by Diane Duane
Gabriel nodded. He had no desire to spend time closer to Concord space than he had to. There were bounty hunters who would be willing to turn Gabriel in for the reward. Yet outside of Concord space there was no resolution of his problem. Sooner or later, Gabriel would have to go back with what evidence he was able to garner and take his chances with Concord justice. "As regards 'riding shotgun' for us," Enda said, "would you be available?"
When Helm looked up from pouring another splash of Bols, there was an odd expression in his eyes. Gabriel thought it looked like gratitude, but it sealed over quickly into the old no-nonsense humor. "Been waiting for you to make up your mind. My schedule's wide open. When do we leave?" "About a week," Gabriel said. "Getting the data tanks installed will take most of the time." "And arranging to see what kind of first load we can acquire," Enda said. "I will see to that." "I'll talk to the doctor in the morning," Helm said. "Meanwhile, I could use a nap, and I have to clean up after myself. Cooking!" He stood, looming over Enda, huge and amused. "I did it with an autolaser. In a pot."
"You do most things with an autolaser," Enda said mildly. "The pot was doubtless added in a moment of inspiration."
Helm laughed, picked up his bottle and put it on the table for them, and went off down toward the airlock. "Call me in the morning," he said to Gabriel, "when you get your schedule sorted out."
"I will."
The airlock cycled shut behind Helm, and Gabriel got up to help Enda clean up after their meal. It was something they were both punctilious about — a ship in which some parties are tidy and some are sloppy soon turns into a little hell. Once the table was uncovered and folded away and the plates and utensils were washed and stowed, Gabriel folded a chair down and just sat there looking at the screen, which had defaulted to that view of the green field under some alien sun, the long grass rippling silkily as water in the wind that stroked it.
Down in her cubicle, Gabriel could hear Enda moving around, putting her bed in order for the night. A year ago he had known nothing of her, known no fraal at all and precious few aliens of any kind. Now he could hardly imagine a world without her — a world circumscribed by these scrubbed gray walls and floors— the fire of starrises and starfalls, some new primary burning golden or blue-white or green through the front viewports, the tierce sky-blue of Enda's huge eyes.
Once the world had been different, not gray-walled but white-walled, the color of marine country in a Star Force ship. Life had been simple, explicable, neatly circumscribed. You went where you were ordered — or were taken there. You fought who you were told to, and you cleaned up afterwards.Ready to fight. . He had been, but the nature of the enemies had changed overnight, and the conflict had become difficult to understand. Too difficult for the marine he was then — and Gabriel had found himself cashiered, cast loose on a world he didn't know, alone and friendless.
Then Enda had turned up. There were aspects of their first meeting and their subsequent dealings that Gabriel still did not understand. But he was certain that it was a better world with her in it, and that he owed her most of what he had now. He was partner in a ship, half of a business, and had come through some difficult times getting used to it. He had survived, but there was always the question of how long he could keep on doing it.
"You are thinking harder than usual," Enda said. Gabriel glanced up. "Does it show?" "I heard you. You are still unsure. ."
Gabriel chuckled. "Mindwalkers. I can't even brood without being overheard any more." She pulled down the chair opposite him. "I have had much less training in the art than most. However, if you think loudly, I cannot help it. You also must not think I desire to pressure you in any direction. If I have been doing so, you must tell me so."
Gabriel shook his head. "You misheard me. You can be pretty forceful, but not that way. In fact, it's hard to get you to tell me what to do even about little things."
"Perhaps I refuse to be lured into a role that you would accept too easily," Enda said. "Gabriel, is your choice firm?"
"Yup. Let's get out of here."
Enda tilted her head to one side, one of the fraal versions of the human nod.
"We had not discussed how we will leave. Do we make starfall to Terivine by ourselves, or hitch a ride with some larger vessel?"
"Maybe not on the first leg," Gabriel said. "If you set out on your own, sometimes people assume you're going to keep going that way. If we picked up a hitch after we make our first starfall…" He shrugged. "This deviousness," Enda said, "suits you well enough, you who were such an innocent only six months ago. Beware lest you lose track of who you are beneath all the twists and turns." She smiled as she said it, 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 hi
s 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 judge it accordingly… but not before."
