Diane Duane - Storm at Eldala

Shortly thereafter, they had bottles of kalwine, and small metal dishes began arriving, full of portions of cooked vegetables. At least that was what Gabriel thought they were. It became plain that the dinner was going to be one of those at which you eat a great number of unidentifiable but delicious things and are never afterwards clear about exactly what you had or how to get it again.

The laughter and the talking at their table got ever more cheerful and seemed to spread as the evening drew on (though the light outside didn't change) and the community center around them filled with people eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. Gabriel found himself enjoying the good cheer, though he wondered if there wasn't a slightly nervous cast to it — as if practically the whole community of Sunbreak was gathered in this large room, making a brave noise against the vast silence of the world outside, a world beautiful but essentially inimical, a world very much alone.

The second time the thought came up, Gabriel shook his head and poured himself another glass of the kalwine, turning his attention to Delde Sota, who was in the middle of some mechalus joke that she was telling Helm for the second time. " — couldn't find his head. Result: the captain says, 'Screw its eyes out and see if they work better.' " "I still don't get it."

"Semantic problem," Delde Sota said, lifting her glass with her braid, while propping her chin up on both fists, her elbows on the table. " 'Head' is—"

"Excuse me," said a voice off to the left. They all looked up.

Standing by the table was a small man, dressed in the kind of long tunic and baggy breeches that some people from Bluefall favored. He was plump and round faced, with little eyes looking at them dubiously.

"You the people who landed those two ships up the port this afternoon?"

"Yes," Gabriel answered.

"Infotrading?" the man said.

"That's right," Helm said.

"Well, I run the infotrading company here. Alwhirn Company. I'm Rae Alwhirn."

"Yes, we've heard of you," Gabriel said and got up to extend a hand to the man. "Pleased to meet you. Gabriel Connor—"

"The pleasure's not mutual," Alwhirn said, and looked at Gabriel's hand as if it were dirty. Then he darted a glance at Helm, and quickly away again. "Not at all. We don't want your kind here." "What exactly would 'my kind' be?" Gabriel said. "Speculation: competition?" said Delde Sota.

The man glared at her, then at Gabriel. "You think we don't read the news we carry? We know what you were up to in the Thalaassa system. First murder — then union-busting—" Gabriel stared, and laughed. "Excuse me?"

"Those sesheyans you were hauling all over space were Employees," Alwhirn said. "You were in the middle of that big Concord PR exercise to make them look like 'free' sesheyans, poor oppressed people who got the wrong end of the stick somehow." He sneered. "The same way you did, huh? I suppose you're going to try to tell us someone set you up to make it look like you killed all those marines, your own buddies, that someone framed you—" Gabriel was silent for a moment. "Were you there?" "What? I read the—" "Were you there?"

"Of course I wasn't there, I have a job to do, unlike some people who try to come in out of nowhere and take my business away. If you think—"

"What we've brought into the system is new business," Gabriel said, "from Grith and Iphus. Business you never went out of your way to find. You've been bringing in data from Aegis and Tendril and not much else. Now if I wanted to—"

"See that," Alwhirn growled. "You come to spy on us and—"

"Your business here is a matter of public record," Gabriel said wearily. "If you—"

"So is yours," Alwhirn said. "Murder. Get out of here before you regret having come in the first place."

Gabriel took a breath. "If I was a murderer, you'd be asking for trouble. A good thing that there are witnesses to the statement."

Alwhirn glanced around the table then turned away. As he went, he muttered something. They stared after him, but he was out the front door a few seconds later. Other people turned to watch him go, then looked at Gabriel and the others. Not all the looks were friendly.

Gabriel sat down again, and looked at the glass of kalwine in front of him, just refilled. All of a sudden it had lost a great deal of its savor.

" That was strange," he said.

"Granted," Enda said. "What do you make of it?"

Delde Sota shook her head. Helm, for the moment, was looking toward the door and windows. "Bad news travels fast," he said under his breath.

"It's Infotrade Interstellar that I would have expected this kind of thing from," Gabriel said. "Not the local independents!" He pulled his glass close again. "What's the matter with these people, anyway? It's not as if we're taking food out of their mouths."

"I have seen much human behavior in my time," Enda said, "but I do not consider myself a specialist. Though 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…

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 outside Sunshine 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?