by Diane Duane
"They had it from new, apparently, to go by the service record. They did cargo at first, then went for mining afterward. Then they changed again and used the augmented hold for data. A lot of hauls out by Aegis and back into the Verge just after the new drivecomm relay went in to replace the old one lost during the war. By then half the planets in the Corrivale neighborhood were setting up their new Grids now that there was something to link through. Finally the owners did something unusual: they retired. Sold out, went somewhere in-world, found themselves a little cottage up a mountain, and didn't go to space no more."
Gabriel nodded. "They retired the drive too, though."
Leiysin shrugged. "No matter how kindly you treat a drive, twenty years is too long. We've got some here that will fit this module. A Speramundi, a Bricht. The Bricht wouldn't be a perfect fit, though." Gabriel shook his head. The Bricht would be less expensive, but a jury-rigged stardrive was nightmarish to maintain. That much he knew from many late-night horror stories from Hal. "Let's see the inside," he said.
Leiysin took him through. It was a surprisingly roomy ship, especially as regarded the sanitary fittings. This occurred to him as a possible reason why a family who had blasted in this ship for twenty years were able to retire, all alive, rather than having murdered one another for reasons having to do with hygiene. Gabriel knew a lot of people joked about such things, but marines knew better than most how important it was to successful human function when cooped up in a small tin can to be scrupulously clean about it. There was a tiny "sitting room" with a couple of surprisingly comfortable-looking fold- down chairs. Next to the chairs was a modular built-in Grid and entertainment access, possibly another reason the family had not killed one another. The living quarters consisted of three quarters-cubbies, two convertible for storage, and a well-equipped pilot's cabin with room for two to be there without having to be stuffed down one another's jumpsuits.
He came out of the ship to find Enda peering into the main hold. "Commodious," she said. "Should I look inside?"
"Do," Gabriel said, and Enda slipped up the steps and vanished. Gabriel walked around the ship, trying to do the kind of walk-about that Hal used to tell him about, looking for scratches, strange welds, riveted patches that changed color within the patch, other peculiarities. The problem is that I'm not absolutely sure what I'm looking for yet, he thought. I know the symptoms, but not what they mean. But he kept at it anyway.
The ship was shaped like a long, moderately wide box with various sensor relays and system drive equipment extending out of the main hull. Triangular wings jutted out from the rear of the craft. They were obviously intended to stabilize the craft in atmospheric flight, but they also seemed thick enough to be able to accommodate at least one weapons bay in each wing. The command compartment that housed the cockpit was a ten-meter-long cylinder that extended from the front of the ship and tapered into a round nose. Two rectangular bays jutted out from each side of the command compartment. Both of them had been gutted for salvage but could easily be refitted to house either a sensor bay or even a small weapons compartment. The ship's escape pod had also been salvaged, but its housing bay seemed in good shape. Like all of the ships in the yard, the craft's dusky cerametal skin was in desperate need of a good cleaning, but Gabriel could find no exterior damage or unexplained patch work. By the rime he had come all the way around the ship, Enda was coming down the stairs and looking severely at Leiysin, who was watching this whole performance with interest.
"It badly needs a cleaning," she said. "I wonder that with so much attention to the technical end, you had not seen to that by now."
"Detailing," Leiysin said and shrugged, "usually comes last." He gave Enda a thoughtful look. "Well," Enda said after a look of her own at Gabriel, "your decision."
He stood there with his mouth hanging open. Marines were not used to being given decisions of such stature, at least not marines of his rank.
Then Gabriel realized that he was not a marine any more, of any rank, and that other people, normal people, did get to make such decisions ... and maybe it was time he started. Both Enda and Leiysin were standing there staring at him, awaiting his decision. "What the drik," he said. "Let's do it."
They turned together to Leiysin, who nodded, looking satisfied. "Then let's go into the office and start the process. Sir, honored madam, will that be cash, or shall we investigate other payment options?" "That depends," Enda said mildly. "How much of a discount do you offer for cash?" Cash? Gabriel was thinking while concentrating on not allowing his eyes to bug out. Leiysin shook his head regretfully.
"Unfortunately the traffic in the system is light enough that it is not cost-effective to give cash discounts. No business here could-"
"Spare me your tales of woe," said Enda. "May the time come soon when you find yourself enough closer to civilization that you are dealing a little less close to the edge." Gabriel blinked, wondering what that meant. "Are you offering contract work for mortgagees?"
This time it was the dealer's turn to blink. "Phorcyn law forbids that kind of transaction-" Gabriel's ears perked up at that. The man had not quite said that he didn't offer contract work. But he finally said, "No, I don't want anything to do with that at this stage." Enda nodded to him. "Then we will examine the competing interest rates."
"Competing?" The dealer looked at her in surprise. "Honored, unfortunately the only bank offering ship escrow on Phorcys is-"
"You must think I was born only a hundred years ago," Enda said, and Gabriel grinned. "Flattery. Of course there are more banks available than just the one. I can arrange finance clear back in the Solar Union if I so please, and perhaps we should. Gabriel?" He nodded to her and turned to go.
