by Diane Duane
… he would have to wait and see.
Gabriel was desperately busy for a week and a half. Arrangements had to be made with the data tank installers on Grith, and while that happenedSunshine had to be landed at Diamond Point and kept in bond, with all the nuisance that entailed — signing in and out every time you came aboard and executing a full "incoming" inventory. Then came provisioning and victualling, with all those supplies having to be delivered to a different part of the bond facility, every box opened, every piece of replacement equipment checked. Then for the weaponry installation,Sunshine had to be taken out of bond again and trucked over to one of the unsealed parts of the port. Gabriel had laughed at the description of the area as "low security." He didn't think he had ever seen as many discreetly disguised missile launchers and energy weapons arrayed around a shipchandler's yard as he saw here.
This part of the work was easiest for Gabriel, for Helm came into his own here — never leaving the shipchandlery while anyone was working onSunshine, hanging over the mechanics' and engineers' shoulders, seeming to watch everything at once. They swore at him, but not too often. Everyone there knew that Helm was expert with weaponry, and though he did not seem to be "carrying," this impression could be a mistake.
"I never shot anybody for an honest mistake," he'd joke with them. The installers would laugh and keep a close eye on Helm while he checked the installation schematics against the circuit-solids that were going in.
The gunnery work — a very hush-hush removal of the old plasma cannon energy conduits and their replacement with new ones and new software to match — took three days. It might have taken four if Gabriel had allowed what Helm wanted, the removal of the rail cannon, but at the last moment he decided to keep it. Helm argued the point, but not hard, perhaps detecting that Gabriel had something on his mind. He did, but he couldn't explain it and refused to try. He was nervous enough about the work being done on the plasma cannons. They were not legal and were being carried "concealed" with flap ports typical of much more innocuous weapons covering them. The thought that someone whose silence had not been paid for might drop a word about those guns into the wrong ears was one that recurred more frequently to Gabriel the longer they stayed.
On the morning of the fourth day, they tookSunshine over to the other side of Diamond Point to a little private pad. There they left her under the supervision of guards whom Helm had hired while the data tanks were installed. All their shopping was done, so Gabriel had a day or so free — indeed, Helm told him to get lost, and Enda was nowhere to be found, still busy with lining up their infotrading contracts. Gabriel therefore spent a happy day doing tourist things, finally climbing up to the observation platform on the hundred-meter-high bluffs, a spot he had once visited as a marine and once again as a tourist a few months ago. Now he stood there in silence around sunset, watching as the huge reaches of Grith's tidal sea started to fill with the daily inrush. Despite all the activity in which he had been involved over the last few days, Gabriel's mind felt oddly empty, as if waiting for something to happen. He reached idly into his pocket and began to turn his luckstone over in his fingers. In some ways, the little stone was the last remnant of the life he'd led before being held for murder. Everything else from that pre-life was gone now… his uniforms, the notebooks for his studies, the various bits and pieces that a young man on active service picks up over a tour of duty. Only this remained, a token given him as a "lightening exercise" by a buddy who was going home and happily giving away every possible ounce of freight. Sometimes Gabriel thought he should get rid of this too, but the little thing was too evocative of the last of the good things about being a marine — the companionship, the sense that there were things worth fighting for and friends to fight beside. At first, he had not been able to think much about those friends. The screams of the ones he had killed echoed through his dreams for weeks. He still heard them, but not as often. Gabriel thought as he looked down at the ten-kilometer-long waves of the shallow tidal sea, when will I stop hearing them altogether? Will that be a good thing if Ihaven't found out who killed them?
There would be time for that. He would not stop looking. In the meantime. . better to try to get on with some other kind of life.
He made his way back to the ship that evening to sleep aboard. The next morning, the installation crew unceremoniously rousted Gabriel out, telling him not to come back until lunchtime. When he did, he heard a voice echoing downSunshine's middle corridor. Gabriel paused — then realized with a jolt of happy surprise whose voice that was. "Delde Sota!" he called.
She turned toward him, smiling that cool wise smile of hers as Gabriel stepped out. "Greeting: looking well, Gabriel."
"So are you," Gabriel said.
It was true, for she was quite handsome, even when you reckoned her looks by strictly human standards. Easily two meters tall, Delde Sota had long dark silvershot hair pulled straight back from her high forehead. Around shoulder level her shaggy mane was braided, the silver sheen of the cyberneural fiber and custom-made prehensile fibrils weaving in patterns through the hair as the braid tapered and became more complex. Finally, there was only a slender silver tail at the end, which might lie still or part itself again and weave itself into many-fibrilled patterns while the doctor considered something. This was most of the time. Delde Sota was not one whose mind was long inactive, and she seemed to consider it part of her business to keep you thinking, too.
Enda was there as well, which surprised Gabriel. He had expected her to spend another day out in town, but here she was chatting with doctor, who was dressed for travel in the usual mechalusrlin noch 'i, the simple utilitarian one-piece garment that covered the body from neck to feet — a soft gray-silver, in Delde Sota's case. Over this, she wore a long, wide-sleeved, floppy overcoat of some soft fluffy charcoal-colored material, a marked contrast to the slick gleam of therlin noch'i. Gabriel was bemused by how pleased he was to see the doctor. It was not merely that she had been a great help to him and Enda — she had. There was a peculiarly cheerful quality to her that made the power and complexity of her personality pleasant to be around.
