by Диана Дуэйн
Gabriel shook his head and said, "I don't know if it's directional in the normal sense, but what I'm after is several starfalls away, at least."
"Okay," Helm said. "Off we go, then."
So they made starfall together, in a flare of what Gabriel considered a very noisy pink. Five days later, in what for Sunshine was a ferocious bloom of white fire—much brighter than usual, Gabriel thought—they made starrise in the Algemron system and began broadcasting their flight and landing plans on the properly allotted frequencies. They had been concerned that they might come out too close to Galvin and Alitar, a bad idea at this time of year when the two planets were drawing into the annual close-approach configuration that usually meant an escalation of hostilities. Both sides tended to get trigger-happy during such periods.
Sitting in the pilots' compartment, strapped in next to Enda and with the weapons on standby, Gabriel found himself wishing heartily that the Algemron system had a drive-sat relay. It would have been nice to be able to file a destination plan early so that people wouldn't be surprised when you turned up.
Though it might not make a difference with these people, he thought.
He shrugged the JustWadeIn fighting field around him and looked around. In the darkness of the field, schematic indicators relayed the system even though the actual bodies weren't visible. The brassy G5-gold of Algemron itself dominated the field. All its satellite bodies—the barren inner worlds Calderon and Ilmater, and beyond Galvin and Alitar, the uninhabitable planets, the gas giant Dalius, the small worlds Wreathe and Argolos, the ice-and-methane world Reliance, two more gas giants, Havryn and Halo—all of them did their slow dance around the star. Away back there in the darkness of the field was the little flashing point of light that marked Pariah Station on Palshizon. The whole system, if history had gone a little differently, could have been a busy, friendly place, full of gas miners and with two lively, well-settled Class 1 worlds at its heart, but the great powers had begun quarreling with ever-increasing intensity after only a few decades, making it highly unlikely that peace would ever break out here again short of everyone dropping dead.
"Any answer yet?" Gabriel asked Enda, keeping an eye out around him. She tilted her head "no" and then went back to looking around in the field.
He peered into the darkness. Close as they were to Alitar, there was no seeing the planet as a disk yet, no glimpse of the hole in the ground marking where half of the city of Beronin had been once upon a time. Even when they got in sight of Galvin, there would probably be no clear sign of where the Red Rain had once fallen, killing a third of the planet's population at that point. All very nasty, Gabriel thought. You
don't want to spend too much time where people have been fighting so hard that the conflict leaves marks on the planet that can be seen from space.
In the middle of Gabriel's head, something began to itch slightly. Oh, not now, he thought. This was a sensation he had begun experiencing since Danwell, since the time his telepathic contacts with his "counterpart" Tlelai started to become both frequent and easy. The itch, the twitch, usually meant that the power trapped in the luckstone was becoming active. Gabriel was often unclear about the reasons it did this. Sometimes it seemed to react to his stress levels—and they're fairly high at the moment, he thought.
At other times the itch happened for no reason whatever, or none that he could detect. Delde Sota had been able to cast no light on the sensation, except to suggest that it was something similar to the "phantom pain" suffered by amputees, except in reverse: a sign of new neural connections being forged, rather than old destroyed ones still thinking they were active. It might be a reflection of one of the physical changes of which she had spoken. A molecule here, a molecule there. leading to what?
Gabriel wrinkled his nose a couple of times, but it made no difference to the feeling. Enda shifted a little in her seat and glanced at him.
"You feel anything?" Gabriel said.
She shook her head. "Your stone—"
"It's up to its tricks," Gabriel muttered, "but don't ask me why."
She turned her attention back to the field, and so did Gabriel, ignoring the itch as well as he could, while they made their way in closer to Galvin. There was no sign of anyone or anything in the neighborhood, no telltales of approaching vessels, no nothing. If you stumbled in here by accident—fortunately an unlikely occurrence—you would probably not realize that this was one of the most heavily militarized systems in the Verge.
