Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Not a chance til I shed this headache. Go. Now.” Fallan reached a finger for the buzzer.

  “Going,” Ross said, and got up and left, staying for a backward look from the door.

  “Get!”

  Chapter 4

  Section i

  “I told him it wasn’t smart,” was Bellamy Jameson’s word on the whole affair, after Abrezio had explained the situation on com. “But he said the moment they said anything about Rights and what it was for, they needed to be shut down. I tried to wait, got pinged from Hewitt’s office to stop stalling. The doors . . . that was just plain stupid. I called it wrong, boss. I knew better and I called it wrong.”

  Long time since Bellamy had called him that. “At least you had the sense to contact me before going back in.”

  A wry chuckle. “I can only hope Hewitt doesn’t check my private texts. He’s not happy about how that went down.”

  “Well, you can help make it right now, Bellamy. Just do as I say, and don’t bother telling Hewitt. Don’t lie if he asks directly, and if that happens, just send him to me and I’ll deal with it. We need the Monahans to trust us. They’re our best hope to keep this under control . . . whatever this is.”

  “No problem. Hewitt’s all right, I guess, but between you and me, I wish you still controlled Strip security. He just . . . doesn’t do it. He gets it, he just doesn’t give a damn if he upsets the crews.”

  They should have had this conversation a long time ago. Bellamy, once head of all station security, had had no choice when Hewitt used his EC orders to take over Strip security. By those orders, situations that directly affected Rights and her crew were, theoretically, under Hewitt’s jurisdiction. Yet another example of dictates coming from people who had no idea what the reality was out here, what kind of contingencies needed to go into orders like Hewitt’s. But those orders did not exempt Hewitt from answering to station management, if station management was ready to take the heat, and if Bellamy was disgruntled . . .

  That was actually helpful.

  “Help me get through the next couple of weeks, and I’ll treat you to dinner.”

  Old, old code between them. Dinner . . . and a chance for completely off the record discussion.

  “Never turned down a free meal, boss.”

  Chapter 4 Section ii

  A dark-haired girl was sitting in one of the hard chairs in the infirmary corridor, spacer type, plain grey jacket. She stood up, oblong package in hand, and Ross spotted the sleeve patch, the arrogant, featureless black patch that was Finity’s End. No patch but that, no patch for trade or seating. Junior crew.

  He stopped, stared with no good feeling. “Finity,” he said.

  “Galway,” she said.

  “Ross Monahan, Nav 3, first shift. What do you want?”

  “How is he?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Concern. On the part of my ship. On the part of everybody. Honestly.”

  He’d walked out mad at the whole situation, wanting someone or something to direct that mad toward. The girl with the package and the jacket patch didn’t look directly responsible. That didn’t help much.

  He scowled.

  “Fourth captain knows him. Knew him. Long time back. You were in the bar earlier, weren’t you?”

  “I was there.”

  “Senior captain mentioned you. Didn’t expect you here.”

  James Robert mentioned him? To her?

  He tipped his head back. “Yeah? So what’d he say?”

  “Ross Monahan. Third nav, first shift.”

  “Which I just said.”

  “And that you stayed after the doors shut, and had drinks with us. Seemed sensible enough.”

  Us. Meaning members of the Family. Not her. He’d have remembered.

  “I stayed. Not my choice. Had a drink; that was all. Meanwhile my captain’s now on an admin call and our Nav 1 got hit on the head and knocked out for three plus minutes.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Should be me in there, not him. Should’ve been me between him and whatever got him. Instead, I got cut off and caught inside, no thanks to your captain and his talk of who’s owed what. Any fool should’ve known that would trigger the blue-coats.” That . . . felt a little good. A little release of the pent up anger that had had nowhere to go.

  She bit her lip, said in a low tone, “I’m so sorry.”

  It was a sincere tone. An earnest, pretty face and sorrowful stare that met his without a flicker. It left him nowhere dignified to go from there. But it in no wise moved him to let Finity crew into the room with Fallan asleep.

