and was twice
that—seated crew, Mina, who was back in unposted territory talking to Ma’am
herself, who was sitting down on one of the benches—Ma’am with a capital M, that
was Colleen, whose rejuv was fading and who had gone dry and thin and wrinkled,
but who still got about in the lounges during maneuvers despite brittle bones
and stiffening joints. Ma’am was the point at which she was related to Curran