He blinked and tried. Stopped believing it and looked for the strings: it was the only thing to do when things looked too good. “What’s it cost?” he asked. ‘Where’s the rest of it? There is a rest of it.”

She nodded toward the bar next door. “Come on. Sit down and look through it.”

He went, dragged by the hand, into the noise and closeness of the smallish bar, sat down with her at a table by the door where there was enough light to read, and spread out the papers. “Beer,” she ordered when the waiter showed, and in the meantime he picked up the loan papers and tried to make sense of them. Clause after clause of fine print Five hundred thousand credit cargo allowance. A hundred thousand margin account. He looked at numbers stacked up like stellar distances and shook his head.

“You’re not going to get a better offer,” she said. “I’ll tell you how you got it. I’m going with you. The whole Third Helm alterday watch of Dublin is signing with you for this tour. Crew that knows what they’re doing. I’ll vouch for that. My watch. And it’s a fair agreement. You say that your Lucy can make profit on marginer cargoes. What do you think she could do given real backing?”

That touched on his pride, deeply. He lifted his head, not stupid in it, either. “I don’t know. My kind of operation I know— how to get what’s going rate on small deals. Lucy’s near two hundred years old. She’s not fast. I strung those jumps getting here. Hauling, she’s slow, and you come out of those jumps feeling it.”

“I’ve seen her exterior on vid. What’s the inside rig?”

He shrugged. “Not what you’re used to. Number one hold’s temperature constant to 12 degrees, the rest deep cold; fifteen K net—It’s not going to work. I can’t handle that kind of operation you’re talking about”

“It’ll work.”

“I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

“Business. Dublin’s starting up operations here, wants a foot on either side of the Line; putting you on margin account is convenient And if it helps you out at the same time—”

The beers came. Sandor picked his up and drank to ease his dry mouth, gave the papers another desperate going over, trying to find the clause that talked about confiscations, about liability that might set him up for actions, about his standing good for previous debts.

“A few profitable runs,” she said, “and you build up an account here and you clear the debt. You want to know what Dublin clears on a good run?”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“It’s a minor loan. Put it that way. That’s the scale we’re talking about It’s nothing. And there’s a ten-year time limit on that loan. Ten years. Station banks—would they give you that? Or any combine? You work that debt down and there’s a good chance you could deal with Dublin for a stake to a refitting. I mean a real refitting. No piggyback job. Kick that ancient unit off her tail and put a whole new generation rig on. She’s a good design, stable moving in jump; some of the newest intermediate ships on the boards borrow a bit from her type.”

“No,” he said in a small voice. “No, you don’t get me into that. You don’t get your hands on her.”

“You think you can’t do it You think you’ll fail.”

He thought about it a moment

“What better offer,” she asked him, “have you ever hoped to have? And if charges come in, who’s going to stand with you? Hmn? You sign the appropriate papers, you take the offer.—I’ve gone out on a line for you; and for me, I admit that. I get a post I can’t get on my ship. So we both take a risk. I don’t know but what there’s worse to you than you’ve told. I don’t know who your enemies might be; and I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some.”

He shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t. Hard as it may be to believe, I’ve never made any I know of.”

“Smart, at least”

“Survival.—Reilly: if I sign those papers, I’m telling you— there’s one captain on Lucy, and I’m it.”

‘There’s nothing in those papers that says anything to the contrary.”

He drank a long mouthful of the beer. “We get a witness on this?”

That’s the deal. Station offices.”

He nodded slowly. “Let’s go do it, then.”

It made him less than comfortable, to go again into station offices, to confront the dockmaster’s agents and turn in the applications that challenged station to do its worst. The documents went from counter to desk behind the counter, and finally to one of the officials in the offices beyond—a call finally into that office, where they stood while a man looked at the papers.

“How long—” Sandor made himself ask, against all instincts to the contrary. “How long to process those and get the seal clear? I’d like to start hunting cargo.”

An official frown. “No way of knowing.”

“Well,” Allison said, “there’s already a routing application in.”

A lift of the brows, and a frown after. None too happy, this official. “Customs office,” he said, punching in on the com console. “I have Lucy’s Stevens in with forms.”

And after the answer, another shunting to an interior office, more questions and more forms.

Nature of cargo, they asked. Information pending acquisition, Sandor answered, in his own element. He filled the rest out, looped some blanks, letting station departments chase each other through the maze. Clear was a condition of mind, a zone in which he had not yet learned to function.

Legitimate, he kept telling himself. These were real papers he was applying for. Honest papers. In the wrong name, and under a false ID, and that was the stain on matters: but real papers all the same.

They walked out of the customs office toward the exchange, and when he got to that somewhat busier desk, to stand in line with others including spacers with onstation cards to apply for… Allison snagged his arm and drew him over to the reception desk for more inner offices.

“Sir?” the secretary asked, blinking a little at his out at the elbows look and the silvery company he kept.

Embarrassed, Sandor searched for the appropriate papers. “Got a fund transfer and an account to open.”

“That’s Wyatt’s?” Everyone knew his business. It threw him off his stride. He put the loan papers on the desk.

“No,” he said, “that’s an independent deal.”

“Dublin has an account with Wyatt’s.” Allison leapt into the fray. “This is a loan between Lucy and Dublin. The ship is collateral. Captain Stevens hopes to straighten it up with his own combine, but as it is, Dublin will cover any transfer of funds that may be necessary: escrow will rest on Pell.”

“What sum are we talking about?”

“Five hundred thousand for starters.”

“I’ll advise Mr. Dee.”

“Thank you,” Allison said with a touch of smugness, and settled into a waiting area chair. Sandor sat down beside her, wiped a touch of sweat from his temples, crossed his ankles, leaned back, willed one muscle after another to relax. “You let me do the talking, will you?” he asked her.

“You take it slow. I know what I’m doing.”

His fingers felt numb. A lot of him did. Clear, he thought again. There was something wrong with such a run of luck. Ships that tossed off half a million as if it were pocket change—rattled his nerves. He felt a moment of panic, as if some dark cloud were swallowing him up, conning him into debts and ambition more than he could handle. He had no place in this office. It was like stringing jumps and accumulating velocity without dump—there was a point past which no ship could handle what it could acquire.

“Captain.” The secretary had come back. “Mr. Dee will see you.”

He stood up. Allison put her hand on his back, urging him, intended for comfort, perhaps, but it felt like a fatal shove.

He walked, and Allison went behind him. He met the smallish man in his office… a wise, wrinkled face, dark almond eyes that went to the heart of him and peeled away the layers. So, well, one sat down like a man and filled out the forms and above all else tried not to look the nervousness he felt.