Starrise at Corrivale h-1

by Diane Duane

  "Oh, yes, it is, or it will be, shortly. If they meet and a few things come out that should never have had a chance to come out-"

  "That wasn't our fault either."

  "It doesn't matter. The only one who could have really made a difference to the situation is gone now where he can't be pumped, not even with the drugs they say they won't use."

  "Well, it's just as well they never got suspicious. We've been very lucky so far, but we don't dare take the chance that the luck'll continue. So look, just make sure they don't meet."

  "A lot of chance we have of stopping it if he decides a meeting should go ahead."

  "Don't be an idiot. There are about a hundred thousand possible solutions lying right under your nose.

  Just pick one and go to work,, and make sure you lose it afterwards! Some of them would be only too glad to turn around and admit everything in the aftermath. Disloyal creatures-sometimes I wonder why we bother."

  "Because they're there, and we own them."

  "Well, I just wish the rest of the nations would give up and admit it. Then we could all get on with life.

  Look, just get on with it. It's not exactly as if he's keeping his schedule or his movements a secret. Makes you think he didn't know what was going on."

  "Him? Hardly likely. He's got his own agenda, much good may it do him for the short time he has left." "Right. Well, good luck, and report back immediately when you get it finished. Himself is eager to start the next phase." "Right."

  They dropped slowly toward the green, cloud-swirled world, Gabriel taking his time at the controls while Enda watched without being obvious about it. Cocky as Gabriel had become with the system drive on Eraklion, that had been over barren ground, a world of few settlements and few people, a place where if you crashed you had a better than ninety percent chance of killing no one but yourself. Here though, the chances went up significantly. Oh, Grith might not be overpopulated-a hundred thousand sesheyans or so, maybe a hundred and fifty thousand Hatire humans and others, various other people of various other species-and they might be scattered fairly thinly over a largish world. It would be just his luck, while stunting in a new ship, to lose control and come down right where someone was standing waiting to be killed.

  "It's a pretty place, really," Gabriel said as they dropped through Grith's pale orange-red sky toward the big central continent that girdled the planet. The majority of Grith was vast tropical rainforest. There was no landing in that, of course, except spectacularly and permanently. Nor could one land in the landlocked seas that interpenetrated the forests, weaving in and out of the jungles in intricate patterns that caught the fierce sunlight and gleamed like ribbons of fire as the ship swept northward over them. Beyond the jungles and the bordering seas toward the pole stretched hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of tidal marsh. Those marshes on Grith's sunward side presently had gone shallow and dark, the tides being almost all the way out at the moment. As the planets turned, tugging at each other with the interacting tidal forces that Gabriel had once heard Hal describe as "too damned close a relationship," huge walls of water would rush back to fill those marshes again. In some places, the girdling seas would change their boundaries by hundreds of kilometers in the course of a day. Add to this the ferocity of Corrivale and the closeness of the orbit around the primary which Grith and Hydrocus shared, and it left you with a planet where the only suitable settlement areas for humans were at the poles. Diamond Point, the location of the main spaceport and the heart of the Hatire settlement, was set in the great polar savanna, surrounded by plains and grassland where the temperature even now in summer would not get much above 40° C. But even there, where the light of Corrivale was abated, there would not be many sesheyans. They were adapted to the multileveled green gloom of the great rain forests and deepest jungle. They would only appear in the Hatire community covered with heavy protective gear and gailghe, the goggles they favored, to protect them against Corrivale's unbearable fire. That light and heat was bad enough for humans and fraal and others who weren't used to it. Gabriel was glad that Enda had thought to purchase goggles along with the rest of their travel clothing. As it was, the cockpit windows were darkening down to help them cope as Gabriel steered north. This time of year in its northern hemisphere, Diamond Point was already experiencing "midnight sun," and would be for some months yet. There was no hiding from Corrivale's light.

  "Have you been here before?" asked Enda, looking down at the green and violet curve of the world as it filled more and more of the cockpit windows.

