“I know that council could have voted it down, and Second Helm approved.”
“If I thought you were the mooncalf dockside paints you, I’d give you the standard lecture, how a transfer is a major step, how strange it can be, on another ship, away from everything you know, taking orders from another command and coping with being different in a crew that—however friendly—isn’t yours. But no. I know what you’re in love with. I know what you’re doing. And I’m not sure you do.”
“There’s worse can happen to him than Dublin’s backing.”
“Is there? You look at your own soul, Allison Reilly, and you tell me what you’d do and what you’re buying into. You come making requests we should throw our Name behind a ne’er-do-well marginer, we should stop a complaint an honest ship has filed —all of that. And I’ll remind you of something you’ve heard all your life. That every Dubliner is born with one free judgment call. Always… just one. Once, you’ve got the right to yell trouble on the docks and have the Old Man blow the siren and bring down every mother’s son and daughter of us. And every time you do it right, that buys you only one more guaranteed judgment call. No Dubliner I can think of has taken much more on himself than you. You know that?”
“I know that, sir.”
“And you apply to keep your status.”
To guarantee the loan, sir, begging your pardon.”
“Not so pure, 21.”
“Not altogether, no, sir.”
“You’re jumping over the line of succession; you’re ignoring the claims your seniors might make ahead of you, if we bought that ship outright. Alterday command right off, isn’t it, and not waiting the rest of your life without posting. It’s a maneuver and every one of us knows it It’s a bald-faced conniving maneuver that oversets those with more right, and you’re doing it on a technicality. And how do I answer that?”
Her heart was beating more than fast, and heat flooded her face. “I’d say they voted and passed it, sir. I’d say they have the same chance I’m taking, and there’s dozens more marginers like Lucy. Maybe they don’t want to take that kind of chance; and maybe they don’t want it that bad. I do. Those with me do. Third Helm’s alterday watch—has stayed unitary blamed long, sir; and begging your pardon, sir, it functions.”
“It functions,” Michael Reilly said, looking into her eyes with eyes that missed nothing, “because they’ve got one bastard of a number one who’s been number one in her watch too long, who’s infected with godhood and who finds the stage too small.”
“Sir-”
“Let me tell you about smallness, 21. That ship you’re going to is small. There’s no privacy, no amenities. No luxuries. No safeties and no relief and no backup.”
“Better to reign in hell—”
“Yes. I thought so. And what about this Stevens?”
“He’s better off with us.”
“Is he?”
“Than being beached here with Pell owning his ship, yes, sir.”
The Old Man nodded slowly. “He’ll thank you—about that far. And what will you assign him—when you’ve got his ship?”
“That becomes a council problem, sir, as I believe.”
“Let me tell you something, young ma’am.” Michael Reilly leaned forward and jabbed a forefinger at her. ‘That lies in your watch. Don’t you hand it to council to settle. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
“So.” He turned to the console beside him, searched among the papers there, powered the chair back around again and offered her a handful of them. “There’s a communication from Dancer. They’ll withdraw the charge without protest. Understandable nervousness on their part… finding a ship in port they know isn’t clean. But that’s no hide off them, if we guarantee it’s been taken thoroughly in hand. The word’s gone out by runner: no one else will file a complaint on that ship without going through Dublin first, and they’ve had an hour now to think it over. Something would have come in if it was going to, so I tend to agree with your judgment, that it’s a financial problem the man has, no merchanter grudge. So he’s clear in that respect. About the military, that inquiry can’t be stopped; and that’s going to be another problem that lies in your watch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a voucher that will pay the dock charge; and a document of show-cause from Will that’s going to clear up the matter with Pell Dock Authority. They’ll have to come up with an official complaint with witnesses or drop the charge on the spot and free up the ship, and since Dancer’s not going to stand behind the charge, it’s going to die. So Lucy’s cleared, at least on civil charges. There’s the loan agreement, for dock charges and cargo; and whatever else is reasonable in the way of outfitting. Do it proper, if you’re going to rig out; no need economizing. And you remember what I told you. You come between somebody and his ship, you take that from him, and you know, in your heart of hearts you know what you’re doing. And we know. And he will.”
“You remember that You remember your Name, and you remember who you are.”
“Yes, sir,” she said softly.
“Dismissed.”
She took the precious papers, stood up, nodded in respect and walked for the door—stopped for a moment, a look back at the bridge, the spacious, modern bridge of Dublin, the real thing that she had desired all her life. A knot swelled up in her throat, a final anger, that there was no hope of this—that it had to be the sordid, aged likes of Lucy, because that was the only way left for Dublin’s excess children.
She went to say good-bye, to begin the good-byes, at least, a courtesy to Megan and Connie and Geoff and Ma’am, which was not as hard as that to Dublin herself.
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 passed 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 assault 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 passed 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