Storm at Eldala

'No need to bother with a wrap, then. Let's lock up. .'

They met Doctor Delde Sota on the blacktop at the bottom of the lift. She was standing and looking around her at the spectacular ebony or cream and ebony striped mountain vista, all gilded in the orange light that surrounded them. 'Opinion: gravity level enjoyable,' she said.

It was lighter than usual: about six tenths of a gee, and there was a slight tendency to bounce until one got used to how to put one's feet down. 'I wouldn't overeat in this climate,' Helm said, as they walked toward the port buildings and the road into town. 'Don't think it would stay down long.' Laughing and talking, they made their way into the heart of the settlement past the port buildings. Those were stone, but the business and leisure heart of the settlement was a mixture of stone and prefab. The little blocky apartment houses and shopping clusters were set amid carefully maintained but minimal landscaping, on ground which was little more than bare stone. They did not see many people — a few humans and some fraal, walking in small groups or heading home with bags or parcels of shopping from the local stores. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful, but also lonely — the influence of the terrible jagged peaks looking down from all sides, even in the subdued, prolonged afternoon light, was somber.

It couldn't much affect Gabriel's mood, though. He was too relieved. 'It was easy,' Gabriel said as they slowed down, hunting for Enda's fraal restaurant, which was supposed to be on the Main Thoroughfare. 'The software really did handle it all.'

'That was just one run,' Enda said. 'I would not be inclined to class this work as 'easy' just yet. We may have come out full, but will we go back that way? If we do not, the fine fat-looking profit we have made on this run will be undermined. If the message traffic we have brought with us from Grith does not generate some in the opposite direction, there will be no point in continuing this particular run. We will have to look elsewhere.'

Gabriel nodded. 'I know, but it's too soon to think about that. We just got here! Let's see what tomorrow brings.'

The fraal restaurant turned out to be attached to one side of a kind of community center for the local inhabitants, a long low stonebuilt edifice, quarried from black basalt blocks and boasting a wide shallow-peaked roof of some other dark stone split in thin layers. Inside, there was light and talk; large round lights hung down over a great number of trestle tables spread over a wide expanse of stone floor. People, humans and fraal and a mechalus or two, glanced up with interest and bemusement from their meals or drinks as Gabriel, Enda, Helm, and Delde Sota came in and looked around. From off to their right came the smell of something aromatic frying. Gabriel thought it smelled like ginger. Dining tables were gathered there around a circular counter, and Enda sniffed the air with delight. 'I swear, thatis delya,' she said, heading off in that direction. 'What wonders the worlds hold!' The others followed her and found a table. The fraal gentleman who was doing the cooking came out to greet them, and he and Enda began a long conversation in their own language, with much bowing and waving of hands. After a moment the chef went off, and Enda looked at them all, slightly abashed. 'He will be happy to bring you menus if you want,' she said, 'but I think we are onto something excellent here. Will you let me order for you?' 'Everything but the booze,' Helm said amiably. 'That I leave to you with joy,' Enda said.

Shortly thereafter, they had bottles of kalwine, and small metal dishes began arriving, full of portions of cooked vegetables. At least that was what Gabriel thought they were. It became plain that the dinner was going to be one of those at which you eat a great number of unidentifiable but delicious things and are never afterwards clear about exactly what you had or how to get it again.

The laughter and the talking at their table got ever more cheerful and seemed to spread as the evening drew on (though the light outside didn't change) and the community center around them filled with people eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. Gabriel found himself enjoying the good cheer, though he wondered if there wasn't a slightly nervous cast to it — as if practically the whole community of Sunbreak was gathered in this large room, making a brave noise against the vast silence of the world outside, a world beautiful but essentially inimical, a world very much alone.

The second time the thought came up, Gabriel shook his head and poured himself another glass of the kalwine, turning his attention to Delde Sota, who was in the middle of some mechalus joke that she was telling Helm for the second time. ' — couldn't find his head. Result: the captain says, 'Screw its eyes out and see if they work better.' ' 'I still don't get it.'

'Semantic problem,' Delde Sota said, lifting her glass with her braid, while propping her chin up on both fists, her elbows on the table. ' 'Head' is—'

'Excuse me,' said a voice off to the left. They all looked up.

Standing by the table was a small man, dressed in the kind of long tunic and baggy breeches that some people from Bluefall favored. He was plump and round faced, with little eyes looking at them dubiously.

'You the people who landed those two ships up the port this afternoon?'

'Yes,' Gabriel answered.

'Infotrading?' the man said.

'That's right,' Helm said.

'Well, I run the infotrading company here. Alwhirn Company. I'm Rae Alwhirn.'

'Yes, we've heard of you,' Gabriel said and got up to extend a hand to the man. 'Pleased to meet you. Gabriel Connor—'

'The pleasure's not mutual,' Alwhirn said, and looked at Gabriel's hand as if it were dirty. Then he darted a glance at Helm, and quickly away again. 'Not at all. We don't want your kind here.' 'What exactly would 'my kind' be?' Gabriel said. 'Speculation: competition?' said Delde Sota.

The man glared at her, then at Gabriel. 'You think we don't read the news we carry? We know what you were up to in the Thalaassa system. First murder — then union-busting—' Gabriel stared, and laughed.'Excuse me?'

'Those sesheyans you were hauling all over space were Employees,' Alwhirn said. 'You were in the middle of that big Concord PR exercise to make them look like 'free' sesheyans, poor oppressed people who got the wrong end of the stick somehow.' He sneered. 'The same way you did, huh? I suppose you're going to try to tell us someone set you up to make it look like you killed all those marines, your own buddies, that someone framed you—' Gabriel was silent for a moment. 'Were you there?' 'What? I read the—' 'Were you there?'

'Of course I wasn't there, I have a job to do, unlike some people who try to come in out of nowhere and take my business away. If you think—'

'What we've brought into the system is new business,' Gabriel said, 'from Grith and Iphus. Business you never went out of your way to find. You've been bringing in data from Aegis and Tendril and not much else. Now if I wanted to—'

'See that,' Alwhirn growled. 'You come to spy on us and—'

'Your business here is a matter of public record,' Gabriel said wearily. 'If you—'

'So is yours,' Alwhirn said.'Murder. Get out of here before you regret having come in the first place.'

Gabriel took a breath. 'If Iwas a murderer, you'd be asking for trouble. A good thing that there are witnesses to the statement.'

Alwhirn glanced around the table then turned away. As he went, he muttered something. They stared after him, but he was out the front door a few seconds later. Other people turned to watch him go, then looked at Gabriel and the others. Not all the looks were friendly.

Gabriel sat down again, and looked at the glass of kalwine in front of him, just refilled. All of a sudden it had lost a great deal of its savor.

'That was strange,' he said.

'Granted,' Enda said. 'What do you make of it?'

Delde Sota shook her head. Helm, for the moment, was looking toward the door and windows. 'Bad news travels fast,' he said under his breath.

'It's Infotrade Interstellar that I would have expected this kind of thing from,' Gabriel said. 'Not the local independents!' He pulled his glass close again. 'What's the matter with these people, anyway? It's not as if we're taking food out of their mouths.'

'I have seen much human behavior in my time,' Enda said, 'but I do not consider myself a specialist. Though