'What you're having,' said Jake, glancing idly over to where the two captains were unsuccessfully attempting to fend off another wave of marines.
Gabriel turned back to the bar and said, 'Charles? Two Squadron Specials.'
Charles looked over at them, eyed Jake, recognized him as in-ship but not marine, and handed Gabriel two drinks that looked the same but differed significantly in composition. 'Thanks,' Gabriel said.
'We take care of our own,' Charles said and turned around to take another order.
Gabriel and Jake walked away slowly from the bar, sipping their drinks. Jake's was very full. 'How do you people drink this stuff like you do?' he said.
'Genetic engineering,' said Gabriel. 'Haven't seen you for a while.'
'No need,' said Jake, 'until now. Something needs to be looked into.'
'Oh?'
Jake nodded, making a face as he took another drink. ' 'Upabove' is a little curious about some things that might or might not have been seen in this system.'
'Well, that's real definite,' Gabriel said. 'If you mean people from Phorcys and Ino shooting at each other, there's plenty of that to be curious about.'
'No,' Jake said, 'not that, specifically.' His voice got lower, and he turned to look toward the doorway. ' 'Upabove' is wondering whether any of the diplomatic staffs from Phorcys or Ino have mentioned anything about . . . trouble in the system. Trouble that's not of their own making.' 'There's more than enough of the kind they make themselves to keep them busy,' Gabriel said. 'What kind of things are 'Upabove' curious about?' He was mystified.
Jake shrugged, looking around him again, so that Gabriel wondered exactly what or who he was looking for. Anyone close enough to stand a chance of eavesdropping seemed intent on their own conversations. 'Aliens, especially aliens that aren't usually seen in these parts.'
Gabriel shook his head. 'For creep's sake, this is the Verge,' he said. 'You might run into any one of thirty alien races out here and never think anything of it.'
'It might not be one of the recognized ones,' said Jake, even more softly. Gabriel could hardly hear him now. 'Making trouble somewhere in the system . . . trying to keep it quiet. Star Force might not know about it, but possibly the diplomatic types coming and going might drop a line or two on the subject.' 'Not usually where we can hear,' Gabriel said. 'They think we're spies half the time as it is.' 'But some of you they get used to looking at,' Jake said. 'You've been seen helping out in high places a lot lately.' He gave Gabriel a slightly quizzical look.
Gabriel shrugged. 'The ambassador's preference,' he said. 'I don't understand it myself.' But Jake was looking at him, waiting for an answer. Then he looked at the doorway again, as if unusually eager to get out of there.
'All right, sure,' Gabriel said. 'I'll see what I can find out. But I don't know if I'm going to be able to help you all that much. I've been shipboard, mostly, and I think I'm supposed to be that way for the next couple of days anyway.'
'Well,' Jake said, 'don't worry about that. Just keep your eyes and ears open and see what you can find out.'
'Sure.' But privately Gabriel felt sure he would find out almost nothing. 'I'll leave a message on your computer if I need to talk to you.'
'No!' Jake said, with surprising vehemence. 'Just find me. Make an excuse to get up my way or have someone bring me a message by hand.' Gabriel shrugged again, agreeing. Even now, there were times when an officer might prefer to have a message hand carried rather than put in the system. 'If you do hear anything, I'll have a message for you to take back to the source. Not a word to anyone of who gave it to you-you'll have to find a way to slip it to the target without revealing the source.' Gabriel nodded. Jake pushed his unfinished drink back into Gabriel's free hand, turned, and disappeared through the nearest passageway. Just like that, he was gone.
Gabriel shook his head, bemused, and turned his attention back to the stir in the room, the laughter of relief and release, the sight of people drifting around, eating and drinking and unwinding. The captains had finally been able to break away from their myriad admirers and sit down off to one side by themselves. Their heads were bent close together and their drinks were forgotten as they conferred. Gabriel caught Elinke's eye just briefly as she looked up and around, and he saluted her with his empty glass. She looked at him, grinned slightly, lifted both hands as if holding something in them, and put her eyebrows up. Gabriel realized he was still holding two glasses and went off hurriedly to put one of them down.
As he was making his way to one of the buffet tables, Hal came lounging along toward Gabriel. Hal eyed the second glass disapprovingly. 'Bad day?' 'Not mine,' Gabriel said, just slightly nettled.
'Oh. Good, because schedules have been shuffled,' said Hal. 'Have you seen?' 'I haven't looked since this afternoon, no.'
'Better go check. I had a word with the computer and got a few little surprises. You will too. Among other things, you're on shuttle duty tomorrow.'
'What? That's impossible! The am-' Gabriel stopped himself. 'I was told I was going to be shipboard. The negotiations.'
'Look again,' Hal said, not entirely without sympathy. 'Oh-dark-forty, you poor thing. And here you thought you were going to have six whole hours to sleep this off.'
Reading, reading something for pleasure for a change, instead of the never-ending bad fairy tale of the negotiation transcripts, had been more on Gabriel's mind, at least enough of it to lull him gently to sleep.
Now there was going to be little enough chance of that. 'Well, frack ' he said. 'What fun.'
'Better turn in early,' Hal said. 'I know I am. Shame to miss the rest of the party.'
Gabriel looked around at a room full of relatively happy marines and Star Force people. It had been a good day for most of them in that none of them had died. 'Yeah,' he said. 'But there'll be others.
Meanwhile ... '
'Yup, me too. See you in the morning,' Hal said, 'or what comes all too soon before it.' He finished his own drink, put it down, and headed out the door.
Gabriel got rid of the glasses, paused to snaffle a couple of small meatrolls and devour them, and then slowly went the same way Hal had.
Schedule changes. He was willing enough to believe that the ambassador might have been behind them. Keep your eyes and ears open, she had said.
But so had Jake, just now, in almost the same words. And he hadn't seemed concerned that Gabriel thought he was going to be stuck shipside.
Did Jake know that my schedule was going to be changed this way? Gabriel thought. And if he did know that, how did he know that?
But after a moment Gabriel put the thought out of his mind. There was probably no point in him wasting consideration on it. He had long since gotten a feeling that as regarded Intelligence, the less you seemed to stop and think about the things you found out, the better the upper ups liked it. And it was likely enough that the ambassador was involved somehow in that as well. The Diplomatic service and the Intelligence people were well known to work closely together. The briefing earlier in the day suggested that just that kind of thing might have been going on.
Gabriel took himself off to his quarters, dropped a sober pill, and immediately turned in. He was a little uneasy, but still excited about what the next day might bring. It wasn't that many more hours, anyway, until he would find out.
Chapter Four
HE WAS UP even earlier than he thought he would be. Even though he was on shuttle duty, it was diplomatic shuttle duty and thus required the dress blues rather than fatigues. As soon as he was in a fresh uniform, Gabriel went down to the great echoing steel-arched barn of the cargo/shuttle deck that held a half-dozen of the long wedge-shaped spacecraft. He immediately made himself useful, talking to the dispatch chief about which shuttles were scheduled in and out and when. He found out who they were carrying and where they were going. Partly it
