Union Alliance - Merchanter's Luck Part 7

Chapter VIII.

There looked to be no change out across the docks. Sandor kept his eye on Lucy's berth, covertly, from the doorway of the sleep-over. Workers moved, pedestrian traffic went its unconcerned way up and down-mainday now, and he kept his face in the shadows. Downers shrilled and piped their gossip, busy at tasks like human dockworkers, moving canisters onto ramps or off, making distant echoes over the drone and crash of machinery.

He entertained wild thoughts... like waiting until station lights dimmed again in the half hour of twilight which pa.s.sed mainday to alterday: like slipping over to that security barrier and decking some unfortunate workman-seeing if he could not liberate a cutter to get past that lock they had on Lucy's hatch. Improbable. He thought even of going to some other marginer and pleading his way aboard as crew, because he was that panicked. The thought whisked through his mind and out again, banished, because he was not going to give Lucy up. He would try the cutter first; and they would take him in for sure then, with a theft and maybe an a.s.sault charge to add to the complaints already lodged against him.

Antisocial conduct. Behavior in willful disregard of others' rights. That was good for a lockup. Behavior in willful disregard of others' lives: that was good for a mindwipe for sure. Rehabilitation. Total restruct.

A cutter was as good as a gun, when it came to someone trying to get it away from him. It might bring about shooting. He thought that he preferred that, though he balked at the idea of using a cutter on any living thing. He was not made for this, he thought, not able to kill people; the thought turned him cold.

There was Dublin, and whatever hope that gave. He held onto that.

Militia pa.s.sed in a group, male and female, blue-uniformed: he retreated inside the foyer and waited until they had gone their way with some other business in mind. Militia. Alliance Forces, Talley had said. Alliance Forces. There was talk that the militia of Pell had at its core a renegade Mazianni carrier; one of Conrad Mazian's captains-Signy Mallory of Norway, who had fought for the old Earth Company... the name the Mazianni used while they were legitimate; but a Mazianni captain all the same. Talley... upstairs: that was an officer of what Pell called its defense, maybe a man who had worked with Mallory. That was what was doggedly investigating him, a pirate hunting other pirates, who played by civilized rules in port But outside port-even if some miracle got him clear of Pell- A flash across his vision, of armored troops on Lucy's bridge, of fire coming back at them, and the Old Man dying; and his mother; and the others-of being hit, and Ross falling on him- And Jal screaming for help, when the troopers dragged him back through that boarding access and onto their s.h.i.+p; Jal and the others they had taken aboard, for whatever purposes they had in mind...

The Alliance played politics with Union; and maybe they wanted, at the moment, to manufacture a pirate threat to Pell interests, to justify the existence of armed Alliance s.h.i.+ps. And if they hauled him in-the mindwipe could make sure he told the story they wanted. A paranoid fancy. Not likely. But he was among strangers, and too many things were possible... where pirates hunted pirates and might want to throw out a little deceiving chaff.

A step approached him on his left. He looked about and a hand closed on his arm and he looked straight into the face of Allison Reilly. 'Told you to stay inside," she said.

"So I'm here." The shock still had his pulse thumping. "Find out anything?"

She pulled papers from her pocket, waved them in front of him. "Everything. It's covered. I've got you off clear."

He shook his head. The words went through without touching. "Clear."

"Dublin got Dancer to withdraw the allegations. We've got a show-cause order for station and they're not going to be able to come up with anything to substantiate it. We just filed the papers. And this-" She thrust one of the papers at him. "That's an application for your Alliance registry and trade license. And Dublin's standing witness. That'll get you clear paper for this side of the Line. That's to be signed and filed, but it's all in order: our lawyer set it up." A second paper. That's a show-cause for customs, to get that seal off. They can't maintain that without the charge from Dancer. This-" A third paper. "A loan, enough for dock charges, refitting, and cargo. I've got you crew. I've got you all but cleared to pull out of here. A way to outfit with what you need. Are you following me?"

