Starrise at Corrivale

Chapter Thirteen

ABOUT FIVE HOURS later they were docking once again in the main ring on the Iphus Collective. Gabriel had been in no hurry to get there quickly, partly because he was "sick," partly because he wanted to give some of those big VoidCorp ships time to go away. Indeed when Sunshine arrived, they were all gone, which also made Gabriel wonder slightly. What other part of the system have they gone off to intimidate, and why?

Doctor Delde Sola was there at the docking ring to meet them. She came up in the lift, stepped into Sunshine, and held quite still while she glanced around her. It was slightly amazing to Gabriel how her height made the ship around her look smaller than it really was. Equally surprising was the look she trained on him as she stood there, holding what appeared to be a brushed-metal version of the standard doctor's bag.

"Conjecture: faked illness," the mechalus said with an expression that for the moment was decidedly cool. "Etiology: uncertain. Observation: atypical odors for human/fraal habitation. Query: nature of callout?"

"We were attacked in system space by ships, one of which was piloted by an alien we cannot identify," Gabriel said. "We managed to save the body. It's ... pretty abnormal."

"Query:" said Doctor Sota, "recording of attack and response?"

"The computer has saved it," said Enda and brought up the JustWadeln software.

Delde Sota stepped up to the pilot's seat and paused there for a moment, looking at the smear that still lay across the cockpit window from the first object that had hit them. "Query: provenance?"

"The residue from an impact," Enda said. "You will see it in the playthrough."

Delde Sola's braid reached up over her shoulder and brushed across the cockpit controls, the hair-tendrils finding one preferred spot and infiltrating itself through it into the computer circuitry behind. The tank flickered with images, dark and bright, too quickly for Gabriel to get a clear sense of any individual one. Delde Sola turned to them then and said, "Observation: lucky to be alive. Query: repeat occurrence?" "It happened once before, yes," Gabriel replied, "but there weren't any remains we could find." "Proposal: autopsy," said Delde Sota, moving aft and taking her bag with her while looking around for a place to put it. "Requirements: suitable surface, disinfectant solution-" She smiled briefly. "Body." "We have a table," Enda said and led Delde Sota down into the "sitting room" area, where she unfolded the table from the wall.

Wait a minute, we eat off that table! Gabriel thought, but he didn't bother to say it out loud, for Enda was already making her way down toward the cargo bay with the doctor in tow. Gabriel sighed and turned to the computer, telling the cargo bay to pressurize itself with air from inside the docking ring access. He then followed the others.

Enda and Delde Sota were standing there in the chill, looking down at the unwieldily wrapped body. "Observation: some haste in preparation, programming in phymech insufficient," said Delde Sota. "Observation: odor immediately noticeable, some haste suggested. Query: computer interface in this area?"

"There against the wall," said Gabriel, "over by the spee-gee apparatus."

Delde Sola's braid started lo lengthen itself, wavering out and along to where the computer interface was embedded by the specific gravity and metallurgic assay equipment. "Observation: table too small. Conjecture: even if right size, not much good for dinner afterwards," Delde Sola said, going over to kneel by the corpse and putting her bag down while her braid insinuated itself into the ship's computer, "even after scrubbing by marine." Gabriel blinked at that. "Suggestion: pathology and food a bad mixture in close quarters. Query: assistance?"

"I'll help," said Gabriel, utterly horrified a second later that such a suggestion had come out of his mouth. Doctor Sota gave him a look. "Observation: educational. Also: finder's right." She opened her doctor's bag.

-and it opened, and opened, and opened, and kept on opening so that Gabriel had to just stare at it. The bag flattened itself out across the floor into an incredibly complex set of dividers and clearfoam-wrapped instruments and objects that Gabriel couldn't identify. There seemed to be many times more room in it for things than the original volume would have suggested. Finally it stopped opening, and Gabriel was almost disappointed.

"I wonder if anyone does a version of that for maintenance tools?" Enda asked, looking down at the "bag" with what looked to Gabriel like mild envy.

Delde Sota looked from Enda to Gabriel with that slightly wicked look. "Information: special order," she said. "Offer: will assist you in obtaining discount. Suggestion: put ship in escrow." "Thankyouno" Gabriel said hurriedly.

Delde Sota raised her eyebrows, looked over the contents of the "bag," and selected an object wrapped in clearfoam. The foam dissolved away as she lifted the object, a long, slender, extremely keen-looking knife.

"Invocation: here death rejoices to teach the living," Delde Sota said and began slicing delicately at the bodywrap film that covered the corpse. It fell away, crinkling dryly, and Delde Sota looked at that with some bemusement. "Observation: already atypical response in wrapping," she said. "Begin recording. Computer, copy to coroner's records, Iphus Collective Medicolegal Authority, Delde Sota recording, this recording under Coroner's Seal, Concord Medicolegal / Concord Pathology and Forensics SR7269563355209782673."

