She blinked, caught by an impulse of guilt... remembered what she was about, then, and what was at stake, and headed out of the cabin-past Neill in the doorway. She went for the bridge, staggering and leaning back in the downward pitch of the deck. Neill followed her, as reckless and reeling.

Deirdre had gotten her helmet off, and set it on the console and dragged the body out of the way. Allison jerked the other glove off, fought with the helmet catches and lifted it off. The backpack weighed on her-she started to shed that, and abandoned the thought in her anxiety to get at comp.

She bent over the keyboard and keyed the number in.

"h.e.l.lo, Sandy," a voice said, nearly stopping her heart. A menu of functions and code numbers leapt to the screen in front of her. "How are you?"

She picked the security function, keyed it through. A list of accesses came to the screen with x"s and o"s.

"Sandy, is there some problem? I can instruct in security procedures if you ask me. In any case, secure the bridge; this is always your last retreat. Stay calm. Always keep food and water on the bridge in case. Keep a gun by you and power down the rest of the sectors if it comes to that."

"Lord," Neill muttered. "What"s it doing?"

"It"s right," she decided suddenly, looking about her. "We put the locks on. He"s gone; and Curran is; and they"ve got them out there somewhere. We"ve got to be sure there"s no one left in the holds." The computer went on in its monologue, unstoppable. She keyed the doors closed, one and the other, and took comp back to its listing.

"What can I do for you?" it asked.

And waited. She stared at the boards, panting under the weight she carried. A wild idea occurred to her, that they might all go out onto the docks and try whether some resistance might be left on Venture Station: if they could join up with stationers trying to fight off this intrusion- No, she thought, it was too remote a chance. Too likely to end in a shooting: there were probably Mazianni guards right outside.

And the Mazianni would expect to change guards on the ship at some reasonable interval.

She kept running through the listings, finance, and plumbing and navigation. Customs, one said; and Law; and Banks; and Exchange; and In Case, one said. She pushed that one.

"Sandy" the voice said gently, "if you"re into this one, the worst has happened, I guess; and of course I don"t know where or who-but I love you. Sandy-I"ll say that first. And there are several things you can do. I"ll lay them out for you-"

She stopped it with a push of the key, collapsed into the cushion under the weight of the pack, under the weight of shock. Sandy. Sandor. It was indisputable t.i.tle-to Lucy and what it held.

That was somebody," Deirdre said. "Lord, Allie-what kind of rig is this?"

She started shedding her pack, struggling out of her suit. "I don"t know. But it"s his. Sandor"s. And whoever it was thought things through."

"They"ve got him and Curran," Neill said, "If we knew where-"

"Wrong odds," she said. She freed her upper body, stood up and shed the rest of it. Panting, she settled back again and looked up at them. At both of them. "I"ll tell you how it is. We hold onto the ship; and if they try to take it we get ourselves some of them. That"s it."

They nodded, helmetless both. She loved them, she thought suddenly. Everything had come apart. She had just killed someone... had gotten herself and her crewmates into a situation without exit, a dead end in all senses. Sandor and Curran gone-taken off the ship-lost... Everything had gone foul, everything from the moment she had planned to have her way in the world, and her two cousins stood there, able to have added it all up, and gave her a simple consent. The way Curran had done. And Sandor, for whatever tangled reasons.

Her throat swelled, making it painful to swallow. Her mind started working. "I"m betting they"re still alive," she said, "Curran and Sandor-or the Mazianni would have gone at the ship with a cutter. They still reckon to get the ship intact."

She reached and punched in on com, scanning through it, trying to pick up Mazianni transmissions, but there was nothing readable. Only the station pulse continued... False indication of life. She turned on vid as it bore-and it produced a desolate image of a primitive torus, vacant except for the vast bulk of a carrier berthed near them, and another object that might be yet another freighter docked farther on, indistinct in the dark and the curve of the station.

"Got ourselves a target if we wanted to take it," Neill said. "Even a creature that size-has a sensitive spot about the docking probe."

"Might," she agreed. "Wonder what the guns are worth," She went for the comp listing, called it up. The voice began, talking in simple terms, advising against starting anything.

"Shut up," she told it softly.

It kept on, relentless, and got then to what the guns were worth, which was not much.

But there was that chance, she reckoned; and then she got to reckoning what the bristles were on the frame of the monster next to them... and what that broadside would leave of them and a good section of Venture Station.

"Don"t try to fight" the young-man"s-voice of the computer pleaded with them. "Use your head. Don"t get into situations without choices"

It was late advice.

Chapter XVII.

"I told you," Sandor said, "I"ve got no inclination to heroics. You want to deal, I"ll deal."

It was a tight gathering, that in the cold dockside office-a dozen Mazianni, mostly officers, in a dingy, aged facility, heated by a portable unit, with some of the lights burned out-a desk cluttered with printouts. And burn-scars on the walls, that spoke of violence here at some point. There was no sign of the former occupants, nothing. He stood across the desk from Edger himself, and Curran was somewhere behind him, back among the guns that kept the odds in this meeting to Edger"s liking.

