by Diane Duane
"Then see if you can find us a table."
There was one available not too far away. They sat down, and Gabriel reached out idly to the tiny star- shaped lamp that sat in the middle of the table. The lamp was a little round ornament more like a stone with a light inside than anything else.
Enda looked at it curiously. "Yes, there is a resemblance, is there not?" she said as Gabriel went into his pocket and came up with the luckstone, turning it over in his fingers and comparing it with the table light. "This one is more polished. The beaches of the world from which these come must be a wonderful sight at night if they all glow like this."
From out of the darkness a sesheyan came looming to stand over their table and said, "From out of the night wanderers come: in His image they seek refreshment: let them but say what that might be." "Chai," said Gabriel, still feeling some need for something to settle his stomach. "White, please." "I will have the same," Enda said.
They looked around them as the sesheyan went away. This place was certainly perfect from that species' point of view: dim enough to be easy on their eight sensitive eyes that were used to the deep multicanopied rainforests of Grith or Sheya. Somewhere off to the side, what might have been a bird whistled something very mournful, a minor-key tune of endless variation.
"Bebe bird," said Enda, sitting back in her chair, pale in the dimness of the room, her eyes great dark pools. "And galya. It is indeed a wonderful evocation of the place." "Is it always this dark down at ground level?" Gabriel asked.
"Darker," said Enda. "And hotter. The one thing they have spared us is the heat, which this time of year would be stifling near the equator. Dimness the sesheyan eye must have for its comfort, but as regards the heat, I think they can take it or leave it."
Their chai came, and they thanked the sesheyan who brought it. He vanished almost without seeming to move, despite the fact that Gabriel's eyes had already become much more night-adjusted. Just a swirl of wing, a breath of silent breeze, and he was gone. Gabriel shook his head in admiration. "Wish I could have moved like that," he said.
"They are adept," Enda replied. "It is a great wonder to see, down in the little settlements around the forest cities near Angoweru and Uyellin, how one moment a clearing will be empty, nothing but a great dim space roofed over high above with layer over layer of leaves and darkness,.and suddenly there will be a hundred sesheyans there, or a thousand, chanting the Wanderer's Song." She shook her head, looking upward around her. "This is a worthy evocation. All unlike what you will find elsewhere on the planet."
Gabriel had seen the many VoidCorp-owned facilities scattered across the face of Iphus and he felt no great desire to go anywhere near them, despite the frantic way in which they touted their entertainment facilities and so forth on the Grid. "Not much like this, in other words."
Enda shook her head. "Oh, doubtless there are places that are physically as pleasant, but I would think there would not be many of them. Besides, without the scent of freedom, how much will the galya matter?" She pursed her lips." 'Slavery is made no more tolerable by cool shadow or birdsong in the trees.' "
" 'Nor is Vec't'lir's wisdom more desirable merely for suffering's sake: or the Hunter's takings more valuable for their scarcity,' " said a voice directly above their heads.
Both their heads jerked up. The tall shadowy form stood there with arms and wings akimbo, his four foremost eyes looking down on them. Gabriel took a long breath before moving, and he noticed the red stripe down the sides of the beishen.
"That is how I heard it some time ago from Devlei'ir," Enda said, "though the meaning was likely to change from moment to moment, as always with his stories." She pulled out the third chair at the table. The sesheyan sat down and looked from Enda to Gabriel. "I could swear I know your voice from somewhere," Gabriel said.
"Yes," said the sesheyan, folding his wings neatly about him and the chair so that he was little more than a blot of shadow. But a glint from the little star-stone and Gabriel's luckpiece caught in and on the front four eyes. "And I remember your voice, as well. You called me brother."
The idiom was perfectly human, and Gabriel blinked. "Not as gracefully as you would speak to me, I'm afraid," he said. "So you would be Ondway."
"That is my name in trees' shadow: under the Hunter's stars I have another," Ondway said. "You will have been talking with Delde Sola, otherwise the odds of your being in this spot are fairly low."
