Storm at Eldala

Enda strapped herself in. They made the quick jump into the spaceport's bond area and admitted the usual port reps, an officious and very well spoken sesheyan named Se'tali accompanied by several assistants. They confirmed the supplies now going intoSunshine's cargo hold. Their procedures required electronic signatures, spot-card payment for port services, and last of all, sign-off on the ship's registry documents. Gabriel provided all these as requested.

Se'tali said something polite and wedged himself into the lift. His assistants followed. Several of them winked at. Gabriel, a gesture they had adopted from humans. Somehow, it looked more impressive than usual because of all the eyes that sesheyans had to work with. The last of them exited the lift, which retracted itself intoSunshine's girth and locked up.

'You were mentioning good will,' Gabriel said, checking all the indicators to make sure everything was closed tight for space. 'We seem to have a lot.' 'May it follow us,' Enda said. 'Helm?' 'Ready.'

The port clearance control flashed permission-to-depart to their console. Helm lifted clear first, the scream of his engines dwindling upward and away. Gabriel touched the system drive into life and followed. The furious golden fire of Corrivale on Grith's green and violet surface dropped away beneath them, glinting blindingly but briefly on the girdling turquoise-violet tidal seas. Behind the curve of Grith, growing smaller now, the vast red — and — ochre striped bulk of Hydrocus loomed up over the thin bright band of atmosphere as it grew and dwarfed its jungle moon.

'Out of atmosphere,' Enda said. 'Ten minutes on system drive to the exit coordinates. Is the stardrive ready?'

Gabriel checked the readouts three times, making sure that the coordinates matched the hard copy in his personal data pad. 'We're set.'

'You ready over there?' Helm's voice came down comms. 'Yup. Check your info against ours?' A pause.

'On the nose,' Helm said. 'Weapons ready.'

Gabriel's were ready too, but he had not brought up the fighting field, not expecting to need to do any shooting at the moment.

It was at the other end of the transit that his concerns lay.

Enda too was looking at the gunnery readouts. 'Are these latent energy readings supposed to be this high?' she said softly.

Helm chuckled. 'The readings are fine. We'll play with the new toys when we get where we're going. Meanwhile, coming up on the tick—'

Gabriel had his eyes on the countdown. Ten seconds. He cut out the system drive and brought the stardrive to standby, watching the status indicators as the gravity induction coils and the mass reactor wound their waveforms into synch. Five seconds. The coordinates for the drop-out point at Terivine system converted into a third set of waveforms interwoven with the first two. Two seconds. One— Blue fire sheeted up overSunshine in tendrils and waves, obscuring the burning gold of Corrivale as Longshot dropped into drivespace with a flare of crimson off to one side. Like liquid flowing upward, blue light webbed over the front viewport and fell into the pilot's cabin asSunshine dropped into starfall. It was dark again, the unrelieved blackness of drivespace clinging all around them. Enda checked her instruments. 'A new beginning for us, then,' she said, 'and well begun. Gabriel, when did you last eat?'

His stomach growled at him. 'About a year ago,' he said, 'or at least it feels like it. Let's see what the new catering packs look like.'

Some light-years away, down a Grid commline that was as secure as a large amount of money spent could make it, a conversation was taking place. One end of the conversation was on Iphus in the Corrivale system. The far end of the conversation was in a small secured cabin of a large and well-armed ship presently orbiting Grith.

The tall, thin man sitting in the thick-carpeted office on Iphus was leaning forward on his elbows at his big polished desk, looking down into the small tank that he preferred to the large flashy 3D displays of some others on this floor. The things leaked signal, for one thing. That was wasteful, no matter how secure you thought your comms were. The big displays were tasteless as well. He had no desire to imply that his communications were unimportant enough to let justanyone who walked in see them. That was not the way to get ahead in the Company. Perception, if not everything, was a substantial part of it.

'. . don't care what they think,' said the woman at the other end. 'There's been a lot of comm traffic from that end. I've dumped it to your location. They're getting ready to move.'

'Where?' he said. 'If they take themselves anywhere there's a significant Concord presence, there's no point in it.'

'They won't,' the woman said. Her expression was scornful. 'They don't dare. He's wanted. There's a reward out now, thanks to us, enough to arouse interest. Sooner or later, somebody is bound to fit the face to the offer and pick up on him.' 'Is it one of those 'dead or alive' things?'

She sniffed. 'You're living in the wrong century. What point is there in just letting someone kill him? Due process has to be followed if you're going to make any kind of example that will stick in people's minds.

It would be too obvious… not to mention creating problems atthis end.'

'Well, when it comes to problems,' he said, hunching down lower, 'we've got some at this end.'

Her eyebrows went up at that. 'What kind? After what that bunch of traitors and renegades did to you at Thalaassa, I'd have thought everyone would have agreed about what to do for a change.'

He laughed. 'You know how big this company is. Everyone with a letter higher than J in front of their ID thinks they're entitled to an opinion, and some of themact on them, the misguided idiots. Discipline has been going to hell around here lately. That shuffle up high three weeks ago—'

He stopped himself. Some topics it was unwise to discuss, no matter how carefully you thought you had secured your comms… always remembering that the people who had installed your lines in the first place were also Company and might have agendas of their own.

'Never mind.' He sighed. 'Our Intel people are apparently involved again.'

She looked suspiciously at him. 'Why?'

'They think they missed something the first time. Apparently Concord Intel is after him too, and they want to know why.'

She swore. 'They dumped him the first time as waste, and now they—' She broke off, shaking her head.

'Do you seriously think they might be onto something?'

'I have no idea. If you think I can get anything significant out of our own Intel people about this, you're mistaken. They're all creeping around in hush-hush mode. Theonly thing that's certain is that somebody whose ID starts with X or Y has had his nose pushed right off his face by this hashmash at Thalaassa. Action has to be taken to calm his or her ruffled temper, and this probably means exposing the subject as Intel from the other side.' 'He's not,' she said fiercely. 'We know that.'

'As if that matters! If they have their way, they'll make him look as if he is, and then either side can chuck him away into whatever jail they like to waste the rest of his days away. The example will be taken by those who need it, believe me. Unless certain others get their way—' She shook her head. 'You lost me.'

'There is a strong line of opinion in some offices up here,' he said, 'and not Intel — theEnforcement offices, I mean — that he should just have an accident. Safer, quicker, less trouble in the long run. What he did was a one-off, they think. Crazy guy, thrashing around for some kind of vengeance, took it against the nearest target — if he even knew that much of what he was doing.' She swore again. 'There's got to be more to it than that.'

He let out an annoyed breath. 'I know. They're simplistic.Yes, the guy needs watching. We'll see if he really needs to be killed. He might find out something useful about the other side, and if he does… fine, then let the mouse run a little farther. We've got all the time in the world, and we have him outnumbered. The minute he's no longer useful. .' The man's thin hand came down, clenched clawlike, on the shining desk. 'For now, wait and see.'

Then he chuckled. 'Yes, why not make life as interesting for him as possible in the meantime? There are all kinds of possibilities.'

'As long as none of them are pleasant for him,' she said, 'I can cope with that for the time being.' 'I'll be in touch,' the man said. He reached out to cut the connection. 'Don't let them move without us knowing.' 'It's