  “That for him?” Meaning the red-wrapped package pressed to her chest. She blinked and held it out to him.

  “Pell whiskey.”

  Pricey stuff. Not true Scotch, which Alpha sometimes shipped outward, but almost as pricey this far from Pell. He’d seen it on offer, never spent for it, not even a single drink.

  He took the package. Heavy. Full-sized bottle.

  Well, Finity should throw a bit of scrip around, after a mess-up like that. “You sending one to my captain?”

  “Dunno. Could well. I’m sure senior captain would like to talk with him. Apologize in person. But this bottle is for your Nav 1, from fourth captain. She remembers him.”

  She remembers him. She. Instincts twitched.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Lisa Marie. We all call her Mum. She remembers him. From way back.”

  Fourth captain. Damn. Captains didn’t talk to seated officers of other ships. But—somebody from a long time ago. Lisa. Was there any chance?

  “Chance he might like to talk with her,” he said.

  “Might could do that. I’ll carry word.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “How is he? Can I tell her that?”

  “Knocked out for some three minutes. Concussed. Pretty weak. Nav. You understand me.”

  “Absolutely. I’m so sorry. He’s to get the best. Finity says. We’ll cover it.”

  “Why?” He was a little surprised, a little offended, not sure what else. “Fourth captain’s say? Or Senior Captain’s conscience?”

  “Either way you take it. If your captain gets any chaff about this from admin, if station isn’t taking care of you . . . tell any of us. Senior Captain wants to know. He doesn’t want people taking damage from our being here.”

  “Bit late for that, isn’ it?”

  That got him a quick look. An emphatic: “Nothing illegal, Galway. Not now, not ever.”

  “Not talking law. Talking delays and sudden influx of lux-goods driving the prices down. —Why are you here? Why are all these ships here?”

  “That’s for the captains to talk about. But say we’re not here to hurt any local’s trade or routes or business. That much I do know. That’s not what we’re about.”

  “Yeah. Well, it’s hurt already.”

  “Enough to cover station charges, no more. And first captain’s trying to make it right. There’ll be another meeting.”

  “When?”

  “After the captains talk.” She looked down to her hands, fingers interlaced. Her thumbs tapped silently. Nervous tick, maybe. “Buy you a drink, Ross Monahan?” she asked, polite-sounding. And the eyes that came up held nothing but kindness. A hint of hope, maybe. “I’d like to. No strings, no business. Your choice.”

  . . . Never a touch of better-than-you . . .

  Easy to expect otherwise, considering the ship, considering the history.

  He’d been, maybe, a little rude, counting it was a Finity captain who’d sent the package, and counting Fallan had had a hookup with Gaia, once upon a station call. Maybe with this same fourth captain, though she’d for certain not been a captain then.

  And now this Finity girl was offering him a drink, maybe hoping for information. And maybe
she knew more than she said. If there were things to learn from her, maybe he should try to find out.

  If there was another meeting coming, maybe Galway should know whether to attend, or what was on offer. He hadn’t heard the result of admin’s talk with Niall, and he hadn’t had any order yet telling him not to talk to a nice Finity girl who’d shown up with a 300-cred bottle of whiskey, instead of the anything-fermentable vodka most stations produced.

  Hell. He might get in trouble. But he wouldn’t get Fallan in trouble. Fallan was the offended and innocent party and there was that bottle of whiskey at issue, which Fallan certainly wouldn’t turn down.

  He wouldn’t get Niall in trouble, either, considering his only orders from Niall since the dust-up had been to check on Fallan. He couldn’t see how a drink with a Finity girl could cause trouble . . . and it might explain things.

  “Ross?”

  He met her eyes, then slowly shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t.”

  Her eyes clouded.

  “Not without a name, Finity.”