"No! No, honored, wait, I'm sure we can come to some agreement-"
Gabriel paused, and after a moment nodded again. The remainder of the financial discussion went by with merciful speed; apparently Leiysin was so terrified of the possibility that this particular transaction might walk away from him that his spirit was nearly broken, and he sat there nodding and agreeing to everything Enda said. It was an interesting development, but as with so many others lately, Gabriel found himself wondering what it meant.
Other details took rather longer to sort out. Verifying the ship's condition came first. One of the independent examination companies had to come out and certify the ship's spaceworthiness-that could be done tonight. Then there was the matter of fittings. A mining ship, even the smallest, required better than usual shielding (since ores are likely to be radioactive), specialized assay equipment, and a fair amount of weaponry-since the work was lonely and the space in which it took place were not much frequented by others except asteroid miners, there are plenty of people willing to take advantage of you. There was also the matter of the installation of the new Speramundi drive. Also, the kind of modular shielding that the ship had once borne and that had been removed for data haulage would now need to be reinstalled. Enda also seemed unusually concerned about the type and quality of the weaponry Leiysin had to offer them. Gabriel supported his end of things by making it a point to be unusually picky and difficult about the mining equipment. What poor Leiysin was making of the whole transaction, Gabriel had no idea.
They signed the initial "commitment" chip after about an hour of detail work. Enda put down the deposit, five percent of the vehicle's full price with the rest scheduled to follow according to the loan repayment schedule that would be arranged with one of several banks tonight or tomorrow. They walked out of there well into the beginning stages of ownership of a Delgakis D-80 "Orindren" driveship, with only a few hundred things like system registration and victualling and drive fueling to handle. For Gabriel it was an exhilarating feeling, the only one he could remember having in some time: the beginning of a new life or rather, the beginning of the long process of finding out what had gone wrong with the last one and fixing it.
Later he started having second thoughts. "Do you ever have first ones?" Enda asked, teasing somewhat. T
hey were back in the Dive for this discussion, the noise level there at this time of night so horrific that no one not standing directly between them could have managed to overhear them. As for the mere fact of the sale, probably everyone here knew about it already, but anyone wanting to get close enough to hear the details would have to come to grief first. Gabriel ate his soup, which was only marginally better than it had been the other night, and shook his head. "I'm not sure I like it," he said. "Well, would you rather go out without weapons?"
"Hardly! But the level of stuff we bought. Look at the numbers! Whoever installs those is going to talk. Word is going to get out. It always does. And someone's going to come after us, wondering why we need such big guns and thinking that we must have something really worth stealing-" "On the contrary, we will have better weapons yet," Enda said, "but we will not install them here, nor anywhere without posting the customary bribes. Even here, it is possible to make various arrangements in the documentation associated with the weaponry."
"You mean you're going to try to get them to forge the end-use certificates? Do you know what the penalty for-"
"Yes," said Enda, "probably better than you do. It's done all the time, Gabriel, as you know. Or you should know. I sometimes wonder whether the great concentration on producing spotless young entities for the Service does not shelter you too much from the ..." she trailed off. "Well, let that pass for the moment. In any case, our gunnery will seem ordinary enough by the time we are through fitting the ship, and there are ways to buy off the actual installers as well, ways to ensure that they stay bought. Other matters .. ."
" 'Other matters'?" Gabriel said. "I noticed something about the final bill."
"Yes?"
"It was larger than what the total should have been by about five percent."
Enda blinked. Gabriel gave her a look and said, "Just because I'm a marine doesn't mean I can't count." "Well, you are certainly right to notice. It is after all your money too, some of it. Quite a bit of it, in fact." She reached around her back and for a moment toyed with that silken fall of pearly hair that normally she kept bound out of the way. "It occurred to me that some slight extra speed might be desired." "Speed?"
"In departing."
Gabriel put the spoon down in the soup bowl again. "Are you telling me that the delivery date on the manifest is-"
"Inaccurate?" she said. "By some days." "When will it be-" Then he stopped himself.
"There are those who can read the lips of even fraal," Enda said and smiled that slight smile. "Perhaps we will let that wait."
Gabriel nodded and finished the last couple of spoonfuls of his soup. He thought Enda probably meant "tomorrow," but she was not going to say it. Probably with reason, he thought as he glanced around him. All around was a darkness full of smoke, drink fumes, and oblivious people shouting or singing at each other. Yet who knew what technology was hidden away in quiet corners, recording chance words that might be sold to a willing bidder?
He sighed, pushed back in his seat, pulled out the little pocket-stone, and began fiddling with it while letting the food settle.
"One thing we must settle by tomorrow morning," Enda said after a moment, glancing up from the wineglass that she had been refilling, "is the matter of the ship's name. They will not let us lift without something." She saw Gabriel pause and added, "You could always simply let them generate a letter and number combination, if you prefer. Something meaningless and non-connoted. Certainly there are species that are suspicious about such things."
Abruptly, Gabriel got the shudder. It had been some time since he had felt that: what his mother, when he was very young, had called "somebody walking over my grave," and then laughed and shrugged it off. It never seemed to have anything specific to do with something bad happening, but the two sometimes came together.