He blinked and tried. Stopped believing it and looked for the strings: it was the only thing to do when things looked too good. "What's it cost?" he asked. 'Where's the rest of it? There is a rest of it."

She nodded toward the bar next door. "Come on. Sit down and look through it."

He went, dragged by the hand, into the noise and closeness of the smallish bar, sat down with her at a table by the door where there was enough light to read, and spread out the papers. "Beer," she ordered when the waiter showed, and in the meantime he picked up the loan papers and tried to make sense of them. Clause after clause of fine print Five hundred thousand credit cargo allowance. A hundred thousand margin account. He looked at numbers stacked up like stellar distances and shook his head.

"You're not going to get a better offer," she said. "I'll tell you how you got it. I'm going with you. The whole Third Helm alterday watch of Dublin is signing with you for this tour. Crew that knows what they're doing. I'll vouch for that. My watch. And it's a fair agreement. You say that your Lucy can make profit on marginer cargoes. What do you think she could do given real backing?"

That touched on his pride, deeply. He lifted his head, not stupid in it, either. "I don't know. My kind of operation I know- how to get what's going rate on small deals. Lucy's near two hundred years old. She's not fast. I strung those jumps getting here. Hauling, she's slow, and you come out of those jumps feeling it."

"I've seen her exterior on vid. What's the inside rig?"

He shrugged. "Not what you're used to. Number one hold's temperature constant to 12 degrees, the rest deep cold; fifteen K net-It's not going to work. I can't handle that kind of operation you're talking about"

"It'll work."

"I don't know why you're doing this."

"Business. Dublin's starting up operations here, wants a foot on either side of the Line; putting you on margin account is convenient And if it helps you out at the same time-"

The beers came. Sandor picked his up and drank to ease his dry mouth, gave the papers another desperate going over, trying to find the clause that talked about confiscations, about liability that might set him up for actions, about his standing good for previous debts.

"A few profitable runs," she said, "and you build up an account here and you clear the debt. You want to know what Dublin clears on a good run?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"It's a minor loan. Put it that way. That's the scale we're talking about It's nothing. And there's a ten-year time limit on that loan. Ten years. Station banks-would they give you that? Or any combine? You work that debt down and there's a good chance you could deal with Dublin for a stake to a refitting. I mean a real refitting. No piggyback job. Kick that ancient unit off her tail and put a whole new generation rig on. She's a good design, stable moving in jump; some of the newest intermediate s.h.i.+ps on the boards borrow a bit from her type."

"No," he said in a small voice. "No, you don't get me into that. You don't get your hands on her."

"You think you can't do it You think you'll fail."

He thought about it a moment "What better offer," she asked him, "have you ever hoped to have? And if charges come in, who's going to stand with you? Hmn? You sign the appropriate papers, you take the offer.-I've gone out on a line for you; and for me, I admit that. I get a post I can't get on my s.h.i.+p. So we both take a risk. I don't know but what there's worse to you than you've told. I don't know who your enemies might be; and I wouldn't be surprised if you had some."

He shook his head slowly. "No, I don't. Hard as it may be to believe, I've never made any I know of."

"Smart, at least"

"Survival.-Reilly: if I sign those papers, I'm telling you- there's one captain on Lucy, and I'm it."

'There's nothing in those papers that says anything to the contrary."

He drank a long mouthful of the beer. "We get a witness on this?"

That's the deal. Station offices."

He nodded slowly. "Let's go do it, then."

It made him less than comfortable, to go again into station offices, to confront the dockmaster's agents and turn in the applications that challenged station to do its worst. The doc.u.ments went from counter to desk behind the counter, and finally to one of the officials in the offices beyond-a call finally into that office, where they stood while a man looked at the papers.

"How long-" Sandor made himself ask, against all instincts to the contrary. "How long to process those and get the seal clear? I'd like to start hunting cargo."

An official frown. "No way of knowing."

"Well," Allison said, "there's already a routing application in."