"Doctor, what brings you over this way?" Gabriel said. "I'd hoped we'd see you before we left, but I didn't think it would be here."
"Agenda: business," said the doctor. "Also have been in touch with Helm Ragnarsson about your plans.
Suggestion from him: desired in-depth system check of your ship's software with an eye to — shall we say? — tampering. Have found none."
She paused as if to give Gabriel a chance to say something, but the silence was a comment. There were indeed some devices aboardSunshine that enabled the ship to be monitored from outside. They were there at Gabriel's sufferance, for the time being, and he only thought about them when he chose to. Gabriel simply blinked at Delde Sota, and the end of her braid wreathed about and tied itself into a brief knot before undoing itself again. "Thank you, Doctor," he said. "Query: departure time?" Delde Sota said. "Response: uncertain as yet."
Gabriel looked over at Enda. She gave him a smile that, for its intensity, was unusual. "We have no more business to do here after our tanks are full," Enda said, "and full they will be. The response has been better than I had hoped — far better. We now are only delayed by the remaining time that the tank installation will take. When that is done, we may download from the planetary Grid and be away immediately."
"Reaction: congratulation," said Delde Sota. "Propitious start. Wish that your business may continue so." She gave Gabriel a look, suggesting that she was referring to other aspects of his business as well. "If you'd like to check the tanks when the loading is finished," Gabriel said, "also with an eye to 'Tampering,' I would appreciate it."
"Statement: would appreciate it myself," said Delde Sota, her eyes glinting with amusement. Data tanking was usually proprietary hardware — something into which a mechalus was always delighted to get her wires with an eye to simulating it for her own purposes. "Query: this will not violate any end-user
agreements?"
Enda bowed her head "no" and said, "Obviously you may not examine the data itself, which lies within confidentiality seal and encryption, but as for the tanks—"
Delde Sota smiled. "Statement: know something about confidentiality myself," she said. "Ancillary statement—"
She broke off. Gabriel smiled, hearing a mechalus joke. Computer circuitry and software were part of the physical world through which Delde Sota moved, almost an element, like air or water, and part of her own being. As a skilled former Grid pilot, no level of encryption would long have kept Delde Sota out if she had her mind set on making her way through it, but she did not. Her ethics were as hard and dependable as the circuitry she had weaving through her.
"How long will you be with us, Doctor?" Enda said. "Will you have time for a meal before we leave?" "Reply: numerous," Delde Sota said, turning away from her brief attention to the Grid access panel across the hall from them. "Information: I will be accompanying Helm Ragnarsson onLongshot to Terivine." Gabriel's mouth fell open. "Wha— Delde Sota, that's wonderful! But what about your job on Iphus?" "Clarification: have taken extended sabbatical," said the doctor. "Requirements for service at Iphus Collective, medical, medico-mechanical, have dropped off nearly thirty percent over past two months. Assistant physician complaining of boredom." She grinned, a briefly fierce look. "Conjecture: no more complaints for the immediate future." "Why the drop-off, do you think?" Enda said.
Delde Sota gave Enda a thoughtful look. "Theory: pressure from VoidCorp against independent mining operations on Iphus Collective increasing. Theory: VoidCorp pressure also being exerted against Collective facility proper, with a view to forcing closure."
"They have wanted that for a long time," Enda said. "Do you think our recent activities might be responsible for this increased pressure?"
"Reply: uncertain," the doctor said. "Agreement: action has been in train for some time. Speculation: other influences may also be responsible."
She turned to look over at the Grid access panel. "Extenuating circumstances: any job grows wearying with too much time in a single place. Medicine may be practiced anywhere. Oaths pack small and light. Other equipment requires more time." She glanced sideways at Gabriel. "Phymech on Helm's ship has been upgraded to high standard. Query: has yours been serviced lately?"
"Not since you last looked at it."
"Have closeout deal on new upgrade pack," Delde Sota said. "Twenty percent off. Twenty-five for old and trusted customers."
Enda laughed and covered her eyes, a gesture indicating that the fraal who made it could not cope with present events and was considering taking up the contemplative life. "Another of your discounts! Gabriel, take her somewhere quiet and negotiate with her, or push her into the tank hold and lock her in, whichever you please."
"Twenty-three percent," Delde Sota said over her shoulder as Gabriel guided her away, "for insufficient show of enthusiasm."
They walked downSunshine's hall to look through the round port in the door that gave onto the main hold. Once the hold would have been a large empty space. Now it was filled with rack after rack of data storage facility, the "tank," a series of ceiling-to-floor frames filled with heavy-duty data storage solids and their holding and processing shells. Occasionally a fraal or human technician could be seen squeezing among the racks, always with arms full of more solids. Closer to the door, another technician was installing the high-speed upload and download channeling transmitters that would allow the carried data to be dumped to a system grid or planetary facility on arrival.
