“He set it up,” Allison said, “for somebody who really didn’t know how to run a ship. To teach everything there was. It must have taken him a long time to do that. I figure he must have thought a lot about your being able to take care of yourself.”
“None of your business.”
“We’re not welcome there, are we?”
He thought a moment about that one. “You coming back?” he asked, looking at her. “Or do they send me a new set of Dubliners for the run back?”
“We’re coming back,” she said. “You know we know how to work comp. Do everything. We’re pretty good.”
It was about the humblest he was likely to get out of Allison Reilly, and it set him off his balance again. “I know you’re pretty good,” he said, shrugged it off. Looked up, then, at her and the others, one face and the other.
“Excuse me,” he said, and walked back into the office and others’ business. Aides moved: rifles swung fractionally in the hands of guards. Mallory’s face had an uncommon degree of wariness. “It’s Kreja,” he said, feeling the presence of Allison and the others close at his back. He took his papers from his pocket, another tiny movement of the rifles which had not quite given up their focus. “Le Cygne and Kreja. Maybe I ought to get the papers straightened out.”
Mallory looked up at him curiously. “Is it? And how do you come by that Name? It’s a long time out of circulation.”
He wondered in that moment—decided in the negative. Mallory’s puzzlement seemed for once other than a mockery. “I was born with it,” he said. “I’d like it back.”
Mallory settled back in her chair, a hand on her desk. “Not a difficult matter. Pan-paris, was it? That was a time ago.”
Breath failed him. “Would you know what happened?”
“I heard what happened.”
He believed that. Mallory was trustable—in some degree. He believed that much.
“Give me the papers,” she said. And when he laid them on the desk she simply took them and wrote in longhand. “Le Cygne. Name of owner?”
“Sandor Kreja.”
The pen flourished and stopped. She handed the papers back. The corrections were there. S. Mallory was written below: amended by her authority.
“Kreja.”
A hand was offered him from his right. One of the Reillys—the Reilly: he had heard him answer. He took the hand, suffered the friendly pressure, escaped then past the door in his own company,
“That’s straight,” he said. He pocketed the papers, along with the voucher, walked a fragile course toward Lucy/Le Cygne’s dock, with his Dubliners about him. “Going to have to go out on the hull when we get time. Do a name change.”
“Not much chance of getting cargo here,” Allison said. “But hazard rate ought to cover it both ways.”
“Game for another run?”
“They’re keeping military watch on the whole Line for the time being. So the rumor runs.”
“Nice to pick up rumors. I’m not sure I believe all of them.”
“I figure they’ll hold by this one.”
They reached the access. It was about the limit of his strength and Curran’s, who was out of breath as he was going up the ramp—a young Dubliner plastered himself against the wall of the lock as they came in with a quick “Sir—Ma’am” and Sandor gave the boy a dazed and misgiving stare as his own Dubliners pulled him past. “I didn’t clear any boarders,” he said, finding more of them by the lift “Hang it, Reilly—”
“Borrowed help,” Allison said. The corridor was clean. The inside of the lift car was clean, spit and polish. “Young Dubliners wanted some exercise.”
The lift let them out in the lounge/bridge area. Scrubbed decks, polished panels, every smudge and smear and tarnish cleared away. It looked new again, except for the tape patches on the upholstery. “You cleaning her up to take possession?” he asked outright.
“No,” Allison said.
“Can’t touch anything without fingerprinting it.”
“That’s fine. It’s old habits.”
He looked back at them standing there, reckoned how the place would feel without them. Nodded then. “Looks like she used to,” he admitted, and turned back and walked onto the bridge.
She went out, Le Cygne did, with empty holds, moving lightly as she could in that condition.
Comp talked to them, commending them that they had got it right. Jump coming up, Sandy. Find your referent.”
“Got it,” Allison said from number two post, talking back to comp and to him, and the numbers came up on the screen.
The checks came in from the others, routine matters.
They headed for Pell, for station cargo this time, and reckoned Dublin would pass them on the way. There was a bet on, inside Le Cygne, about elapsed-time and drinks when they got there. He reckoned to win it, knowing his ship.
But it was all one account, anyway.