Storm at Eldala

Chapter Five

FOUR HOURS LATER, Gabriel and Enda were in the pilots' seats, strapped in and waiting for Sunshine's preheat cycle to start. Rivendale's long afternoon was finally shading toward evening. The sun was well down below the jagged peaks, and the eastern sky was slowly purpling. Gabriel stretched in the straps and looked out the windows. "It's a pretty place," he said, "but it's trying. So much day gets to be a nuisance, and I wouldn't even want to think about a week's worth of night. How can anyone live here and stay sane?"

"Obviously they manage," said Enda, "though I think I prefer shorter days myself." The ship wenthhup around them, a soft awakening hum, and half the system indicators that had been dormant or gray in the 3D display now began to show power readings as they slowly escalated. Gabriel glanced over atLongshot. With the sunset glancing off her windshield, it was hard to see inside; but he thought he caught a flash of motion — probably Helm giving him a thumbs-up. He returned the gesture and looked around outside the ship.

At the port building, a male figure came out the front door, looked at them curiously. After a few seconds, another human, shorter and rounder than the first, came out and looked as well. The two looked at the ships. One of them pointed; the other gestured. "Two minutes," Gabriel said.

One of the two humans went back inside. A few moments later,Sunshine's comms chirped. Someone was hailing them.

"Oops," Gabriel said, reaching out to kill the local network connection. "Another systems failure. We really ought to have that looked at when we make port again." "Somewhere else," Enda said, smiling.

Another half minute ticked by, and another. The man who had gone in now came out, and he and his companion stood watching the ships. They made no move to come any closer.

"Thirty seconds," Enda said, reaching into the 3D display to touch one of the driver displays into "query" mode. The telltale folded itself into a wider display of ship's power levels, all showing 100 % or better. "Everything is as it should be." "Good," Gabriel said.

He was looking around the field for any sign of activity, and also watching the street that led up to Sunbreak town proper. There was no sign of anyone. Am I. spoiling someone's sleep over there? he thought. Wouldn't that be a terrible thing?

"Ten seconds," Enda said. "Do you want to take her up, or shall I?" "You have control," Gabriel said. "I'm going to get into the fighting field."

Enda put her eyebrows up as Gabriel reached into that part of the display. "No harm in that," she said. "Five seconds."

The final countdown bled away, Enda said, "Now," andSunshine lifted straight up, gracefully but with rapidly increasing speed. That was very much Enda's piloting style as Gabriel had observed it. Smooth acceleration, but plenty of it. Up they went, through layers of mist, over the rapidly widening terrain of jagged peaks, and up into Terivine's orange light again. With Helm pacing them off to starboard, they cleared the peaks and slanted low over the beautiful but hostile landscape. Gabriel perceived all this briefly as visual input while the fighting field was still settling over him. When it took as a schematic, bright lines and curves stitched against diagrammatic darkness with lines of galactic latitude and longitude. "Out of atmosphere," Enda said.

Gabriel shifted his body in the seat to get the feeling of where his weapons were. The rail gun was reporting almost ready, and the plasma cannons were hot. "That didn't take long," he commented.

"With their gravity, I would be surprised if it did," Enda said as she spunSunshine on her axis to point away from Terivine and Rivendale, out toward the point where they had agreed with Helm they would make starfall. "Anything of interest behind us?"

Gabriel looked back at Rivendale in the fighting schematic and said, "Nothing coming, at least not at the moment."

He jumped then as the alarms howled. Something was coming, but not from the direction in which Gabriel was looking. The virtual display whipped around to show him the direction from which the threat now approached. Gabriel had instructed the display to disallowLongshot but to alert him of anything of unknown mass over a ton. Here came something, a small tight knot of light in the display with a "comet's tail" spread out behind it to illustrate course and speed.

"Another ship, all right," Gabriel said, and felt around him for the paired joysticks that were his preferred method for handling the plasma cannons.

The other ship was diving straight at him. "Helm," Gabriel said, "Company—" "I see him. It's our friend Quatsch," Helm replied.

