Free Rimrunners by C. J. Cherryh Page B

her at any minute, they would surely have talked to Nan by now, and Nan
    was going to come down here and handle the station legal people the way a
    stationer knew how to do.
    And she'd tell Nan it wasn't the way it looked, she'd tell Nan everything—at
    least the part about Ritterman and the other man, and Nan would understand that,
    Nan would back her story about not being a free-consumer—And the Thule
    stationmaster would give her a personal apology and a thousand cred too, of
    course he would, that was the way station justice worked, every one in the Fleet
    knew that, the way they knew there was thanks from stationers for favors done or
    a memorial to the Fleet's dead or a shred of support from the merchanters who
    had persistently smuggled war supplies and intelligence either side of the Line,
    then cried piracy because the Fleet supplied itself the only way it could—with
    no damn help from the stations, none from the merchanters, none, at the last,
    from Earth.
    She could always ask Mallory for a posting on Norway. Apply for a commission in
    the Alliance while she was at it.
    Oh, God!
    Past 1900 now, past 2000 hours. She paced and she studied the calluses on her
    hands and the tiles on the floor. She was aware of pain in her stomach that
    would have been hunger, except she couldn't have kept anything down.
    Finally they unlocked the door and it was Security again.
    And Fitch, God, it was Mr. Fitch.
    "That's her," Fitch said, to Security. "Let's go sign the papers."
    Bet stared at him. Security beckoned her and she came, and Fitch, as she passed
    him in the doorway, caught her arm a second and said, "You're in deep trouble,
    Yeager."
    But she knew nowhere else to go, when a station lawyer showed up to tell her she
    had a two-way choice: she could stay on station or accept extradition by Loki,
    which was claiming Alliance military jurisdiction over her case.
    She thought about that little room back there, she thought about the dockside
    and that ship and being off Thule; she thought a long, long few breaths about
    Mallory and about what could happen if she'd slipped somehow with Wolfe and
    Wolfe knew what she really was.
    But it was all the same, sooner or later, if the stationers started in with
    their questions under trank; and Loki was the only way she saw that had a chance
    in it.
    "Give me the paper."
    "You realize," the station lawyer said, "if you sign this, you're giving up all
    right to civil process. That includes appeal. And military law has a death
    penalty."
    She nodded. Her stomach had cramped up. She was stark scared. She signed her
    name, Elizabeth A. Yeager, and she gave the station-man the paper.
    So Fitch took her by the arm. "I got my duffle," she said, and Fitch called
    another Loki crewman out of the outside office, before they cuffed her hands in
    front of her and Fitch and the crewman took her out into the corridor of Blue
    section and down to the lift.
    All cool and quiet then, Fitch not saying a word; and she figured silence was a
    good idea, under the circumstances. She stared at the door during the ride down
    to dockside. She walked on her own between Fitch and the crewman, out across the
    docks, over to Loki's berth—the customs man'd had the word evidently, and there
    was no objection as they walked up the ramp and into the tube.
    They reached the airlock and Fitch opened it up, Fitch took her by the arm and
    brought her inside.
    "Stow that," Fitch told the crewman with the duffle. And shoved her back against
    the wall. "You got anything to tell me?" Fitch asked.
    "Thank you, sir."
    Fitch slammed her back a second time. "You're a damned problem, Yeager. You're
    already a problem to this ship. Hear me?"
    "Yes, sir," she said, and halfway expected a punch in the gut then. Or a crack
    of her head against the wall.
    But Fitch said: "So you know." And snatched her around by the arm and marched
    her along to the first latch-door along the corridor.
    Stowage compartment, dark series of zigs and