And that was another thing. Gabriel shook his head, for plainly she had not gotten the message earlier. "Enda," he said, "there's one big problem with this. I don't have anything like the kind of money even for a good system ship. I can afford some kind of banger, maybe, but not a decent one, and certainly not a driver. It's not the best idea, just a dream. The only thing I'm going to be able to do is hire myself on to somebody."
"As what?" Enda asked. Gabriel looked at her mournfully. "Some kind of glorified security guard? 'Muscle,' I believe is one of the commoner usages. I suggest, Gabriel, that you would be wasted in this role."
"Wasted maybe," Gabriel said, "but employed."
Enda made a graceful gesture of negation. "Not in a fraal's lifetime of such employment would you make enough to buy a driveship. And I speak from experience, for I have functioned as 'muscle' in my time, though the way fraal reckon such is a little different from the way such jobs function in the human world." She bowed her head "no" in a thoughtful way. "Other options will have to be examined. Meanwhile, there is a fairly active used ship market in this system, and the lending institutions are occasionally sympathetic to the right kind of inducement."
Gabriel suspected that the inducement in question would also involve interest rates that would cripple anything sentient. "Enda, really, you don't get it. I can't-"
"Who said that yours would be the only capital to be called upon here?" she asked. As Gabriel opened his mouth, she lifted a finger. He went quiet. "Now," she said, "hearken. I am nearly three hundred years old, and I have seen little enough of this galaxy in my time. I am getting on in years-" "You don't look a day over two hundred," Gabriel said.
She gave him a fraal's demure smile, which drew the upper lip down over the lower and made her look like an ineluctably wise five-year-old for just a flash. "Gallantry," she said, "the last refuge of the incurably latent. Gabriel, I am of a mind to see the worlds, or some more of them, anyway, without the vagaries of public transport interfering with my schedule. Not that I have a schedule. Occasionally in the past I have considered buying a small driveship, but either finances were unsupportive or I did not desire to hamper myself with the company of those I did not trust. Now I have both the time and the inclination, and I do not find the financial climate unsupportive. And there is someone else involved with whom to share the ship, someone I trust."
The incurably latent? Gabriel stared at her and shook his head. Never mind- "Why would you trust me?" She blinked at him. "Because you have nothing left to lose," she said.
Over in the corner, the singing had reached a crescendo from which Gabriel thought it could not possibly increase. He shortly found himself wrong.
"Now my suit's in pawn,
And creds all gone,
And head's too sore for shakin';
I'll take my chip,
Get back on ship,
And blast when dawn is breakin'
Oh, Lord above, send down a dove-"
Gabriel let out just a breath or so of laughter, considering that the song must go back to the Solar Union, to judge by the reference to "creds" instead of Concord dollars. Enda shook her own head, a gesture identical among humans and fraal. "Just what is a dove, Gabriel?"
In his mind he heard the ambassador say, Some kind of bug that gets in bed with you, and he winced again. "It's a bird," he replied. "Some kind of predator, I think, to go by the bit about the beak being like a razor."
"So," Enda said after a moment. "A ship. Not freight, you think?"
Gabriel was tempted, but he shook his head. "Doesn't seem smart. Not at the physical level, even. A marginal system like this probably already has most of the freight traffic it can handle. Not the high- margin stuff like infotrading, either. Too many things that could go wrong for a company just starting out."
She nodded, pushing her plate away. "One engine breakdown leaves you with a cargo of stale data and a pile of lawsuits. Not to mention the cost of the encryption software and the purchase price of the first load and the fact that we cannot go near Concord space." She sighed as the singing dissolved into a welter of coughs, hiccups, and at last into silence.
"There's one thing we could certainly do if we had to stay in this system for a while," Gabriel said, looking out into the dusk. The snow had now vanished from sight, but he could still hear it ticking faintly against the window. "Mining."
Enda looked slightly surprised, glancing around her. "I would not have thought you would so quickly start to enjoy this kind of environment," she said. "Typical enough of the miners' bars you will find in the Belt. Many will be even less congenial."
Gabriel shook his head. "I don't care for it in the slightest," he said. "But it's a way to make steady money, if slow, and it will pay for other things." "Grid access?" Enda asked softly. He looked up sharply at that.
"Doubtless you could conduct those researches easily enough on-planet," Enda said. "No one needs a ship for such. But at the same time, were I in your position, I would always wonder whether someone was looking over my shoulder-someone with the Concord in mind, for good or ill." She looked at him with an expression of which Gabriel could make little. "There will have been people in this system who will have noticed your connection to the old ambassador, and who would wonder what further use could be made of you in one way or another. I am sure you would prefer not to be stuck here waiting for your door to be broken down by one authority or another."
"Space would be safer," Gabriel said as softly, "and as you say, more private." "Also," Enda added, "you will be wanting to do some investigation of your own."
Gabriel looked at her, trying to find out what was going on in her head, but there was no point in it-fraal could be astonishingly inscrutable when they chose to be, their pale, slender faces showing nothing at all. "Enda," he said finally, "I was bought. Or bought and sold. I have to find out by whom and why. Friends died because of it, my career is over because of it, and before I stop breathing, I will know what happened to me. I will clear my name, no matter what it takes."
Enda slowly tilted her head to one side, then to the other. "From where you now sit," she said, "that will be a mighty undertaking. Even for a rich human, a powerful human, the kind of subterfuge that you wish to investigate would be difficult and dangerous. The more you discover, the more attention you will attract. attention from those who wish to see you tried in Concord space, or simply dead in whatever space is most convenient."