WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(23)

Plasma bloomed in the Floating Harbor, casting into relief the starships tethered on the land side of the Aglaia. Daniel watched the cutter lift on its single plasma jet.

The little vessel was fitted with High Drive, but it was too small for the masts and crew necessary to enter sponge space. Lt. Mon would carry a message cell above Kostroma's magnetosphere, then launch it toward Cinnabar.

Interstellar messages had to be carried, either by ships or by unmanned message cells. A message cell was programmed to a fixed interdimensional course. Because the Matrix through which it proceeded wasn't fixed, not really, cells were much less trustworthy than a manned vessel.

Their advantage was their relatively small size. The Aglaia carried ten 30-foot message cells in a volume that would have been barely sufficient for a single pinnace capable of interstellar travel. A fleet would include dispatch vessels, but a single ship which needed to send a message home used a message cell.

To Daniel's surprise another cutter rose, this time from the opposite end of the Floating Harbor. It had been launched from the Goetz von Berlichingen, the Alliance dispatch vessel.

No doubt the Alliance crew was on the same mission as Lt. Mon, to send home a message of great import. The Alliance delegation must have used shore-to-ship radio despite the risk of interception, since no courier had flown out to the starship to deliver the message.

The message was probably about the deep diplomatic significance of somebody farting at the official dinner. People who spent their lives studying minutiae found crises in events that would be utterly forgotten in weeks if not days. The stars were eternal, and there was always something genuinely new among them for humans to discover.

Daniel laughed with joy at being alive. The pause had brought his system back close to normal functioning despite the load of alcohol he'd taken on board. He could navigate without the risk of falling over.

The supper club where he'd met Silena the other night was only a few blocks away. It was possible that she'd be there again; and if not, well, places like that usually had at least one sweet young thing who'd welcome rescue by an officer of the RCN.

Whistling a gavotte, Lt. Daniel Leary sauntered toward his duty.



Someone was hammering on the street door. Adele heard a man's voice but no words; only a demanding tone penetrated to her room at the back of the second floor.

The visitor paused, then resumed rapping with a hard object. This went on almost a minute before Mistress Frick slid open her shuttered window onto the entryway and snarled something querulous. The male voice rumbled. To Adele's surprise, she next heard triple bolts withdraw and the street door squeal open.

Money must have changed hands. That, or there'd been a threat sufficient to move a concierge who was threatening enough herself.

Adele got out of bed and dressed with a perfect economy of motion even though the room's only light came from the stars beyond the one barred window. She was an organized person who lived by herself and therefore knew exactly where every garment and item of apparel was.

The house had six rooms in addition to the concierge's own tiny hole off the entryway. The visitor didn't have to be for Adele Mundy. Adele had usually been right to assume bad news, though, and someone calling at this hour was certainly bad news.

She'd put on her work clothes, a suit of sturdy brown fabric that looked dignified and didn't show dust. Her personal data unit, the only item of value Adele owned, fitted into its special pocket in her trousers. Closed it was only ten inches by four and a half inches thick, an insignificant bulge to anyone looking at her.

The last thing Adele did was to slip her pistol into the left side pocket of her jacket. The right was her master hand, but she could shoot with either one.

The footsteps of two persons, neither of them the wheezing, clumping Ms. Frick, came up the stairs and down the creaking hallway. The visitors carried a light. It was deep yellow and strikingly bright where it bled around the warped panel into the complete darkness of Adele's room.

The tap on her door was polite but peremptory. She opened it at once.

Markos stood with a small lamp in his left hand and his right still raised to knock. He wore the cloak and wide-brimmed hat of a merchant in middling circumstances. The aide Adele had seen in the Grand Salon accompanied Markos. Both her hands were concealed beneath her cape, so she didn't carry the light as one might have expected.

Markos frowned slightly to see Adele up and dressed. The aide's expression was perfectly blank. She reminded Adele of a snake, dry and emotionless.

"I regret the hour, Ms. Mundy," Markos said in his cultured accent. "I'd appreciate it if you came for a drive with me so that we can discuss matters in greater privacy."

"All right," Adele said. She gestured Markos back with a flick of her fingers, then stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.