Merchanter's Luck Author:C.J. Cherryh As captain and sole crew member of the ramshackle spaceship Lucy, Sandor Kreja roams among the stars, taking on whatever cargoes he can to survive, skirting and sometimes breaking the law. But Sandy hardly thinks of himself as a dashing swashbuckler; his skirmishes with starvation and death have left him with little in the way of bravado, though... more » he's had loneliness enough for several lifetimes. While a womanless life is sad when you're 27, a life without a family is even worse, for family ties, on the merchant ships from the star-stations, are all-powerful, providing not just the ships' crews but also all chances for personal and career satisfaction. Sandy, a virtual pariah, can hope for none of this, for his family was murdered by the Mazianni pirates years before. On Viking station, he meets Allison Reilly, beautiful, clever, from the gigantic and successful merchant ship Dublin Again, where she competes with her hundreds of cousins to advance her career. Knowing the folly and hopelessness of his passion, he falls in love with her and follows her to Pell station, where new trade routes are opening up in the direction of long-abandoned Earth. When he arrives there, however,m he realizes that his old enemies - people who'd paid a high price for his extralegal maneuvers - haven't forgotten him. Clapped into jail, rescued by Allison, he's obliged to yield to her suggestion that he, with Allison as his second-in-command, use the Lucy as trailblazer for the Dublin's exploration of the new trade routes. With the Lucy sleekly renovated, they begin their journey, despite the threat posed by a mysterious military cargo forced on them at the last minute, along with a warning that the Mazianni are lurking near the Lucy's route. . . .« less