"You mean Alwhirn?" Gabriel said. "He wasn't supposed to be leaving for another twelve hours!" "Damn," came Helm's voice, sounding more gravelly and annoyed than usual. " 'Plus minus twelve hours.' Sonofabitch must have sneaked right out past us while we were in the community center!"

"Even schedules can lie," said Enda. Her face set grim as she broke off to starboard. Quatsch came after them.

"He's not eager to try conclusions with me, that's plain," Helm said with some amusement as he curved around to match course with Sunshine again. "Let's see if I can—"

The first plasma bolts lanced bySunshine much too closely for Gabriel's tastes.

"What's the matter with him?" he muttered.

"Quatsch!" he shouted over an open channel. "What are you doing? Quatsch! Alwhirn!" No answer.

"He's not in a mood to negotiate, I would say," said Enda. "Helm, one of us is going to have to do something about this poor creature, at least enough to make him break this off. I dislike the idea of harming him, and it would do our return business on Rivendale no good, but it is preferable to—" She threw Sunshine to port as Quatsch dived at them again, firing. The bolts went wide. "I'm not sure that his craziness isn't some kind of act he uses when it's going to get him somewhere with his friends," Gabriel muttered, getting his own plasma cannon ready. "Helm, if your sharpshooting's better than mine, you'd better do something about this boy, because I'm in no mood for him." "Targeting," Helm said and fired. At the last moment, Quatsch tumbled aside, diving away from both Longshot and Sunshine.

"Let's not bother with this," Enda said. "Helm, is your stardrive ready?" 'Three minutes for prep," said Helm, "and we'll be— Uh-oh."

Gabriel's insides twisted as he saw what Helm saw. Another ship was accelerating toward them from Rivendale.

"Small," Helm said. "Not much bigger than Sunshine."

"Thanks loads," Gabriel said. "It's that Westhame. That's Miss Blue Eyes."

"She doesn't have much," said Helm. "One plasma cannon. One rail gun. No help; she's alone aboard." "Doesn't make that much difference," Gabriel muttered. It was perfectly possible to fly and fight a small ship with the computer to help you. "Enda, get us ready for starfall."

"Here comes the rest of the party," said Helm. "Third trace. Must be your brown-eyed number, I think. My good gods in a bucket of ale, whathas she got fastened onto that thing?"

Gabriel did not much care to hear this kind of language from Helm. "Whathas she got?" he asked, eyeing their stardrive energy level indicators. They were nowhere near ready.

"Too much. I want to know where she bought it," Helm said. Gabriel could hear more than a hint of gleeful awe creeping into Helm's voice. "Hell, I wish I'd sold it to her, what a commission I'd have—" "Helm!" Enda said. "Details would be useful!"

"She's got that mass cannon we were discussing," said Helm. "Don't let her get within a kilometer of you. The results could be unfortunate—"

"Damn it!" Gabriel said asQuatsch dived at them again, firing."Quatsch, stop it! We don't want to hurt you, but if you—"

Gabriel fired in frustration, intending to miss.Quatsch veered past as Enda threwSunshine out of the way. "I'll shoot him next time," Gabriel muttered, "I swear I will." He punched the comms open again. "Quatsch, that was the last piece of slack I'm going to cut you. Next time I'm going to put one right through your hold, and there goes your business. Get out of our way!"

"Go on and try," came a shrill response. "I don't care! You and your kind have tried before! You're just one more of them! Won't let a man make a decent living, you and the big companies, you're all the same—"

Gabriel could hear Enda breathe out. "He is unstable," she said, "but he might damage us. Maybe one through the rear hull would be the kindest thing—" "Trouble," Helm broke in.

