We got a freighter coming in—it's going to be here. This
thing—"
Like she was talking to some drugger with a high in sight—
But: "I got to," she said. "I got to, Nan."
For reasons that made her a little crazy, for certain; but crazy enough to have
the nerve—like the Bet Yeager that Nan and Ely had been dealing with and the Bet
Yeager who was talking now were two different things, but she was sane enough to
go back to friends, sane enough to know she didn't want to alienate the only
help she had if things went sour.
"You turn 'em in my request?" Bet asked. "Nan?"
"Yeah," Nan said under her breath, looking truly worried over her, the way not
many ever had in her life.
So she left.
The dockside swarmed with activity, the dull machinery gleaming under the
floods, crews working to complete the connections, in Thule's jury-rigged
accommodation for a modern starship. It wasn't a place for spectators. There
were few of them. Thule's inhabitants remembered sorties, remembered bodies
lying on the decking, shots lighting the smoke, and there were no idle
onlookers—just the crews who had work finally, and the usual customs agent, and
no more than that.
Excepting herself, who kept to the shadows of the girders, hands in pockets, and
watched things proceeding. She inhaled the icy, oil-scented air, watched the
pale gray monitor up on top of the pump control box ticking away the numbers,
and felt alive for a while.
The whole dock thundered to the sound of the grapples going out, hydraulics
screamed and squealed, the boom groaned, and finally the crash of contact
carried back down the arms, right through the deck plating and up into an
onlooker's bones.
Soft dock, considering the tiny size of the Thule docking cone and the tinsel
thinness of little Thule's outer wall: damn ticklish maneuver, another reason
the dock was generally vacant. There was the remote chance of a bump breaching
the wall. But there was equally well a chance of a pump blowing under the load
or God knew what else, a dozen ways to get blown to hell and gone anywhere on
Thule. Today it failed to matter. She thought that she could, perhaps, a major
perhaps, go the round of vending machines and buy up food enough and stash it
here and there in the crannies of Thule docks, maybe go to cover if somebody got
onto what was in Ritter-man's bedroom. She could just ignore this ship, wait it
out and hope to talk her way onto Mary Gold when and if she came. That was the
hole card she kept for herself, if Loki was what she was afraid it was.
But Mary Gold had become a small chance, a nothing chance with too many risks of
its own.
She waited, she waited two hours until little Thule got its seal problem
corrected and got Loki snugged in and safe. She stood there very glad of
Ritterman's castoffs under the jumpsuit, made as it had been for dockside chill:
breath still frosted and exposed skin went numb, and she kept her hands in her
pockets. Ice patched the corrugated decking, and the leaky seal that was
dripping water at the gantry-top was going to breed one helluva icicle in five
days' dock time.
Finally the tube went into place, the hatch whined and boomed open, letting out
a light touch of warmer, different air, a little pressure release; and of course
it was the customs man first up the ramp.
She found a place to sit in the vee of a girder, cold as it was, she sat and she
watched, and finally the customs man came out again.
She shivered, she felt—God, a sense of belonging to something again, just being
perched out here freezing her backside, like a dozen other sit-and-waits she
remembered. And it was damn foolish even to start thinking that way. It was
suicidal.
But she wasn't scared, not beyond a flutter in the gut which was her common
sense and the uncertainty of the situation; she wasn't scared, she was just
waiting to risk her neck, that was all, she thought about where she'd been and
where she could go, and it
thing—"
Like she was talking to some drugger with a high in sight—
But: "I got to," she said. "I got to, Nan."
For reasons that made her a little crazy, for certain; but crazy enough to have
the nerve—like the Bet Yeager that Nan and Ely had been dealing with and the Bet
Yeager who was talking now were two different things, but she was sane enough to
go back to friends, sane enough to know she didn't want to alienate the only
help she had if things went sour.
"You turn 'em in my request?" Bet asked. "Nan?"
"Yeah," Nan said under her breath, looking truly worried over her, the way not
many ever had in her life.
So she left.
The dockside swarmed with activity, the dull machinery gleaming under the
floods, crews working to complete the connections, in Thule's jury-rigged
accommodation for a modern starship. It wasn't a place for spectators. There
were few of them. Thule's inhabitants remembered sorties, remembered bodies
lying on the decking, shots lighting the smoke, and there were no idle
onlookers—just the crews who had work finally, and the usual customs agent, and
no more than that.
Excepting herself, who kept to the shadows of the girders, hands in pockets, and
watched things proceeding. She inhaled the icy, oil-scented air, watched the
pale gray monitor up on top of the pump control box ticking away the numbers,
and felt alive for a while.
The whole dock thundered to the sound of the grapples going out, hydraulics
screamed and squealed, the boom groaned, and finally the crash of contact
carried back down the arms, right through the deck plating and up into an
onlooker's bones.
Soft dock, considering the tiny size of the Thule docking cone and the tinsel
thinness of little Thule's outer wall: damn ticklish maneuver, another reason
the dock was generally vacant. There was the remote chance of a bump breaching
the wall. But there was equally well a chance of a pump blowing under the load
or God knew what else, a dozen ways to get blown to hell and gone anywhere on
Thule. Today it failed to matter. She thought that she could, perhaps, a major
perhaps, go the round of vending machines and buy up food enough and stash it
here and there in the crannies of Thule docks, maybe go to cover if somebody got
onto what was in Ritter-man's bedroom. She could just ignore this ship, wait it
out and hope to talk her way onto Mary Gold when and if she came. That was the
hole card she kept for herself, if Loki was what she was afraid it was.
But Mary Gold had become a small chance, a nothing chance with too many risks of
its own.
She waited, she waited two hours until little Thule got its seal problem
corrected and got Loki snugged in and safe. She stood there very glad of
Ritterman's castoffs under the jumpsuit, made as it had been for dockside chill:
breath still frosted and exposed skin went numb, and she kept her hands in her
pockets. Ice patched the corrugated decking, and the leaky seal that was
dripping water at the gantry-top was going to breed one helluva icicle in five
days' dock time.
Finally the tube went into place, the hatch whined and boomed open, letting out
a light touch of warmer, different air, a little pressure release; and of course
it was the customs man first up the ramp.
She found a place to sit in the vee of a girder, cold as it was, she sat and she
watched, and finally the customs man came out again.
She shivered, she felt—God, a sense of belonging to something again, just being
perched out here freezing her backside, like a dozen other sit-and-waits she
remembered. And it was damn foolish even to start thinking that way. It was
suicidal.
But she wasn't scared, not beyond a flutter in the gut which was her common
sense and the uncertainty of the situation; she wasn't scared, she was just
waiting to risk her neck, that was all, she thought about where she'd been and
where she could go, and it
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