"You're telling me that you've purposely sent this operative out to make contact with enemy intelligence organizations—"
" 'Enemy' is such a narrowing term," said Kharls. "Who knows in what relationship the Concord will stand within, say, twenty or thirty years to any of the stellar nations that presently are not part of it? Or how matters will stand in the Verge? And even inside the Concord, as you well know, there's considerable difference of opinion about what nations and issues are most important. Nearlyinfinite difference of opinion." He smiled grimly. "Fortunately, my job is not about reconciling opinion, which is just as well, since that would be impossible. My job is to make things out here in the Verge work as well as they can for the moment, and to figure out how to make them work better still for the people who'll come out here to live, and those who are here already. In particular, my remit charges me to look out toward the edges of things, the unpoliced and untravelled spaces all around the Verge where situations are not as clear-cut as they are in toward the First Worlds — much less structured and more chaotic. The textbooks don't do much good out here for even the best-intentioned agent, ambassador, or ship's commander. One learns to strike out into the dark and try techniques that might seem foolish elsewhere." Kharls sat back again, looking at his folded hands. "I have no scruples about using agents who may seem tainted or chaotic to the textbook types. If that conceals such agents' true value, so much the better, for valuable assets, unfortunately, tend to be killed the most quickly. As regards the object of our discussion, however, you need to be clear thatI have not sent him anywhere. He is one of the very few genuinely free operatives I manage — if manage is even the word, since he completely rejects any idea that I have any such power over him." "Then he's a fool," Delonghi said. "Possibly, but he's also right."
Delonghi kept her face still. Kharls watched this exercise with interest. "See that," he said, "youstill don't believe me. I wonder if the ancients had an offense called'disbeliefdirect'?"
He got up, stretched, and stepped around to the big viewport that was the room's only other indulgence. "If he draws the attention of other intelligence assets," Kharls said, looking out into the starry blackness, "that is all to the good. He is a lightning rod, Delonghi. He is being held out into the dark specifically to see what forces he attracts. But he is not to be seen as having no value simply because he is being used as a lightning rod. In the old days, the very best ones used to be made at least partially of precious metal."
Kharls turned away from the viewport. "Now, obviously you want to go out and have a personal look into this situation… and meddle." Her face did not move at the word. "Well, you were a talented meddler for some years, which is why you're here with me and my people at all. I suppose we can hardly blame you for wanting to revert to type."
He sat down again. "In short, I've decided to allow you to do so. I am instructing you to go and examine this situation personally." Her eyes narrowed. Badly concealed triumph, which for the moment he declined to notice. "With the following conditions. You are not to interfere in any way with the subject's free pursuit of his own objectives. You may try to determine what they are or what hethinks they are. I require you to report to me regu
larly on the details. You are to pay particular attention to the attempts of other intelligence organizations to interfere with him. You are not yourself to interfere with those attempts."
"Even if they kill him?"
"They may look like they want to," said Kharls softly, "but I assure you, they do not. Theywill not either, unless someone fumbles badly. They are eager to find out whywe are so interested in him. As eager as you are, I dare say."
Atthat, she did have the grace to blush. Kharls did not react to this either. "You are to keep your own head down. Do not be noticed by them. For our own part, I want to know the sources oftheir interest — the motivations of whoever you find watching him or trying to affect him. No one spends so much time watching someone merely to discover what he knows that they don't. More often they watch to see what he knows thatthey know too… and what they fear for anyone else to find out." She nodded.
"You will return on recall," Kharls said. "Consult with the colonel and the captain about your equipment and cover. Otherwise, go do your work." "Thank you, sir," Delonghi said.
"I wouldn't," Kharls said, "until you come back with your job successfully completed." She turned to go.
" 'Middle justice,' " Kharls said softly. "I always wondered about that one."
He glanced up again. Hurriedly, she saluted him and left. The door slid shut behind her, leaving Kharls alone in his office.
She had her own agenda. Well, he had no interest in agents who didn't. The truly agendaless ones were too dangerous to trust with anything. It was always a risk, sending an operative out on really difficult business — especially since it was difficult to tell exactly how he or she would react. As he had said, he did not scruple to use the tainted or skewed asset when the moment came right. His job required him to use his tools — the lightning rod or the gun — with equanimity, to use them as effectively as their structures allowed, and to destroy them if necessary… and not to count the cost until the job was done. For Lorand Kharls, as he felt his way toward the secrets of the deadly and dangerous things that were slowly beginning to reveal themselves at the edges of the Verge, that would most likely be many years. For the lightning rod. .