The last of the wrapping fell away. "Note dehydration or denaturization reaction in standard bodywrap," said Delde Sola, looking the body over. "Report concerns bodily remains resulting from as yet unreported event in Corrivale system space. See attached file recording for details. Initial examination shows bipedal overtly humanoid figure, gender details not specific at this stage, height one hundred ninety centimeters, mass-" she paused to lift the body-"fifty-eight point nine kilograms, atypically low for most humanoid species even without clothing or covering, the subject still being clothed." She went on for a few moments to describe the strange e-suit verbally. Gabriel noticed that Delde Sola's idiom was growing more human, probably for the sake of the autopsy report. She paused at one point, putting the blade aside-it hovered steady in the air where she left it-and reached for another instrument that she used to sample the slimy substance inside the suit. Her face darkened somewhat as she said, "Interstitial area between e-suit and skin surface is filled with mucus-like substance, colonized to high liter levels by what appears to be mutated bacteria of geni Orgontha, Salmonella, Escherichia, numerous others. Purposes of mutation uncertain. Mucus is acidic, already moving through pH 4.2 and increasing. Exposure to air or damage to outer e-suit may be implicated. Sample retained in airtight capsule for later analysis. Images saved for later analysis. See attached files. Now removing e-suit." The mechalus doctor reached first into her kit and came up with an object that looked like four small spheres welded together. She took hold of two of them and pulled. A thin silvery thread spun out between them until it was about a meter long. She left the first two spheres handing in the air, grasped the other two, and pulled. The thread started to stretch out into a shimmering sheet of thin-membrane polymer, probably no more than a molecule thick, but (Gabriel guessed) probably nearly unbreakable. This surface hovered in the air, and Delde Sola recovered her first tool, the straight-bladed dissecting knife. A clear skinfilm applied itself around her hands and up her arms, and she went to work. Slice by slice she removed the e-suit, cutting away the softer portions around the armored parts and piling them up with some care on the membrane "sheet" that grew to accommodate them as she accumulated them. The head piece was the last to come off. Delde Sola lifted the dissecting knife, made a small adjustment to a control in its butt, then stroked it up the side of the headpiece, around and over the top, and down the other side. The headpiece fell apart in two neat pieces, the back half first. Delde Sota let the head rest on the floor, removing the back half of the headpiece first. It was full of the mucus- gel substance, and the inside of the headpiece was patterned with neurocircuitry. She put the half-helmet aside, lifted the front portion away. The head was human, and it looked very dead indeed.

"Body inside the e-suit appears to be that of a human male," Delde Sota said calmly enough while Gabriel did his best to keep his stomach under control-as much from the look of the body as from the ever-stronger acid smell that was filling the air.

He glanced over at Enda. She was still, looking at the body, and her face was more completely "shut down" than he could ever remember having seen it, even when she would fall asleep in the pilot chair. Gabriel glanced back at the body, forcing himself to it. The face was sunken, shrunken, the eyes fallen in, the bones of the skull all too clearly visible under the pallid, green-streaked flesh, as if this body had not been moving and shooting at them just half a day before. It looked rather as if it had been lying in some dry place for a long time, dessicating in the darkness. Though wet, the flesh still looked leathery, papery, too thin to stay on the bones. The expression was anguished, almost a rictus of paimn ... and also rage? Gabriel thought, for he had seen men's faces locked that way after dying on the battlefield. The skull was corded with something like tendons that ran down the back and sides of the skull, down the neck to the chest, from the chest over to the shoulders and arms. The tendons looked like cords of greenish-white material, striated the long way like bundles of twisted fibers. The corpse's muscles were wasted almost to nothing, to cords and strings themselves. The middle of the body was sunken in as if its owner had been long starved. In one spot, Gabriel half thought he could see the contours of the spinal bones showing through the sagging papery skin of the abdomen.

"Age of subject indeterminate because of extreme fragility and denatured status of tissue," Delde Sola was saying calmly, but her eyes were dark with something that was beginning to look like anger. "No adipocere, massive tissue wasting in all extremities, atypical cordlike growth or bioengineered network, apparently sourced in the dural layer of the spine and the dura mater, radiating to all extremities and bone/muscle insertions. Exterior appearance suggests all major organs have experienced pathological wasting." She lifted her knife again. "Paused," she said and looked over at Gabriel. "Observation: some entities find this portion of the examination disturbing."

Enda got up and went hurriedly away. "I will listen-" she said as she went out the cargo bay door and shut it behind her.

The mechalus raised her eyebrows at Gabriel. "Go ahead," he said.

"Resuming," Delde Sola said and made the first Y-shaped cut that laid the main body cavity and abdomen open.

Gabriel watched her, trying hard not to take what he saw too personally. "That's the problem with doing a lot of attack work," his weapons instructor had said once. "You start taking all the physical consequences personally, and pretty soon you're no good at the job any more. While you have to do this work, just remember: you do not have to accept delivery on the emotions and reactions that occur to you. Let them roll over you. Let them pass by. Later when you're retired, if you want to, I guarantee you that you'll be able to take them out and look at them in detail, but for the meantime they'll just impair your function."

So Gabriel watched Delde Sola take out the shrunken organs, a liver that was hardly there, a pair of lungs that were shriveled to nothing, removing them from a body cavity full of more of the pus-like slime, and Gabriel did not take it personally. He watched her dissect one of the tendonlike structures away from one of the arms, watched the tendon seem to try to hang on tighter as it was removed, then watched it "give up" and melt away into more green slime. Gabriel worked very hard not to take that personally.

