'Proof of guilt, perhaps,' Gabriel said, frowning. 'Are you guilty?' asked Kharls. 'We've been through this,' said Gabriel. 'No.' 'But I take it you're not yet ready for that trial.'
'I tell you, Administrator,' Gabriel answered, 'as I told you before: the moment I have the evidence I need, I'll be on the comm to you. Meanwhile, and until then, I view you with the greatest suspicion.' 'You view me-!' Kharls chuckled.
'It's probably not an isolated sentiment,' Gabriel said. 'I bet there are people all over this system who'll be delighted to see the back of you. Even when you are doing good, you make them nervous. And me. Where's the bug in my ship?'
Kharls sat back then and sighed. 'In the one place where it was felt certain you would neither suspect a device or try to get rid of it even if you did find it-in your registry documents. No ship owner, no matter how mad, would ever try to lose or damage those. The enabling part of the bug was installed in the verification seals of the document. The enabler in turn spoke to your comms system and its Grid link, as well as to your ship's housekeeping computer. We knew where you were at any moment, we knew who you'd been talking to, how much food you had in the cupboards, and who'd been playing which games.' 'You knew too damned much,' Gabriel said, furious.
Kharls was unconcerned. 'You of all people,' he said, 'should be in a position to agree with me that not knowing enough can be fatal. If you had known anything at all about your 'intelligence contact' back on Falada, a lot of people, including friends of yours, would not be dead. Yet if that had happened and had not led to the ensuing causes and effects, a lot more people would be dead, and a war would probably have broken out here. If not by now, then very soon. Ripples from that war would have spread right back to the Stellar Ring in time, and to all kinds of people in the other stellar nations who, whatever else they might need or deserve, do not need a war right now, not another one. My job is to keep the peace. It is not easy, and I will use my tools as I find them.'
'Yes,' Gabriel said, 'you will, but sometimes the tools may have ideas of their own.' Gabriel stood up. Kharls stood up too. 'Where will you go now?' he asked. 'To Hell in my own good tune,' Gabriel replied, 'and without consulting you.' 'Have you reconsidered my offer?' Kharls asked.
'What?' Gabriel retorted. 'To do some unspecified job for some unspecified reward that may or may not involve the establishment of my innocence? Do I look stupider than I did last time we spoke, Administrator? I suppose I must. Maybe saving people's lives does that to you. If so, I'll take my chances. Meanwhile, I will get on with what life has been left to me.'
'That was not the offer I meant,' Kharls said. 'I spoke of serving the Concord with something besides a gun.'
'I have been doing that,' Gabriel said, 'since we parted company, for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Another matter that you won't believe, but it's my business. Now if you'll excuse me, my partner and I have to get our ship ready to lift.'
He turned toward the door. 'I'll be in touch,' Gabriel said, 'eventually, despite your best attempts otherwise. There is more to life than being a marine, and I intend to find out how much more. But I will also clear my name, and then all of you will...' He trailed off. 'Never mind. Good day, Administrator.' Gabriel went out.
Lorand Kharls stood and watched him go.
That was the last piece of business that Lorand Kharls had to handle while remaining on board Trader Dawn. He took a gig over to Schmetterling as soon as one became available. Soon after that, he was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, turning over pages on his writing pad and looking through other paperwork that had been printed out for him. So it was not his doing after all.
The debriefing-if that was the word for it-of the VoidCorp agent 'running' Gabriel Connor, had been very thorough. The accident had been very expertly staged. Not even the people who brought him to the ship's sickbay, not even the people who bagged him up for cryo and return to relatives, had suspected what was happening. The medical practitioner who had attended the 'death' and signed the certificate was one of the Concord's own and would not be discussing matters with anyone. Afterwards, when the experts had restarted his brain and put in the necessary hardware, the answers had come tumbling out. Chief among them was that Connor had been an innocent dupe, a genuine intelligence asset sold off as 'stale' or otherwise unsuitable, then finally designated as expendable by some means that would incriminate him past any thought of other use or further service.
