into which he could not venture without pain. Almost everything to do with being a marine, for example. The matter of his lost friends, and that last look of Elinke's, that had outstabbed any knife-
'Brooding at the soup will probably make it no warmer,' Enda said mildly. 'I believe entropy runs the other way.'
'Sorry,' Gabriel said. 'Enda . . .'
'You will still be asking questions,' she said, somewhat resignedly, 'and under the present circumstances, indeed I understand why. But there are differences between the ways our two species order their priorities, despite our many likenesses. So I will probably not be able to satisfy you as to my motivations for a long time.'
Gabriel sighed. 'I don't want to seem ungrateful or suspicious, but you picked me up in a situation where any sane person would have dropped me.'
'Perhaps that is why I picked you up,' Enda said, crumbling a bit more of her loaf on the plate. 'I do not care for littering.'
She looked up just in time to catch what must have been a fairly annoyed looked from Gabriel. He regretted it instantly. 'A resource thrown away,' Enda said, as if she hadn't seen the look, 'is in danger of being lost forever, unless it is salvaged quickly. I know many humans find altruism difficult to understand, but for some of us it is a lifestyle, one we count ourselves fortunate to be able to enjoy.' She nibbled at a bit of the crumbled bread and said after a moment, 'It is an error to say too much too soon, but this you will find out soon enough if our association continues. I too have known what it can be to be cast out of the society in which one has lived comfortably for many years. I Wandered for a long time. Eventually I decided to stop-a decision that sufficiently annoyed some of those with whom my path had lain so that they hastened the process considerably. I go my own way now, but the settled life is not for me.'
She cocked an eye at him, an amused look. Gabriel's face must have been showing a great deal of what he was thinking, mostly along the lines of 'If our association continues? Peculiar as it was, uncomfortable as it had made and still was making him, he did not want to lose it.
'Uh,' Gabriel said, 'I don't think I'm in any position to make any judgments about anyone else's lifestyles at the moment.'
'That is well,' said Enda slowly, and took a long drink of her wine, 'which, I suppose, leaves us with the same question we had earlier. What will you do?'
By itself that was a question that had given Gabriel enough to think about. A marine didn't have to do much thinking about it- you went where you were sent, and it wasn't your business why you were going where you were going or which stellar nation controlled the territory. That was your superior officers' business. Suddenly, though, all of space was spread out in front of Gabriel. And he didn't have a clue where to go.
Thirteen stellar nations inside the Ring. Well, twelve actually. The Galactic Concord and its neutralities were shut to Gabriel, at least if he wanted to remain free. But elsewhere lay wide choice, depending on how you defined personal freedom and the ways it was implemented. There was the unbridled profiteering capitalism of the Austrin-Ontis worlds, the robotic-oriented hedonism of the StarMech Collective, Insight's freewheeling information- based mysticism, the Nariac workers' 'paradise,' the fierce pride of the Thuldan Empire, the ancient wealth and history of the Union of Sol, the competitive corporate wealth and ferocity of VoidCorp, the Orlamu Theocracy's hungry search for the knowledge that constituted the key to its universe. Theoretically, Gabriel might find a spot in any of them, though again he would have to consider carefully how to avoid running afoul of the Concord's ban. And outside the Ring was always 'Open Space,' the huge areas that during the Second Galactic War were largely devastated-at least in the direction 'toward' the other stellar nations. Out beyond the spaces of shattered worlds rendered unlivable by bioweapons, who knew what possibilities lay? Perhaps it was on purpose that the Concord had made no attempt to do much mapping that way. Perhaps it was a tacit admission that though the Galactic Concord had designated this the last area of human territory, their writ could not truly run so far. The vast distances from the rest of civilization made Open Space, for the moment, effectively ungovernable. Maybe the free spirits of the galaxy who wanted nothing to do with any other races might move out that way, but Gabriel was too gregarious to seek that kind of life, and anyway, it went against the grain in other ways. To find out what had been done to him, he must not run away from the populated spaces but toward them. And do what?
