on not allowing his eyes to bug out. Leiysin shook his head regretfully.
'Unfortunately the traffic in the system is light enough that it is not cost-effective to give cash discounts. No business here could-'
'Spare me your tales of woe,' said Enda. 'May the time come soon when you find yourself enough closer to civilization that you are dealing a little less close to the edge.' Gabriel blinked, wondering what that meant. 'Are you offering contract work for mortgagees?'
This time it was the dealer's turn to blink. 'Phorcyn law forbids that kind of transaction-' Gabriel's ears perked up at that. The man had not quite said that he didn't offer contract work. But he finally said, 'No, I don't want anything to do with that at this stage.' Enda nodded to him. 'Then we will examine the competing interest rates.'
'Competing?' The dealer looked at her in surprise. 'Honored, unfortunately the only bank offering ship escrow on Phorcys is-'
'You must think I was born only a hundred years ago,' Enda said, and Gabriel grinned. 'Flattery. Of course there are more banks available than just the one. I can arrange finance clear back in the Solar Union if I so please, and perhaps we should. Gabriel?' He nodded to her and turned to go.
'No! No, honored, wait, I'm sure we can come to some agreement-'
Gabriel paused, and after a moment nodded again. The remainder of the financial discussion went by with merciful speed; apparently Leiysin was so terrified of the possibility that this particular transaction might walk away from him that his spirit was nearly broken, and he sat there nodding and agreeing to everything Enda said. It was an interesting development, but as with so many others lately, Gabriel found himself wondering what it meant.
Other details took rather longer to sort out. Verifying the ship's condition came first. One of the independent examination companies had to come out and certify the ship's spaceworthiness-that could be done tonight. Then there was the matter of fittings. A mining ship, even the smallest, required better than usual shielding (since ores are likely to be radioactive), specialized assay equipment, and a fair amount of weaponry-since the work was lonely and the space in which it took place were not much frequented by others except asteroid miners, there are plenty of people willing to take advantage of you. There was also the matter of the installation of the new Speramundi drive. Also, the kind of modular shielding that the ship had once borne and that had been removed for data haulage would now need to be reinstalled. Enda also seemed unusually concerned about the type and quality of the weaponry Leiysin had to offer them. Gabriel supported his end of things by making it a point to be unusually picky and difficult about the mining equipment. What poor Leiysin was making of the whole transaction, Gabriel had no idea.
They signed the initial 'commitment' chip after about an hour of detail work. Enda put down the deposit, five percent of the vehicle's full price with the rest scheduled to follow according to the loan repayment schedule that would be arranged with one of several banks tonight or tomorrow. They walked out of there well into the beginning stages of ownership of a Delgakis D-80 'Orindren' driveship, with only a few hundred things like system registration and victualling and drive fueling to handle. For Gabriel it was an exhilarating feeling, the only one he could remember having in some time: the beginning of a new life or rather, the beginning of the long process of finding out what had gone wrong with the last one and fixing it.
Later he started having second thoughts. 'Do you ever have first ones?' Enda asked, teasing somewhat. They were back in the Dive for this discussion, the noise level there at this time of night so horrific that no one not standing directly between them could have managed to overhear them. As for the mere fact of the sale, probably everyone here knew about it already, but anyone wanting to get close enough to hear the details would have to come to grief first. Gabriel ate his soup, which was only marginally better than it had been the other night, and shook his head. 'I'm not sure I like it,' he said. 'Well, would you rather go out without weapons?'
'Hardly! But the level of stuff we bought. Look at the numbers! Whoever installs those is going to talk. Word is going to get out. It always does. And someone's going to come after us, wondering why we need such big guns and thinking that we must have something really worth stealing-' 'On the contrary, we will have better weapons yet,' Enda said, 'but we will not install them here, nor anywhere without posting the customary bribes. Even here, it is possible to make various arrangements in the documentation associated with the weaponry.'
'You mean you're going to try to get them to forge the end-use certificates? Do you know what the penalty for-'
'Yes,' said Enda, 'probably better than you do. It's done all the time, Gabriel, as you know. Or you should know. I sometimes wonder whether the great concentration on producing spotless young entities for the Service does not shelter you too much from the ...' she trailed off. 'Well, let that pass for the moment. In any case, our gunnery will seem ordinary enough by the time we are through fitting the ship, and there are ways to buy off the actual installers as well, ways to ensure that they stay bought. Other matters .. .'
' 'Other matters'?' Gabriel said. 'I noticed something about the final bill.'
'Yes?'
'It was larger than what the total should have been by about five percent.'
Enda blinked. Gabriel gave her a look and said, 'Just because I'm a marine doesn't mean I can't count.' 'Well, you are certainly right to notice. It is after all your money too, some of it. Quite a bit of it, in fact.' She reached around her back and for a moment toyed with that silken fall of pearly hair that normally she kept bound out of the way. 'It occurred to me that some slight extra speed might be desired.' 'Speed?'
'In departing.'
Gabriel put the spoon down in the soup bowl again. 'Are you telling me that the delivery date on the manifest is-'
'Inaccurate?' she said. 'By some days.' 'When will it be-' Then he stopped himself.
'There are those who can read the lips of even fraal,' Enda said and smiled that slight smile. 'Perhaps we will let that wait.'
Gabriel nodded and finished the last couple of spoonfuls of his soup. He thought Enda probably meant 'tomorrow,' but she was not going to say it. Probably with reason, he thought as he glanced around him. All around was a darkness full of smoke, drink fumes, and oblivious people shouting or singing at each other. Yet who knew what technology was hidden away in quiet corners, recording chance words that might be sold to a willing bidder?
He sighed, pushed back in his seat, pulled out the little pocket-stone, and began fiddling with it while letting the food settle.
'One thing we must settle by tomorrow morning,' Enda said after a moment, glancing up from the wineglass that she had been refilling, 'is the matter of the ship's name. They will not let us lift without something.' She saw Gabriel pause and added, 'You could always simply let them generate a letter and number combination, if you prefer. Something meaningless and non-connoted. Certainly there are species that are suspicious about such things.'
Abruptly, Gabriel got the shudder. It had been some time since he had felt that: what his mother, when he was very young, had called 'somebody walking over my grave,' and then laughed and shrugged it off. It never seemed to have anything specific to do with something bad happening, but the two sometimes came together.
He raised his eyebrows, put the feeling aside for the moment, and said, 'No, it can have a name, there's no problem with that.'
'What, then? I have no gift for this kind of thing,' Enda said. 'You will have to choose.' Gabriel leaned forward on his elbows and thought, twiddling the stone idly as he did so. The image came to him, abruptly, of that thin patch of sunshine that had shone down on them as they walked through the gates of Gol Leiysin's place. 'Sunshine,' he said.
Enda tilted her head at him. 'Simple, perhaps childlike. No matter. Naming the light is always a good thing. It attracts its attention. 'Sunshine' let it be. We will both have to sign title, but you may as well take care of making the actual registry application, or rather completing it, at the spaceport in the morning. I will take care of the last of the victualling, and when I get back I will go over the final parts manifest with the people from Leiysin's to make sure the inventory is complete. Can you think of anything else that needs doing?'
Gabriel tried to think but couldn't. It was possibly understandable. This h ad been one of the fullest days he'd had in ages, and he felt much more tired than he should have. He began to wonder whether the trial had taken more out of him than he would have otherwise suspected.
'Not a thing,' he said at last. 'Though as a second thought, sleeping would be nice.'
Enda chuckled. 'I thought you might come up with that one eventually. All right. Let me finish this, and then