"If I had known of it, I would have come anyway," Enda said. "This is a welcome change from the more ordinary places and general climate of Iphus."
Ondway dropped his jaw in a grin at that. "If an atmosphere-stripped rock such as this may be said to have a climate," he said, "then you are right. Will you tell me why Delde Sola sends you to me? Though I do have some idea."
"We wouldn't mind somewhere quiet to stay for a while," Gabriel said.
Ondway sat back in his chair and resettled his wings, folding his arms over them. "I would need to know something of the reasons for your stay," he observed. "The reasons for needing quiet, I should say." "Don't you look at the Grid?" Gabriel said. "I'm a celebrity, much pursued by my public." Ondway chuckled at that. "Should the Concord come looking specifically for you," he said, "I fear we could do little to protect you."
"That's not what I'm asking. It's not the Concord that concerns me at the moment." "Is it not?" That seemed to take Ondway a little by surprise.
Enda tilted her head to one side, back again. "There seems to be other interest in our doings," she said. "From a quarter that may lie-well, not exactly a thousand kilometers away from here." Ondway swore softly, and Gabriel's eyes widened a little at the sound of it. It was the same hiss that Enda occasionally used. He had thought it was fraal. "I take your meaning," Ondway said.
"We have little concrete proof of this," Enda said. "Suspicion only at the moment. But there also seem to be other factions, or fractions, involved as well, and those we do not understand. Some of them are very frightening, and I would not willingly speak of them in a public place."
Ondway waved one finger up at the ceiling. "Their coverage is not as complete as they think," he said. "It is 'off when they least suspect it. At other times, we stage events for them so that they will think they're getting what they need." That drop-jawed smile again. "Will you want to be staying out of sight for very long?"
"No more than ten or twenty days. Our ship requires some repair, as well, but after that..." Enda glanced over at Gabriel.
"We'll be going back to Thalaassa," he said, then tried to hold his face still, because he had no clear idea why he'd said it.
"For what purpose?" Ondway asked, rather abruptly, Gabriel thought.
"Trade," Gabriel replied. "Light electronics, that kind of thing. And possibly some mining after our cargo bay's put right."
"Mining possibly," said Ondway. "There might be some way you might find your way back to Eraklion, but from this system to Thalaassa you would hardly trade." "Why not?"
"There is no trade with them any more," Ondway said, "not from Grith." Enda looked surprised. "Why? What happened?"
"The two worlds have forbidden such. Oh, not openly," Ondway said. "Such restriction of trade would be frowned on by the Concord, which those two worlds are presently studying to please, when they are not also studying to please others."
Gabriel wanted to ask what he meant by that, but the glare that Ondway turned on him silenced him for the moment. "We have been trading with them for a good while, and we have been very much the 'junior partner.' That particular trade wind has blown hot and cold without warning before. They are very fearful," he said, more softly, "having occupied, until the Verge began to open up again, a position that is not very well protected. For a long while the two Thalaassan worlds were willing enough for support from whatever quarter it came, even from sesheyans that they counted not much better than either barbarian savages or company creatures. But this time . . ." Ondway shook his head. "The signs are that our trade with them is now do
ne permanently. With the treaty signed, they have new strong friends, the Concord who will protect them from the dark stories, from the things the tales say have been moving out in the dark of the far reaches of the system, things that even we would not feel comfortable with." The image of that large ship flashed before Gabriel's mind's eye again. He half thought he would mention it, then closed his mouth. Being too willing to discuss things or taking things too readily at face value has gotten me into trouble before, he thought. Better not.
"And the influence of the governments on Phorcys and Ino has reached a long way," Ondway said after a moment. "Even the smugglers seem to have stopped running the usual route."
Enda opened her eyes at that. "What would one smuggle to Grith?" she asked, as casually as if she were asking directions in the street. "Not to," Ondway replied, "from." "It's still a good question," Gabriel said.