"Quiet around he—" Gabriel said. WHAM!
Sunshine pitched violently to one side, thrown that way by Enda to avoid the energy bolt that had just torn through the vacuum past them. Little auroral rainbows of ionized particles writhed and danced where the beam had passed, like dust in a sunbeam, but with much more energy. Back in Sunshine's body, things finished falling off shelves, banging onto the floor, and rolling around.
"You never do put everything away before one of these exercises," Enda said, "no matter how many times I advise you to."
"Invading vessels," said an angry voice down comms, "this is FSA interdiction control. Cut power and prepare to be boarded. If you power up again, we will fire with intent."
"What was that supposed to be," Helm muttered down private comms, "an accident? Assholes." "Understood, interdiction control," Enda said calmly. "Complying."
Gabriel was already reaching into the drive-control display, and he killed Sunshine's drive immediately. Lalique and Longshot did the same, and the three of them drifted along in careful formation while the other ships swooped out of the darkness and formed up around them.
There were six of them, all long smooth ovals in shape, and all of them had what Helm liked to call
"chunky and exciting detail"—meaning guns and weapon ports made as obvious and nasty-looking as possible. Gabriel was aware that there was a science to it—the business of making a weapon look so aggressive and unfriendly that the person on the wrong end of it would never do anything to provoke you to use it—but he was not happy to see how very highly that particular science seemed to be esteemed in this part of the Verge. These ships looked even more aggressive than Longshot, which until now Gabriel wouldn't have thought was possible. They were positively warty with weapons; plasma cannons were glued all over them like growths.
The comms receiver bank of controls in the central display tank between Gabriel and Enda came alive. Before Gabriel could reach out to activate it, a face appeared there: a shining black helmet with the goggles pushed up, partly hiding the Galvinite emblem, and under the helmet a face with narrowed eyes, a long thin nose, and a mean thin mouth.
Gabriel opened his mouth to say hello.
"If you make any movement toward weapons, we will fire instantly," said the officer. "Identify yourselves."
We've been doing that for the past twenty minutes, Gabriel felt like growling, but instead he said, "Infotrading vessel Sunshine, registered out of Phorcys."
''Longshot," Helm growled, "Grith registry."
''Lalique," said Angela, "out of Richards."
"ID confirms that," said a voice from behind the officer.
"Oh, does it?" he said. "Well, infotraders we don't mind." He sounded somewhat as if he personally preferred they didn't come anywhere near him. "What are you two here for?"
"Armed escort," Helm said.
"Same here," said Angela.
The officer glanced slightly to one side and guffawed. "Him, maybe, or so scan indicates, but you? "
"I carry a modicum of useful weapons," Angela said. "Look, if it makes you more comfortable, just consider me to be social services." Her voice curled in a naughty way around the last two words.
Oh wonderful! Gabriel thought, and began to sweat.
The officer snickered. "We'll see about that. Two, three, five, board 'em."
Gabriel tried not to swallow. If they boarded Sunshine and nosed around sufficiently, they would be likely to find that her gunports concealed weaponry rather larger and deadlier than
they seemed to. That might lead them to other searches—
"Don't much care for boarders," Helm said, sounding unusually casual.
"I don't care what you care for," said the officer, starting to sound rather nastier than he had to begin with. "I don't care much for your tone, either, now that you mention it. Maybe boarding isn't called for. Impoundment and ground search might be more to the point."
Enda looked thoughtfully at Gabriel and the control panel. He could not precisely hear her thinking, but he knew that there was a starfall setting laid into the panel, and he strongly suspected that she wished she
could activate it.
Fraal could be mindwalkers, and Enda had said often enough that she had some slight talent that way but no training. I wish we could starfall too, but we're not charged and we won't budge. Anyway, even if we could, I wouldn't want to leave the other two here. I got them into this, I have to get them out—
"I have little experience of being boarded," Enda said mildly. "Do we send the tube out to you, or does your vessel call it?"
