He nodded slowly. "All right," he said, even including Curran in that "All right, I"ll take your deal. And the lot of you.-What about charts?"

"Got that arranged," Curran said. "No problem with that."

"From what I know," Allison said, "we"re going to have a double jump to Venture and a double to Bryant"s."

"Lonely out that direction."

"Pell"s got some sort of security out that way."

"Patrol?"

"They don"t say. They just put out they"ve got it watched."

"Comforting." He doubted it all. It was likely bluff. Or Pell was that determined to keep the Sol link open.

He looked up again, at the strangers who looked to share with him, to come onto Lucy"s deck-permanent company. So they were not all what he would have chosen. But with a Curran came a Deirdre, whose broad, cheerful self he liked on sight; and Neill Reilly, who had said little of anything and who seemed set in the background by all the others-They were Family, like any other, the rough and the smooth together. He had not known that kind of closeness... not since Ross. He wanted it, and Allison, with a yearning that welled up in his throat and behind his eyes and throughout. And it was his. It came with the wealth, the luck he still could not imagine. But it was real. It was all about him. He made himself relax, limb by limb, up to the shoulders, looked across the table at his acquired crew and felt something knotted up inside unsnarl itself.

And when dinner was done, down to a fancy fruit dessert, when they had drunk as much as merchanters were apt to drink on liberty-they found things to laugh at, Dubliner anecdotes, tales on each other. He laughed and wiped his eyes, as he had not done in longer than he had forgotten.

The bill was his: he took it without flinching, gave a tip to the waiter-left a happy man in their wake and strolled out into the chill air of the dockside with his flock of Dubliners.

"Go to the offices," he suggested, "see if we can"t get the lock off my ship."

"Let"s," Allison agreed. "Is it past alterdawn? We can get something done."

"Get a ped-carrier," Deirdre said.

"Walk," said Neill. "We might be sober when we get there."

They walked, along the busy docks, past Lucy"s barriered berth, weaving a good deal less when they had covered all of green dock, sweating a bit when they had come into blue, and near the customs offices.

But he came differently this time, in company, with the knowledge of Dublin"s lawyer behind them, and papers on file that put him in the right. He walked up to the desk and faced the official with a plain request, brought out the papers. "I need the lock off," he said. "We seem to have everything else straightened away but that."

"Ah," the official said. "Captain Stevens."

"Can we get it taken care of?"

The official produced a sealed envelope, pa.s.sed it over.

"What"s this?"

"I"ve no idea, sir. I"m told it relates to the hold order."

He was conscious of the others at his back-refused to look at them, tore open the seal on the message slip and read it once before it sank in. "Report blue dock number three," he read it, looking back at Allison then. "AS Norway, Signy Mallory commanding."

Curran swore. "Mallory," Allison said, and it might as well have been an oath. "On Pell?"

"Arrived two hours ago," the official said, a roll of the eyes toward the clock. "The message is half an hour old."

"What"s the military doing in this?" Curran asked. "Those papers are clear."

"I don"t know, sir," the official said. "Answering ought to clear it up."

The fear was back, familiar as an old suit of clothes. "I"d better get out there and take care of this," Sandor said. "I don"t see there"s any reason for you to go."

They walked out with him, that much at least, back out onto the dock facing the military ships... the schedule boards showed it plainly: NORWAY, the third berth down occupied now, conspicuously alight. He looked at the Dubliners, at worried faces and Curran"s scowl.

"Don"t know how long this may take," he said. "Allison, maybe I"d better call you after I get back to the sleepover. Maybe you"d better go on back to Dublin"

"No," Allison said. "If you don"t get out of there fairly soon, we"ll be calling some legal help. They don"t bluff us."

That was some comfort. He looked at the rest of them, who showed no inclination to take any different course. Nodded then, thrust his hands into his pockets, crumpling the message in the right He prepared arguments, countercharges, mustered the same indignation he had used on authorities before. It was all he knew how to do.

But it was hard to keep the bluff intact walking up to the lighted access of Norway, where uniformed troops-these were troops, far different from any stationside militia-took him in charge and searched him. They were rejuved, a great number of these men and women-old enough to have fought in the war, silver-haired and some of them marked with scars no stationsider would have had to wear. They were not rough with him in their searching, but they were more thorough than the police had been. They frightened him, the way that ship out there frightened him, behind that cheerful lighted access, a huge carrier bristling with armaments, a Company ship, from another age. They brought him toward the ramp that led up into the access. And standing in the accessway... Talley, grim and waiting for him.

He kept walking. So the man was part of this action. He was somehow not surprised. The Dubliners, he was thinking, ought to get back to their ship. The military would think twice about demanding that a merchanter family of the Reillys" size give up some of its own to questioning. But alone, far from Dublin, they were vulnerable, unused to authorities who ran things as they pleased.