He flipped Longshot end for end and came streaking past Gabriel at great speed. He was firing hard and fast. Gabriel swung in the fighting field to follow where Helm was going and saw the third trace. The third ship, more massive than any of the others, swung from side to side in quick graceful curves, skillfully avoiding Helm's fire and firing something that Gabriel didn't recognize. There were no bright bolts of power or clouds of projectile vapor, just a pale streak of cloudy fire that shot out, enveloped Quatsch and tore it to shreds. Not an explosion — though that followed, as all the air inside the craft flew out through a hundred suddenly formed gaps. Quatsch became a thousand twisted fragments, spinning away in all directions while continuing briefly along the same general course.

Gabriel stared. "She killed him," he whispered."Why would she have killed him?"

Enda was as shocked as Gabriel but had her mind on other problems. "Helm, where is that third ship?"

'The smaller one? Away up in 'zenith' direction now. No action. Watching."

And listening, Gabriel thought. On whose behalf?

"Possibility," Delde Sota's came over comms. "Open communications with hostile vessel." "What for?"

"Stall," said Delde Sota. "Pump for information. Have other business to attend to." "Right," Gabriel said. He swallowed, for all this was his fault. It was not Helm or Delde Sota that these people wanted. He opened a clear channel and said, "Pursuing vessels, this isSunshine. State your intentions or be prepared to face the consequences."

"There's no point in running," said a very cool, very calm female voice. "I can outrun you. If you make starfall, that won't matter either. I'll know where you're going sooner or later and find you there. Give it up now and resign yourself to being boarded."

"You can forget that," Gabriel said, furious. "Why did you kill him? No one needed to do that!" "You were about to," said the cool voice, "not that it matters. Everyone's going to think you did, anyway."

A terrible shock of fear ran down Gabriel's spine like ice water. She's right. I'm the one who murdered a bunch of my best friends. Why wouldn't I kill a crazy man who gave me an excuse? "You can just come along with me," said the calm female voice, "or suffer the consequences." " 'Come along with you.' For what purpose?"

"You know very well. There's interest in you that you've been avoiding with varying amounts of success, but the gameplay has to stop now. We're past that."

"Oh, are we?" Gabriel said. Delde Sota, whatever you're up to, get on with it.

"Don't try my patience. If you cooperate, things will be made a lot easier for you. If you don't. ."

He felt a long tremor go throughSunshine, and all her displays and readouts wavered as if they had lost power for a fraction of a second. Gabriel shot a glance at Enda. She shook her head and threwSunshine away in the opposite direction.

"I'm willing to disable you if I have to," said the cool voice. "You won't be dead, but you'll have a lot of repairs to make — and this poor little place isn't set up for them. When the rescue parties come up from Rivendale — if they manage to organize anything— and they discover what's happened to poor Alwhirn—"

Enda kept running. Helm followed, not firing, possibly to avoid interfering with whatever Delde Sota had in mind. Gabriel slipped deeper into the fighting field, getting into synch with the rail cannon. If he could get off one well-aimed shot, even from a few kilometers away, she'd have a nasty surprise. "Stop running," Gabriel told Enda. "What?"

"Stop running. Let her catch us." He felt her looking at him. "Are you sure?" "Just do it!"

"Gabriel—" came Helm's voice.

"No, Helm," Gabriel said, as forcefully as he could — trying to have him get the message that he was not to interfere, without saying so openly. "I'm not going to run. I'm through running." "I wouldn't try anything at this point if I were you," said the cool voice.

"You idiot," Gabriel shouted, "you're not as delicate with that damned thing as you think you are! I can hear atmosphere leaking, half my weapons are off line, and my rail gun's been pulled right out of track. It wouldn't fire now if I got out there and hit it with a hammer! After I spent how many thousand dollars having it replaced! You—"

He swore as creatively as he could under the circumstances. The woman laughed at him. Gabriel's anger made everything extremely clear for a moment as he reached for the large joystick that managed the rail cannon. For just a moment he had an image of how nice it would be to throttle that pretty little neck and watch those lustrous brown eyes goggle out. His fist tightened on the virtual control. Slowly she came drifting in. He watched carefully, waiting. The ship was coming quite close now, less than half a kilometer away. Well out past it, Longshot was coasting away, watching. Closer and closer the other ship drifted. Gabriel saw the change. There had been cockpit lights. Abruptly, they went out. Power loss. Delde Sota got into her system over carrier—

Gabriel fired the rail cannon. He had not been lying; it had indeed been pulled out of alignment by that first ripple of force from the mass cannon. . but not that much. The meter-wide ball of heavy metal hit the back of her ship and took it right off, but there was not the huge bloom of silvery air that he had been expecting.