"Biotech matter," said Delde Sola, detaching another sample and this time managing to get it into a sample capsule before it disintegrated. "Apparently self-augmenting, purpose apparently overtly tendonal, duplicating the tendons' function outside the body since those inside the body have been resorbed or have lost elasticity and no longer function. Biotech matter is either contaminated by or purposely perfused with the bacterial cultures mentioned earlier. Possibly a symbiotic relationship. Culture should be done with an eye to understanding the association of the two materials and determining whether one somehow affects the growth or structure of the other." She glanced over at one of her other instruments, raised her eyebrows. She was getting that angry look again. "First diagnostics on mucus indicate presence of high level of proteins and enzymes that in some conditions would function as psychoactives, and other proteins constructed in mimicry of corticosteroids, neurotransmitters, and messenger hormones primarily involved with rage and pain reactions. Endorphin levels zero." She put aside the tissue samples that she had been retrieving from the lungs and liver and reached down for the heart, lifting it and slicing it free. A great gout of the green pus ran out of the aorta, and Gabriel found it almost impossible not to take that personally. He had to turn away and concentrate on his breathing for a moment.

"Entire cardiovascular system has apparently been either invasively compromised or devolved to secondary status," said Delde Sota, slicing the heart open the long way and peeling it carefully apart. "No possible perfusion from this system. Possibility that perfusion is being managed by the mucus held around and within the body. Oxygen level however is almost nil, suggesting some other form of transport, possibly ATP-beta or -gamma, of the anaerobic type." She frowned. "Investigation will be required of the aqueous humor."

Gabriel briefly misunderstood her and wondered what might possibly be funny about this situation. Then he got a look at the long needle Delde Sola had produced, and he suddenly realized where she was planning to stick it. He turned away hastily. To him eyes were intensely personal. He winced, unable to stop himself.

After a moment, "Humor is contaminated with aforementioned bacterial melange culture," said Delde Sota dispassionately. "Analysis follows."

She paused, and after a few seconds Gabriel dared to look back again. Delde Sota was simply looking down at the body, her big dark eyes plainly sorrowful; but the frown was also still there, an expression suggesting she was looking for something that she had not yet seen.

Gazing down at the skin of the neck, she reached down to do another moment's worth of dissection, peeling the skin away there and examining the tendons. They were wasted like all the other true tendons in this body, but there was something strange about the tendon strand on the body's left-hand side. Delde Sota leaned close, narrowing her eyes a little, and Gabriel got a feeling that somewhere in there her optical magnification was being greatly increased.

"Traces of an old incision," she said, "cutting nearly straight across and through the tendon, incising the cricoid cartilage as well, the wound stopping three centimeters before the opposite tendon. Much older than-"

Then she stopped, peered closer.

"Unusual finding;" she said. "Old sub-sheath cyst. Nodular, but the shape is atypical."

Gabriel had to look at that-and agreed. He was no medical expert, but it did not seem to him that cysts would normally be square.

Delde Sota reached down and started to excise the cyst, then changed her mind, and left it in place. Instead she reached out for another tool, a much more delicate and fine-bladed knife. She wiped the puslike slime away from around the tendon and began to dissect away the top of the cyst. Very delicately she did it, as if peeling away one layer of thin, wet tissue paper after another.

Gabriel, who briefly found himself regretting having to make do with unmagnified vision, now leaned closer despite the smell, because he saw something.

A chip. A tiny chip about a centimeter square, buried inside layer after layer of tendonal material that had overgrown and encysted it. Delde Sola glanced up at Gabriel, eyes meeting his in a look of alarm, but peculiarly, also of triumph.

"Electronic material," she said, "almost certainly of known-space provenance, dating to ten years before this date, plus-minus one year. Typical of ID chip sometimes used to store medical information for emergency use."

Very delicately Delde Sota exposed it. Then one strand of her neurobraid undid itself and wavered down toward the surface of the chip, brushed it, then sank into it.

She started and her eyes went wide. She stared at Gabriel. Before he could say anything, she put her fingers to her lips in a gesture that most humanoids understood, then pointed to the wall screen. Gabriel looked at it. It had been scrolling a text revision of her dictation until now. Now, however, the screen showed various binary characters, but centered among them were the words: DARSALL, OLEG Born 08 12 2459 Posted Borealis colony, Silver Bell, 01 18 2486 Gabriel's breath went right out of him.

Silver Bell!

The Second Galactic War, besides endless other damage, had caused the destruction of the drivespace communications relays that had connected the Verge with the rest of human space. Time and money and opportunity to repair them had been lacking for a long time. Not until fourteen years after the signing of the Treaty of Concord was the relay at Kendai restored. With its restoration had come the first message from the Verge for more than a hundred years-a message that had been trapped in drive-space for years, awaiting the repair that would allow it to be heard. "Borealis colony Silver Bell in Hammer's Star, calling any FreeSpace Alliance vessel . . . We are under attack by ... Repeat, the colony is under heavy attack by unknown forces. Send help. Repeat, send help. It's May 3rd, 2489. We need help, damn it! Please-"

It had repeated again and again. The Concord had immediately sent the fortress ship Monitor to investigate, but when it reached Hammer's Star, there was no one left on the planet Spes where Silver Bell had been. The colony had been completely destroyed. Though Monitor contacted other Verge colonies, none of them knew what had happened to Silver Bell. The colony's destruction remained one of the great mysteries and tragedies of the end of the Long Silence, but here was one Oleg Darsall, breaking this particular aspect of the Silence at last. "Does it check?" Gabriel asked Delde Sota.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. "Grid access confirms someone of that name on the colonists' active list," she said. She looked down with an expression of terrible pain and confusion. "Is this what happened to all of them?"

