freighter?”
His expression blanked. He shrugged. “It’s the best berth available. At that, you remember, I had to work up to it. There isn’t much space trade hereabouts.”
The thought flitted unbidden: No, there isn’t, as isolated as we are, on this far fringe of human settlement. Not that distance matters when you hyperjump. But after two centuries, we are still not so many on Asborg, and most of us are preoccupied with our local affairs. The other planets of Sunniva suffice us. Even I and my comrades find exploration ample for lifetimes among the immediate neighbor stars.
Is that what called you to us, Gerward Valen? Our loneliness?
“Once you had a command,” she threw at him. “It was a fully robotic vessel. How would you like it again?”
He stood unstirring.
“That was long ago,” she pursued, “but we, my associates in this enterprise and I, we don’t believe you’ve lost the skills. A little practice should restore them completely. If anything, to be an officer with a live crew, as you are these days, is more demanding, and your record is good.
He kept his countenance locked, but she barely heard his question, and it trembled. “What ship do you mean?”
“The
“I know.” He stared beyond her, drank, and asked in an almost normal voice, “Why do you want me? You have your qualified people.”
“Three,” stated Lissa. “Fallen Windholm is currently undergoing rejuvenation. The other two are from client families, perfectly fine except that—Chand Mikelsson is a blabbermouth. You can trust him with anything except a secret. Sara Tomasdaughter’s husband is one Rion Stellamont. I don’t say she would betray our confidence to him and his House, but… best not subject her to a conflict of loyalties, right?”
He seemed to have quite regained his balance. “Since we’re being so frank, what about me? The Comet Line belongs to the Eastlands, after all, and the Windholms have been at loggerheads with them as often as the Stellamonts or any others.”
“You’re a resident foreigner. You owe them no fealty and they’ve had no oaths from you. Take an unpaid leave, and you’re a free agent. Afterward, I expect we’ll offer you something permanent.” Lissa softened her words. “Not that we ask any betrayal. We simply don’t want outsiders thrusting in—at least not till we understand the situation ourselves.”
His glance went to the transparency and the stars that the lighting hid from him. “Does that include everybody? Human and nonhuman?”
She nodded. “Aside from the Susaians, those of them that already know, and are concealing the truth. Whatever it is. Something tremendous, we believe. Potentially—explosive? For good or ill, not anything we want irresponsibly released.”
His dryness was a challenge: “Especially not to rival Houses.”
Anger flickered. “We’re no saints in Windholm. But I don’t think you, either, would like this planet if the balance of power lay with a religious fanatic like Arnus Eastland or a clutch of reckless commercialists like the Seafell.”
He cocked a brow. She practically heard him refrain from saying: So you deem them.
“And as for the galaxy at large,” she continued, striving for calm, “simply think what an uproar that Forerunner artifact on Jonna is already raising. And it probably doesn’t hold a fraction of the potentials that this new thing may. I repeat, may. There’s no foretelling what equilibriums it could upset. Perhaps none, but it’d be irresponsible not to proceed with every possible precaution. There may well be danger anyway, danger enough to suit the rashest rattlebrain.”
He smiled. “Which you assume I am not.”
The abrupt lightness of his manner eased her. He can handle people pretty well when he wants to, she thought. Excellent. She laughed. “Explorers have an old, old saying, that adventure is what happens to the incompetent. What we intend is simply an investigation. Once we know more, we’ll decide what to do next.” Sobering, she finished, “My father has been the Head of his House, with as strong a voice in the World Council as any, for nearly two hundred years. Ask yourself, hasn’t he proven out? A hardheaded realist, yes, but concerned with the welfare of Asborg more than of his kin or clients, and with civilization as a whole over and above that. Will you put your faith in him, or in a coven of lizards?”
Valen frowned the least bit. She suspected he found her language objectionable, as a person might who had fared widely about and dealt with many different beings. “Oh, I’m not parochial,” she said quickly. “Contrariwise. In fact, we were alerted to this by a Susaian, and he’ll travel with us.”
“Us?” he murmured.
Blood heated her face. “If you accept the mission.”
“I rather think I will.” He inhaled a fragrance from the cuisinette. “Your coffee’s ready, milady. I’ll bring it.”
XI
Taking a datacard out of her sleeve pocket, she put it in his terminal. “This has been edited, but only to bring time-separate parts together and cut out nonessentials,” she explained. “It’s our basic record of the encounter.”
A woman appeared in the screen, seated at a desk. She was a sister of Lissa’s, but well-nigh a stranger, born eighty years earlier and, newly rejuvenated, looking girlishly younger. The image showed date and time in one corner. Behind her, a viewscreen displayed the mining camp she superintended. Beyond it, rock and ice lay in a jumble to the near horizon. The moon’s gas giant primary hung as a crescent in the darkness above. Another satellite, shrunken by remoteness till the disc was barely perceptible, gleamed near the edge of its ring system.
“Evana Davysdaughter Windholm, wedded to Olavi Jonsson, calling from Gunvor,” she proclaimed. The name of her present husband wasn’t necessary to identify her, but she always made a point of using it. He was among the House’s most prominent clients, chief engineer at the base and, at home, grown wealthy from his investments. “I have immediate need to speak with the Head, communications enciphered.”
The screen blinked, the time indicated was half an hour later, and she was saying as crisply: “A strange spacecraft has arrived unheralded and taken up orbit about us. The pilot, who claims to be alone, sent a request for tight-beam laser contact. I obliged. It is a Susaian, asking urgently to be put in touch with the leadership of our House. Yes, it seems to understand Asborgan sociopolitics fairly well and to be aware that operations on Gunvor are Windholm’s. That may be why it sought us instead of somebody else, this chance for secrecy. It doesn’t want anything made public.” She hesitated. “I have no experience in dealing with nonhumans. Nobody here does. Pending your orders, I’ve restricted news of its arrival to those few who already know, and have activated the censor program in all transmitters. Rumors are flying. I have no idea how long the Susaian will wait. Please advise me.”
The scene cut to a magnified image of the outsider vessel, a black blade athwart stars and Milky Way. Valen whistled. “Susaian, for sure,” he said. “Scout type, small, high-boost, maneuverable. However, if one of them single-handed her, it was pretty desperate. The best of their automatic systems don’t compare to the average of ours, you know.”
“Daring more than desperate, I’d say,” Lissa murmured. “You’ll see. Watch.”
Davy Windholm’s fine-boned visage took over the screen, against a backdrop of his study, swirl-grained wainscot, an antique table, shelves of codex books and memorabilia that had been in the family for generations. She thrilled to the steadiness of his voice. “The Susaian doesn’t want to talk through hyperspace. Fears the beam being tapped. Well, it could be, and our ciphers aren’t absolutely secure.” Not for the first time, Lissa wished quantum encryption had been made to work for transluminal communication. “So we require a personal representative of the