He encountered Talley, a bleak, pale-eyed stare from the Alliance officer, a nod in the direction he should go. So he had acquired a certain importance: a man with commander"s rank took him in personal charge and escorted him into the heart of this row-accessed monster. Dim corridors: a long walk to a wider area and a lift to the upper levels. He stared through Talley on the way up in the car. Conversation could do him no good. One never gave anything away. One always regretted it later.

A walk afterward down a narrower corridor-bare, dull metal everywhere, nothing so cheerful as Lucy"s white, age-scarred compartments. Coded identifications on the exposed lines, on the compartments. Everything was efficiency and no comfort. They reached the door of an office and got a come-ahead light: the door opened, and Talley brought him through.

"Captain," Talley said, "Stevens of the merchanter Lucy."

The silver-haired woman was already looking at him across her desk, already sizing him up. "Mallory," she identified herself. "Sit down, Captain."

He pulled the chair over and sat facing her across the desk, while Talley settled himself against the cabinet, arms folded. Mallory pushed her chair back from the desk and leaned back in it- rejuved, young/old, staring at him with dark eyes that said nothing back.

"You"re getting clearance to go out," she said. "On the Venture run. I understand there"s some question about your ID, Captain."

His wits deserted him. It was not the question. It was the source. One of the nine captains, one of the Mazianni from the war years, who had gotten supplies by boarding merchanters, by taking supplies and personnel. Who had killed. It might have been this one, those years ago, this ship that had locked onto Lucy and boarded. He might be that close to the captain who had ordered it, among troops who had been inside the armor, who had killed all his family. He had thought if he met one of them he would kill barehanded, and he found himself sitting still and staring back, paralyzed by the quiet, the tenor of the moment "You don"t have any comment," Mallory said.

"I thought it was settled."

"Is there an irregularity, Captain?" Softly. Staring straight at him.

"Look, I just want the lock off my ship. I"ve got a cargo lined up, I"ve got everything else in order. Because some muddled-up merchanter mistakes my ship..."

"Let me see your papers, Captain."

It took the breath out of his argument. He hesitated, off his mental balance, pulled them out of his pocket and leaned forward as she did, pa.s.sing them into her extended hand across the desk, close, that close to touching. She leaned back easily, looked through them, lingered over them.

"But these are new," she said. "Except for the t.i.tle papers, of course." She felt of the older paper, the t.i.tle, itself false. "You know this kind of paper gets traded on the market. Has to get from one station to the other, after all; and across docks, and I know places where you can get it. Don"t you, Captain?"

"I"m legitimate."

"So." She pa.s.sed the papers back to him, and he thrust them quickly back into his pocket, his fingers gone cold. "So. Linked up with Dublin Again, are you? A very respectable operation. That does say something for you. Unionsider."

"I plan to operate here. On the Alliance side."

"Oh, relations are very good with Union at the moment They"re supplying ships and troops all along the Line. We have no quarrel with Union origins. You plan to stay here, do you? Operate as Dublin"s pipeline out of the Sol trade?"

"I don"t know how things will work out." He stepped slowly through the argument, aware of maneuvering on the other side, not understanding it. Mallory was not taken in. Was prodding at him, to find some provocation.

"Your certification comes through us," she said. "We"ve got a problem, Captain. We"ve got Mazianni activity between us and Sol, into the Hinder Stars. Does that bother you?"

"It bothers me."

"They"d like to cut us off, you understand. It"s a lot of territory to patrol. And they win, simply by scaring merchanters out of that run. We"ve got two stations coming back into operation, and we"re doing what we can to keep the zones clear. We"ll be out at the nullpoints, making sure you"re not ambushed there. We"ve got a rare agreement on the other side of the Line. Union"s sealing up Tripoint and Brady"s and any other point you can name." The eyes shot up to lock on his, abrupt and invasive. "You play the shy side of legal, do you? Marginer. I"ll reckon you"re no stranger to the fringes. Lying off in s.p.a.ce. Operating out of the nullpoints. Doing trading on the side, without customs looking on. I"ll bet you have a fine sense of what"s trouble and what"s not. A fine sense."

He said nothing. Tried to think of an excuse to look away and failed in that too.

"Might stand you in good stead," she said. "It"s a place out there-that makes raw nerves survival-positive. We"ll be there, Captain. I really want you to know that"

It was delivered very softly, with the same stare. It promised-he had no idea what.

"You can go," she said. "You"ll find the obstacles clear. But I have news for you. Your Konstantin Company cargo is cancelled. You"ll be carrying military cargo. You"ll be paid hazard rate. An advantage. You"ll be taking it aboard in short order and undocking at 0900 mainday."

"Like that?"

"Like that."

"I thought-I was under military investigation."

"You are," she said. "Good evening, Captain."

"Maybe I don"t want this. Maybe I want to change my mind."

"Do you, Captain? I"d prefer not."