  "Just the once, when Falada passed through a year ago," Gabriel said, keeping his eyes on the controls and the artificial horizon. The ship was doing most of the work at the moment, but computers had occasionally been known to fail no matter who manufactured them. "We went down to Diamond Point on leave. It was one of the places where they said we weren't likely to get in too much trouble." "You? Trouble?" Enda said and somehow managed not to make it sound like the taunt it might have been from anyone else these days. "Surely you do not mean brawling and such behavior." Gabriel grinned. "Brawling? Us? No, it wasn't that. It was political. The Concord didn't really want us taking leave in the sesheyan indigenous areas, meaning most of the planet except Diamond Point. The Diocese doesn't have any jurisdiction outside of the Diamond Point area, and they're the only ones who have a due-process agreement with the Concord at this point. Everybody else on the planet, meaning mostly the Council of Tribes for the sesheyans, and the Aanghel, either has legal systems so complex that a marine could vanish into them and never be seen again-" and Gabriel made a face-"or are simply a bunch of crooks, pirates, and other wildlife. The captain said she preferred to put us down where she would be able to find us again later. Anybody who wanted to go see the 'quaint natives' in one of the jungle cities could wait until they came back in a few years, in civvies." "Ah. Do you wish to do this now?"

  Gabriel laughed at her. "Thanks, but if I want to get dirty, lost, and bug-bitten, I don't see why I should pay a sesheyan native guide for the privilege. I can do it on my own time, somewhere else." He shook his head. 'Things are weird enough down there just in the Hatire areas, I think. I'll stay out of the jungle for the time being and keep to where things are simpler."

  "It is a complex enough business, just keeping track of the relationship between the Hatire and the sesheyans," said Enda, tilting her head to one side. "The sesheyans are indigenous, said the settlement. But at the same time, Grith is a Hatire colony, except that the Hatire Diocese can exert no authority over the sesheyans." She tilted her head sideways, looking resigned. "I understand in a general way what the Mahdra settlement was trying to achieve, but it can hardly be considered a terribly stable kind of solution."

  They were dropping more and more swiftly now toward the north polar region, sweeping around the sunlit side of the planet toward Grith's boreal sea, and the cockpit windows darkened slightly to screen out the ever more brilliant reflection from the planet's surface.

  "Even without VoidCorp hanging around, yes." Gabriel eased back on the throttle a little. It was easy to "speed" in Grith's lighter gravity. "There was a lot of pressure being applied by the Colonial Diocese when we were here to try to find some way to reverse Mahdra and get the whole planet reverted to Hatire rule. But that seemed about as likely as Hydrocus being opened up for colonization, so no one seemed to be taking it terribly seriously."

  "I take it," Enda said as they dropped toward Diamond Point, "that you were not talking to many Hatires."

  Gabriel shook his head and grinned. "You ought to strap down," he said. "I might drop this thing on somebody. No point in you being jarred out of your seat as well."

  "Both possibilities seem unlikely," Enda said, but she sat down and strapped in anyway.

  The landing was uneventful. They came down way off to one side of the spaceport in the customs and bond part of the field reserved for private craft. Several sesheyans in protective suits and gailghe came out to meet them, take the ship's reg
istry information, and conduct the usual cursory search. Another one put port seal on the weaponry and confirmed it through the ship's computer, giving Gabriel a decommissioning chit to return to the check-out crew when he and Enda were ready to leave and free the weapons up again.

  The field had its own shopping facility, but Gabriel took one look at the prices in the victuallers' shops and shook his head. "They must get a lot of millionaires in here," he said. "Or else everybody on the planet drinks their morning draft black. Look at the price of the sugar!"

  "No," Enda replied. "At my age, heart failure so early in the morning is a bad thing. Let us go into the town center and take our chances there."

  The public transport to Diamond Point center was down at the end of a long walkway, amply windowed so that you could look out as you went. Outside, that idiosyncratic butter-yellow sunlight beat down mercilessly onto the tarmac from the fiercely red sky.

  Gabriel looked out across the field through the waver of heat haze and mutteredd under his breath to Enda, "A lot of Star Force traffic out there."

