Nightfall_at_Algemron

"It's not a problem, sir," Delonghi replied, privately considering that no Concord Administrator did anything without a reason, no matter how random his or her motives might seem to the uneducated observer.
"Very well," he said. He stood there a moment wiping away sweat and getting his breath back. "I've never seen one of those used," Delonghi said.
Kharls looked momentarily surprised then glanced at the tri-staff. "What? Oh, but this wasn't use." "You could have fooled me," Delonghi said.
He threw her a wry look that suggested, without needing so many words, that in fact in the past he had certainly done so but was too courteous at the moment to pick up on her straight line directly. "No," Kharls said after a moment, "believe me, when this gets used, really used, then life and death are on the line." He looked at the staff with a certain amount of pleasure. "Of course you need practice in handling it. getting the moves right. There's never enough time for that, but I make what opportunities I can."
It was entirely too tempting to take him casually, this little bald man. He was not at all plump. Delonghi suspected that Concord Administrators' lives ran at too high a speed for them ever to put on much weight. The overt effect of the baldness and shortness together somehow suggested a jolly man, a
cheerful soul. Then you saw the eyes and the rest of the face, and that impression went entirely out of your mind. The cheer was there all right, but there was a ferocious, cool intelligence behind it—a sense that this man might do anything at all in the course of his business, which, as the motto said, was peace. Still, Delonghi knew that Kharls was not above producing a fair amount of conflict and trouble along the way if he felt them required to produce the final result for a large enough group of people. In this he merely proved himself true to his kind, for Concord Administrators were no armchair politicians. They went where they were needed, from the inner worlds to the emptiest and most dangerous spaces of the Verge. They took action—sometimes quite brutal action—and took the responsibility without shirking it. The tri-staff was symbolic of their need to handle it personally, "getting their hands dirty," which, as judge, jury, and executioner, they often enough did.
"Meanwhile," Kharls said, "I've been waiting for some matters to come to a head, and they've finally done so, which is why I've sent for you." He lifted the staff again, executed a neat if large reverse moulinet with it. "Gabriel Connor."
Delonghi had expected as much and restrained herself from letting so much as a flicker of expression show. "Where is he now?"
"Surely you know," Kharls said, "being Intel and having something of an interest in the man's case."
I won't swear in front of him, Delonghi thought, I won't! "Aegis, at the moment," she said. "I think he's planning to change equipment. It's a good place to buy a new ship."
Kharls nodded slowly and for a few moments looked up into the air as if examining a distant landscape. "Other things he can be doing there as well," Kharls said. "I wonder."
He fell silent.
"I don't see why you won't let us take him," Delonghi said. "The new identity—"
"Please," Kharls said, lifting a hand. "Commander, you must understand that I know there's some animus in Intel regarding this particular case. It's always annoying when someone produces results so wide-ranging without either funding or the appropriate clearances. Worse yet when they appear to be on the wrong side of the law."
"He is on the wrong side of the law," Delonghi said, "and when the Marines catch up with him—"
"You have been talking to Captain Dareyev, I see," Kharls said and smiled slightly. "Well, why wouldn't you? Cross-discipline messes are welcome enough on these long hauls away from home."
Once again, the thought struck Delonghi that there might be other reasons why the various forces aboard Star Force ships were encouraged to mingle so freely in their off-duty hours. Star Force had its own Intel, but so did the Marines, and—
She choked off that thought for the moment, for Kharls was looking at her thoughtfully.
"You know of course that there is some animus between her and Connor as well," Kharls said, more quietly. "More than usual, under the circumstances. Not particularly surprising, since they were such good friends before, and when a death comes between friends this way, the results can be unexpectedly bitter. And there are other considerations as well."
He was looking, it seemed to Delonghi, straight through her. The expression made her want to shiver. "You wouldn't know about those, would you," said Kharls, "or have any little suspicions that the captain had more irons in the fire concerning Connor than she's entirely willing to let on?"
Delonghi was only able to shake her head numbly.
"Well," Kharls sighed. "I suspect some, but then I suspect so many things, and this isn't any more or less likely than the rest of them." Again that very disturbing look, as if he could see right into the bottom of her. "Well," Kharls said, "Aegis. What would you do, if you had your druthers?"
Delonghi swallowed, for this was exactly what she had been afraid he would ask her. "While it would make the Marines happy to send someone straight there and arrest him—"
"Doubtless it would. I take it they don't yet have Star Force Intel's information about his present alias?"
Delonghi shook her head again, hoping desperately that what she presently knew about this situation would not show.
"Well, if they ask, obviously interservice courtesy will have to be done, and the information shared." "Will it? 'Obviously'?" Delonghi asked.
This time, when he looked at her, his eyes flashed. It was an entirely approving expression, and Delonghi was not sure that being on the receiving end of it was any more comfortable than receiving one of his more censorious looks. "If they ask," said Kharls, "of course. Meantime, though, you had a further thought."
Delonghi swallowed and spoke. "Connor has been allowed to run for the value of what he's been turning up. Obviously Danwell and the events there are an example of the kind of thing he turns up. Not just Danwell itself, either."
"No, indeed," said Kharls. "Some odd things began happening in that system a short time after Connor arrived. Of course, you arrived then, too, and so did that VoidCorp security operative. There might be some who would find the waters muddied by the additional personnel. So much the better. Now he's off again looking for another ship, you say."
"We think he wants to extend his range so that he'll have less trouble hunting down whatever he's after now."
"And you think this is.?"
Delonghi paused and shook her head. "We're not sure," she said. "It's unlikely to be anything having directly to do with the warrant out on him. If he were hunting evidence to back his claim that he's been framed or duped, he'd be looking toward more populated areas, not into the back end of the Verge. We've been able to track some of his Grid usage, and he's been paying a lot of attention to places like Mantebron and High Mojave. Nothing back this way."
Kharls nodded and turned away. "Well, that matches my thinking somewhat. Now, the crunch. Doubtless you would like to look further into this matter. Why should I send you?"
The next few moments stretched out unnaturally long for Delonghi, for she had not expected to be asked this question. She had botched her last mission involving Connor—botched it spectacularly. She had returned to her posting on Schmetterling, and to her continuing shock, for the next couple of months, nothing had happened. No review board, no loss of grade and pay. The uneventful quality of those months had been horrifying—all of them spent in the same job, all of them spent waiting for the axe to fall. Each time she had started to become a little numb, thinking that perhaps she would be let off the hook and allowed to continue her career from the point just before she screwed it up, there would come some small reminder that this was not to be the case. Kharls had not forgotten. Always, when her pay