The silence hung there. "All right," he said. "You protect us, do you?"

"As best we can, Captain."

Never Stevens. She never used the name. He stood up, nodded a reflexive courtesy. Not a response: dead eyes stared into him. He turned then and walked out, and Talley followed him into the corridor, hand-signaled a trooper who came down the corridor to walk him out.

Down the lift and out to the ramp again, the cold of the dock-side coming as a shock after the metal closeness of the warship. He walked down the slant past the guard that stood there, past uniformed troops and idle, hard-eyed stares... He reached the dockside and walked away, taking larger breaths the farther he got from the perimeter. He felt as if he had been picked up and shaken. Dropped hard.

He saw the Dubliners waiting for him, out by the lighted fronts of the offices. Allison and the others. He went toward them with the consciousness that the military might be watching his back, taking notes on his a.s.sociations.

"What was it?" Allison asked. "Trouble?"

He shook his head and swept them up with a motion of his arms. "Come on. We"ve got our clearance. They"re going to load."

"Like that?"

"Like that." He looked at Curran as the five of them headed down the dock at a good pace. "The Konstantin cargo just got cancelled. We"ve been handed military stuff. Hazard rate. Immediate loading, undocking at 0900 mainday."

"Military." For once Curran was taken aback. "What, specifically?"

"No word on that. I talked with Mallory. The lock was hers. The cargo"s hers. I think she wants rumors spread, or she wouldn"t spill what she spilled."

"Like what?"

"That Union"s occupying the nullpoints along the Line, hunting Mazianni, and Alliance is doing the same."

"Lord, you"ve got to tell that to the Old Man."

He walked along in a moment"s silence-that it took that much for them to suggest him and the Reilly talking face to face. They were scared. He saw that. Deirdre"s face had lost all its cheer, pale under its freckles. Allison"s-had a hard-eyed wariness like Curran"s. Neill just looked worried. "I"ll make a call from Lucy" Sandor said. "When I get clear and boarded."

"They"re on a hunt?" Neill asked.

"I think I was told what she wants told in every bar on dock-side. And I don"t know what the percentage is."

"She say anything else?" Curran asked.

"She knows about the deal. She talked about the profit there might be for a route from Sol into Union. Direct to the point. Said they"re going to be at the nullpoints of the Hinder Stars, keeping an eye on things."

"For sure?" Allison said.

"I don"t trust anything I was told.-I know I want to be down there if they"re taking the security seal off the hatch. I want to see what they"ve had their fingers into on my ship."

"We"re going to take a look and go straight back to Dublin? Allison said, "as soon as we"re sure we"ve got that lock open. Got some good-byes to say, all of us. If they"re going to load for a 0900 undock, then you can use some crew over there."

"Could," he agreed. "Could."

He had help, he was thinking, an unaccustomed comfort. He had his Dubliners who were not leaving him at the first breath of trouble. He felt a curious warmth in that thought.

Legitimate, he kept reminding himself. With connections. Mallory could not touch him. Might not want to, wanting to keep on the good side of a powerful Unionside merchanter, with all its connections.

He tried to believe that But he had looked Mallory in the eyes, and doubted everything.

Downers surrounded the lock, the barriers having been removed... Downers in the company of one idle dockworker, who rose from the side of the ramp and gave them all a looking at. "Business here?" the man asked.

"Stevens," Sandor said. "Ship"s owner."

The dockworker held out his hand. "Be happy to turn her over to you, sir, with ID. Otherwise I have to report"

It was insane, such bizarre security interwoven with the real threat of Alliance military. It was Pell, and they did things in strange ways. He took out his papers and showed them.

"He good?" a Downer asked, breather-masked and popping and hissing in the process. Round brown eyes looked at them, one Downer, a whole half-circle of Downers.

"Good paper," the dockworker confirmed. "Thank you, sir. Good day to you, sir; or good night, whichever."

And the dockworker collected his a.s.sortment of Downers, who bowed and bobbed courtesies in the departure, trooped off with shrill calls and motion very like dancing.

"Lord," Allison said.

"Pell," Sandor said. He turned, led the way up the ramp in deliberation, into the lighted access, with thoughts now only for his ship. He walked the tube pa.s.sage, into the familiar lock. Home again. He kept going to the lift-five of them to fill the s.p.a.ce, to make an unaccustomed crowd in the narrow corridors. The lift let them out on the main level, into the narrow bowed floor of the in-dock living quarters and the bridge; and he stood by the lift door and watched them walk about the little zone of curved deck that was accessible... silver-clad visitors come home to scarred Lucy, to pa.s.s their fingers over her aged surfaces, to touch the control banks and the cushions, to look this way and that up the inaccessible curve of her cabin s.p.a.ce and storage corridors, wondering aloud about this and that point of her design. He was anxious in that scrutiny, watched their faces, their smallest reactions, more sensitive than if they had been looking him over.