"What have you got to deal with?" Edger asked him.

"Look, I don"t want any trouble. You keep your hands off my ship and off my crewman."

"Might have need of personnel," Edger said.

"No. No deal at all on that. Look, you want cargoes-I"m not particular. You feed me goods and I"ll shift them where you like. You want some of your own people to go along, fine." There was a chair a trooper had his foot in. Sandor gestured at it, looking at Edger. ""You mind? Captain to captain, as it were-" Edger made a careless, not quite amused gesture and he captured the chair from the trooper, dragged it over and sat down, leaned on the desk and jabbed a finger onto it amid the papers. "Do I figure right, you"ve got your sights on Pell? Maybe Mallory"s playing your game out there; maybe you"re going to pull it off."

"Mallory."

He sat back a fraction, playing it with a scant flicker; but the hate in Edgar"s eyes was mortal-So, he thought, having tried that perimeter. Play it without principles. All the way. "Her cargo aboard," he said. "She hauled me in before undock, said she was watching. And she"s out there. Overjumped us. Just watching. That"s what I know. I"m not particular. You want Mallory"s cargo, welcome to it And if you want trade done somewhere across the Line, I"m willing-but not Pell. Not and answer questions back there."

Edger was a ma.s.s murderer. So was Mallory. But there was a febrile fixation to Edger"s stare that tightened the hairs on his nape. No dockside justice ever promised Edger"s kind of dealing.

"Suppose we discuss it with your man back there," Edger said.

"Discuss what?"

"Mallory."

"I"ll discuss Mallory. I"ve got no percentage in it"

"Where is Norway?"

"Last time I saw her she was off by James"s Point"

"Doing what?"

"Waiting for something. She"s working with Union. That"s the rumor. They"ve got all the nullpoints sewed up and Union"s working with her. So they say."

Edger was silent a moment. Shifted his eyes to his lieutenant and back again. "What cargo?"

"I don"t know what cargo. I didn"t want Mallory on my neck. I didn"t break any seals."

"Junk, Captain Stevens. Junk. We looked. Recycling goods." Edger"s voice rose and fell again; and Sander"s mind went to one momentary blank.

"She set me up," he exclaimed. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.i.t.c.h set me up. She knew what was here and sent me into it."

No reaction from Edger: nothing. The eyes stayed fixed on him, feverish and still, and the noise of his protest fell into that silence and died.

"Look, I don"t know anything. I swear to you, I"m a marginer with legal troubles; and Mallory offered me hazard rate for a haul -offered me a way out, and a profit, and she set me up. She b.l.o.o.d.y well set me up."

"I"m touched, Stevens."

"It"s the truth."

"It"s a setup, Stevens, you"re right in that much.-Hagler, take a detail and persuade Stevens he"s hired; get that ship working."

"Hired for what?"

"Don"t press your luck, Stevens. You may survive this voyage... if you learn."

A hand descended on his shoulder. He got up, without protest, calculating wildly-to get back aboard again, get sealed in there with a crew and take care of them... Allison and her cousins would be there; and there was suddenly a way out- Everyone was moving, the gathering adjourning elsewhere with some dispatch. They were pulling out, he reckoned suddenly. They could not afford to sit at rest if they suspected Mallory was on the loose. A warship out of jump, not dumping its velocity-he did the calculations mentally, fogged in the terror of them, let himself be taken by the arm and steered for the door, a gun prodding him in the back. A ship like Norway could be down their throats scant minutes behind its lightspeed bow wave of ID and interference... could blow them out of this fragile, antique sh.e.l.l of a station.

There never had been a major settlement here, he surmised. It was a setup, all of it, all the leaks of routes and trade-and he had not betrayed Mallory: Mallory had primed him with everything she wanted spread to her enemies. Canisters of junk for a cargo-He looked about him as they went out onto the open dock, so chill that breath hung frosted in the air and cold lanced to the bone. They herded him right, the jab of a rifle barrel, all of them headed out... and he looked back, saw them taking Curran off in the other direction.

"Curran!" he yelled. "Hold it! Blast you, my crewman goes with me-"

Curran stopped, looked toward him. Sandor staggered in the sudden jerk at his arm, the jab of a rifle barrel into his ribs-Kept turning, and hit an armored trooper a blow in the throat that threw the trooper down and sent a pain through his hand. He dived for the gun, hit the floor and rolled in a patter of shots that popped off the decking. The fire hit, an explosion that paralyzed his arm. He kept rolling, for the cover of the irregular wall, the gun abandoned in panic. "Move it," someone yelled. "Get him."

A second shot exploded into his side, and after that was the cold pressure of the deck plates against his face and a stunned realization that he had just been hit. He heard voices shouting, heard someone order a boarding- "Give up the freighter," he heard called. "You just shot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and it"s no good. Come on."

He was bleeding. He had trouble breathing. He lay still until the sounds were done, and that was the best that he knew how to do.

Then he lifted his head and saw Curran lying face down on the plates a distance away.