Gabriel didn't want to think about it-or rather, he did, but not right here, not with the awful truth of it lying half-dissected on the floor in front of him.

"Autopsy must be continued in much greater detail in secure environment," said Delde Sota. "Recording pauses this time and date while transport and security are arranged." She sat back on her heels and looked down at the creature that had once been Oleg Darsall. "Conjecture:" she said to Gabriel, "this is information that will be profoundly destabilizing in some areas, and it must be disseminated to the Concord immediately. However, all channels here are routinely monitored." Even here inside Sunshine, she mouthed "by VoidCorp" at him in such an obvious way that, just for that moment, Gabriel had to work hard not to burst out laughing. But at the same time, something else was on his mind.

Off to one side of the cargo bay was a simple thing for use when you were suited up and your communications gave out, a plastic pad on which you could write and then erase the written words by lifting the top sheet of plastic away from the one underneath it. Gabriel got up and fetched it, then used the little stylus clipped to the pad to write the words "Lorand Kharls." Gabriel quickly showed them to Delde Sola, and after she looked thoughtfully at them he lifted the plastic sheet and erased the words. "Maybe you would not want to message him directly," Gabriel said, "but he would be in a position to reach the people who should know about this. He should be able to arrange to pick up the body without attracting too much notice."

The two of them looked at the poor creature lying on the floor, and Gabriel once again had to resist the urge to shudder all over. "Response: acceptable suggestion," said the doctor. "Meanwhile, body must be put in cold/stass until pickup." She thought for a moment, then said with just a shadow of the more normal wickedness in her eyes, "Statement: your phymech is faulty. Records confirm that from last visit." "That was the excuse we gave inbound," Gabriel said.

The doctor nodded. "Opinion: consistency highly salutary. Statement: 'service' therefore will ensue. Expect service pallet in fifteen standard minutes, plus minus two minutes. Pallet will remain forty minutes. Instruction: remove/disarrange spare parts inside pallet to pallet service carry pack. Do not damage, parts to be recycled. Extra corpsewrap will be provided." "I understand," Gabriel said.

"Will your 'morgue' be a safe place for this body to lie?" came Enda's voice over comms from the forward area.

The doctor replaced her instruments in her "bag" and waved a hand at it. The bag promptly folded itself up into a much smaller size and shape than should have been possible. "Statement: surveillance cameras 'intermittently damaged'/disconnected in morgue," she said, with some satisfaction. "Death at least requires privacy." She glanced around her. "Query: phymech functioning correctly after installation?" "As far as we can tell."

"Opinion:" Delde Sola said, "outdated/poor model, replace as soon as possible. Offer: will assist in obtaining discount," she looked at him thoughtfully and added, "should you survive." Gabriel shivered. "I would prefer to," he said.

The doctor got a slightly concentrated look and then said in somewhat expanded idiom, "Opinion: you have become a target. Opinion: since when you take yourselves out into unpopulated places you seem to court attack, there would seem to be wisdom in staying in-system. Query: will you take advice from me?"

"Why not?" Gabriel said.

"Warning: advice does not always work, despite best intentions," the doctor said. "Meanwhile: opinion follows. Safety perhaps lies for you now best in numbers. Grith is nearest and most populated, also a place where becoming lost will be easier, but before you go there, go to this cafe-" She stroked the wall screen and a map of the docking rings came up. She showed Gabriel a small area, area 14, ring 6. "Present time is local evening, most of the regulars will be there. Look for a sesheyan in a dark beishen with a red stripe. It is distinctive. So is he. His name is Ondway. He and I have had dealings in the past. He will be able to recommend a place where you may hide and make inquiries, safe from attack ... for a while. Outside of that-" She picked up her bag and shrugged. "Other assistance may be provided if possible. Meanwhile, prediction: life may not be quiet for you. Meanwhile, query: diet/electrolyte balance change?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes at her, glad to have an excuse to get up himself and turn his back on the grisly object on the floor. Man, said something in the back of his mind, that was a man once. Be careful. "I haven't had a lot of time to worry about my diet," Gabriel said, heading toward the airlock with her. "Right now there are other things that look more likely to kill me first."

"Warning: do not be too sure," Doctor Sola said. "Opinion: all unwitting, you seem to bear before you great difficulty, great change. Warning: beware, harbinger, how it changes you." She made her way forward, bowed to Enda, and then slipped into the lift and vanished.

The pallet arrived as promised, and Gabriel "showed" it into the cargo bay area with considerable relief. He thought he might have to stay and instruct it, but the pallet extruded its manipulating arms and went to work with such skill and certainty that Gabriel went away feeling quite sure that the "oversight" that he and Enda had discussed earlier was in full use: that it was Delde Sola's eyes that were looking through the pallet's sensors, her hands that were wrapping Oleg Darsall for his next brief journey. After about half an hour, the job was done, and the pallet took itself away with a drape over it and various "spare parts" from the phymech festooning it. All during this, Enda kept herself in the sitting room, not stirring out. When the pallet was finally gone, Gabriel went in to sit with her, rather concerned. "Are you all right?"