A lift of the brows, and a frown after. None too happy, this official. "Customs office," he said, punching in on the com console. "I have Lucy's Stevens in with forms."

And after the answer, another shunting to an interior office, more questions and more forms.

Nature of cargo, they asked. Information pending acquisition, Sandor answered, in his own element. He filled the rest out, looped some blanks, letting station departments chase each other through the maze. Clear was a condition of mind, a zone in which he had not yet learned to function.

Legitimate, he kept telling himself. These were real papers he was applying for. Honest papers. In the wrong name, and under a false ID, and that was the stain on matters: but real papers all the same.

They walked out of the customs office toward the exchange, and when he got to that somewhat busier desk, to stand in line with others including s.p.a.cers with onstation cards to apply for... Allison snagged his arm and drew him over to the reception desk for more inner offices.

"Sir?" the secretary asked, blinking a little at his out at the elbows look and the silvery company he kept.

Embarra.s.sed, Sandor searched for the appropriate papers. "Got a fund transfer and an account to open."

"That's Wyatt's?" Everyone knew his business. It threw him off his stride. He put the loan papers on the desk.

"No," he said, "that's an independent deal."

"Dublin has an account with Wyatt's." Allison leapt into the fray. "This is a loan between Lucy and Dublin. The s.h.i.+p is collateral. Captain Stevens hopes to straighten it up with his own combine, but as it is, Dublin will cover any transfer of funds that may be necessary: escrow will rest on Pell."

"What sum are we talking about?"

"Five hundred thousand for starters."

"I'll advise Mr. Dee."

"Thank you," Allison said with a touch of smugness, and settled into a waiting area chair. Sandor sat down beside her, wiped a touch of sweat from his temples, crossed his ankles, leaned back, willed one muscle after another to relax. "You let me do the talking, will you?" he asked her.

"You take it slow. I know what I'm doing."

His fingers felt numb. A lot of him did. Clear, he thought again. There was something wrong with such a run of luck. s.h.i.+ps that tossed off half a million as if it were pocket change-rattled his nerves. He felt a moment of panic, as if some dark cloud were swallowing him up, conning him into debts and ambition more than he could handle. He had no place in this office. It was like stringing jumps and acc.u.mulating velocity without dump-there was a point past which no s.h.i.+p could handle what it could acquire.

"Captain." The secretary had come back. "Mr. Dee will see you."

He stood up. Allison put her hand on his back, urging him, intended for comfort, perhaps, but it felt like a fatal shove.

He walked, and Allison went behind him. He met the smallish man in his office... a wise, wrinkled face, dark almond eyes that went to the heart of him and peeled away the layers. So, well, one sat down like a man and filled out the forms and above all else tried not to look the nervousness he felt.

"You'll have claims from WSC," Dee advised him.

"Minor," Allison said.

Again a stab of those dark, fathomless eyes. An elderly finger indicated the appropriate line and he signed.

"There we go," Allison said, approving it. He shook hands with the banker and realized himself a respectable if mortgaged citizen. Allison shook hands with Dee and Dee showed them to the outer office in person. They were someone. He was. He felt himself hollow centered and scared with a different kind of fear than the belly-gripping kind he lived in onstations: with a knowledgeable, too-late kind of dread, of having done something he never should have done, a long time back, when he had walked into a bar on Viking and tried to buy a Dubliner a drink.

"You come," Allison said as they walked out empty of their bundle of applications, with a set of brand new credit cards and clear s.h.i.+p's papers in exchange. "Let's get some of the outfitting done. I don't know what you're carrying in s.h.i.+p's stores. Blast, I'll be glad to get that customs lock off and have a look at her."

"Got some frozen stuff. I outfitted pretty fair for a solo operation at Viking."

"We've got five. What's our dunnage allotment?"

"I really don't think that's a problem."

"Accommodations?"

"Cabins 2.5 meters by 4. That's locker and shower and bunk."

"Sleep vertical, do you?"

"Lockers are under and over the bunk."

"Private?"