  She grinned, and the whole room seemed suddenly brighter. “Jen, Ross. My name’s Jen Neihart.”

  “Well . . . I guess it’s all right then.” He shook off the effect of that smile. Couldn’t let such things distract him. “There’s some kind of little bar next to the eatery,” he said. “Next door. I don’t want to go off too far. And . . . well, I don’t want to be seen around with you. With any Finity crew. Nothing personal, but we got enough going on with admin right now, thanks to you.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  He raised the wrapped bottle. “I’ll take it in to him. I’ll tell him about it, if he’s awake.”

  Fallan wasn’t. Or he was deep in calc, which Fallan sometimes did, just to occupy his mind. The screens were all ticking away, steady, reassuring.

  He added the package to the bin with the other gifts, and quietly left.

  Chapter 4 Section iii

  It was a hole-in-the-wall place that served as drink source for the eatery and indirectly served the infirmary, as a place where people on an infirmary vigil could catch a snack or a drink. They ordered drinks and chips to cushion the alcohol, and faced each other across a small, scarred table, under a changing neon that went from red to blue to purple.

  They sat in lengthy silence until the drinks came, and then just eyed one another until a sip had had time to hit bottom.

  She had dark eyes, Jen did, and she was a little on the skinny side, but fit-skinny, by how she moved. Not tall. The wiry sort who, as a youngster, frequently got sucked into maintenance, because they’d fit the narrow spots.

  Or served as runners, in their early years. A little old, maybe, to be a runner. But who knew? On a big ship, maybe—

  The sleeve didn’t give a clue. Just that one patch, saying Finity owned deep space, though they were newer than Galway.

  Gaia hadn’t been new, though. That was what that patch claimed. First and oldest of all ships. Shiver, you newcomers to space. We were here.

  Yeah, well, he said to himself. We have our history, too, off old Atlas and older Argo. We were sub-lighters, too, least Fallan was, in the pre-convert days. We just weren’t as lucky as you. Didn’t happen to be where you could get the big help. We threw in our lot with Alpha, when everyone else left her to starve.

  Still here. Got a right to be here. Who’re you?

  He didn’t say any of that. Just . . .

  “So what can you tell me? Alpha’s not your route, not even near. You come in empty. So your manifest says. Hard to make a profit that way. Plan to undercut us on your way out, maybe, with that big hold? Hate to tell you, Sol stuff is long gone, til Atlantis gets in. Bit of a wait, that.”

  He didn’t expect her to tell the truth, either, maybe not to answer at all, because he couldn’t, right now, muster a nicer tone. The magic of that grin had vanished, leaving him with just that patch, and what she and her ship had brought in. All the questions. All the distrust. It was as if, sitting down in this meeting, the situation just came down on him.

  She took a moment, rotating her drink on the table-top, while moisture crawled down the side.

  “Answered that already, Galway. We’re here to help, not hurt.”

  “So you say. Doesn’t make sense. Ships don’t run this far just to lose money.”

  “Here’s definitely a little out of the way for us,” she admitted, drawing shapes out of the puddles on the tabletop, loops and lines. “Alpha’s been out of the way for a long time.” And glanced up. “But maybe not forever.”

  “You know something?”

  A little shake of the head. She had a quirky sort of smile that he somehow trusted more than that grin. “No. I don’t. But not forever, still. What I think, not what I know. Alpha’s part, you know, part of the whole web. Merchanters can’t make profit without ports. Last thing we want is to see any ports shut down.”

  Last thing we want . . . Did she know something? It was a weird topic to start with, but it was a weird circumstance that brought four outsiders into Alpha, too.

  “So?” he said. “Keep going. I’m listening.”

  “I can’t say because I don’t know. I truly don’t know and if I did I couldn’t say. I just know we’ve been meeting with various ships and crews at other stations. But it’s captains’ talk, not crew’s. It’s all about that.”

  “Meetings at other stations. What stations?”

  “All the way from Mariner.”