He got that far, an inching progress across the ice cold plates, terrified of being spotted moving. The wounds were throbbing, the left arm refused to move, but he thought that he could have gotten up. And Curran- Curran was breathing. He put his hand on Curran"s back, snagged his collar and tried to pull him, but it tore his side. Curran stirred then, a feeble movement. "Come on," Sandor said. "Out of the open: come on-let"s try for the ship."

Curran struggled for his feet, collapsed back to one knee; and blood erupted from the burn in his shoulder. Sandor made the same try, discovered he could get his legs under him, offered a hand to Curran and steadied him getting up. "Get to cover," he breathed, looking out at all that vacant dock, foreign machinery more than a century outdated, a dark pit of an access. That was Australia back there, two berths down, dark and blank to the outside; and Lucy was in the other direction... Lucy- They made it twenty meters along the wall; and then the cold and the tremors got to them both. Sandor hung onto the wall, eased down it finally, supporting Curran and both of them leaning together. "Rest a minute," he said.

They"ll blow the station," Curran predicted, "Hard vacuum.- Come on, man. Come on." It was Curran hauling him up this time; and they walked as far as they could, but it was a long, long distance to Lucy"s berth.

Curran went down finally, out of strength; and he was. He held onto the blood-soaked Dubliner, both of them tucked up in the cover of a machinery niche, and stared at what neither one of them could reach.

Seals crashed. Australia was loose, preparing for encounter. Sandor went stiff, and Curran did, antic.i.p.ating the rush of decompression that might take them; but the station stayed whole.

Then a second crash of seals.

"Allison," Sandor said, and Curran took in his breath.

Lucy had prepared herself to break loose. Someone with the comp keys was at controls.

They"re wanting an answer," Neill said from com-turned a sweating face in Allison"s direction.

"No," Allison said.

"Allie-those are guns out there!"

"They know comp"s locked and their man might not answer. No, don"t do it."

They"re moving," Deirdre said.

Vid came to her screen, a view of a monster warship, the twin of Norway, a baleful glow of running lights illuminating the angular dark surfaces of the frame. Cylinder blinkers began their slow movement as the carrier established rotation.

"They"ve broken communication," Neill said, and Allison said nothing, waiting, watching, hoping that the behemoth that pa.s.sed near them would reckon their man"s silence a communications lockup. And that they would not, in pa.s.sing, blow them and the station at once.

"Movement our starboard," Deirdre said, and that image came too: another ship had been around the rim, and it was putting out "Freighter type," Deirdre said.

"One of theirs," Allison surmised.

There was a silence for a moment "Get down there," she said then, "and get those port seals complete. We"d better be ready to move."

"Both of us?" Deirdre asked.

"Go."

All the functions came to her board; her cousins scrambled for the lift back in the lounge that would take them down to the frame. They had to get the seals complete or blow the dock and damage themselves, with no dockside a.s.sistance in their undocking.

And meanwhile the warship glided past them, while they played dead and helpless.

That was a panic move, that. The Mazianni had picked up something on scan: she dared not activate her own, sat taking in only what pa.s.sive sensors could gather... no output, no visible movement on the exterior, except the minuscule angling of the cameras that she reckoned they would miss.

A force left on the docks might have spotted that closure of seals; it might have been better to have done nothing. Might have-She could be paralyzed in might haves. She had two of her own out there-on that ship; on the station-no way of finding that out It hurt And there was no remedy to that either. She cleared it out of her mind for the moment, focused finally, functioning as she had not been functioning since somewhere back on Viking. So things were lost; lives were lost. She had several more to think of, and the captain of that ship out there was her senior in more than years and firepower. No match at all: the only chance was to go unnoticed, to prepare the ship to ride out the destruction of the station as a bit of flotsam, if it happened.

If that warship scented something out there, something sudden enough to draw it out, something was loose in Venture System.

Mallory, it might be. She fervently hoped so.

The red telltales winked to green, indicating the ports sealed. Deirdre and Neill had gotten them secure. In a moment she heard the working of the lift.

Com beeped. She listened. It was the characteristic spit and fade of distant transmission, numerical signal, an arriving ship for sure. She punched it through to comp, flurried through an unfamiliar set of commands, Wording, the young-man"s-voice said, familiar sound by now, soothing. The answer came up. Finity"s End. Alliance merchanter, headed into ambush. She reached toward the com, and vid suddenly lost the movement of the Mazianni warship-a surge of power that for a moment wiped out reception. They moved- Lord, they moved, with eye-tricking suddenness... and her own people were headed across the deck toward her from the lift with no idea what was in progress. If she had the nerve she would put in com, give out a warning-and get them all killed.

"Neihart"s Finity just arrived," she said. "Headed into it."

Two bodies. .h.i.t the cushions and started s.n.a.t.c.hing functions to their own boards, without comment.

Warn them or not? There was a chance of making a score on the Mazianni if they lay low: of breaking things loose at their own moment, if they could pick it. Their guns were nothing. A pathetic nothing; and Finity had far better than they had-that was a guessable certainty.

"Got another one," Neill said; and then: "Allie; it"s Dublin."

The blood went from her face to her feat.