She tilted her head to one side and sighed. "No. Well, perhaps it should be explained. It is not that fraal have difficulties with death. Death is an error. Some of us feel that someday all errors will be put right, including that one. Yet there are some deaths ..." She tilted her head again, that repeated gesture of negation. "Do humans not speak of the 'smell' of death?"

"Yes," Gabriel said and swallowed. His stomach was not entirely settled at the moment, and the concept she was mentioning was not entirely welcome. "It has one, all right." "And of the smell of evil?"

"I'm not so sure about that," Gabriel answered, a little doubtfully, "but we do speak of it." Enda sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Evil. How does one quantify such a thing as if it were a bulk supply, something that came by the dekaliter? Yet indubitably it exists. What we saw there: that smelled evil to me. Some mindwalker talent was moving, perhaps, wakening unsuspected. Perhaps a warning." She shrugged, a very weary and helpless gesture. "I cannot say, but I am glad she did not decide to use the table."

"You're not alone," Gabriel said. "Not even wire brushes and Dessol would have helped it after that." "What?" She blinked those huge burning blue eyes at him in complete confusion. Gabriel grinned, if a little weakly, and told Enda the terrible marine joke to which the repeated punch line is "Wire brush and Dessol, ma'am," citing the name of the famous disinfectant and the honorific due to the commanding officer as she did her inspection. When he delivered the punch line for the last time, Gabriel watched Enda carefully, curious to see what the response would be.

She pitched forward with her face in her hands and began making peculiar wheezing noises. Gabriel bent over her, even more concerned than he had been before. But after a moment Enda sat upright again, and he saw that she was laughing so hard that she could not make a sound. Little pearly tears were rolling down her face.

It took her many minutes to recover. "Now," Enda said, "now you have seen a fraal weep, which means great things will happen to all who saw it, or so they say who do not often see fraal weep. And now, if ever, I need a drink, for fraal do not weep often. Let us by all means go to the bar of which Delde Sola told us. There we may meet the sesheyan to whom she recommended us, and there perhaps I may tell this joke and see how many people of other species laugh." She opened her eyes wide and got up, heading for her quarters to get a clean shirtsuit. " 'Wire brush and Dessol'!" She began wheezing again. Gabriel thought that changing into a new smartsuit was entirely a good idea. After the events of the previous hour or so, he was not feeling terribly clean. There was no time for a scrub. On the station, thought Gabriel, we might stop by the cleanup facility and have a water shower. It was one of those luxuries that, like the rest of marine life, was likely enough gone forever, and that Gabriel badly missed. Unlimited hot water. Such a little thing it seemed at the time. How little we appreciate what we have... They went back into the Collective's dome area, checked one of the maps there, and located area 14, ring 6. They made their way there, quietly discussing what they would do about the cargo bay the next day. Gabriel had made time to run the hull diagnostic programs one more time, and he was less than happy about the damage.

"We should stay at least long enough to get the hull weave-patched," he said.

"I have never been too sure about these patching processes," Enda said, sounding unconvinced. "One hears all kinds of glowing testimonials about them on the Grid, but one never knows anyone who's had them personally. Were I of a suspicious turn of mind, I would suspect this is because no one who has them done comes back."

"Oh, come on, it's perfectly safe," Gabriel said. "A metal reweave: they go in at the molecular level and rearrange the crystal structure of the hull. It comes out stronger than it was to start with." "So they would like you to believe," Enda said. "I still would prefer to see some testimonials from satisfied users."

"Oh, come on, Enda," Gabriel said. "You're just shy about trying new things."

"So would you be," Enda said, "if you were pushing three hundred and wanted to see four hundred."

They came around the bend of the corridor and found themselves looking at a set of white-paneled doors with only a small discreet see-through panel set midway up one of them.

"Is this it?" Gabriel asked. "Nothing here but the number over the door."

"Let us find out."

They pushed the doors open and stepped in. Behind them, the doors immediately closed, and they found themselves facing a curtain, which Gabriel cautiously pushed aside.

Gloom.

They stood there for a moment and let their eyes get used to it, gloom and the smell of wetness and growing things. It was surprising when you had just come in out of the general aridity of the dome's corridors. Very faint lights, like distant point sources, and a very pale glow as of midnight in a summery place, shone down from the ceiling, partially blocked away by the gently moving shadows of leaves and branches. The leaves were real, not projections or holographic illusions. Trees and ferny, bushy plants of every kind stood around in huge containers, bending up against the surprisingly high ceiling before curving down again. Creepers, here and there starred with pallid flowers, hung down and brushed against Gabriel's face as they made their way into the room. The place was filled with a faint spicy fragrance that he could not identify.

Enda sniffed and said, "Galya. It is a wonder they can get it to grow here. Someone involved with this place must be a very skilled gardener. Can you see yet?" "Pretty well."

"Then see if you can find us a table."

There was one available not too far away. They sat down, and Gabriel reached out idly to the tiny star- shaped lamp that sat in the middle of the table. The lamp was a little round ornament more like a stone with a light inside than anything else.

