"Ships seemed impossible to come by," said Kaiste, "so for the time being we concentrated on making air that we could breathe, turning this world into somewhere we could stay while we made the tools to build the tools to construct the ships. We knew that sooner or later we would be noticed, but we kept very quiet and worked to keep that notice from happening for as long as possible. And life actually became settled. We had enough food for the first time, enough water, enough hope-just enough." Kaiste shook his head. "Then came the near-betrayal-and after that the attacks started to come. Our people go out suited, to mine the various metals available here, to tend the various thermal caves where we have been providing light for crops and from which we release the greenhousing gases. What became plain was that someone was watching our comings and goings. Small ships began to come down from space and take our people. There is no time when we are safe from them. They come in gloom or dark; it's all one to them."
"Are these little round ships?" Gabriel asked, making the shape with his hands.
All the sesheyans around him froze. Kaiste looked at him with great suspicion, his foremost eyes narrowing.
"Some have reported such," he answered, "but it is very unusual to see them and live afterward. For a long time they were simply another kind of unhewoi, something that came and vanished, taking one of us with it."
"Unhewoi?" Gabriel asked.
Enda tilted her head to one side as if shaking her head in regret. "It is a word for the Taker," she said, "the Beast that waits in the shadow of the woods and snatches you away. Bad sesheyan children are threatened with the Unhewoi if they don't behave. Many species have such a figure," Enda shivered, "But none expect it to become real."
"For months now we have scarcely dared to go out," said Kaiste. "Our situation was bad enough when the traders stopped coming. We thought perhaps the Company had somehow gotten wind of us, even though the freighter captain had not been able to complete her message to them. Our fear was great, and our privation has slowly been growing. We were depending too much, perhaps, on what the traders brought us. Then this worse danger came upon us, and though we need trade, we dare not expose others to the danger. Others have tried to come, even from Grith, but we have warned them to stop lest they too be taken. We live in a prison now, and we do not know for sure how we will ever escape." Gabriel's heart turned over in him. It would be a long time before he forgot his own taste of prison and the possibility of living in it forever. "There must be something we can do for you." "The kindest thing is to leave," said Kaiste. "The attacks are always worse after people from Outside are here. We are resigned to our fate. We made it ourselves; we must bear it ourselves." He shuddered. "Worse yet, we would not be able to bear it if they came and took you."
That image of Enda, dead in a gel-filled suit, the blue eyes quenched, her face stretched and distorted with rage and pain, hit Gabriel again-hit him so hard that it was all he could do to keep from jumping to his feet and heading back to Sunshine.
He looked up after a moment. "We'll go tomorrow," Gabriel said, "but I don't promise not to come back." Kaiste shook his head. "Your courage does you credit, but you only endanger us as well as yourselves. Please go with our good will. You will keep our secret from the Company, I know. But beware to whom you speak of us. They do not forget."
No one had much heart for conversation after that. The sesheyans showed Gabriel and Enda to a screened-off cubicle where they could have some privacy until the morning. There was no problem regarding warmth-the stone wall to one side of them was hot, and a pool of hot water bubbled up in the corner of their cubicle. But Gabriel had no joy of it, though at any other time he would have stood on his head in a pool half the size and praised it all out of proportion.
"We have to do something to help them," he said for about the twentieth time, some hours after they had been left there. Sleep would not come anywhere near him, and Enda had given up on it too since Gabriel plainly could neither lie still nor be quiet.
"I wait to hear a plan from you," Enda said rather wearily, "but I have yet to hear anything coherent." "It's hard to plan coherently when there's still the matter of those VoidCorp fighters to think about." "They are no longer a problem, I would have thought."
"That's not what I mean. Where did they come from? It's not that they couldn't have had stardrive, but it's not all that usual. It would make more sense for their base carrier to be around here somewhere, yet there's been no sign of it."
"Possibly they're afraid of attracting as much attention as such a large VoidCorp ship would produce should it appear in Thalaassa system without warning," Enda replied, "especially if they thought Schmetterling was going to be here to take official notice."
"I don't believe they wouldn't be pretty well informed of the comings and goings of Concord ships," Gabriel said. Still Enda might have a point. Or there might be some other reason entirely. He sighed and sat down. "I just don't know," he said. "If I could only-"
Both their handheld comm receivers, tucked in their pockets, beeped softly. Gabriel looked at Enda, who shook her head and reached into her pocket to turn hers off.
The air whispered in Gabriel's ear that this was a mistake. He swallowed, then shook his head and took his comm out, thumbing it open for reception.
"You two still awake down there?" said Helm's voice from both their handhelds.
Enda gave Gabriel a rather dire look, for all around them the cavern had suddenly gone very quiet.
Gabriel swallowed again, very certain that this was not because everyone had suddenly gone to bed.
"Helm," Enda said, "I fear dawn will have no secrets from either of us. Why are you still awake?"
"Not my night yet. I was talking to Delde Sola."
"Statement: still is," came the doctor's voice down the comms.
"Delde Sola," Gabriel said immediately, "you are an angel with a wire hairdo. I will change your batteries any time, but what are you doing in this system?"
Delde Sola snickered. "Conjecture: thought gallantry was dead. Objective statement: Helm called me earlier, suggested presence here might be useful. Made excuse to Iphus authorities, called in favor, found outgoing transport. Location: Ino at moment, completing 'supply run.' Needed to do some shopping anyway."
"An angel," Gabriel repeated, "but the analysis-can you do that from this distance?"
"Affirm," Delde Sota said. "I am on the Grid. Helm is on the Grid. Longshot's computer is on the Grid and connects to my sensor extension-my braid-in his weapons bay. Object is in his weapons bay. Preparing now."
"The braid has one of those atomic-level microporous tendril attachments," Helm said. "All she has to do is touch it to something and it goes right through-" "I've seen it," Gabriel said. "Slick."
"Request: quiet for a moment please," Delde Sota said. "Interfacing."
Gabriel and Enda looked at each other. The silence in the cavern was even greater than it had been. Kaiste was standing in the opening between their private space and the main hall, looking at them grimly with a sabot pistol in his claw.
Gabriel looked up at him, wondering whether this was something that would have happened whether he and Enda had suddenly started to communicate with someone on the outside or not. Did they ever intend to let us leave, really? Have we been under a death sentence since we got here, no matter how good our intentions were? Not that it mattered now.
"Kaiste, it's Ondway's friends we're talking to," Gabriel explained and surprised himself somewhat with his own anger. "They know you're here, and they haven't betrayed you any more than we intend to. If you're going to shoot us, at least wait until the doctor finds out what you need to know. Then do what you like." He turned his back on Kaiste, rude though it was. His back itched at the feeling of the pistol leveled at it.