  She peered in the direction he was looking. "Shuttles mostly. Is there another of the big Concord ships in system?"

  "Something called Schmetterling is orbiting Hydrocus," Gabriel said. "A heavy cruiser, I know that much. But I don't know her command. Other than that, the only other reported ships are out around Omega Station."

  Enda nodded as they came to the end of that walkway. "It has been rather busy here of late," she said. "This part of the Verge has been seeing a lot of activity, with the systems around it opening up so rapidly, not that the locals are entirely happy about all the action, except in the business sense, I suppose. The Hatires in particular would have liked to be left alone to dominate the system, but I would say VoidCorp has its own plans about that, with all its mining interests here."

  She glanced over at Gabriel as they came out of the covered walkway, its doors dilating to let them out onto the pavement where the hovbus waited. The sunlight hit Gabriel like a blow. It was almost as if it had weight, like water.

  The air in the hovbus was hot, despite its attempt at air conditioning. Sitting down on the wide bench at the end of the bus, hunched over a little, was a sesheyan in protective gear. The oblong egg shape of the helmet around his oval head was completely opaqued, and he was wearing the extended version of the ayaishe, sleeved and breeched, with gloves for the talons, legs, and tail, and edge-sealing coverings for the great, leathery green wings folded around him-the "male" pattern was sketched down the outside of the fastening on one wing covering. The sesheyan still looked uncomfortable. Despite the dimming of the hovbus's own windows that cut the worst of the merciless glare from the concrete outside, it still had to be too bright and hot in here for him.

  Gabriel headed for the back of the hovbus and found a spot just in front of the sesheyan, nodding to him as he sat down. "Morning, brother."

  The head lifted a meter or so as the hovbus took off. There was no seeing any of the eight eyes through the helmet, but Gabriel felt them looking at him. "Morn dawns too bright in the Bare Places: but even Weyshe the Wanderer knew his brother when he saw him: and the afternoon gives way gratefully enough to the Shadows: but long that time seems to me yet."

  Gabriel nodded, thinking he was hearing a variation on "Can you believe the weather we've been having." Then, considering that a nod might mean something entirely different to a sesheyan, he said, "I'm not wild about this heat either. Are you headed somewhere cool? Or into town?" "The Wanderer's way is laid down," said the sesheyan, "but poor mortals must range more widely: errands remain to be run in the heat of the Point of the Diamond, and the day's work stretches forever: yet kindly inquiry ought be met always with kindly reply: and your path must also run long before you, that you dare the eye of day."

  The rhythm was catching. Gabriel was trying to frame a reply when Enda said, "Star-kindred, walker in the cool shadow: we must yet find nourishment under His sky: should any know of a place where Cureyfi the Father of Stars opens his arms to those who hunger: that would be reward indeed for those who must soon now journey again."

  The sesheyan nodded. Apparently the gesture was common to his species and humans, for he said, "Where this conveyance first stops his headlong flight, let the traveler alight with care, for the artery with traffic is wild: then let the Wanderer guide your eyes to the first drinking place that stands on the right: turn there and walk, not a long journey, but twenty breaths' worth in the cool of the evening: on your right as you go stands the house of Drounli the Provider, mighty assemblage of things both needful and needless: there you may find what you seek, though it be not born of this planet:" "Anything we seek?" Gabriel said, very softly. "Can I get my name cleared?"

  Enda elbowed him gently, and the air went right out of Gabriel. Fraal have sharp elbows and thousands of years' experience at using them. "Star cousin, kindred in travel," she said, "our thanks for advice well given: may your own errands go as swiftly as ours now will with your good rede: seems this to be the place of which you spoke, where we will go with the Wanderer."

  The bus was settling. From inside the cloak of the folded wings one gloved talon emerged to sketch a quick gesture in the air as Gabriel and Enda got up. "In his good way go, being ware of the traffic:" Gabriel lifted a hand to him in salute as they headed out of the hovbus, coming out onto the pavement at a corner from which they could see that the traffic indeed was worth keeping an eye on. There were vehicles plunging by them at great speed from four different directions, and Gabriel could see no signaling devices or other means of direct control.