That by itself had been interesting enough, but that interview had also revealed information linking, if distantly, to more urgent issues. The 'living dead,' as a few upper-ups in the Concord had called them, had surfaced in the Thalaassa system now in greater numbers than anyone had seen before-well, no one had seen more than two examples in any one system, certainly not from two species. But the one specimen that Connor had first found, the man who had been Oleg Darsall-that one had raised a terrible question to which no one had answers. Silver Bell, Kharls thought. How long have I been looking for an answer to that? I thought that any answer would have been good enough. Now this comes, and it terrifies me. Have we truly been looking in the wrong direction these past three years? I could almost wish not to have found it at all.
There had been rumors for a long time of strange forms and forces walking the outer reaches of various star systems. Never coming close to the light, never showing themselves except obscurely, shadows trailing across space, here and gone again into the cold and dark. Now the rumors were coming true, finally betraying the concrete nature of their terrors. But there were no further indications of exactly what it was that had been done to these men and sesheyans and fraal who were taken, and no indications at all of who had done it to them or why.
What might their designs be for the Verge and the inner worlds beyond? Designs there were. Whatever else Kharls knew about this business, it was that there was nothing random about it. The 'changed' bodies had appeared in concert with attacks by the strange little ships they piloted, all along a curvature of space that more or less defined the outer reaches of the Verge. Idly he sketched that curve on the pad, marking the star systems on it: Algemron, Hammer's Star, Tychus, Oberon, and now Corrivale. The first two had been bad enough, but Corrivale, deep in the midst of the Verge, was increasingly becoming a crossroads for trade in this part of the Verge, despite its tensions. In the vibrancy of the place over the last few years, the rumors of dark things moving out at the edges of the system had mostly been swallowed up, drowned out. When word about this started to get out, though, that would not last. The peace of these parts, won with such difficulty, would once again start to erode, and this time more dangerously. Although people might hate and fear the enemies they knew-VoidCorp, the corsairs-they hated and feared the unknown far more.
His duty was maintaining peace. For the time being this information would have to be kept out of the public eye. Soon enough something would happen that would make that impossible. In the meantime, they would use what little time they were granted for frantic analysis. Meanwhile, he would not throw away useful assets while they remained so.
Kharls looked up from the pad and found Captain Dareyev looking in the door at him. 'Lorand,' she said, 'is there a problem?' He considered her for a long moment. 'No, Captain,' he said, 'nothing-nothing at all.'
She looked at him a little curiously for a moment then walked away. Lorand Kharls looked after her, then folded that page of his pad over and looked at the next one, the clean one. He knew better than most that the image of a Concord Administrator who ran around meddling in people's affairs, doing things busily, was an illusion. The most effective Administrators knew when to sit still and let matters take their course. The information that had just come to him would be very, very useful indeed-in time. But just now there was no need to release it and make changes in the ongoing situation. Besides-he thought of young Connor as he had been when he left, rebellious, furious-and filled with an energy that would take him far. Why suddenly remove the cause of that energy, the force that drove him? There were more important causes than those of one mere man. By leaving him as he was, great good might yet be done in the Verge, and justice delayed was not always justice denied. It depended on how fast justice moved in your neighborhood, and how wise it was for it to move any faster.
No, Kharls thought. Let him wait. Kharls turned over another sheet of the pad's writing plastic and began wondering where to turn this resource next.
It was night on Sunshine. Enda was in her bed. Gabriel sat late in the pilot's seat, looking out at the stars that burned beyond Corrivale. They would be making starfall in the morning.
They were victualled, fueled, and re-armed. All farewells, all blessings and curses, were said. One thing only remained to do before they left.
Gabriel touched his combination into the safe-box set in the wall of the pilots' compartment, waited for the click, then opened the door. He reached in and came out with Sunshine's registry papers. He held them in his lap for nearly an hour, looking at the seals. Finally he glanced around him, looking for something heavy.
There was nothing suitable in the cockpit. He got up, wandered back to the sitting room and glanced around,