Ondway looked a little reluctant. "The Wanderer would rarely speak-"
"Ah, come now, Ondway," Enda said. "You have been dropping your hints boldly enough. This is a poor time to shy away, when you so obviously want us to ask the question, and have doubtless made sure the surveillance is presently shut off."
He still sat silent for a moment. Then Ondway said, "There have been those who have been carrying supplies to and from Thalaassa."
"To Phorcys and Ino? But you said trade had stopped with them." "I did."
"Then where else? To Eraklion?" Gabriel shook his head. "There's nothing there but a package mining firm. Why would they need-" He stopped.
"Not to Eraklion," Enda said softly. "Somewhere else. Farther out in the system, I think." "And even the smugglers have stopped going," Gabriel said.
Ondway shifted in his seat, rustling his wings about him. "There have been stories coming back from those spaces," he said, very quietly, "of those who go and do not return ... or who return . . . changed." He had about him the air of someone who has sworn not to speak of something, but who at the same time desperately wants to and is hoping that someone will lead him around to the subject by subterfuge. "Changed how?" Gabriel said.
Ondway was silent a while more, then he said, "You do know that you are endangering yourselves merely by being here and speaking with me. Outside these doors and with very few exceptions elsewhere the planet is under constant surveillance by Void-Corp."
Gabriel ran one hand through his hair in annoyance. It was beginning to get rather long for his tastes. "We've had people trying to kill us for days now," he said. "Weeks," Enda corrected primly.
"Thank you. A long time," Gabriel said. "Too damned long. I never had so many people trying to kill me when I was a marine as I have now, and then I was attending wars on a regular basis. I don't know that a little more endangerment would even register on my personal scale at this point." "VoidCorp," Ondway said, "has started its own wars in its time. The war with its parent company, both nonphysical and physical, nearly killed the Terran Empire in its cradle. To them what matters is market share. A life lost-or ten thousand here or there-make little odds so long as the bottom line improves. Slavery and death mean little to them in the long term. The Company will live longer than any of its component parts, and therefore Corporate immortality-the Corporation's growth right across all known space and its domination of it-is what matters. They will let nothing stand in the way of that. Even the Concord is cautious about how it moves against VoidCorp openly." He looked down at the table, bitter. "We had great hopes that the solution they engineered on Grith might lead to other similar situations elsewhere."
He stopped very abruptly and would not look at them again.
The hint being, Gabriel thought, that it has led to a similar solution elsewhere. Somewhere in the Thalaassa system.
He glanced over at Enda. "We've wandered a bit off our original topic," Gabriel said. "Here's our own bottom line. For our health and that of others, I think it would be smart if we took ourselves down to Grith for a little while. A few days-a week perhaps." "I would agree," Enda said.
They looked at Ondway. "Certainly we could find you a place to stay there," Ondway said. "Down by Redknife, you would attract little attention. Many tourists pass through that part of our world looking for an experience of the unspoiled sesheyan way of life." He grinned. The expression was humorous, but not entirely kind. "Mostly they pay well enough for it and get what they have come for. They do not, of course, pay for the experience of being hunted wherever one goes by a great and inimical force. Some inadvertently get that for free by trying to save on the 'tour guide fee' and going into the jungles themselves." That smile got a little more amused, now. "Mostly they find out about insects, mud, sablesnakes, and gandercats, but that is their business. In any case, the Redknife Tourist Bureau will easily enough manage your needs for a ten days or so. Ask for Maikaf." "Very well. And as for the Devli'yan-" Enda said suddenly. Ondway looked at her. "You have been there before?"
"Some years ago," Enda said, "as a tourist. I did not hazard myself among the gandercats, however interesting their calls and what they mean, but I sat with the shamans under the trees and heard wisdom and told what passed for mine. Some months I spent there."
Ondway nodded. "I thought you might have," he said. "The fraal who come tend to remain a while. Who knows? There may be some there who will remember you yet. One at least, though there is no telling whether he will have time or inclination to see you. He spends much time in the forest these days. He too has those whose attention he prefers to forego."
