Rimrunners by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online

half light away.
    Thule was a dim double star, hardly more than a moderately treacherous jump
    point, no traffic: the buoy was close-in, and that ship, if it was Mary Gold, a
    day and a half early, had probably just shaved a quick lighthour or so off that
    distance in the V-dumps since that information had started on its way to Thule
    Central. Which still put her some hours out at realspace V, and a long, long
    burn to go, plus another hour on docking once she got close-in.
    A cold-hauler, Mary Gold, just the regular supply run out from Pell. And on from
    here to Bryant's, that was the schedule. Moving less mass than expected, she
    reckoned: that could speed a ship up a day, easy. Thank God.
    But when she got to the corner where the monitor gave its tired, gray cycles of
    information, the shipname was AS Loki.
    Her heart ticked, just a single bewildered jolt.
    Who in hell is Loki?
    She stopped, ate a couple of cheese puffs, washed them down and stared at the
    progress marker on the vid. She wasn't the only one. Dock workers gathered
    around to wonder.
    It was coming in smartly enough. It was an Alliance ship designation.
    Her stomach felt upset. She heard somebody speculate it was a Unionside
    merchanter, just come into the Alliance.
    Not unless it was some damn tiny ship, she thought, something come in from some
    godforsaken arm like Wyatt's Star, clear on Union's backside: she knew every
    shipname that was worth knowing, knew the Family name, the cargo-class—and the
    armament class. Down in Africa's 'tween-decks, shipnames and capabilities were a
    running topic. The skuts in the 'decks might not be able to do a thing in a
    ship-fight, but if you were down there strapped into your rack and your ship was
    going into a firefight, what the cap was on the other ship was a real important
    topic; and if you were going to have to board after that, go onto some
    merchanter's deck into twisty little corridors full of ambushes, you liked to
    know those little details. Damn right.
    She ate her cheese puffs, she watched the data unfold—then suddenly she
    remembered the time and she ducked out of the crowd and hurried on down to the
    Registry.
    "I wondered if you were coming in today," Nan said, at her desk as she slipped
    in the door.
    "Sorry." There was a reg about eating and drinking in the front office.
    "Breakfast. I'll dump this in the can. 'Scuse."
    "You know what ship that is?" Nan asked.
    She shook her head. "Thought I knew 'em all. Spooks." Trooper word. It was
    getting to be common, since the War, but she wished she hadn't said that. She
    oozed past Nan and into the back hall, where Ely met her and asked, "You know
    that ship?"
    "Just saying: no, sir. New one."
    Ely looked worried. Well he should. She went on into the back-office work area,
    tipped the last of the puff-crumbs into her mouth and washed them down with the
    dregs of the soda, chucked the foil and the can into the cycle-bin before she
    walked out where the vid was.
    Where everybody was: Ely, Nan, the three other clients looking for jobs this
    morning, all standing, all watching the vid and not saying a thing, except she
    got looks from the three stationers that maybe added her up as an honest-to-God
    spacer and maybe a source of information.
    "Do you know—?" one started to ask her.
    She shook her head. "New to me, mate. No idea." She folded her arms and looked
    at the numbers, heard one of the stationers say that looked like an all-right
    approach, the numbers didn't look like a strike-run.
    Depends, station-woman. Depends on the mass. Entry vector. Lot of things,
    damnfool. Sometimes you got to maneuver. And we lied to those buoys, damn if we
    didn't.
    She watched, standing there with her arms folded, thinking, the way the
    stationers around her had to be thinking, that it could be one of the Fleet;
    feeling, the way the stationers certainly weren't, a little stomach-unsettling
    hope that it was one of Mazian's ships.
    Hope like hell it wasn't a Fleet ship