Storm at Eldala

but Enda's look was more than usually thoughtful. Gabriel had never had a living grandmother to look at him in this particular way. Now it occurred to him that this was how one might look if she were about a meter and a half tall and so slender that she looked like you could break her in half like a stick.

'There are times,' Gabriel said, 'when I've considered that.' Enda blinked at him. 'What exactly?'

'Losing track, of who I am, or was. A little discreet cosmetic surgery, maybe… a change of look, a change of name. Let Gabriel Connor have an accident somewhere. Change the name appearing on Sunshine's registry. Become someone else. .' 'It would be a logistical problem to change our registry,' Enda said. 'Not impossible, but expensive, and itis impossible to do such things without leaving an electron trail. Additionally, for those who are determined to know where you are, and who you are… I question whether the stratagem would work for long.'

'More to the point,' Gabriel said at last, 'is whether I really want to hide. I don't want to throw away my name. I want to clear it.'

'But you are finding that hard,' Enda said, 'and potentially harder as time goes on.'

'Without the evidence I need to prove I didn't kill those people willingly, yes.'

'The frustration,' Enda said softly, 'can wear a soul down, if allowed to do so.'

'Even a stone wears down under water,' Gabriel said. 'Every time someone hears the name 'Gabriel Connor' and looks at me that way—'Oh,that Gabriel Connor, you were on the Gridnews, you murdered your best friend and got away with it, some legal loophole or other. Aren't you proud of yourself?' Every time I see that look, it's another drip on the stone. Is it so strange to wish it would just stop?'

He tried to look steadily at her. Even now, even with half a year of time between him and the deaths of his comrades in that shuttle explosion, it was hard to talk about it, even with someone as coolly compassionate as Enda.

'It is one of your people's sayings,' Enda said, 'long ago I heard it. 'When Heaven intends to confer great office upon a man, it sheds disaster upon him and brings all his plans to naught; reduces him in the sight of the world, and confounds all his undertakings. Then it is seen if he is ready.' ' Gabriel laughed. 'That's all very reassuring if you know that you're intended for some 'great office.' Otherwise, it just seems delusional, a way to rationalize the act of the universe doing what it usually does — crapping on the ordinary guy.'

'In this then,' Enda said, 'plainly there is universal justice. The great and the lowly are treated the same. Perhaps what makes the difference is in how they react to it.'

Chapter Two

A STARFALL AWAY FOR a big ship, or five or six starfalls off for a small one, a Concord cruiser slipped massively through the outer fringes of the Lucullus system. If no one in the system was sure what its business was, that state of affairs well suited one of its passengers.

Lorand Kharls sat quietly in the room he had occupied since arriving aboard the cruiser. It was very bare, for he did not have time to go in for much decoration. His work required him to change residence often, and he disliked having to pack much more than a change of clothes and a box of reference works, books and solids and so forth. He had come far enough along in his job that this was more than enough to help him get his business done — that, and hours of talking and listening.

There was a soft knock at his door. 'Yes?' he said, and his assistant, a tall young man wearing mufti and a complete lack of expression, slid the panel aside. 'She's here.'

'Thank you, Rand. Ask her to come in.'

The door slid wider, and a dark-haired young woman walked in. She wore a Star Force uniform with Intel pips at the collar, and an expression pleasanter than his assistant's, though as neutral. She would never have been able to manage anything like his assistant's fade-into-the-veneer quality. Her face had too much character — a stubborn forehead, strong chin, and those large brown eyes that somehow made the rest of her face seem insignificant. 'Aleen Delonghi, sir,' she said, saluting him. 'You're welcome. Please sit down.'

She did, in the one other chair that the room contained. There was nothing else in the place but a table with some data solids on it.

'The captain tells me that you've been asking your superior for a chance to speak to me regarding the mission that brought me here.' 'Yes, sir.'

'This suggests that you think you know what should be done about the situation.' 'I think so, sir.'

'After, of course, having gone through all the salient information that we have spent the last months collecting and collating.'

'All of it that has been made available to me, sir, yes.'

Kharls looked at her. She was experienced enough at what she had been doing over the past few years. The administrative department that had sent her to him along with several other Concord Intelligence operatives had spoken highly of her talents. Now he would see whether they were justified in doing so. 'Very well. You've seen the subject's statements on the matter, and you've seen Intel's recommendations regarding the situation so far. What is your opinion of them?'

She took a deep breath. 'I think they look like a pack of misdirections and lies from beginning to end.' 'Any ideas as towhose lies?' Kharls asked. She said nothing.

He sat back in his chair. 'You know,' Kharls said slowly, 'there was a time, a culture — a human culture, mind you — in which, if someone accused you of lying, they had the right to try to kill you. Right there. Isn't that fascinating?'

She paled, and her eyes slid to the tri-staff that leaned casually against the wall within Kharls's reach. 'They called it 'giving someone the lie,' ' Kharls said, 'or 'the lie direct'. What a busy time it must have been, human nature being what it was and is.'

'Administrator Kharls,' Delonghi said, sounding much more cautious now, 'maybe I should rephrase that.'

'Maybe you should.'

'Your behavior as regards this. . asset, if that's the word I'm fumbling for — for he looks more like a liability every time I consider him — your behavior regarding him is undermining a genuine Intelligence priority. How is Concord Intel — or Star Force Intel for that matter, since that's my cover at the moment — supposed to find out anything useful when you allow other assets to contaminate him?' ' 'Allow?' ' He looked at her with surprise. 'That suggests that I know in advance what they're going to do.'

'Of course you—' She stopped.

Kharls looked at her hard from under those bushy eyebrows. 'Miss Delonghi,' he said. 'Forgive me if I do not take you entirely into my confidence at the moment. I have a very large remit, as you may know—'

'You are a Concord Administrator,' she said, with the air of someone trying to cut straight to the heart of the matter, 'and probably the most powerful being in these spaces.'

He leaned back again, though not with any look of being flattered or mollified. 'Would it shock you,' Kharls began, 'if you knew that my main purpose, as so powerful a being — let me for the moment adopt your language — was to create the conditions in which my job description, and my job, became unnecessary?'

Her eyes widened. Kharls did not smile at her, though the temptation briefly crossed his mind. 'You won't believe me when I say as much,' Kharls said. 'What sane being would? Who would want to put himself out of a job in which planetary governments take his lightest word as the equivalent of enacted primary legislation, in which he can exercise what used to be called 'high, low, and middle justice'— the powers ofjudge, jury, and executioner? Would you believe something like that? Of course not. So I can make such outrageous statements and get away with it. Not being believed is a tool of considerable utility when one exercises it with care.' He waited to see if she would at least react to the irony. Not a flicker, he thought. It will be a while yet before this one has come along to where I want her. 'At any rate, I have not sent this particular asset out into the night to remain uncontaminated.'

'There are those who say he's contaminated enough as it is,' said Delonghi, trying unsuccessfully to restrain an expression of scorn.

'So they have and will,' Kharls replied. 'That's all to the good, for the moment. If the situation changes, I will