"Gabriel—" Helm said.

"Don't bother, Helm!" he yelled. "We're all right! Just go!"

"Going," Helm said. Liquid fire streaked up aroundLongshot, veiling her in a ferocious electric blue; then she was gone.

Ship's comms suddenly filled with the sound of more cursing, from two different sources this time. Enda tilted her head in an evaluatory way as she activated the stardrive. "Colorful language," Enda commented.

All around Sunshine, blue-black fire trickled and ran, obliterating the view of the space around Terivine. Good luck, Gabriel thought distractedly. The best starfall there is, supposedly. They vanished into the empty blackness of drivespace.

The next five days were as quiet as Gabriel had expected them to be, almost so much that he had trouble dealing with it.

He found himself wishing that he had more to keep him busy.

He could not rid himself of the image of Quatsch blooming into a thousand cracks with air pouring out of them, freezing as it came. Though he had not pushed the button, he was feeling increasingly responsible. Whoever these people are, Gabriel thought, I don't mind them coming after me, but when they start taking out people who just happen to be in the neighborhood… that's another matter. If this is anything to do with Lorand Kharls, I'm going to rip his head off when I see him next.

On consideration, he didn't think Kharls was involved. The man might be manipulative, obscure, and underhanded, but Gabriel felt certain he would not have countenanced cold-blooded murder. Nor, Gabriel thought, would he have sent out anyone likely to behave that way.

Now what? he wondered. What happens when we turn up at Aegis and someone says, "Hear you killed somebody else out by Terivine." I can tell them all I like that it isn't true, but I know what they're going to think, and whoever she is, she knew too. Whois she?

Who was that other one — Miss Blue Eyes, who just sat there and watched it all?

Gabriel sat in the pilot's seat a long time that first day after they jumped, trying to work out what could possibly be going on in the larger world around him. Finally, he turned to find Enda leaning over his shoulder and gazing into the blackness.

"What's on your mind?" he said.

She sighed. "Food. Perhaps I was not as tired of the beef lichen as I thought I was " Gabriel gave her a look.

"Well, more than that, of course," Enda said as she sat down beside him. "Poor Alwhirn. As for Rivendale, who knows whether we will ever go back there now? What value the place might have had for us will now be lost, no matter what the investigation into Alwhirn's death may reveal. The presence there of two different agents spying on us makes it plain that seeking out 'small quiet' markets in which to work is not going to work"

Gabriel shook his head and said, "Alwhirn might have been crazy, but there was no reason to just kill him like that. Whoever that woman is — I don't like her. We're going to have words if we ever meet again." "I suspect it would be more than words," said Enda. She paused for a moment, then continued, "I wonder if she killed him because it looked like he might actually have been about to kill us?" Gabriel stared at her.

"Well," she said, "granted, there are people out there who would prefer to see you dead. Elinke Darayev, the captain who was your shuttle pilot's lover strikes me as one of these. Doubtless there are others. Are there not, at the moment, also those for whom you are more useful alive than dead?" Gabriel brooded over that for a few moments. "Some, but if this is typical of their protection, I don't think much of their methods."

"Insofar as they leave such people with another possible hold over you," said Enda, "I would agree." She frowned. "It is too easy a tactic, now, and one which you will have to guard against in the future." "It's likely enough to be pretty effective right now," Gabriel said. "Is it even going to be safe for me to show my face in the Aegis system?"

"Well. First of all, we are riding the crest of that news, so to speak. No one will come to Aegis with it any sooner than we will, unless a much larger, faster ship than ours becomes involved." "Not beyond possibility," Gabriel said.