Enda looked at it curiously. "Yes, there is a resemblance, is there not?" she said as Gabriel went into his pocket and came up with the luckstone, turning it over in his fingers and comparing it with the table light. "This one is more polished. The beaches of the world from which these come must be a wonderful sight at night if they all glow like this."

From out of the darkness a sesheyan came looming to stand over their table and said, "From out of the night wanderers come: in His image they seek refreshment: let them but say what that might be." "Chai," said Gabriel, still feeling some need for something to settle his stomach. "White, please." "I will have the same," Enda said.

They looked around them as the sesheyan went away. This place was certainly perfect from that species' point of view: dim enough to be easy on their eight sensitive eyes that were used to the deep multicanopied rainforests of Grith or Sheya. Somewhere off to the side, what might have been a bird whistled something very mournful, a minor-key tune of endless variation.

"Bebe bird," said Enda, sitting back in her chair, pale in the dimness of the room, her eyes great dark pools. "And galya. It is indeed a wonderful evocation of the place." "Is it always this dark down at ground level?" Gabriel asked.

"Darker," said Enda. "And hotter. The one thing they have spared us is the heat, which this time of year would be stifling near the equator. Dimness the sesheyan eye must have for its comfort, but as regards the heat, I think they can take it or leave it."

Their chai came, and they thanked the sesheyan who brought it. He vanished almost without seeming to move, despite the fact that Gabriel's eyes had already become much more night-adjusted. Just a swirl of wing, a breath of silent breeze, and he was gone. Gabriel shook his head in admiration. "Wish I could have moved like that," he said.

"They are adept," Enda replied. "It is a great wonder to see, down in the little settlements around the forest cities near Angoweru and Uyellin, how one moment a clearing will be empty, nothing but a great dim space roofed over high above with layer over layer of leaves and darkness,.and suddenly there will be a hundred sesheyans there, or a thousand, chanting the Wanderer's Song." She shook her head, looking upward around her. "This is a worthy evocation. All unlike what you will find elsewhere on the planet."

Gabriel had seen the many VoidCorp-owned facilities scattered across the face of Iphus and he felt no great desire to go anywhere near them, despite the frantic way in which they touted their entertainment facilities and so forth on the Grid. "Not much like this, in other words."

Enda shook her head. "Oh, doubtless there are places that are physically as pleasant, but I would think there would not be many of them. Besides, without the scent of freedom, how much will the galya matter?" She pursed her lips." 'Slavery is made no more tolerable by cool shadow or birdsong in the trees.' "

" 'Nor is Vec't'lir's wisdom more desirable merely for suffering's sake: or the Hunter's takings more valuable for their scarcity,' " said a voice directly above their heads.

Both their heads jerked up. The tall shadowy form stood there with arms and wings akimbo, his four foremost eyes looking down on them. Gabriel took a long breath before moving, and he noticed the red stripe down the sides of the beishen.

"That is how I heard it some time ago from Devlei'ir," Enda said, "though the meaning was likely to change from moment to moment, as always with his stories." She pulled out the third chair at the table. The sesheyan sat down and looked from Enda to Gabriel. "I could swear I know your voice from somewhere," Gabriel said.

"Yes," said the sesheyan, folding his wings neatly about him and the chair so that he was little more than a blot of shadow. But a glint from the little star-stone and Gabriel's luckpiece caught in and on the front four eyes. "And I remember your voice, as well. You called me brother."

The idiom was perfectly human, and Gabriel blinked. "Not as gracefully as you would speak to me, I'm afraid," he said. "So you would be Ondway."

"That is my name in trees' shadow: under the Hunter's stars I have another," Ondway said. "You will have been talking with Delde Sola, otherwise the odds of your being in this spot are fairly low."

"If I had known of it, I would have come anyway," Enda said. "This is a welcome change from the more ordinary places and general climate of Iphus."

Ondway dropped his jaw in a grin at that. "If an atmosphere-stripped rock such as this may be said to have a climate," he said, "then you are right. Will you tell me why Delde Sola sends you to me? Though I do have some idea."

"We wouldn't mind somewhere quiet to stay for a while," Gabriel said.

Ondway sat back in his chair and resettled his wings, folding his arms over them. "I would need to know something of the reasons for your stay," he observed. "The reasons for needing quiet, I should say." "Don't you look at the Grid?" Gabriel said. "I'm a celebrity, much pursued by my public." Ondway chuckled at that. "Should the Concord come looking specifically for you," he said, "I fear we could do little to protect you."

"That's not what I'm asking. It's not the Concord that concerns me at the moment." "Is it not?" That seemed to take Ondway a little by surprise.

Enda tilted her head to one side, back again. "There seems to be other interest in our doings," she said. "From a quarter that may lie-well, not exactly a thousand kilometers away from here." Ondway swore softly, and Gabriel's eyes widened a little at the sound of it. It was the same hiss that Enda occasionally used. He had thought it was fraal. "I take your meaning," Ondway said.

"We have little concrete proof of this," Enda said. "Suspicion only at the moment. But there also seem to be other factions, or fractions, involved as well, and those we do not understand. Some of them are very frightening, and I would not willingly speak of them in a public place."

