Union Alliance - Merchanter's Luck Part 14

And stopped when she did, taking his arm, around the curve by the galley.

*He might hear, Curran signed to her. Pointed to the com system.

She knew that. She cast a look about, looking for pickups, found none closer than ten feet. "Listen," she said, "I want you to keep it quiet with him. Friendly. I don't know what the score is here."

"What's he running around there, with a sector frozen down? Contraband, you reckon?"

"I don't know.-Curran, have you tried the doors on the cabins -the other cabins? Something terrible happened on this ship. I don't know when and I don't know what. Hit by the Mazianni, he says; but this-The loft is frozen; the cabins left-you know how they were left... there's a slept-in bed around there, frozen down."

"I tell you this," Curran said in the faintest of whispers, "I don't sleep well-in that cabin. Maybe he's worried for himself- about us doing to him what occurs to him to do to us. I don't like it, Allie. Most of all I don't like that comp being locked up. That's dangerous. And you know why he got us out of there... not to look over his shoulder while he works, that's what. I wouldn't put it past him, spying on us. Or murder, if it came to it"

"No," she said, a shake of her head. "I don't think that I never have."

"You ever been wrong, Allie?"

"Not in this."

He frowned, a look up from under his brows. "Maybe the record's still good. And maybe we go on like this and we have a run-in with the military-what's he going to do, Allie? Which way is he going to jump? I don't like it."

"He's strung out I know it. I know it's not right."

"Allie-" He reached out, touched her shoulder, cousin for the moment and not number two. "Man and woman-he thinks one way with you and maybe he thinks he can get around you; but you let me talk it out with him and I'll straighten it out. And I'll get those comp keys. No question of it."

"I don't want that"

"You don't want it, I don't want it. But we're in trouble, if you haven't noticed. That man's off the brink and he's going farther. I propose we have it out with him... we. Me. No chaff with me. He knows that. You just stay low, stay out of it, go to your cabin and we'll put the fear in him."

"No."

"You think of something that makes as good sense? You going to ask him and he'll come over? I'll figure you tried that."

She bit at her lip, looked up the corridor, where Neill and Deirdre came down the horizon. "Sorry," Neill said again; and Deirdre: "Who's minding the ship?"

"He is.-What was it, around there?"

"Loft," Deirdre said. She clenched her arms about her. "A mess -things ripped loose-panels askew-didn't see all of it, just from the section door. Dark in there.-Allie..."

"I know," she said. "I figured what was in there," She thrust her hands into her pockets, started back.

"Where are you going?" Curran asked.

"To my cabin." She looked back, straight at Curran, straight in the eyes. "I'm off. It's your shift. Maybe you'd better get back to the bridge. I'll be there-a while."

Chapter XIII.

Lucy had gotten along, running stable under auto: Sandor shut down comp and stared a moment at scan, numb, the dread of the warship diminished now. It was not going to jump with them: had no capacity to do that. Mallory herself was sitting still, watching- he could not imagine that much patience among the things they told of Mallory. He did not believe it: she was waiting for something, but it had nothing to do with him. He began to hope that she just wanted them out of her way.

And if it was other Mazianni she was hunting-if she expected other traffic. He got up, looked once and bleakly at the couch he had quit. There was a little time left in mainnight. But the effort to sleep was a struggle hardly worth it, lying there awake for most of the time, to sleep a few minutes and wake again. He had done that all the night. Nervousness. And no chance of banking out. Not as things were.

He headed for the shower, trusting the autopilot-a scandal to the Dubliners: he imagined that. They wore themselves out sitting watch and he walked off and left it. There were things that wanted doing-scrubbing and swabbing all over the ship, work less interesting to them, he was sure: but he began to think in the long term, a fleeting mode of thought that flickered through his reasonings and went out again. There was the loft- They had never done anything about the loft, he and Ross and Mitri: no need of the s.p.a.ce-Lucy was full of empty s.p.a.ce; and walking there-they just avoided it. Put it on extreme powersave.

The cold kept curious crew out. When he was alone on the ship he had never gone past the galley. It was dead up there... until the Reillys started opening doors and violating seals. Opening up areas of himself in the process, like a surgery. He gathered his courage about it, the hour being morning: a man was in trouble who went to bed with panic and got up with it untransformed. He tried to look at it from other sides, think around the situation if not through it.

A little time, that was what he needed, to break the Reillys in and get himself used to them.