"What the—? Sir!"
It was a shout from one of the other ships, which had been holding comm silence until now. Gabriel looked up in the field, which was still around him, trying to see what had made the other Galvinite officer react.
The new ship was coming in at considerable speed. It was a rather small ship, but not the kind that Gabriel would normally have thought of under that title. It was in fact bigger than Lalique, which was saying something. It looked like a long stun-baton, slender, with flaring fins at the end, jutting out of a broader area that apparently held the drive. It was armed, as discreetly and handsomely as the Galvinite ships were armed noisily and tastelessly. There was money in that ship, and better—or worse—access to very expensive weaponry, the kind of thing that only the Concord military could get its hands on.
In the field, Gabriel could see several of the ships surrounding them turn to angle themselves better toward the incoming vessel.
"Ready to fire," someone said from one of the ships.
"Belay that!"
It was the officer in the display tank, presently looking off to one side as if seeing something that seriously upset him.
"Commander Aronsen," said a female voice, "thank you kindly for delaying." Gabriel started. That voice was familiar.
Enda glanced at him. "It would appear that more interesting things are to happen to us than mere boarding today."
Gabriel gulped.
Another face appeared in the tank, which subdivided itself to handle the image and Gabriel found himself looking at Aleen Delonghi. "Is there a problem with these vessels?" she asked.
He cursed softly under his breath. After what I did to her last ship, he thought, she gets this one instead. Is she related to somebody?
"They're unauthorized," said the officer leading the interdiction control. "Didn't come in with escort—"
"While I will grant you that vessels doing so enter these spaces at their own risk," Delonghi said, "registered and recognized infotraders with escort might be allowed to do their business without undue interference, I would think."
Gabriel watched the officer bristle. Amazing how it managed to show even though he had a helmet on.
"Your ID says Concord, lady, but I—"
"It says more than just that," Delonghi said. "I'm attached to the Neutrality Patrol, just in with the new cruiser doing relief duty for Pariah Station. I sent my IDs and clearances ahead of me. They should be in front of you at the moment."
A few seconds' silence followed. "They're genuine," said someone from out of range of the pickup.
"They look genuine, but I've never seen this ship before," growled the commander of the holding force. "Get it confirmed from the base at Palshizon."
Another few moments' silence. "They confirm."
"This ship and her crew, and the companion ships and crews, are known to the Concord," Delonghi said, "and are cleared to go about their business as far as we're concerned."
Gabriel wondered if it was accidental that she did not say that they had a clean criminal record.
"Why would they be so all-fired interesting to you, Commander?" asked the holding force commander. He looked like his teeth hurt, and Delonghi's title came out as reluctantly as if he had to push it out.
"I'm afraid I couldn't discuss that with you, sir," Delonghi replied. She actually smiled as she said it, a pitying sort of smile, one suggesting that she didn't usually talk about such matters with mere system-based small fry. "We would appreciate them being given your full cooperation while they're discharging their business here."
The holding force's commander was quiet for a long, furious moment. He turned back to pickup again and glowered at Gabriel. "Lucky they came in and pulled you out of the fire," he muttered. "I'd prefer to have toasted you myself. Too many smart boys like you wandering in here, little space lawyers with too many friends." He trailed off, looking at a display off to one side. "Proceed to the port clearance facility at Erhardt Field. Do not delay. You're expected."
The display went blank. Gabriel had rarely been more glad to see anyone's ugly face disappear. Unfortunately, his tone had suggested that their clearance procedure through Fort Drum was going to be less than pleasant. Just what we needed. There was still one face left in the display tank: Delonghi's.
"What are you doing here?" Gabriel asked.
"Just passing through, Connor," Delonghi replied.
"Oh, please!"
She grinned. It was the first time he had seen her produce such an expression without it looking actively nasty. "All right. Obviously I'm keeping an eye on you."
"I bet," Gabriel said.