Ondway waved one finger up at the ceiling. "Their coverage is not as complete as they think," he said. "It is 'off when they least suspect it. At other times, we stage events for them so that they will think they're getting what they need." That drop-jawed smile again. "Will you want to be staying out of sight for very long?"

"No more than ten or twenty days. Our ship requires some repair, as well, but after that..." Enda glanced over at Gabriel.

"We'll be going back to Thalaassa," he said, then tried to hold his face still, because he had no clear idea why he'd said it.

"For what purpose?" Ondway asked, rather abruptly, Gabriel thought.

"Trade," Gabriel replied. "Light electronics, that kind of thing. And possibly some mining after our cargo bay's put right."

"Mining possibly," said Ondway. "There might be some way you might find your way back to Eraklion, but from this system to Thalaassa you would hardly trade." "Why not?"

"There is no trade with them any more," Ondway said, "not from Grith." Enda looked surprised. "Why? What happened?"

"The two worlds have forbidden such. Oh, not openly," Ondway said. "Such restriction of trade would be frowned on by the Concord, which those two worlds are presently studying to please, when they are not also studying to please others."

Gabriel wanted to ask what he meant by that, but the glare that Ondway turned on him silenced him for the moment. "We have been trading with them for a good while, and we have been very much the 'junior partner.' That particular trade wind has blown hot and cold without warning before. They are very fearful," he said, more softly, "having occupied, until the Verge began to open up again, a position that is not very well protected. For a long while the two Thalaassan worlds were willing enough for support from whatever quarter it came, even from sesheyans that they counted not much better than either barbarian savages or company creatures. But this time . . ." Ondway shook his head. "The signs are that our trade with them is now done permanently. With the treaty signed, they have new strong friends, the Concord who will protect them from the dark stories, from the things the tales say have been moving out in the dark of the far reaches of the system, things that even we would not feel comfortable with." The image of that large ship flashed before Gabriel's mind's eye again. He half thought he would mention it, then closed his mouth. Being too willing to discuss things or taking things too readily at face value has gotten me into trouble before, he thought. Better not.

"And the influence of the governments on Phorcys and Ino has reached a long way," Ondway said after a moment. "Even the smugglers seem to have stopped running the usual route."

Enda opened her eyes at that. "What would one smuggle to Grith?" she asked, as casually as if she were asking directions in the street. "Not to," Ondway replied, "from." "It's still a good question," Gabriel said.

Ondway looked a little reluctant. "The Wanderer would rarely speak-"

"Ah, come now, Ondway," Enda said. "You have been dropping your hints boldly enough. This is a poor time to shy away, when you so obviously want us to ask the question, and have doubtless made sure the surveillance is presently shut off."

He still sat silent for a moment. Then Ondway said, "There have been those who have been carrying supplies to and from Thalaassa."

"To Phorcys and Ino? But you said trade had stopped with them." "I did."

"Then where else? To Eraklion?" Gabriel shook his head. "There's nothing there but a package mining firm. Why would they need-" He stopped.

"Not to Eraklion," Enda said softly. "Somewhere else. Farther out in the system, I think." "And even the smugglers have stopped going," Gabriel said.

Ondway shifted in his seat, rustling his wings about him. "There have been stories coming back from those spaces," he said, very quietly, "of those who go and do not return ... or who return . . . changed." He had about him the air of someone who has sworn not to speak of something, but who at the same time desperately wants to and is hoping that someone will lead him around to the subject by subterfuge. "Changed how?" Gabriel said.

Ondway was silent a while more, then he said, "You do know that you are endangering yourselves merely by being here and speaking with me. Outside these doors and with very few exceptions elsewhere the planet is under constant surveillance by Void-Corp."

Gabriel ran one hand through his hair in annoyance. It was beginning to get rather long for his tastes. "We've had people trying to kill us for days now," he said. "Weeks," Enda corrected primly.

"Thank you. A long time," Gabriel said. "Too damned long. I never had so many people trying to kill me when I was a marine as I have now, and then I was attending wars on a regular basis. I don't know that a little more endangerment would even register on my personal scale at this point." "VoidCorp," Ondway said, "has started its own wars in its time. The war with its parent company, both nonphysical and physical, nearly killed the Terran Empire in its cradle. To them what matters is market share. A life lost-or ten thousand here or there-make little odds so long as the bottom line improves. Slavery and death mean little to them in the long term. The Company will live longer than any of its component parts, and therefore Corporate immortality-the Corporation's growth right across all known space and its domination of it-is what matters. They will let nothing stand in the way of that. Even the Concord is cautious about how it moves against VoidCorp openly." He looked down at the table, bitter. "We had great hopes that the solution they engineered on Grith might lead to other similar situations elsewhere."

He stopped very abruptly and would not look at them again.

The hint being, Gabriel thought, that it has led to a similar solution elsewhere. Somewhere in the Thalaassa system.

He glanced over at Enda. "We've wandered a bit off our original topic," Gabriel said. "Here's our own bottom line. For our health and that of others, I think it would be smart if we took ourselves down to Grith for a little while. A few days-a week perhaps." "I would agree," Enda said.