  "Nice gent," he said, as the hovbus pulled away. He peered around, trying to see where the first drinking place on the right might be.

  "That is what we search for," Enda said, pointing. "See the tree sticking out above that door?" "That's a bar? I assume that's what he meant by drinking place?"

  "Yes. The symbol is an old one. Even Earth had it once, I hear. And see-there is the grocery. You can just see its sign. Let us chance the traffic."

  They hurried across to see about their groceries, not noting at this distance that eight eyes watched them carefully from the hovbus away down Diamond Point's main street.

  They had to spend three days on Grith getting the cargo bay repaired and replacing the shielding. Enda swore softly in one of the older fraal languages, making a sound like angry wind in the trees, when she discovered how much the work would cost them.

  "This is supposed to be a major repair depot," Gabriel said, also fairly aghast when they were walking away with the repair bill that they had to approve. "They have to get lots of business here. There's no reason to gouge like that."

  "I wonder whether there might be," Enda mused as they walked away along the edge of the repair field to where they would catch a hovbus for the spaceport again. "Surely I would suspect strongly that the Diocese gets its cut of all work done here. A 'value added tax,' you might call it. But then there is another possible reason in this system. VoidCorp."

  "You mean, everybody gets charged expense account prices because of the 'big business' in town?"

  "When the universe had no tarnish," Gabriel said, "and things were bright and new. Come on, Enda, don't look like that. Let's go out and have dinner somewhere."

  "I do not feel like it, even slightly," Enda said as they came to the hovbus stop. "After this bill, I feel as poor as the Queen's last lizard. Much too poor to pay for dinner or to let you pay for it either, so do not ask. Let us just go home to the ship and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we will be able to lift and start making back the cost of our encounter with those ships in the dark."

  Gabriel did not push the point, for he was still thinking about those ships-not to mention the great strange shape that had surfaced from nothing and vanished away again with no indication of its coming or warning of its going. "Ghost ships," the second ambassador had said in a whisper. It was a strange phrasing, but what Gabriel had seen could certainly have passed for one. />
  The next morning they lifted and headed out on system drive, not for Iphus itself but for the inner asteroid belt. Their contracts and other agreements with Iphus Independent had already been settled by Grid, and there was simply no need to go to Iphus. It was unusual enough for a system to have two asteroid belts, but the Corrivale system was fairly large as planetary systems went, stretching Bode's Law a little in terms of exceeding the "usual" average number of planets, and the ratios of planetary distances. It would have been a scenic enough trip, for the Belt, which most people counted as merely a big sphere of rocks with a rather higher concentration of asteroids in the system's ecliptic, was a sight to see when making for it from inside Hydrocus's and Grith's orbits. From such a distance, it appeared to be a chain of stars, drifting slowly, so slowly that you must be practically into the great sphere before you could see individual motion. The scenic aspect was disturbed for Gabriel by only one occurrence. A large dark shape cruised past them, sunward, one day. Probably a VoidCorp heavy cruiser, venturing inward on some obscure business.

  Enda was just coming into the cockpit as Gabriel spotted it, and she stood gazing at it with a surprisingly dark look for her. "It goes to intimidate someone," she said. "Mostly they stay out around Iphus, cruising over the planet by day and night, watching 'their interests,' and bringing fear to the independents." She frowned. "But they do not go so much in-system where Concord forces are more concentrated, not unless they have a reason to do so. They ignore Omega Station as if it were not even there, for no one there could do anything about one of those."

  Gabriel looked after the ship as it headed on sunward and its shadow blotted out any further perception of detail. "I was looking to see if there was any resemblance to our other friend." "And your conclusion?"

  Gabriel shook his head. "This one looked too human. You saw the general presentation: bumps and ducts. The other one didn't look human enough, somehow."

  She walked away and left Gabriel staring into the dark, thinking. Ghost ships.