Gabriel was half ashamed of his own paralysis. I've been defining myself as a marine for so long that I've forgotten that there's anything else to be. Yet what else am I trained for? To fight, yes. Of course. But there are other ways to fight.
'I'm e-suit trained,' Gabriel said finally, 'to what would be an unusually high level of competence around here. That suggests a couple of possibilities: construction and mining.' 'For which you would either have to contract yourself out,' Enda said, 'or buy your own ship.' Gabriel laughed hollowly at that prospect. 'Though it could not merely be a system ship,' said Enda. 'Or so I would think. Even here, there is only so much belt work to be done and not that many large construction projects. Once work ran out, you would have to look elsewhere, and without a stardrive of your own you would be reduced to hitching a ride with whatever driveship comes along. If, however, one came by whose master thought it would be a good idea to make a little extra money by turning you over to the Concord.' She shrugged one hand, a dry little gesture that Gabriel was learning to recognize as one of her favorites. 'Unless of course you did genuinely wish to stay in this system, to 'settle' here.' 'Not the slightest chance,' Gabriel answered, looking out the dive's one window into the evening. Snow was blowing by more emphatically on that stinging wind, now almost invisible in the growing dusk. He could still hear the wind, though, and it was not friendly. Space or the controlled environment of a ship- even if there was hard vacuum just centimeters away-now seemed infinitely preferable. 'At the same time, I would have thought you would have preferred elsewhere,' Enda remarked, 'to this, the scene of your-shall we say?-fall from grace. No matter. We may have to stay here a little while regardless, for driveships do not fall from the sky merely for the wishing, much less ships which will actually perform the function that you have in mind. Time will be needed for customizing, ordering equipment, installing it___ '
And that was another thing. Gabriel shook his head, for plainly she had not gotten the message earlier. 'Enda,' he said, 'there's one big problem with this. I don't have anything like the kind of money even for a good system ship. I can afford some kind of banger, maybe, but not a decent one, and certainly not a driver. It's not the best idea, just a dream. The only thing I'm going to be able to do is hire myself on to somebody.'
'As what?' Enda asked. Gabriel looked at her mournfully. 'Some kind of glorified security guard? 'Muscle,' I believe is one of the commoner usages. I suggest, Gabriel, that you would be wasted in this role.'
'Wasted maybe,' Gabriel said, 'but employed.'
Enda made a graceful gesture of negation. 'Not in a fraal's lifetime of such employment would you make enough to buy a driveship. And I speak from experience, for I have functioned as 'muscle' in my time, though the way fraal reckon such is a little different from the way such jobs function in the human world.' She bowed her head 'no' in a thoughtful way. 'Other options will have to be examined. Meanwhile, there is a fairly active used ship market in this system, and the lending institutions are occasionally sympathetic to the right kind of inducement.'
Gabriel suspected that the inducement in question would also involve interest rates that would cripple anything sentient. 'Enda, really, you don't get it. I can't-'
'Who said that yours would be the only capital to be called upon here?' she asked. As Gabriel opened his mouth, she lifted a finger. He went quiet. 'Now,' she said, 'hearken. I am nearly three hundred years old, and I have seen little enough of this galaxy in my time. I am getting on in years-' 'You don't look a day over two hundred,' Gabriel said.
She gave him a fraal's demure smile, which drew the upper lip down over the lower and made her look like an ineluctably wise five-year-old for just a flash. 'Gallantry,' she said, 'the last refuge of the incurably latent. Gabriel, I am of a mind to see the worlds, or some more of them, anyway, without the vagaries of public transport interfering with my schedule. Not that I have a schedule. Occasionally in the past I have considered buying a small driveship, but either finances were unsupportive or I did not desire to hamper myself with the company of those I did not trust. Now I have both the time and the inclination, and I do not find the financial climate unsupportive. And there is someone else involved with whom to share the ship, someone I trust.'
The incurably latent? Gabriel stared at her and shook his head. Never mind- 'Why would you trust me?' She blinked at him. 'Because you have nothing left to lose,' she said.
Over in the corner, the singing had reached a crescendo from which Gabriel thought it could not possibly increase. He shortly found himself wrong.
