Merchanter's Luck

Chapter VII

It was executive council on Dublin, and to be the centerpiece of such a meeting was no comfortable position. Seventy-six of the posted and the retired crew… and the Old Man himself sitting in the center seat of the table of captains which faced the rest of the room: Michael Reilly, gray-haired with rejuv and frozen somewhere the biological near side of forty. Ma’am was in the first row after the Helm seats, in that first huge lounge behind the bridge that was the posteds lounge when it was not being the council room. And with Ma’am was the rest of Com; and Scan on the other side of the aisle, behind the rest of Helm, and that was Megan and Geoff and others. Allison sat with impassive calm, hands folded, trying to look easy in the face of all the power of Dublin, all the array of her mother and aunts and grandmother and cousins once and several times removed. She was all too conscious of Curran’s empty seat beside hers, Helm 22; and Deirdre missing from 23; and Neill sitting in 24 and trying to look as innocent as she. The Old Man and the other captains had a nest of papers on the long table in front of them. She knew most of the content of them well enough. Some of it she did not, and that worried her.

The Old Man beckoned, and Will, who was the senior lawyer in the family, came up to the table and bent over there and talked a while to the captains in general. Heads nodded, lips pursed, a long slow conversation, and not a paper shuffled elsewhere in the room. The rest of the council listened, eavesdropping; and words fell out like papers and liability; and piracy, and Union forces.

Will went back to his seat then, and the board of captains straightened its papers while Allison tried not to clench her hands. Her gut was knotted up; and somewhere at her back was her mother, who had to be feeling something mortal at her daughter’s insanity. People never quit their ships. Kin stayed together, lifelong; and daughters and sons were there, forever. There was Connie left, to be sure—Connie, waiting elsewhere, not posted, and not entitled here. There were friends and cousins, Megan’s support at a time like this. Allison was numb, convinced that she was committing a betrayal of more than one kind—and still there was no more stopping it than she could stop breathing. Win or lose, she was marked by the attempt.

“Your entire watch,” the Old Man said, “21, isn’t represented here.”

“Sir,” she said quietly, “they’re settling a situation involving Lucy. Before it gets out of hand.”

“I’ll refrain from comment,” the Old Man said. “Mercifully.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to approve the request for financing. Contingent on the rest of your watch applying for this transfer as you represent.”

“Yes, sir.” A wave of cold and relief went through her. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’ve phrased this as a temporary tour.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll retain your status then. Your watch in Helm will not be vacated.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. That was the risk they had run. Council supported them, then. “Thank you for the others, sir.”

“I’ll be talking to you,” the Old Man said. “Privately. Now. Council’s dismissed. Come to the bridge.”

“Sir,” she said very softly, and caught Neill’s eye, two vacant seats removed, as others began to rise—Neill, whose brow was broken out in sweat. He gave her a nod. She got up, looked back across the rows of chairs for Megan and Geoff, and met her mother’s stare as if there were no one else in the room for the moment. Her mother nodded slowly, and it sent a wave of anguish through her, that small gesture: it was all right; it was—if not understood—accepted. Thank you, she said: her mother lipread. Then she turned away toward the forward door the Old Man had taken, which led down the corridor to the bridge.

Little was working… in this heart of hearts of Dublin, most of the boards dark and shut down. Most of the work they did now besides monitor was connected to the cargo facility and to the com links with station. The Old Man had taken his seat in his chair among the rows and rows of dormant instruments and controls, with the few on-duty crew working in the far distance forward on the huge bridge. She went up to that post like a petitioner going to the throne, that great gimballed black chair in the pit which oversaw anything the captain wanted to look at Anywhere. Instantly.

“Sir,” she said.

The Old Man stared at her—white-haired and powerful and young/old with rejuv that took away more hope than it gave… for the ambitious young.

“Allison.” Not Allie; Allison. She was always that with him. He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and locked his hands on his middle. “You’ll be interested to know that it’s all stalled off. Dancer’s the ship that made the complaint. I’ve talked to their Old Lady. Says she doesn’t have anything personal involved, and there hasn’t been word of other witnesses. I take it you’re still set on this.”

“Yes, sir.” Soft and careful. “By your leave, sir.”

He stared at her with that humorless and unflappable calm that came of being what he was. “Sit down. Let’s talk about this.”

She had never sat in the Old Man’s presence, not called in like this. She looked nervously to her left, where a small black cushion edged the main vid console, there for that purpose. She settled, hands on her knees, eye to eye with Michael Reilly.

“Applying to take a tour off Dublin,” the Old Man said. “Applying for finance into the bargain. Let me see if I can quote your application: ‘a foot in Pell’s doorway, a legitimate Alliance operation… outweighing other disadvantages.’ You know where the sequence of command falls, 21, if we buy into another ship. Could that possibly have occurred to you?”

“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.