But the comp- (Ross... they wouldn't have given out that money for no reason. No one's that rich, that they can spill half a million because a few of their people take a fancy to sign off-half a million for a parting-present...) (People don't throw money away like that. People aren't like that.) (Ross... I know what they want. I loved her, Ross, and I didn't see; I was afraid-Pell would have taken the ship-and what could I do? But they think I've sold her; and maybe I have. What do I do, Ross?) The warm water of the shower hit his body, relaxed the muscles: he turned up the cold on purpose, shocked himself awake. But when he had gotten out he had a case of the shivers, uncommonly violent... too little food, he reasoned; schedule upset. He reckoned on getting some of the concentrates: that was a way of eating without tasting it, getting some carbohydrates into his body and getting the shakes out.

They had to make jump tomorrow maindawn. He had to get himself strung back together. Mallory was not going to take excuses out there. Mallory wanted schedules and schedules she got He dressed, shaved, dried his hair and went out into the corridor, back to the bridge.

Curran was sitting against a counter-Neill and Deirdre with him. "I'm for breakfast," Sandor said. "I think we could leave her all right, just-"

"Want to talk to you," Curran said. "Captain."

He drew a deep breath, standing next to the scan console-leaned against it, too tired for this, but he nodded. "What?"

"We want to ask you for the keys. There's a question of safety.

"We've all talked about it. We really have quite a bit of concern about it."

"I've discussed that problem. With Allison. I think we agree on it"

"No. You don't agree. And we're asking you."

"I'll take up the matter with her."

"Are you sure there's no chance of our reasoning with you?"

"I told you."

"I think you'd better think again."

"There are laws, Mr. Reilly. And they're on my side in this." He started away from the counter, to break it off. The others moved, cutting off his retreat-his eye picked Deirdre, the one he could go over-but there was no running. He turned about and looked at Curran. "You want to settle this the hard way? Let's clear the fragile area and talk about it."

"Why don't we?" Curran got off his counteredge and waved them all back, a retreat into the lounge area among the couches, but Sandor went for the corridor, toward the cabins, a slow retreat that drew all of them in that direction.

Allison was in her cabin. He was sure of that, the way he measured his own frame and Curran's and knew who was going to win this one, especially if Curran got help. He reached for the door switch, and Curran caught him up and knocked his hand aside.

He landed one, a knee to the groin and a solid smash to the neck that knocked Curran double-a knee to the face, and Curran hit the wall as he spun about to see to Neill.

A blow at his legs staggered him and Neill and Deirdre moved all at once as Curran tackled him from behind and weighed him down.

He twisted, struck where he had a moment's leverage, over and over again-almost flung himself up, but a wrench at his hair jerked him hard onto his back and they had him pinned. "Out of it," Neill ordered someone. "Out." He kept up the struggle, blind and wild, hunting any leverage, anything. "Look out."

A blow smashed across his jaw, for a moment absorbing all his wit, a deep black moment without organization: he knew they had his arms pinned, and his coordination was gone.

"Look at me," a male voice was saying. A shake at his hair, a hand slapping his face and steadying it "You want to use sense, Stevens? What about the keys?"

There was blood in his mouth. He figured they would hit him again. He heaved to get a hand loose.

A second blow.

"Stop it," Neill's voice. "Curran, stop it."

Again the hand shook at his face. He was blind for the moment, everything lost in dark. "You want to think it over, Stevens?"

He tried to move. The blood was shut off from his right hand; the left had life in it. He heaved on that side, but the lighter weight on that arm was still enough. "Curran." That was Deirdre. "Curran, he's out-stop it."

A silence. His eyes began to clear. He stared into Curran's b.l.o.o.d.y face, Neill and Deirdre's bodies in the corner of his eyes, holding onto his arms. "You shouldn't have hit him like that," Neill said. "Curran, stop, you hear me, or I'll let him loose."

Curran let go of his face. Stared down at him.

"He's not going to give us anything," Deirdre said. "We've got trouble, Curran. Neill's right"

"He'll give it to us."

"Curran, no."

"What do you want, let him up, let him back at controls where he can do what we can't undo? No. No way. You're right, we've got trouble."

Sandor gave a heave, sensing a loosening of Deirdre's arms. It failed; the hold enveloped his arm, yielding, but holding. "Get Allison," he said, having difficulty talking. And then he recalled it was her door they were outside. She might have heard it; and stayed out of it. The realization muddled through him in the same tangled way as other impressions, painful and distant. "What do we do?" Neill asked. "For G.o.d's sake what do we do?"