He breathed out, a long weary sound. "Tomorrow, then," Ondway said, "I will depart for Redknife and will escort you. Eight hours, local time. Will that be satisfactory?" "Entirely so," said Enda, "and we thank you very much."
Ondway got up and slipped away into the shadows again. Gabriel, fingering his luckstone, looked after him and wondered. Ondway had impressed him, but he was less than eager to trust him entirely. He seemed to have meant a lot more than he actually said in his conversation.
"Shall we call for our bill?" asked.
"I have a feeling it will be here shortly," Enda replied.
Sure enough, the sesheyan who had greeted them first and had brought their drinks now materialized out of the darkness, holding a payment chit. Gabriel reached out for it, checked the total glowing on it in the darkness, slipped a thumbnail into the slot to add the tip, and touched his own chip to it. The sesheyan bowed and took himself away.
The two of them headed out into the station hallway and there had to stop and blink; it was blinding even with the dimmer lights of station "evening" now on show.
"In the morning," Enda said with a sigh as they made their way back toward the main dome and the docking rings, "we will see about the metal reweave you were discussing. Perhaps I am mistrustful of a new technology, especially when it seems too inexpensive to be effective."
Gabriel chuckled, then stopped. A shadow had been just visible out of the corner of his eye as they passed an intersecting hallway. It had been moving toward them with some speed and had stopped. It was out of sight now.
"What?" Enda said as Gabriel slowed somewhat.
"Nothing," he said, walking along as casually as he could without trying to look as if he had slowed his gait too much.
His peripheral vision had always been good-a little too good, according to his weapons instructor. "Don't let it make you too confident of what you think you're seeing. Half the time you're wrong anyway." But with just a very slight turn of his head, Gabriel could see a lot more than people normally thought he could. And once or twice, in fights or in battle, that had served him well. As they came around the curve of the corridor toward the main dome, he turned his head just a little toward Enda as if speaking to her and saw that shape suddenly materialize out of the side corridor again, slipping down toward them. "We have company," he said, very softly, as they continued on around the curve and toward the dome. "Who?"
"Someone following us. Sesheyan, I think."
"It could be your imagination." Then Enda stopped her
self, catching a glimpse of another shadow up ahead of them as it slipped hurriedly away down another of the corridors that spiraled away from the dome. "Another sesheyan," Enda said softly.
"Or someone trying to look like one," Gabriel said. "The beishen is right, but as for the rest of it.. .I'm not sure about the way whoever that is moving. It doesn't look right somehow." He swallowed, made up his mind. "Look, when we get back to Sunshine, I want to leave as soon as possible." "But we were to wait for the guide."
"Do you want to wait, just sitting in dock? Really? With that?"
The shadow moved again down that long corridor as they came level with it, and was lost again. Enda looked after it, then determinedly turned away. Gabriel turned his head a little to the right to see around behind them. No one was visible back the way they had come, at the moment. "And his friend," Gabriel said, "out of sight-" "Perhaps not," Enda said. "So where?"
"To Grith, where else? Ondway told us where to go, who to see. Let's do it, but I don't want to wait here any longer. I'd still like to know where all those VoidCorp ships took themselves off to." They started to hurry a little more as they crossed the dome and headed for the access to the docking ring. "And the repairs?" Enda asked.'They'll have to wait. Look, we won't be hauling anything heavy. In fact, if it's all the same to you, we won't be hauling, period, at least until things quiet down a little. Anyway, maybe they'll have repair facilities down there." "In Redknife?" Enda said, looking doubtful. "It is a Devli'yan enclave, Gabriel. It is not the kind of place where one will find high-technology metal weaving, at any price, or much of anything else which can be described as high technology. The most basic repairs could probably be managed, but-- " "We've made it this far," Gabriel replied. "I'll take my chances. We don't have that far to go, and once we're down into atmosphere, the cargo bay becomes less of a concern."
He looked at her intently, wanting her to understand that suddenly this was important, though he himself found it hard to express why. Enda glanced over at him as they crossed the dome into the corridors that lead to the locking ring. Then she glanced away again.