"Very impressive," Delde Sota said, peering through the heavy glass, and the end of her braid twitched. "It'll be another couple of days before they assign us our system address and bring the automatic router online," Gabriel said. "They have to finish the local network testing first." He sighed. "A whole new set of software to learn and no room to maneuver if a mistake gets made."
"Opinion: software not all that complex," said Delde Sota, "and will be within call if you need assistance." Gabriel leaned against the wall. "What brought this on?" he said.
"Statement: have dealt with that issue," said Delde Sota, but her neural braid was wreathing again, tying itself in a small tight knot. "Addendum…" She looked through the window. "Sense of things moving. Generalized shifts in political stances, of balance of power among stellar nations. Feeling. . that there might be wisdom in relocation elsewhere while situation settles down."
Gabriel nodded. "I was going to ask if you'd be willing to act as a recipient for some data for me, but since you're coming with us… Do you have anyone remaining in Corrivale that you trust to receive sensitive material?"
"Response: Ondway, certainly. Query: type of data?"
"I have some Grid searches underway for old personnel information on the man who called himself 'Jacob Ricel,' " Gabriel said. "The search material is coming to our local Corrivale-based Grid address. But withSunshine now designated for infotrading, she'll get a new address and routing codes, and the old ones can't be carried aboard her any more — the infotrade authorities won't permit multiple addressing for haulers. I was wondering if someone in the system could hold anything that came in for me till we pass this way again."
"Solution: pass keywords to Ondway," Delde Sota said. "Research materials safe with him. Query: manage for you?"
"I'd appreciate that," Gabriel said. "Come on through and you can take what you need out of the ship's Grid system."
She wandered back up the hallway with Gabriel and leaned against the bulkhead in the sitting room while her braid insinuated itself into the fold-down control panel that serviced the ship's Grid access. Gabriel leaned over the control panel and touched in his password.
Delde Sota raised her eyebrows. "Result," she said, "system configuration and keyword material found.
Store?"
"Please."
She nodded and straightened up. "Secure. Intention: will pass this information to Ondway this evening. Satisfactory?"
"Absolutely. Thanks, Doctor."
"Mission statement: mental health requirements not to be ignored in favor of physical/infrastructure needs," said Delde Sota as Enda came back in, carrying the small plastic water bottle that she used to water her pet plant. "Body, mind, dichotomy illusory/false. Query: plant sprout yet?"
Enda gave her a look. "There is no point in hurrying something that is not ready," she said. "Some would say that owning aGyrofresia is simply a disguised exercise in the art of patience."
"Opinion: too much patience bad for the bile ducts," said Delde Sota, and turned toward the lift.
"Intention: completion of errands. Helm will contact me when departure imminent." Delde Sota waved a hand; she vanished into the lift, and her braid followed a moment later.
Gabriel sat down. "You said we were going out full?"
Enda nodded, putting theGyrofresia bulb in its little ceramic pot onto one of the service ledges. "We have done unusually well for a first load," Enda said, pouring water carefully on the bulb. "You mean we had a lot of help."
"From Ondway and his connections in Diamond Point. . yes."
"Connections that would not otherwise have given their business to a first-time operation," Gabriel said. Enda tilted her head to one side. "Goodwill, as they call it, is worth a great deal. We have a lot of it aboard, and we must do what we can to repay it. We must make this first run with all due speed. Some people will be watching carefully how we perform." "And some to see how our performance can be interfered with."
Enda sighed. "Unquestionably. For the meantime, doing our job with care will be the best defense." She went down the hall again, leaving Gabriel to sit and wonder whether it would be enough. Still, with Helm along to help with defense and Delde Sota there for computer and medical problems, we're as well prepared as we can be.
Gabriel sighed, got up, and headed off to the utility closet down the hall. If he was going to worry, he could at least scrub something while he did it.
Chapter
Three
THREE DAYS LATER,Sunshine departed Grith. The day before departure was the tensest because of a bureaucratic problem. The ship's infotrader routing address, the complex set of passwords, encryption routines, and system information that would identify it to planetary grids, had not come through from the nearest assigning authority on Aegis. That information itself was coming in on another infotrader, since Corrivale had no drivesat relay of its own. Without that address, there was no point inSunshine leaving the system at all. Yet much of the data she was carrying was time-sensitive. The guarantees under which the data had been embarked inSunshine specified that most of it had to be dumped at Terivine within fifty-five days. If the guarantees were broken, the fees for the data haulage had to be first discounted, then refunded if the delay was more than a hundred and twenty-one hours past the designated time of delivery.
Gabriel and Enda spent the day worrying in their respective styles. Gabriel paced up and down outside the ship, since he had already cleaned everything aboard that could be cleaned. Enda sat still, looking at her favorite vista of grass flowing in an alien wind on the Grid access display.
"At least," she said to Gabriel, "I will find out quickly enough when anything happens."
Two hours later, everything moved into high gear as the other infotrader made starrise in the system, cleared Grith landing control, and dumped its data to the planetary Grid. The access panel chimed, then lit up with all manner of bizarre error messages.
"Oh no, something else has gone wrong," Gabriel moaned and ran back to the hold.
"Gabriel," Enda called from the sitting room, "is the holding system set to 'active'?"
