Mallory did not know how to laugh.
They reached their velocity, and insystem propulsion shut down; Allison felt it, snugged down more comfortably in the bed and drifted off again.
And waked later with that feeling one got waking on sleepovers, that the place was wrong and the sounds and the smells strange.
Lucy. Not Dublin but Lucy. Irrevocable things had happened. She felt out after the light switch on the bed console, brightened the lights as much as she could bear, rolled her eyes to take in the place, this two meter by four space that she had picked for hers… but there was a clutter in the locker and storage, a comb and brush with blond hair snarled in it, a few sweaters, underwear, an old pair of boots, other things—just left. And cold … the heat had been on maybe since last night, had not penetrated the lockers. A woman’s cabin. Newer, cleaner than the rest of the ship, as if the ship had gotten wear the cabin had not.
Pirates, Stevens had said; pirates had killed them all. If it was one of those odd hours when he told the truth.
There was nothing left with a name on it, to know what the woman had been, what name, what age—not rejuved: the hair had been blond. Like Stevens’ own.
Or whatever the name might have been.
And how did one man escape what happened to the others? That question worried her: why, if pirates had gotten the others-he had stayed alive; or how long ago it had been, that a ship could wear everywhere but these sealed cabins. Questions and questions. The man was a puzzle. She stirred in the bed, thought of sleep-over nights, wondered whether Stevens had a notion to go on with that on the ship as well, in cabins never made for it.
Not now, she thought; not in this place. Not in a dead woman’s bed and in a ship full of deceptions. Not until it was straight what she had brought her people into. She was obliged to think straight, to keep all the options open. And keeping Stevens off his balance seemed a good idea
Besides, it was business aboard—and no time for straightening out personal reckonings, no time for quarrels or any other thing but the ship under their hands.
The ship, dear God, the ship: she ached in every bone and had blisters on her hands, but she had sat a chair and had the controls in her hands—and whatever had gone on aboard, whoever the woman who had had this room and died aboard—whatever had happened here, there was that; and she had her cousins about her, who would have mortgaged their souls for an hour at Dublin’s boards and sold out all they had for this long chance. She could not go back, now, to waiting, on Dublin, for the rest of a useless life.
Hers. Her post. She had gotten that for the others as well, done more for them than they could have hoped for in their lives. And they were hers, in a sense more than kinship and ship-family. If she said walk outside the lock, they walked; if she said hands off, it was hands off and quiet; and that was a load on her shoulders— this Stevens, who figured to have a special spot with her. They might misread cues, her cousins, take chances with this man. No, no onboard sleepovers, no muddling up their heads with that, making allowances when maybe they should not make them. It was not dockside, when a Dubliner’s yell could bring down a thousand cousins bent on mayhem. Different rules. Different hazards. She had not reckoned that way, until she had looked in the lockers. But somewhere not so far away, she reckoned, Curran slept in someone’s abandoned bed and spent some worry on it And the others-She turned onto her stomach, fumbled after an unfamiliar console, punched in on comp.
Nothing. The room screen stayed dead.
She pushed com one, that should be the bridge. “Allison in number two cabin: I’m not getting comp.”
A prolonged silence.
Everything unraveled, the presumed safety of being in Pell System, still in civilized places… the reckonings that there were probably sane explanations for things when all was said and done… she flung herself out of bed with her heart beating in panic, started snatching for her clothes.
A maniac, it might be; a lunatic who might have done harm to the lot of them… She had no real knowledge what this Stevens might be, or have done. A liar, a thief—She looked about for any sort of weapon.
“Allison.” Neill’s voice came over com. “Got lunch ready.”
“Neill?” Her heart settled to level. In the first reaction she was ashamed of herself.
In the second she was thinking it was stupid not to have brought her luggage into the cabin; she had a knife in that, a utilitarian one, but something. She had never thought of bringing weapons with her, but she did now, having seen what she had seen… sleeping in a cabin that could become a trap if someone at controls pushed the appropriate buttons.
“You coming?” Neill asked.
“Coming,” she said.
It was better, finally, Sandor reckoned, with all of them at once in the bridge sleeping area, with trays balanced on their laps, a bottle of good wine passing about. It was the kind of insane moment he had never imagined seeing aboard Lucy, a thing like family, unaffordable food—Neill had pulled some of the special stuff, and the wine had been chilling since loading; and it all hit his empty stomach and unstrung nerves with soothing effect. He listened to Dubliner jokes and laughed, saw laughter on Allison’s face, and that was best of all.
“Listen,” he said to her afterward, catching up to her when she was taking her baggage to her quarters—he met her at the entry to the corridor, loaded with bundles. “Allison—I want you to know, back then with the controls—I wasn’t thinking how it sounded. I’m sorry about that”
“You don’t have to walk around my feelings.”
“Can I help you with that?”
She fixed him with a quick, dark eye. “With ulterior motives? I don’t sleepover during voyages.”
He blinked, set hard aback, unsure how to take it—a moment’s temper, or something else. “So, well,” he said. “Not over what I said… Allison, you’re not mad about that.”
“Matter of policy. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“It’s hard, you know that.”
“I don’t think I’d feel comfortable sharing command and bed. Not on ship. Sleepover’s different.”
“What, command? It’s home. It’s—”
“Maybe Dublin does things differently. Maybe it’s another way on this ship. But it’s not another way that quickly. You know, Stevens, I’ll share a sleepover with an honest spacer and not care so much what Name he goes by, but on ship, somehow the idea of sharing a cabin with a man whose Name I don’t know—”
“You handed me half a million credits not knowing—”
“I rate myself priceless, man. One of a kind. I don’t go in any deal.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t.”
“Allison, for God’s sake, you twist everything up. You’re good at that.”
“Right. So you know you can’t talk your way around me.” She thrust past with the baggage. He caught a strap on her shoulder, peeled half the bundles away, and she glared back at him through a toss of hair. “Don’t take so much on yourself, mister.”
“Just the baggage.”
“I don’t need your help.” She snatched at the straps he held and failed to get them back. “Just drop them in the corridor. I’ll come back and get them.”
“You can’t take any help, can you?”
She walked off. “From the man who took a half million credits with never a thanks—” She stopped and looked back when he started after her with the bag, almost collided. “You choke on the words, do you, Stevens?”
“Thanks,” he said. “That do it?”
“Just bring the bags.” She turned about again, stalked one door farther and opened the compartment, tossed her belongings through the door and stood aside outside it, a wave of her hand indicating the way inside.