Enda bowed her head in acknowledgment. "I would suggest, though," she said, "that under the circumstances, we should go straight to the authorities when we arrive there and file a report. First of all, that would not be the act of a guilty person. Second, it may put the people who were trailing us on the defensive— however briefly. If someone comes hot-jets behind us to accuse you of murder, you will have left them in a much weaker position."

The authorities. Gabriel thought about that. All his life, the authorities had been nothing that he feared, and in the marines, he had considered himself part of "the authorities." Now he routinely found it difficult dealing with the pang of discomfort that went through him when he heard the phrase. He knew that until he cleared his name — maybe for a long time thereafter — he was on the wrong side of that invisible line and had to consider whether it was safe to speak to the people on the "right" side.

"That would probably mean one or another of the embassies on Bluefall," Gabriel said, "the Alaundrin or the Regency, since they both have a foothold in Rivendale."

"And more to the point," Enda said, "the Concord one."

Gabriel threw her a quick glance.

"Naturally you would not have to file those reports in person," she added. "Especially not the Concord one," Gabriel muttered. "The Regency may be running the planet as functionally neutral, but if I walked into the Concord offices there, extraterritoriality would function. They'd arrest me as soon as look at me."

"Indeed. Well, you need not." She gave him a more thoughtful look. "Would you want to stop on Bluefall at all? That was home for you once. . "

Gabriel took a long breath and let it out. It had been years since he had been home — just after his mother died, in fact. As far as he knew, his father was still there, but lacking any answer to recent holomessages, Gabriel didn't know for sure and was becoming nervous of finding out. Do I want to walk up to him and have him reject me as a murderer? Gabriel thought.

"I don't know," Gabriel answered. "We don't need to, I guess, but also we don't need to decide right now. The first thing we need to find out is what data we can pick up at Aegis and where we'll go after that."

He stretched, leaned back in the seat again, and said, "It's just so unfair. I would never have killed him." "Forensics will prove that you did not," Enda said. "We have no weaponry of the kind that destroyed Alwhirn's ship. The people who did our installations at Diamond Point will be able to verify that. There was certainly nowhere to get such equipment at Sunbreak — even if we could have afforded it."

Gabriel sighed. "I know that, and you know that, but will the people at Diamond Point testify? Who knows who might be getting at them even as we speak? Besides, considering some of the weaponry we had installed, their testimony might be more damning than helpful."

Enda got up. "I refuse to speculate in that direction," she said. "There is no point in imagining complications that may never arise. Besides, right now I am wondering how Delde Sota managed to interfere with that other ship's power."

"So am I," Gabriel muttered. "It's more like magic than anything else."

"I daresay she had a connection to comms through Helm's computers," Enda said. "Past that point, it certainly looks like magic to me as well — if by that you mean something outside natural experience. Let us just be grateful that it is being exercised on our side."

She went away and left Gabriel to his thoughts. If she was able to get into that ship's system, he thought, what else might she have been able to find out? That information was going to have to wait until they came out of drivespace.

The next morning, and again the morning after that, Gabriel sat down with the information about Jacob Ricel. He had time to try to work out what to do with it, but he found himself wondering whether it was really worthwhile trying to follow any of this. The information was all between five and ten years old… all stale. If he went back and questioned the people who had known this man, what would he find? Eroded memories, more stale data leading. . where?

He gazed at the three faces with the three different names and wondered what other lives Ricel might have changed the way he had changed Gabriel's? How many other lives had the man destroyed or altered out of recognition. . and then just changed his name and passed on into other circumstances? What kind of person do you have to be to do things like that to people? And in the name of what, exactly? Intelligence. . planetary or stellar-national security?

"Thoughts are free, they say," said Enda quietly from behind him, "but I would pay a small fortune for yours."

Gabriel shut off the Grid access array and let it relapse to Enda's green field again. "I sometimes wonder if this is ever going to be worth my while." "What? Clearing your name?"

He nodded. "I think it would be nice to forget about it, to just go off and explore strange places where no one would know me or care where I'd been."