"Private as you like."

"Nice. Good as Dublin, if you like to know."

He considered that and expanded a bit. "If you have extra- there's always s.p.a.ce to put it. Storage is never that tight."

"Beautiful.-Hey." She flagged one of the ped-carriers that ran the docks, a flatbed with poles, hopped on: Sandor followed, put his own card in the slot as it whisked them along the station ring with delirious ease. He had never ridden a carrier; never felt he could afford the luxury, when his legs could save the expense. All his life he had walked on the docks of stations, and he watched the lights and the shops blur past, still numb in the profusion of experience. "Off!" someone would sing out, and the driver would stop the thing just long enough for someone to step down. "Off!" Allison called, and they stepped off on white dock, in the face of a large pressure-window and a fancy logo saying WILSON, and in finer print, SUPPLIER. It was all white and silver and black inside. He swore softly, and let Allison lead him into the place by the hand.

Displays everywhere. Clothing down one aisle, thermals and working clothes and liners and some of them in fancy colors, flash the like of which was finding its way onto docksides on the bodies of those who could afford it New stuff. All of it. He looked at the price on a pair of boots and it was 150. He grabbed Allison by the arm.

"They're thieves in here. Look at that. Look, this isn't my cla.s.s. Lucy outfits from warehouses. Or dockside."

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't know what you're used to, but we're not going to eat seconds all the way and we're not using cut-rate stuff. You don't get cla.s.s treatment on dockside if you don't have a little flash. And we'll not be dressing down, thank you; so deaden your nerves, Stevens, and buy yourself some camouflage so you don't stand out among your crew."

He looked up the aisle at clothes he could not by any stretch of the imagination see himself wearing, stuffed his hands in his pockets. The lining on the right one was twice resewn. "You wear that silver stuff into Lucy's crawls.p.a.ces, will you? You fit yourselves out for work, Reilly."

"There's dockside and there's work. Find something you like, hear me?"

He studied the aisle, nothing on racks, no searching this stuff for burn-holes and bad seams. One asked, and they hunted it out of computerized inventory. "So I get myself the likes of yours," he muttered, thinking he would never carry it well. "That satisfy you?"

"Good enough. What kind of entertainment system does she carry?"

"Deck of cards," he muttered. "We can buy a fresh one."

She swore. "You have to have a tape rig."

"Mariner-built Delta system."

"Lord, a converter, then. We'll bring our own tapes and buy some new."

"I can't afford-"

"Basic amenities. I'm telling you, you want cla.s.s crew, you have to rig out. What about bedding?"

"Got plenty of that. Going to have to stock up on lifesupport goods and some filters and detergents and swabs-before we get to extravagances. I'd like to put a backup on some switches and systems that aren't carrying any right now."

A roll of Allison's dark eyes in his direction, stark dismay.

'Two of them on the main board," he added, the plain truth.

"Make a list. This place can get them."

"Will. Going to be nice, isn't it, knowing there's a failsafe?"

He walked down the aisle alone, looking at the clothes. And all about him, over the tops of the counters, were other displays... personal goods, bedding, dishes, tapes and games, utility goods, cabinets, s.h.i.+p's furnis.h.i.+ngs, interior hardware, recycling goods, tools, bins, medical supplies, computer softwares. Music whispered through his senses. He turned about him and stared, lost in the glitter of the displays he had never given more than a pa.s.sing glance to-had never come in a place like this, where his kind of finances could get a man accused of theft.

A kind of madness afflicted him suddenly, like nerving himself for a bad jump. "Help you?" a clerk asked down his nose.

"Got to get some clothes," he said. And yielding to the recklessness of the moment: "Like to have it match, jacket and the rest. Some dockside boots. Maybe a few work clothes." Allison was out of sight: that panicked him in more than one sense. She was probably off buying something. And the clerk was giving him that look that bartenders gave him. He pulled his new card from his pocket. "Stevens," he said, and clerkly eyes brightened.

"You're the one that came in yesterday."