He raised his eyebrows, put the feeling aside for the moment, and said, "No, it can have a name, there's no problem with that."
"What, then? I have no gift for this kind of thing," Enda said. "You will have to choose." Gabriel leaned forward on his elbows and thought, twiddling the stone idly as he did so. The image came to him, abruptly, of that thin patch of sunshine that had shone down on them as they walked through the gates of Gol Leiysin's place. "Sunshine," he said.
Enda tilted her head at him. "Simple, perhaps childlike. No matter. Naming the light is always a good thing. It attracts its attention. 'Sunshine' let it be. We will both have to sign title, but you may as well take care of making the actual registry application, or rather completing it, at the spaceport in the morning. I will take care of the last of the victualling, and when I get back I will go over the final parts manifest with the people from Leiysin's to make sure the inventory is complete. Can you think of anything else that needs doing?"
Gabriel tried to think but couldn't. It was possibly understandable. This h ad been one of the fullest days he'd had in ages, and he felt much more tired than he should have. He began to wonder whether the trial had taken more out of him than he would have otherwise suspected.
"Not a thing," he said at last. "Though as a second thought, sleeping would be nice."
Enda chuckled. "I thought you might come up with that one eventually. All right. Let me finish this, and then we'll go."
She drank her wine, and Gabriel gestured through the singing for the bartender to send someone over to collect what they owed. Drink was cheap enough here, and Gabriel was glad to get rid of his last few pieces of Phorcyn hard currency. Only bills were left, and the people at the spaceport would readily enough put credit on his chip in exchange while they left. When the bill was paid, Enda got up and headed for the door, Gabriel coming after her through the noise and the smoke. "Here," he said, "let me get that for you." It was an old habit, but one he should begin to rediscover, he thought. Enda gave him a dry look as Gabriel opened the door for her, then she started past him. The sound was what hit him first, that low buzz.
His hand shot out almost before he knew what he was doing. He grabbed Enda by the shoulder and snatched her violently back. As she staggered backwards into him, a slug trailing superheated plasma went by directly in front of her, not more than a few centimeters in front of her nose. The slug slammed into the door frame, spraying splinters of wood and stone into their skin.
Gabriel pulled Enda past him, thrust her behind him back into the Dive, and dove out of the doorway. He hit the concrete in the dark. Good thing we've been this way a couple of times before, he thought as he rolled and broke out of the roll sideways. As the charge pistol's fire stitched the concrete behind him, he heard the shuffle of footsteps made brighter than normal by their echo against the nearby wall. He targeted that sound, rolled again, came up and dove straight at the dim shape he saw heading just a little to the left of the dim pink light of the weapon's aiming eye. Wham! His head hit something that should have been softer than it was. A battle vest maybe but not full attack armor. Too bad for you, buddy, Gabriel thought as he came down on top of the man, grabbed his head, and banged it on the ground with one hand while feeling with the other for the outstretched arm. Just out of reach, yes, there it was, an M12 charge pistol, full clip. Nasty. Didn't plan to leave much of her, did you? He pushed up and away from the momentarily inert body, grabbed the pistol, twisted the lanth cell's safety out of its socket, and paused as he heard something. A rustling sound came from the other side of the wall. Oh really, he thought. He immediately selected for "overcharge," then chucked the pistol over the wall after its safety, hard.
Motion underneath him, then a groan. The man probably had some internal injuries and certainly was bleeding badly from the back of his head. This briefly became much clearer in the flare of sudden light from inside the wall. The exploding charge pistol lit everything like a sheet of lightning for a few seconds and rocked the ground. There was a scream from not far away, and the wall shook as something, several somethings, impacted into it with a slightly wet sound.
Gabriel stood up. Enda was standing just out
side the doorway, looking with some bemusement into the Dive, from which not so much as a nose had so far put itself out, nor seemed likely to in the near future. "Somebody here doesn't like you much, I think," Gabriel said as he dusted himself off and stood up. "Any thoughts as to who?"
Enda shook her head, looking around. The street in which the Dive was located was very dark, very quiet, and to Gabriel's senses getting darker and quieter by the moment. Even the barroom was deathly silent. He felt oddly elated. That was it, then. Marines had a sense of when trouble, physical trouble anyway, was going to break out. They might take his uniform and throw him off the ship and out of the Corps, but the instinct was still there. Gabriel produced a rather wolfish grin as he looked at the former attacker lying on the ground. "Should we call the police?" he asked.
Enda gave him a wide-eyed look, and Gabriel thought to himself once more that the illusion really was amazing. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that those eyes glowed in the dark.
"Gabriel," she said with some humor, "you are an optimist indeed if you think the police would come here at this time of night! Let us be away swiftly before the acquaintances of these miscreants come for them. For tonight the hotel will be secure enough. In the morning, swiftly with us to the spaceport where the ship will by now be lying in bond. We have business to finish, perhaps a whole day's worth-but I for one want to do every bit of it under official eyes, even the last of the shopping, even at field prices. Then we lift."