"Exploration contracts. ." Enda said, sitting down across from him. "They are not lightly awarded. Nor are they cheap."

"Oh, I know. It's just something to think about." Gabriel stretched. "I remember — what was his name, Rov? — talking about that system — or was it a planet? — out past Coulomb. . "

"Eldala," Enda said after a moment. "Not a name I know, and I know quite a few."

Gabriel shook his head and said, "I don't know much about the details of survey methods. I know no one thought to look for Rivendale because Terivine C seemed such an unlikely primary. Could they still make a mistake like that? Miss an entire planet on survey?"

"Or misclassify it?" Enda shrugged. "In a hurry, one may make all kinds of mistakes. I suppose you would have to look at the survey information."

"Well, you know, I got curious earlier," Gabriel said, and pulled out the Grid access keypad again. He touched it in a few places, and the waving grass vanished to be replaced by a long, dry-looking page of figures and names.

Enda blinked at that. "Surely we do not routinely carry planetary exploration information in our own computers."

"In the raw form, yes we do," Gabriel said. "The compiled CSS listings are there under 'Standard Reference, Gazetteer.' There's nothing more involved than that. No graphics or descriptive detail. Look, there's the name. Eldala."

"A system name," Enda said, leaning closer. "Goodness. Thatis a long way out." She squinted at the display. "Planets indeterminate. Distances indeterminate." She tilted her head to one side. "What kind of survey information is that?"

"All the listing says is 'Incomplete,' " Gabriel said. "They didn't finish. They left early for some reason. When we get at a drivesat relay, we can send off for the information and wait for it to come back." "Morbid curiosity," said Enda.

"Well, admit it. Wouldn'tyou like to know what happened?"

Enda looked doubtful. "My guess is that it is some kind of bureaucratic hitch. A civil servant made a mistake compiling the information. It would not surprise me if someone misfiled a whole planet." The thought of the necessary size of the filing closet made Gabriel grin. "All the same. . we could go find out, after we've done some more infotrading, enough to get ourselves supplied." Enda leaned on the bulkhead, musing. "You might be able to convince me," she said, "but I would want to make sure we are well equipped with emergency stores and the like, and the phymech would have to be checked again."

"Of course. The idea of a whole planet falling between the cracks…"

Enda shook her head. "It is interesting. Nevertheless, there is Aegis to think about first, and what may be picked up there. We will not have any difficulty finding information to haul. There are never enough infotraders to service all the deaf Grids and minor systems out this way, but we will have to consider where we might go besides Terivine."

Gabriel sat back and folded his arms. "Not much choice in the Verge," he said, "unless you want to go right back into the Stellar Ring. A long way…"

"I don't think so," Enda said. "Nor, I think, would you desire to get too far away from your own researches into Mr. Ricel." She stretched, so that the blue crewsuit she wore shimmered, then steadied down into matte blue again. "Aegis, Tendril, and Hammer's Star are our opportunities. Aegis is most central. Tendril—" "No, they're not," Gabriel said.

Enda looked at him, confused. "Have I missed something? In the Verge, there are only the three drivesats."

"There's a fourth," Gabriel said. "The Lighthouse." Her eyes widened.

"At the time," Gabriel said, "I didn't think much of it. I had my mind on those three pictures of Ricel yesterday, but Altai routinely sends along a news package to its subscribers. I skimmed it and forgot about it. One of the stories says that the Lighthouse is passing through this part of the Verge. It's going to be stopping at Aegis on its way further out."

