Storm at Eldala

the likeliest answer would seem to be that, for some reason, they feel threatened. As for I.I., they sent us a very pleasant message.' 'What?'

'It's in Sunshine's Grid mail center — it came in while you were showering. It is nothing fulsome. They acknowledge our presence here and wish us luck.'

That piece of news made Gabriel shake his head. 'As for the rest of that, the idea that Void Corp's Employees have a union—'

'Very likely they do,' Enda said. 'Probably it seems, superficially, to have the same kind of rules that other labor unions do, though membership is probably mandatory. . as Employee status remains mandatory.'

Helm was still looking around, watching the people who were watching them. 'No great interest,' he said after a moment. 'I think we're safe for the moment.' 'Query: later?' Delde Sota said softly.

'There is no way to tell,' Enda said, sounding rueful. 'With the active opposition of some of these people, our business may not be pleasant.'

Gabriel frowned. 'We'll see, but as for Alwhirn — does he think he owns this system? I don't want trouble with him, but if he wants to start it, he's going to get some back, possibly more than he bargained for.' A silence fell at that. Then Delde Sota said, forcefully, 'Dessert.'

They had dessert, a flambeed concoction that drew applause from some of the tables around them. They paid their bill, said 'good evening' to the people around them, congratulated the fraal chef, and then walked back to the ships, making little of the uncomfortable incident during dinner. Gabriel did his best to sound untroubled as they went. He was tired and that helped him. One issue kept rearing up at the back of his mind to be dealt with.

Terivine had no drivesat relay. All its data came to it via infotraders. No information could have come to Rivendale about Gabriel's arrival before today.

How did this guy know so quickly that I was here and who I am?

Helm and Delde Sota went off to Longshot. Enda and Gabriel headed back to Sunshine, secured her, and turned in. As Gabriel lay down and spoke his light out, the thought hung in the darkness there with him for a long time, all too clear. So much for my new beginning…

Chapter Four

THE NEXT MORNING was still the same afternoon, although the orange light of the sun came in at a lower angle. Light slid in long golden rays between the peaks and tangled in the mists that were starting to rise to higher levels now, filling the invisible valleys below like water. Warmweek was fading, that leisurely afternoon tarnishing down to a brassy orange pre-sunset hue, a light with color but progressively less warmth.

Gabriel stood on the cracked gray tarmac outsideSunshine and looked across at the fanglike peaks serrating the horizon on all sides. The landscape well suited how he felt at the moment— hemmed in and unable to escape the atmosphere of silent, low-level threat, no matter how far he went. And not so low-level, he thought, thinking of Alwhirn's angry, frightened face last night. How did they find me?

It was a good guess that someone at Diamond Point had been spying onSunshine and her crew, watching to see where they were going. That information would have been no secret for a day and a half before their departure when they filed their starfall/starrise plan. Someone gets into a ship, Gabriel thought, and hurries here with the news that we're coming and what we're coming for. He recalled again the edgy sound in the port controller's voice when they had come in. 'The detectors told us you were coming.'

Yes, Gabriel thought, and who else?

Who would have the funds and inclination to send someone all the way over here in a ship when a holomessage could have done as well? We could have been carrying a message like that ourselves, Gabriel thought, and we'd never have known it. It would certainly have been cheaper. But there had been a couple of hours between their arrival and Alwhirn's appearance at their table. Am I just being paranoid? Gabriel thought. Did he receive a message about us in the same load we brought in, or did he just hear gossip about us from the port people? In a place this small, a new infotrader suddenly turning up in the system would be discussed.

Gabriel sat down on one ofSunshine's landing skids and gazed out at the morning — cum — late afternoon. He hadn't slept well. It had been another ofthose dreams last night, a repetitive conflict of light and shadow. Flares of brilliance lashed out against some inward-pressing darkness, all of it haunted by unexplained feelings of fear and excitement. Gabriel took these dreams for some kind of obscure message from his subconscious, though he had no idea what the message might mean. Something to do with starrise and starfall, he thought. He was not yet sufficiently inured to them that the excitement of a jump failed to move him. While living in a Concord Cruiser that carried the marine complement of which he was part, Gabriel had gone through starrises and starfalls without comment. They were pilots' business, an insignificant artifact of getting where you were going. Now that Gabriel flew himself, suddenly drivespace was a serious part of the day, and he listened to whatever Helm or Enda might say about the fables and rumors of starfalls — what caused the differing color, which ones were supposed to be lucky… Gabriel shivered.

The sound of the lift coming down distracted him. Amazing how noises that would have been completely lost in the rumble at Diamond Point now seemed louder among the peaks and rolling mists. All sound fell into that moist quiet as if into a sack where they were dampened and lost. That silence seemed to say, There are very few of you. We can wait. Some day you will be gone.

'What a beautiful morning,' Enda said. She walked out to join him, looking around at the swirling, churning mists and hugging herself against the cool dampness of the morning.

'Nnnh,' Gabriel said. He disliked pouring cold water on her pleasures, but in his present mood he had trouble seeing the beauty.

'Did you sleep well?'

'Not really.'

'That dream again?'

Gabriel shrugged. 'I think so, but I may be getting used to it now.' Not that it was any easier to bear while he was inside it. At least it doesn't make me wake up yelling any more. Enda nodded. 'I am still thinking about our gentleman at table last night,' she said. 'Not much of a gentleman.'

'Well, his manners were not the best. His reasons for being angry with us did not ring particularly true, either.' She sat down on the skid next to Gabriel. 'I cannot help feeling that he was more frightened than angry, but of what or whom?'

Gabriel shook his head. 'Don't ask me until after I've had my chai,' he said. 'Come to think of it, don't bother asking then, either. I'm still wondering how we're going to pick up any business with this guy out poisoning people's minds against us, and whether it's realistic to think we're going to get any business at all when the place is this small.'

'I would definitely wait until you have had your chai,' Enda replied. 'You should also walk around and talk to people. Our business is to see exactly what the other firms have been doing here, then examine which parts of the local market they may have missed.'

Gabriel gave her a cockeyed look. 'You sound like some kind of sales representative.' She chuckled. 'Well, so I was, once long ago.'

Gabriel sat back against the upright of the landing skid and laughed at that. 'I thought you were in suit maintenance.'

'Oh, I did that too,' Enda said. 'Gabriel, when you live in a great spacegoing city, conscientious marketing is something you cannot ignore, especially when you tend to keep your contacts with other species to a minimum. You will not succeed if you go barging into established business relations between planets or between a planet and another free trading facility that serves it. Trade wars only make life harder for everyone. . and eventually people die of them. One must rather work to become part of a network, a cooperative structure.' She looked out across the mountains. 'Life among the stars is too hard as it is — resources all stretched too thin over the terrible distances, and communication much too difficult and expensive to waste on attempting to destroy infrastructure that others have built. To compete without an eye to your competitors' continued success as well as yours is to court disaster.' Gabriel had to shake his head at that. 'Enda, are all fraal asnice as