The last time he had seen Aleen Delonghi, he had not felt terribly well disposed toward her. She had been prepared to blow up Sunshine with very little reason and had been doing other unsociable things as well. Now here she was, apparently expecting to see him, and worse, Gabriel was beholden to her for the moment. He disliked that intensely.
"I suppose you expect me to be grateful for this," he said.
"Gratitude?" she said, and the grin scaled back to a more familiar wicked expression. "From you?"
That stung, but he wasn't going to let her see it. "You won't be surprised, then," he said, "when I vanish suddenly."
"It seems to be your specialty," she said. "You won't be surprised, then, when I find you regardless. This time I'm better equipped. You will not be shoving me into any more teddy bears' meat lockers."
He glanced out the front viewports at her new ship and thought that perhaps she was speaking of more than just personal preparedness. That new ship of hers could be equipped with anything.
"Delonghi," he said, "I wouldn't do a thing like that to you twice." I'd find something else. Possibly more permanent, if you get between me and—
No.
He pushed the image aside, satisfying as it was at the moment. She was only doing her job, no matter how energetically she got in his way. All I have to do now, Gabriel thought, is lose her and go about my business.
"Nice to hear it," Delonghi said. "Meanwhile, you people had better get going. I don't think your escort will take it kindly if you make them wait for you too long."
Indeed the Galvinite ships were all finishing turns that oriented them toward home, plainly waiting to kick in their system drives.
"We will no doubt find you waiting here for us when we leave," Gabriel said. Delonghi looked at him with amusement. "I could be useful to you, Connor." "Only as a doorstop," Gabriel said gently and shut comms down.
Enda was already swinging Sunshine's nose in the direction of Galvin. Very neatly she maneuvered the ship into the center of the formation of Galvinite vessels, leaving a little way on her at the end of the maneuver so that she drifted gently forward.
The Galvinites kicked in their system drives, and Sunshine went after them.
Gabriel followed them down in an oddly reflective mood. It would not be the first time he had h
ad the feeling that the stone was not just alive, but sentient and capable of somehow managing affairs—not just its own affairs, but his and those of anyone who got in the way. He had occasionally sat with it in his hand and felt an odd sort of vertigo sourced in the idea or sensation that only the stone was actually still, and that everything else around it—him, Sunshine, sometimes even the planet on which he might be sitting—all of it was being invisibly moved by the stone, moved around it into some pattern that suited its needs. Whatever those might be.
Now he was wondering about the stone again and wondering exactly how the hell Aleen Delonghi had found him here. Had she figured Gabriel's path out by herself, or had someone told her?
He bet someone had.
He bet he knew who.
Delonghi's Concord Intel, Gabriel thought, but hardly an experienced old hand. Why did Lorand Kharls keep sending her after him? Was he trying to give Gabriel a fighting chance to get away, or was he trying
to train his new young officer in the art of chasing rogues?
Gabriel sighed. Working out what was going on in Lorand Kharls's head was a full time job, and right now he had several of those.
All this time he was aware of the stone in his pocket, moving things to its own preference, calling the tune. Gabriel wished he could hear the tune. Hard to know how to dance, under these circumstances.
The control ships pulled in a little tighter as they came closer to Galvin. Off to one side Gabriel caught a gleam of light, a point of it, moving: real sunlight on metal, not an indicator in the fighting field.
"The Defense Net, I would imagine," Enda said, looking out the viewport on her side.
Gabriel nodded as they dropped farther toward the planet and the fringes of atmosphere. There were several hundred satellites in orbit around the planet—that was the published number, though Gabriel wouldn't have been surprised if there were more, the Galvinites being masters of disinformation when it suited them—and three big orbital facilities running the whole show. Nothing came or went through that net unnoticed. Nothing unwelcome got through. The satellites themselves were armed with missiles tipped with nukes and other hardware, including anti-radiation devices. Every bit of the local space was covered by at least three of them. If the other two were occupied with something else, that third one would still get