Enda shook her head. "Now, I feel foolish, for I have not thought about the Lighthouse in some time. It jumps about so. "

Gabriel chuckled softly, for Enda was understating again. Originally that massive construction, a kilometer and a half long, had been an Orlamu Theocracy space station called the Lighthouse of Faith. Now it journeyed through the Verge accompanied by several Star Force cruisers and various smaller vessels, bringing trade, news, and a semblance of armed security to the scattered worlds of the Verge. It housed the headquarters of the Concord Survey Services, which supervised and assisted independent exploration contractors through the Verge and beyond. It also carried large diplomatic and trading complements, a city's worth of permanent inhabitants, and numerous docking ports, repair stations, and cargo bays. It had a larger population than some planets, was better armed than many, and had the additional advantage of a massive stardrive that could take it fifty light-years in a single starfall. There was one aspect of the Lighthouse that bore some consideration. It had a drivespace comms relay. Infotraders flocked to it to transfer data when it came into or near their systems. "Certainly we can drop our data at either the Lighthouse or Aegis," Enda said slowly, "but after that. . Gabriel, why stop there?"

Gabriel looked at her dubiously. "You're suggesting that we might hitch a ride wherever she's going?" "The thought crossed my mind."

Gabriel considered that. The Lighthouse's provenance— originally it had belonged to the Orlamu Theocracy — meant that its status in Concord terms had become peculiar. The Orlamu had no problems with the Concord refurbishing their "great experiment" after it had almost been completely destroyed by a Solar raid into their space in 2461, but they had insisted — and so had others suddenly faced with the prospect of this behemoth turning up in their systems — that it should be considered strictly a neutral facility. The negotiations had gone on for a good while, but at last the station's neutrality had been accepted by all parties involved.

"Well. ." Gabriel said. For his own part, neutrality was all very well, but he was uncertain how it would hold if a party wanted by the Concord was suddenly to turn up inside the place. "If we wanted to pick up or drop data there, I don't think there'd be any trouble with that. Actually piggybacking Sunshine onto the thing concerns me. I wouldn't like to test the facility's neutrality too rigorously."

"And have it fail, you mean," Enda said. "You also mean that there are marines there, a permanent contingent."

She said nothing more, only wandered back toward crew quarters. A few moments later she came out again with the squeeze bottle she used for her plant.

Gabriel watched her water the small brown bulb, of which maybe a couple of centimeters stuck up from the surrounding gravel. "Is there something that plant needs that it might be missing?" he asked after a moment.

Enda glanced up. "As regards its nourishment or its normal growth cycle? Not at all. It is behaving perfectly normally."

"How long is it supposed to stay like that?"

"As long as it likes," said Enda. "Rather like you."

Gabriel put his eyebrows up in a way that was meant to look ironic.

Enda turned to go down to her quarters with the bottle again. "I understand that you might find it uncomfortable to be within range," she said from down the hall. "You would have to decide whether the discomfort would be so unbearable as to put aside a useful business opportunity. As for dropping data at Lighthouse, the 'physical ingress' rules would matter only if we had no right of egress to begin with. As infotraders, we have such a right."

She came back up the hall again and folded down her seat by the Grid access panel. "As for hitching a ride, that depends on whether we pass the usual security check when we apply for space. It also depends on where Lighthouse would be going after we visited her. Her schedule varies without warning and is much affected by local conditions and the political requirements of the moment. Myself, I would not disdain a fifty light-year hitch in a useful direction, but we would need more recent information on where she is headed next."

Gabriel nodded. There was no question but that the Lighthouse could be useful. One long starfall instead of many small ones…

"If you were serious about exploratory work," Enda said, "the Concord Survey Services are located aboard Lighthouse."

Gabriel shook his head. "Again, I'm not sure I want to just walk in there."

Enda shrugged. "It is not a decision that needs to be made now. We should deal with Aegis first." She glanced up the hallway into the cockpit. "We now have only a little over a day until we make starrise and recharge our drives for Mikoa. While doing that, we will want to discuss this with Helm and Doctor Sota, but first things first. When did you last eat anything?" "Uh," Gabriel said.

"Precisely 'uh,' " Enda said, getting up. "It is a good thing the starfall/starrise interval is no longer than it is. You become philosophical and would waste away unless you were reminded to take nourishment every now and then."

"You're just trying to get rid of those prepacks you got on Rivendale," Gabriel said, "the ones you've decided you don't like after all." Nonetheless, he got up and followed her down to the galley. The Lighthouse, he thought.

Why not?