They looked at Ondway. "Certainly we could find you a place to stay there," Ondway said. "Down by Redknife, you would attract little attention. Many tourists pass through that part of our world looking for an experience of the unspoiled sesheyan way of life." He grinned. The expression was humorous, but not entirely kind. "Mostly they pay well enough for it and get what they have come for. They do not, of course, pay for the experience of being hunted wherever one goes by a great and inimical force. Some inadvertently get that for free by trying to save on the 'tour guide fee' and going into the jungles themselves." That smile got a little more amused, now. "Mostly they find out about insects, mud, sablesnakes, and gandercats, but that is their business. In any case, the Redknife Tourist Bureau will easily enough manage your needs for a ten days or so. Ask for Maikaf." "Very well. And as for the Devli'yan-" Enda said suddenly. Ondway looked at her. "You have been there before?"

"Some years ago," Enda said, "as a tourist. I did not hazard myself among the gandercats, however interesting their calls and what they mean, but I sat with the shamans under the trees and heard wisdom and told what passed for mine. Some months I spent there."

Ondway nodded. "I thought you might have," he said. "The fraal who come tend to remain a while. Who knows? There may be some there who will remember you yet. One at least, though there is no telling whether he will have time or inclination to see you. He spends much time in the forest these days. He too has those whose attention he prefers to forego."

He breathed out, a long weary sound. "Tomorrow, then," Ondway said, "I will depart for Redknife and will escort you. Eight hours, local time. Will that be satisfactory?" "Entirely so," said Enda, "and we thank you very much."

Ondway got up and slipped away into the shadows again. Gabriel, fingering his luckstone, looked after him and wondered. Ondway had impressed him, but he was less than eager to trust him entirely. He seemed to have meant a lot more than he actually said in his conversation.

"Shall we call for our bill?" asked.

"I have a feeling it will be here shortly," Enda replied.

Sure enough, the sesheyan who had greeted them first and had brought their drinks now materialized out of the darkness, holding a payment chit. Gabriel reached out for it, checked the total glowing on it in the darkness, slipped a thumbnail into the slot to add the tip, and touched his own chip to it. The sesheyan bowed and took himself away.

The two of them headed out into the station hallway and there had to stop and blink; it was blinding even with the dimmer lights of station "evening" now on show.

"In the morning," Enda said with a sigh as they made their way back toward the main dome and the docking rings, "we will see about the metal reweave you were discussing. Perhaps I am mistrustful of a new technology, especially when it seems too inexpensive to be effective."

Gabriel chuckled, then stopped. A shadow had been just visible out of the corner of his eye as they passed an intersecting hallway. It had been moving toward them with some speed and had stopped. It was out of sight now.

"What?" Enda said as Gabriel slowed somewhat.

"Nothing," he said, walking along as casually as he could without trying to look as if he had slowed his gait too much.

His peripheral vision had always been good-a little too good, according to his weapons instructor. "Don't let it make you too confident of what you think you're seeing. Half the time you're wrong anyway." But with just a very slight turn of his head, Gabriel could see a lot more than people normally thought he could. And once or twice, in fights or in battle, that had served him well. As they came around the curve of the corridor toward the main dome, he turned his head just a little toward Enda as if speaking to her and saw that shape suddenly materialize out of the side corridor again, slipping down toward them. "We have company," he said, very softly, as they continued on around the curve and toward the dome. "Who?"

"Someone following us. Sesheyan, I think."

"It could be your imagination." Then Enda stopped herself, catching a glimpse of another shadow up ahead of them as it slipped hurriedly away down another of the corridors that spiraled away from the dome. "Another sesheyan," Enda said softly.

"Or someone trying to look like one," Gabriel said. "The beishen is right, but as for the rest of it.. .I'm not sure about the way whoever that is moving. It doesn't look right somehow." He swallowed, made up his mind. "Look, when we get back to Sunshine, I want to leave as soon as possible." "But we were to wait for the guide."

"Do you want to wait, just sitting in dock? Really? With that?"

The shadow moved again down that long corridor as they came level with it, and was lost again. Enda looked after it, then determinedly turned away. Gabriel turned his head a little to the right to see around behind them. No one was visible back the way they had come, at the moment. "And his friend," Gabriel said, "out of sight-" "Perhaps not," Enda said. "So where?"

"To Grith, where else? Ondway told us where to go, who to see. Let's do it, but I don't want to wait here any longer. I'd still like to know where all those VoidCorp ships took themselves off to." They started to hurry a little more as they crossed the dome and headed for the access to the docking ring. "And the repairs?" Enda asked.'They'll have to wait. Look, we won't be hauling anything heavy. In fact, if it's all the same to you, we won't be hauling, period, at least until things quiet down a little. Anyway, maybe they'll have repair facilities down there." "In Redknife?" Enda said, looking doubtful. "It is a Devli'yan enclave, Gabriel. It is not the kind of place where one will find high-technology metal weaving, at any price, or much of anything else which can be described as high technology. The most basic repairs could probably be managed, but-- " "We've made it this far," Gabriel replied. "I'll take my chances. We don't have that far to go, and once we're down into atmosphere, the cargo bay becomes less of a concern."

He looked at her intently, wanting her to understand that suddenly this was important, though he himself found it hard to express why. Enda glanced over at him as they crossed the dome into the corridors that lead to the locking ring. Then she glanced away again.

"So it bites you now, does it?" she said. "The hunch."

Gabriel shook his head. "Maybe."

"Then let us go."