"I think maybe we'd better get Allison," Deirdre said.

"No," Curran said. "No." He took hold again of Sander's bruised jaw. "You hear me. You hear me. You're thinking how to get rid of us, maybe; not the law-that's not your way, is it? Thinking of having an accident-like maybe others have had on this ship. We'll find you a comfortable spot; and we've got all the time we like. But we're coming to an agreement one way or the other. We're having a look at the records. At comp. At every nook and cranny of this ship. And maybe if we don't like what we find, we just call Mallory out there and turn you over to the military. You can yell foul all you like: you think that'll make a difference if we swear to the contrary? Your word against ours-and what's yours worth without ours to back it? They'd chew you up and swallow you down-you think not?

He started shivering, not from fear, from shock: he was numb, otherwise, except for a small quick area of shame. They picked him up off the floor and had to hold him up for the moment; he got his feet under him, did nothing when Curran grabbed his arm and pushed him into the wall. Then he hit, once and proper.

Curran hit the wall and came back off it. "No," Neill yelled, and got in the way of it. And suddenly Allison was there, the door open, and everything stopped where it was.

No shock. Nothing of the kind. Sandor stared at her, a reproach.

"Sorry," Curran said in a low voice. "Things seem to have gotten out of hand."

"I see that," she said.

"I don't think he's willing to talk about it"

"Are you?" she asked.

"No," Sandor said. His throat hurt. He said nothing else, watched Allison shake her head and glance elsewhere, at nothing in particular.

"How do we settle this?"

She was talking to him. "Forget it," he said past the obstruction in his throat. "It was an idea that won't work. We go on and forget it. I've got no percentage in carrying a grudge."

"I don't think it works that way," Curran said.

"No," she said, "I don't either."

"There's cabins," Curran said.

"Lord-"

"It's done. I figure a little time to think about it-Allie, we don't sleep with him loose."

"You can't lock them," she said. "Without the keys."

"I'd laugh," Sandor said, "but what comes next? Cutting my throat? Think that one through: you kill me and you've got no keys at all. We'll go right on out of system."

"No one's talking about that."

"I'll lay bets you've thought about it.-No, I'll go upsection. Close a seal. An alarm will ring if I leave it. You have to have everything laid out for you? You're inept, you Dubliners. Ought to take you several days to work yourselves up to the next step."

He walked off from them, toward the section two cabins, reckoning all the while that they would stop him and devise something less comfortable. There was silence behind him.

He pa.s.sed the section seal, pressed the b.u.t.ton.

The seal shot home.

Allison sat down on the armrest of the number two cushion and looked at her cousins-at Curran, who sat on the arm of number one, blotting at a cut lip. Neill and Deirdre rested against the central console slumped down and very quiet. "How?" she asked.

Curran shrugged-looked her in the eyes. "It just got out of hand."

"When?"

Curran ducked his head. He was bloodstained, sweating, his right eye moused at the cheekbone. "He swung," he said, looking up again. "Caught me. He won't bluff." It was possibly the worst moment of Curran's life, being wrong in something he had argued. Her own gut was tied in a knot.

And after that, silence, all of the faces turned toward her, where the decisions should have come from in the first place. She leaned her arms on her knees, adding it up, all the wrong moves, and the first was abdicating. It made her sick thinking of it All the good reasons, all the rationale collapsed. It was not only an ugly way to have gone, for good reasons-the game had not worked, and now it was real: Stevens understood it for real-or knew that they knew it had to be. "It's stupid," she objected, slammed her fist into her hand. She looked up at faces that had no better answer. "No ideas?"

Silence.

"We could get him off this ship," Curran said in a subdued voice. "We could ask the military to intervene. Say there was an argument."

"You reckon to do that?"

"We're talking about our lives. Allie, don't mistake him like I did: he backed up on the docks, but he's been running hired crew and he's survived; there's those cabins. And the loft."

"It was depressurized," Deirdre said. "Maybe he got holed in some tangle; but little ships don't survive that kind of thing. The other answer is some access panel going out; and you can blow it from main board, can't you?"

"So what do we do? We've got twenty-four hours to get those comp keys out of him or to get him back at controls, or we go sliding right past our jump point and out of the system. And he knows it."

Silence.