Diane Duane - Starrise at Corrivale

The man looked in one direction and the woman in another, toward their respective staffs. Gabriel saw the hungry glint of eyes in one face, the set mouth, hard and vengeful, in the other. Both expressions frightened him, for they were wholly about personal pleasure, personal point-scoring, nothing better. Lives of thousands of millions of people would be affected by what had happened here today. Thousands (Gabriel thought, Gabriel hoped) would now not have to die. But neither of these two cared, not really. They were much more interested at this particular moment in getting back at people who had called them names or embarrassed them in public. And how many of their other moments are like this? Gabriel thought, trying hard to keep the look out of his face. How many of my brothers and sisters might have to die protecting the ambassador if these two should suddenly decide that she has embarrassed them?

"These proceedings are therefore complete," said Delvecchio, "and the only detail remaining is your signature, sir, and yours, madam, on the instrument of agreement. And I congratulate you on becoming so notable a part of your worlds' history."

The two bowed to Delvecchio across the table and reached out to their assistants for styli. Just a little hesitation there? Gabriel thought, but he could not be certain he had seen it. The two cart-based copies of the document were inserted into pad readers and pushed across to each of the signatories by one of their assistants. Each of them signed. That hesitation again. It was there. And then it was over.

Delvecchio stood. The two seated delegations looked at her.

"Thank you," she said. "This is of course the informal version of the ceremony. If you would be so kind as to inform me when you have had a chance to discuss this with your governments, I will be pleased to be at the ceremony tomorrow where this accommodation is made public. In time for the opening of the markets in the most closely involved systems, of course."

"Certainly, ambassador. But as for the formal signing, it will take time to arrange, and in a few days we can-"

"The fine print," said the ambassador, "says 'tomorrow.' "

The signatories looked at her. Then silently they both bowed to her again and made their way out. Gabriel watched them go, ErDaishan and Rallet, each with his or her little soberly dressed entourage, each walking rather ostentatiously next to the other. It seemed to Gabriel as he watched them go that he had never seen two people be so far apart who had only a meter of space between them. They were entirely aware of the watching eyes, the listening ears. They were practicing their act. They would have to have it right by tomorrow after all.

The room emptied rather quickly, as if something unpleasant hung in the air, a scent that people were anxious to be rid of in a hurry. Finally, it was as it had been the other morning: Gabriel and the ambassador-she slowly gathering up her papers and carts, he watching her, and after a moment, moving to help.

For some minutes she said nothing, ordering her papers, looking at some of them more carefully than others, holding up one cart-the one with the rewritten agreement on it-and placing it carefully on the top of the pile. Then she breathed out, just once, a weary sound.

When she looked up again, some of the tiredness was gone from her eyes, but not all of it. "So how did that look to you?" she said.

"Ugly," Gabriel said after a moment.

Delvecchio nodded. "Ours is the stepchild of the military arts," she said. "Guns are faster. Cruisers are prettier." She straightened and looked at Gabriel. "But sometimes we win the fight, and people don't die. Sometimes."

She picked up the one last thing, her cane, and went out the door. Gabriel swallowed, for she was actually using it. She walked out carefully, looking not like a sword or a banner, but like a woman of a hundred and thirty-three. Victory, Gabriel thought, not winged, but hobbling.

It was all very strange. He took a long breath and decided that after he was finished piling up the stripes and the bars, the Diplomatic service would have first call.

THE PARTY STARTED fairly early that night. Normally shipboard protocol would have forbidden two parties one right after the other. But this situation was a little different, and the relief aboard-among both Star Force and marine staff-was so palpable that the captain gave her approval with very little trouble. Gabriel had one stop to make before the party. After giving it some consideration, he felt that the way to attract the least attention was to do exactly what he was supposed to be doing: delivering a message to someone in Engineering. Torine Meldrum down there was on his spatball team. He wrote her a note about the rescheduling of practice and then wrote eleven more notes to other teammates, slipping them into message boxes outside people's rooms or delivering them by hand to those he knew to be on duty. Additionally, he wrote one note not to a teammate, and as he passed by Jake on the way out of Engineering, he saw that Jake got it without anyone seeing.

Then he changed into his most formal uniform, getting ready to go to the signing celebration. When he came out of his room, there was a folded note in his own message box. He opened it. For the one who mentioned ghosts, said the note. Deliver unlabeled. Out of the note fell a little datachip: another message, encoded.

Gabriel, suddenly apprehensive, looked at it for a moment. All of this covert moving in the shadows and keeping secrets made him very uneasy, but he decided that he was only a low link on a long chain of authority. Surely his superiors knew what they were doing. So he went back to his desk, found an envelope into which he slipped the chip, then folded it down and activated the seal. The paper melted into itself, seamless. It was a matter of a few minutes to make his way downdecks to the second ambassador's quarters. She was not there, so Gabriel slipped the envelope into the slot of her message box and went off to the party, wondering what it had all been about.

The partying down in the reconverted main briefing room was unusually wild, at least by shipboard standards. There was a lot more singing than usual-at least what passed for singing-and the jokes were louder than normal. Everything, movement, talk, even the eating and drinking, had a slight edge about it. The edge of the sword just sheathed, Gabriel thought. Relief. He was feeling it himself. He was a marine and liked to fight, but there was something about this particular fight that he would have found distasteful. Maybe because I've become too familiar with the details. One part of his mind immediately resolved not to get involved with the details any more. Another part denounced the first one as a coward. To shut them both up, he headed over toward the bar where he heard at least one familiar voice. Big Mil from Callirhoe was standing there having a talk with Charles, who was in front of the bar for a change. Mil was looking very amused and slightly outraged, enough so that Gabriel suspected Charles had told Mil about the Squadron Special. Some of the spatball team began to appear as well when they saw Gabriel there. All had an eye to telling their team captain that he was a little too intense about what was supposed to be a sport.

"This is the second time you've rescheduled the meeting," Torine said, having arrived a little after coming off duty. "Can't we just sort this out when we do our normal five on five game at the weekend? Don't you think some of us have other concerns?"

"Of course he doesn't," Dietmar said, looming his blond self up from behind the bar. "In his own mind, we are all as conscientious and duty-struck as our little Gabe."

The others made various disgusting choking noises. Gabriel rolled his eyes. "All right, all right, all of you, it can wait until the weekend! But don't you want to beat the Starfies?" "Depends on how the money goes," someone muttered.