black market—there was always that. Change the name and number out at Tripoint,
trade black market at the nullpoints and hope no one cut his throat. Buy another
set of forged papers. If he could get out with money; and if… a thousand things.
His mind began to work again more clearly, with Allison Reilly set behind him.
With bleak realities plain on the table.
He looked back. She was there, at the door of the sleepover, just watching. A
craziness had come on him for a time. Self-destructive: she was right. On the
one hand he wanted to survive; and on the other he was tired of trying, and it
was harder and harder to think his way through the maze… even to recall what
lies he had told and how they meshed.
There were troops here too. He saw them… a jolt. Not the green or the black of
Union forces, but blue. Alliance militia. He recalled the buildup at Viking and
the rumors of pirate-hunting and had a presentiment of times changing, of
loopholes within which it had been possible for marginers to survive—being
tightened, suddenly, and with finality.
He had a record at every station in Union now; and soon a record with the
Alliance; and he was almost out of places.
“What happened?” Curran asked, joining her in the shadow of the sleepover
doorway, and Allison frowned at the intrusion. “Been there,” Curran said with a
nod toward the bar next door. “Some of us had a little concern for it… hung
around. In case. What’s he up to? You know the Old Man’s going to ask.”
“He’s going back to his ship. I’m afraid it’s a case of misplaced assumptions.
We’re quits.”
“Allie, they’ve got a guard out there.”
She straightened, dropped her arms from their fold. “What guard?”
“On his ship. That’s what’s had us upset. We weren’t about to break in on you,
but we’ve sure been thinking. That’s military, that.”
She hissed between her teeth, “More than customs seal?”
“More than customs. They say one of Mallory’s officers is on station.”
“I heard that.”
“Allie, if they haul him in, is there anything he can say he shouldn’t?”
“No.” She turned a scowl on her cousin, sharp and quick. “Are you making
assumptions, Currie me lad? Don’t Allie me.”
“When our watch senior sleeps over with a man the militia’s got their name on…
we come asking questions. Third Helm has a stake here.”
“You don’t oversee me.”
“That’s thanks.—We’ve backed you. Get back to the ship. We’re asking. Now.”
She said nothing. Followed the distant figure with her eyes. There was not so
much traffic now as mainday. A new set of residents had come out to work and
trade in the second half of Pell’s nevernight—more industrial traffic than in
mainday; passersby wore coveralls more than suits, and traffic on the docks was
heavy moving, big mobile sleds hauling canisters, whining their way along
through a straggle of partying merchanters.
And troops.
And others. Pell orbited a living world. Natives worked on the station, small
and furtive, wearing breather-masks that hissed when they breathed. They were
brown-furred and primate… moved softly on callused bare feet. And watched, two
of them perched on the canisters stacked nearest Lucy’s dock. She made out
another of them near the security rail. They moved suddenly, took themselves
elsewhere, a vanishing of shadows.
She shook her head slowly, took Curran by the arm and saw the rest of her watch
standing by, Deirdre and Neill. “Back,” she said.
“He got a gun?”
“No,” she said. “That, I know for sure. But we’ve no need to be bystanders, do
we?”
Chapter VI
The customs seal was still in effect, Lucy’s access presenting deep shadow, a
closed hatch where other ships had a cheerful yellow lighted access tube open.
No lights here, only the customs barrier still in place, and grim dark metal of
an idle gantry beyond —no cargo for Lucy, to be sure, but the abundant canisters
of the ship in the next berth, which had been offloading, a busy whine of
conveyers, a belt empty now, while they sorted out some snarl inside, perhaps.