  “So what do they say, your captains, when they meet? What do all these ships say?”

  A shrug. “Not for me to report. Likely you know more than me on this one. You heard what my captain said in there. I wasn’t at the meeting.”

  “Lots of words is what I heard. Lots of stuff about Rights of Man, with no fix for it. He talked about ownership. And Families. We already own our ships. That’s not an issue at Alpha. Getting finance for our ships, getting cargoes, getting services, that’s an issue.”

  “Captains will say, when it comes down to it. I can’t speak for them.”

  “Your JR said we could do something. Made it sound like we could demand Rights for some Family. How likely is that? Not a chance in hell, is what any Alpha ship knows. And what’s up with the other ships? Who’s we in the first place?”

  She shrugged, meaning even if she knew, she wasn’t saying. Couldn’t, any more than he could give away Galway’s secrets . . . if Galway had any.

  It was just . . . weird. If FTL with Sol were imminent, he could imagine outsider ships maybe coming in to beat other ships, to be first in line to lock into the routes, to mess with local trade and maybe throw some foreign goods into the system to sweeten the interface. But if that was the case . . . wouldn’t the locals be the first to know?

  If it was all about The Rights of Man . . . why the talk of giving it to a local Family? That Pell and places beyond were upset about the EC running a merchant ship—one that carried a lot of additional personnel along with it—seemed pretty obvious. Question was . . . what did they think they could do about it? Were they here to stir up trouble between the station and the locals, and while everyone was distracted, were they going to try to do something with Rights—like maybe take it by stealth and force, put a crew from Finity on her . . .

  But imagination stumbled there. Take her and do . . . what? There was no proof Rights herself could even make one run, let alone be pirated clear to Pell. Destroy her, maybe. That would set whatever the EC planned back more than just the materials and time. Alpha couldn’t take another twenty years of neglect. Destroy Rights, refuse to trade with Alpha . . . and Pell would have a ruined station as a buffer between them and Sol.

  If Pell were truly that ruthless.

  Maybe Pell was out to take over Alpha. If they backed Rights out, isolated the blue-coats on the station . . . But that didn’t work. The four ships together couldn�
��t try to take Alpha itself. They were way too few for that, even if stationers weren’t fighters. They’d become fighters if they had to.

  So that was all just crazy.

  Unless they used control of Rights as leverage.

  Cyteen outright hated the EC. That was a given. Pell had pitched the EC entirely off their deck when Finity was starting its actual build. That was fairly famous. It had finally let the EC come back, but rumor said it was a very small office and had to rely on Pell’s security.

  Everybody knew that Sol was eventually going to have its own opinions about Pell and Cyteen, but as things stood, Sol could talk all they wanted, and even Alpha didn’t have to listen. Orders from Sol, orders that could kick up a fuss with Pell, all came on the Stream, a couple of decades behind-times, and with no manpower to back them.

  Did Sol figure as a problem that would bring Pell rushing in?

  Not yet. But as JR Neihart had pointed out: that could change overnight—everything could change overnight, if Sol found the necessary jump point.

  Could it possibly be that close? Could Sol just—turn up, faster than the Stream could tell them it would happen? If they found the jump point . . . hell, yes. And the thought of a first-time crew coming insystem at who knew what vector . . . in a ship the size of Rights? That carried a whole lot of scary.

  Jen was looking at him, wondering, he supposed, what he was thinking, in the growing silence, knowing, probably, that if she asked, he’d tell her as much as she’d told him . . . which was nothing. It was beyond awkward, and the worst was, if it weren’t for the mystery surrounding her presence, he thought, maybe, there’d be no awkward, only possibilities. That her silence was loyalty to her ship and captain, nothing more.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” Jen said, finally, breaking that silence.

  He shrugged. “Go.”

  “You said any fool should have known. Call me a fool, but why did the EC jump on the meeting in the first place? We weren’t doing anything illegal, were we?”