Be reasonable, Megan had told her then, taking her in the circle of her arm, setting her on the edge of the bed in her quarters and trying to talk sense into her. Only one gets to be the Old Man; and you know how many try the course and fail? Maybe one in four survives the grade to get into the line; and one in fifty gets to Helm 24, up where you’re even going to sit a chair on watch; and after that, age is against you, because the sitting captains are too young. You go ask in library, Allie, how long the sitting captains are going to live, and then you do the math and figure out how long the number two chairs are going to live after taking their posts behind them, and how long it takes for Helm 24 to work up to posted crew.
Can’t I try? she had asked. And: yes, you can try, Megan had said. I’m only telling you how it is.
Maybe there’ll be an accident, she had thought to herself, with a ten-year-old’s ruthless ambition: an accident to wipe out everyone in Second Helm.
You study everything, Megan had said, when she had complained about learning galley maintenance; the Helm course fits you for everything. So if you fail, you drop into whatever other track you’re passing. You think Helm’s just sitting in that chair: it’s trade and routings; law; navigation and scan and com and armaments; it’s jack and jill of all trades, Allie, ma’am, and doing all the scut before you hand it out, and you can always quit, Allie, ma’am.
No, ma’am, she had said, and swallowed all they gave her, reckoning to be stubbornest the longest, and to make it all the way, because there was a craziness in her, that once launched, she had a kind of inertia that refused to be hauled down. She was Helm 21, and when Val retired as she was likely to, Helm 6 and on the fading edge of rejuv, she would be Helm 20, and one more Dubliner got a post as Helm 24. She walked wide among the unposteds, being Helm. It had its perks. But Lallie, over there, Maintenance 196, was Second Maintenance second shift alterday at barely twenty-one, posted main crew before her hair grayed, while Helm 21 had little chance indeed, with a possible forty years until another seated Helm decided to give it up and retire. She would be on rejuv before the list got her past Helm 20, would still be lording it over the unposteds, silver-haired and still not able to cross the line into the posteds lounge, still waiting, still working the number two bridge to stay current.
She shut her eyes, leaned back, seeing blue dock again, and soldiers in their black uniforms. They talked about opening up Sol trade, shut down since the war; about opening the mothballed stations of the Hinder Stars. They talked new routes and profits to be made—putting their hand into Alliance territory, creating a loop that would link the Union stars to the Pell-based Alliance. Trade and politics.
So much she knew, sitting in on Dublin executive councils, which was all of Helm and only sitting crew of other tracks. She knew all the debate, whether Dublin should take the chance, whether they should just sit out the building and wait for the accomplished fact; but Dublin had always stood with one foot on either side of a crisis, always poised herself ready to move to best advantage, and the Merchanter’s Alliance, once an association of merchanter captains who disputed Union, now held the station at Pell’s Star for a capital, declared itself a sovereign government, passed laws, in short… looked like a power worth having a foot inside. A clean record with Union; a clean record with the Alliance thus far, since Dublin had operated far out of the troubled zones during the war—she could get herself a Pell account opened and if that new trade really was opening up there, then Dublin could get herself dual papers. Union Council was in favor of it, wanted moderates like themselves in the Alliance, good safe Unionside haulers who would vote against Pell-side interests as the thing got bigger. Union talked about building merchant ships and turning them over to good safe Unionsiders like Dublin to increase their numbers—which talk quickened Allison’s pulse. A new ship to outfit would strip away all the Second Helm of Dublin, and get her posted on the spot. She had lived that thought for a year.
But more and more it looked like a lot of talk and a maintenance of the status quo. Rapprochement was still the operative word in Union: Alliance and Union snuggling closer together after their past differences. Recontacting Sol, after the long silence, in an organized way. Clearing the pirates out. All merchanters having equal chance at the new ships that might be built
Hopes rose and fell. At the moment they were fallen, and she took wild chances on dockside. Geoff was right. Stupidity. But it had helped, with the soldiers crawling all over station that close to crossing the Line into foreign space. So she scattered a bit of her saved credit on a fellow who could use a good drink and a good sleepover. In a wild impulse of charity it might have been good to have scattered a bit more on him: he looked as if he could have used it… but touchy-proud. He would not have taken it. Or would have, being hungry, and hated her for it. There had been no delicate way. He fell behind her in her mind, as Viking did, as all stations did after they sealed the hatch. If she thought persistently of anyone, it was Charlie Bodart of Silverbell, green-eyed, easygoing Charlie, Com 12 of his ship, who crossed her path maybe several times a loop, Silverbell and Dublin running one behind the other.
But not now. Not to Pell, across the Line. Good-bye to Silver-bell and all that was familiar—at least for the subjective year. And it might be a long time before they got back on Charlie’s schedule —if ever.
A body hit the cushion beside her, heavy and male. She opened her eyes and turned her head in the din of voices. Curran.
“What,” Curran said, “hung over? You’ve got a face on you.”
“Not much sleep.”
“I’ll tell you about not much sleep.”
“I’ll bet you will.” She looked from him to the clock, and the bell was late. “I got along. I got those fiches too. And a couple of bottles.”
“Well have those killed before we get to Pell.”
“We’ll have to kill them at dock if they don’t get the soldierlads organized and get us out of here.”
“I think they’ve got it straightened away,” Curran said. Helm 22, Curran, right behind her in the sequence. Dark-haired, like enough for a brother; and close to that “I heard that from Ma’am.”
“I hope.” She folded her arms, gathered up her cheerfulness. “I had an offer, I want you to know. My friend last night was looking for crew. Number one and only on his own ship, he said. Offered me a Helm 2 chair, he did. At least that’s what I think he was offering.”
Curran chuckled. It was worth a laugh, a marginer making offers to Dublin. And not so deep a laugh, because it touched hopes too sensitive, that they both shared.
“Cousin Allie.” That shrill piping was aged four, and barrelled into her unbraced lap, to be picked up and bounced. Allison caught her breath, hauled Tish up on her leg, bounced her once dutifully and passed her with a toss over to Curran, who hugged the imp and rolled her off his lap onto the empty cushion beside him. “Going to go,” Tish said, having, at four, gotten the routine down pat. “Going to walk all round Dublin.”
“Pretty soon,” Curran said.
“Live up there” Tish said, jabbing a fat finger ceilingward. “My baby up there.”