“He’s probably selling something,” said Marius.
“If he is, then you’ll deal with him, by damn.”
“That’s why I get the big salary.”
Tom Rom was a tall, striking man with dark skin and a lean physique. His sinewy muscles were in all the right places, wrapped like monofiber cables around his bones. He had a long face with prominent cheekbones and bright eyes. A formfitting polymer suit clung to him like a reinforced skin. “Mr. Kellum, I’ve come to investigate your distillations for possible medicinal uses.” His voice was rich and deep as if he had taken Shakespearean training, but this man did not look like an actor. Not at all.
Del stroked his beard and chuckled. “Medicinal uses? I’ve heard that one before.” Of course, Tamo’l did use some of the formulations to ease the suffering of her misbreeds in the sanctuary domes, but he doubted that was what Tom Rom meant.
The strange visitor fixed him with a gaze as intense as a high-energy spotlight. “It is precisely why I’m here.”
Marius broke in, “We’re always happy to sell our products, Mr. Rom.”
“Call me Tom Rom—my full name, no honorific, appropriate for all purposes. No need to shorten.”
Del found it odd, but he had met, and done business with, plenty of odd people. “Fair enough. Do you work for a company? A research project? Anything special you’re looking for?”
“My employer is Zoe Alakis, and she conducts privately funded medical research. We’d like samples of your raw materials for biological analysis. Some of the natural Kuivahr substances may have pharmaceutical uses.”
“Never heard of Zoe Alakis,” Del said.
“My employer likes to keep a low profile.”
Del said, “We make no medical claims. Our fine distillations are meant to be imbibed and enjoyed.”
Marius muttered under his breath, “Enjoying them might be a little much.”
Tom Rom ignored the comment. “Cost is no object. I require an exhaustive list of your base ingredients and your distillations, as well as liberal examples of each item so we can catalog them. I understand that some kelp extracts and plankton varieties produce unusual effects in humans?”
“And Ildirans.” Del patted his rounded stomach again. “Mr. Denva here will set you up. We’ll even throw in a batch of Ildiran kirae—it tingles when you drink it, but no human can stand more than a sip.”
Tom Rom was utterly humorless, all business. “Thank you. My employer will add that to her studies.”
Marius said, “We’ll calculate a fair price, but we don’t want to give away any of our trade secrets.”
“All of my employer’s work is entirely confidential, and not for profit,” Tom Rom said.
Del suggested, “If you’re after medical research, you might want to meet with Tamo’l in the Ildiran sanctuary domes. She has a whole colony of misfits there, the mixed-breeds that didn’t turn out well from Dobro.” He called up a chart. “The tide’s low, so you could take a skimmer over there.”
Tom Rom turned his gaze toward Del. “My employer may wish to follow up on that at a later date.”
“Does she focus on any special areas of research?” Marius asked.
“Her interests are wide ranging.”
In less than two hours they had given Tom Rom sealed packages of ingredients and of each of their distillations, including kirae, and the stranger headed back through the alien transportal. For some reason neither of them could quite explain, the man made them uncomfortable, and they were happy to send him on his way.
Later that afternoon when a clan trader arrived with expensive medusa meat from Rhejak—which Del considered a delicacy and paid well for—the scruffy woman also delivered news packets that included recordings of recent speeches the candidates had given at Newstation: Lee Iswander and Sam Ricks making their case to be elected the next Speaker.
For half an hour, Del refused to watch. He muttered to himself that he had no further interest in politics, that the election of the next Speaker meant nothing to him. But in the end he gave up and reviewed the presentations.
Running the clans was out of his hands now, and he didn’t need political ulcers again, yet the candidates worried him. Iswander was a Roamer, but he reminded Del too much of the worst parts of the Big Goose. Sure, Del accepted the need for the clans to change, but he didn’t want Roamers to become what the Hansa Chairman had once represented. Ricks’s lack of preparation or enthusiasm was hardly commendable either. Del was tempted to record a message of his own. He didn’t want to endorse Sam Ricks, but he wanted to rally the clans to remember who they were.
He stopped himself and deleted the recording. No. He would not let himself get preoccupied with the election. He was past that now. He had his own life. If anything, he should have been paying more attention to his family.
In fact, he made up his mind to go to Newstation for the election—strictly for appearances—and then head off to the gas giant Golgen, where he would visit his daughter and his grandchildren. Zhett and her husband operated the skymine there quite capably, but they could always use his advice, and it would give him something to focus on other than politics.
NINE
ZHETT KELLUM
The skymine drifted above the blue and gray clouds of Golgen, churning through rising vapors. Probe lines dangled down for kilometers, analyzing the chemical composition of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Roamer skyminers could raise or lower the industrial behemoth in order to harvest the densest hydrogen concentrations. The facility reminded Zhett Kellum of an enormous jellyfish.
Thrumming pistons pumped hydrogen from the intake scoop through reaction chambers, and separated out the rare allotrope ekti, which fueled Ildiran stardrives. Exhaust boiled away from huge stacks, sighing back into the atmosphere and propelling the facility along its aimless route. The skymine produced ekti for the Confederation as well as the Ildiran Empire.
Hydrogues still dwelled in the deep uncharted cloud layers below, but their diamond-hulled warglobes had not been seen for years.
A cargo ship skimmed in across the upper clouds, approaching the skymine. Zhett knew from the schedule that this must be the Verne, part of the Kett Shipping fleet. The pilots, Xander Brindle and Terry Handon, were reliable, but more interested in traveling to different places than in establishing a boring regular route. Zhett envied them, but not too much. She and Patrick were happy here with their family.
She touched her ear comm as she rode a lift down to the landing bay. “Fitzy, Xander and Terry are landing in ten minutes. Want to say hi?”
Her husband responded, “I’d love to, and I’m sure Toff would too, but we’ll have to pass, since this young man seems much too distracted to finish his homework.”
Zhett heard their thirteen-year-old son, Kristof, groan and make excuses, but she tapped the ear comm to silence it, letting Patrick deal with the whining. He was better at it, and this was his week to supervise homework while she did the administrative duties.
The landing bay was a giant open maw in the lower half of the drifting skymine. Racks of sealed metal canisters full of concentrated stardrive fuel were ready to be loaded aboard the Verne. Breezes swirled around Zhett as she stepped into the cargo bay, whipping the long dark hair across her face. Just this morning she had found a gray strand and plucked it out, indignant. She was much, much too young to worry about going gray. (And she told herself the same thing every year.)