The Sea is Full of Stars

to run dry and emerge into normal space.”

That was the least pleasant thought of all.

Null-Space, Six Days Out

Tann Nakitt was smoking his calabash in the lounge. it wasn’t something that was allowed in that area, but the little weasel-like Geldorian had been doing it regularly and nobody had registered an objection. There was a certain built-in threat the creature radiated, particularly when he thought he wasn’t going to like what you were going to say. Those beady eyes would light up as if on fire, and the multiple rows of sharp teeth behind the suddenly revealed fangs made one give pause before pressing a point.

Angel hated the smell the pipe gave off, and how it seemed to permeate everything around, but she had been trained by her sisterhood to tune out that which was personally offensive. You never knew who you might have to live and work around, or where.

She did not, however, feel particularly threatened by the Geldorian. Much of that spectacular facial stuff was for show, to avoid fights, since Geldorians were, after all, rather soft and vulnerable. Also, she’d managed to use the ship’s references to determine exactly how such a creature attacked if provoked, and was pretty sure she could handle him. The real threat was in the venom; if it got into the bloodstream it would knock most warm-blooded oxygen breathers cold; Terrans and a few other races had a worse reaction—they’d regain consciousness and agreeably do whatever a Geldorian asked them to do. The Geldorian venom had a knack for adapting to whatever form it was inside of, at least until the host rejected it. So she knew to hold one by the neck and not let it bite.

But she didn’t know if she should handle him; after all this time, most of the passengers were easy to categorize, but not this one. He didn’t seem anxious to socialize with anybody, and he did not volunteer information.

She decided he couldn’t be placed on the shelf any longer. Time was running out, and moves would be made by one side or the other.

Nakitt saw her coming right to him, and in his usual knee-jerk, pissed-off reaction, his eyes lit up and his teeth came out while he held his pipe in his hand. Almost immediately, though, he turned the display off, sensing that this strange, hairless Terran female felt no fear of him at all. That bothered Tann Nakitt; he was used to making everybody else nervous. It was more than a defensive posture—it was his hobby.

“We have to talk,” Angel said firmly, standing and facing him as he lounged on an ottoman.

Tann Nakitt took a drag and blew thick yellow smoke up and toward her face. “No we don’t,” he responded.

She looked around. There was nobody in the immediate area, certainly nobody paying attention to them or within conspicuous earshot. “You are wrong. I believe that if we do not have a talk, then there is almost no way you can survive the next full day.”

The needle-nosed snout came up, but he didn’t betray any emotion. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes.”

He took another drag on the pipe, sensing that the smoke irritated her. “I thought you were some kind of priestess or something. I didn’t think your type fought battles. They just exhorted the gods and spirits to stir up other folks to go off and fight holy wars.”

The insult had the opposite effect of what he’d intended. She seemed more amused than upset by it.

“It is true that I could not harm a living thing by direct action,” she agreed, “but if there is a threat to life or the safety of others or my well-being, I am capable of doing whatever is necessary. I say what I say because you fit into one of three categories. You may be ignorant of what will happen, in which case the other side will have you marked for death. You may be on their side, in which case you will trigger my defenses. Or you might be a potential ally, in which case the situation is the same as the first—you are marked for death by the others.”

“And your object in saying this to me?”

“I want to know which category you are in. Since you neither seem surprised or alarmed by my description, I assume that you at least know what is building.”

“I have an idea of it, but I don’t think I’m in any of those categories. I am traveling on my own business, and I am known to some on what you call ‘the other side.’ I’m not involved in their business, but I suspect I can sidestep things and get where I want to go one way or another.”

Without warning, the Geldorian lunged at her with a movement so fast that it was unthinkable. It was, therefore, a totally bewildered Tann Nakitt who missed Angel’s arm and other parts entirely and went tumbling onto the floor. Even so, he was up in a flash, eyes blazing. But he suddenly froze. She was standing about a meter in front of him, holding his pipe.

“Filthy thing,” she commented. “Do all your people smoke these?”

He lunged again, this time making every allowance for her possible response. Only she wasn’t where she had to be; she was a step or two over. Again he fell on his face and rebounded, only this time he was breathing hard and felt a sore jaw. That—thing—had caused him to bite himself!

“This is impossible,” he said, putting a small hand to his jaw and trying to massage it. “No one moves that fast. How long did you spend on Geldor to know us so well?”

“You are the first Geldorian I have ever seen or met,” she told him. She tossed the pipe in the air in his general direction. Alarmed, he lunged for it, catching it just before it could hit the deck and perhaps break.

“What do you want from me?” he asked her sullenly.

“I cannot permit you to stand aside if needed. You might well join in, and certainly I am no match for several people acting at once. The choice to kill in self-defense would be automatic. Is that a narcotic in there?”

Tann Nakitt had been around and seen and interacted with many strange creatures, but this seemingly ordinary Terran female was the strangest person of any kind he could recall ever meeting. “What’s the difference what I told you?” he asked her seriously. “You would have no way of knowing if I was truthful or lied.”

“You must believe me when I say that I would know. Shall we both sit and relax? Or does that jaw need medical attention?”

“I’ll be all right,” he grumbled, getting back up onto the ottoman. She took a padded chair near him. “You are a telepath then? Is that how you do it?”

She laughed. “If I could read minds I wouldn’t have to ask questions, would I? Let us just talk some more. You would not understand how I did that, or would know truth from lie, if I were willing to tell you, and I assure you I am not. Let’s just talk. I am not in government or law enforcement, and whatever we say here is between us two alone. Even your venom could not get me to betray a private confidence.”

He thought a moment, trying to decide which way to jump on the matter, then looked around, saw nobody lounging around or eavesdropping, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “All right. Yes, this is a narcotic, but only to my kind. It is a blend of chemically treated plants that not only produce a general feeling of contentment and well- being, but also heighten concentration and the potency of my venoms. By varying the formula, I can make the venom work as I wish on other races as I could on my native world. After all, we’ve had a long time to experiment and test. This, as you probably guessed, would put any of your kind in a trance inside of thirty seconds. Of course, it would simply render other races unconscious or perhaps kill them, unless I alter the blend and give it time to displace the old formula in my body. The threats here are basically Terran in nature; the Rithians are in on it, but this bunch are fixers—they don’t have the nerve to do their own fighting.”

“Fixers?”

“Arrangers of things, mostly illegal, but they’re not above stooping to legitimate stuff, too, if it pays. You want a work of art? They’ll try and buy it, and, if that fails, they’ll find somebody to steal it. Want to buy a destroyer? They’ll get one for a price. Middlemen. They make a ton of money doing that kind of thing.”

“I see. And this is one side of the negotiation, in this area? The other side of the transaction is in the water breather sections?”

“You do understand it. Yes. Sometime tomorrow we were supposed to glide to a stop, going under minimum power requirements and thus ejecting back into normal space. This would cause a