The local word for the place was haka, and it served as a multi-purpose public place. There was quite a lot of floor space and a modest stage up against one wall. The tables were foldable, and most of them were clustered in front of an eatery setup that took up one of the corners.

They’d found themselves two neighbouring tables, and old habit made Gaylen sit with his back against the wall so there would be no surprises.

On his left and a bit away from the wall were Bers, Ayna and Herdis. True to form, the big Fringer had already bought himself a drink, Ayna the social butterfly had already turned around in her chair and was engaging a neighbouring local in vigorous discussion, and Herdis was watching the people and the place itself with equal fascination.

At his own table Kiris sat slightly hunched, subtly keeping an eye on things and keeping her hood up, Jaquan had produced one of his card decks and was dealing out, and Gaylen had an unobstructed view of the entire interior. As good as recent weeks had been, the Fringe remained a dangerous place, and he was not about to let his instincts dull.

“So... after the station, then what?” Jaquan asked as he finished dealing. “Have you decided?”

“I think it’ll depend on those fruits we bought,” Gaylen replied. “I’m pretty sure we’ll unload all of them, but if we don’t we’d better head to the nearest potential buyer. Otherwise we’ll just ask around and see what and who is in need of transport.”

“It is nice to just fly blind sometimes,” Kiris admitted, her first words since ordering her meal.

Gaylen in turn found it nice to hear the dour woman express any kind of pleasure. She was doing it more and more these days, he felt.

“There are winds to consider, though,” Jaquan added pointedly, his eyes on his cards.

Gaylen’s mood dropped a bit at the reminder, although of course his friend was right. Winds were blowing in the Nearer Fringe these days, and one couldn’t readily predict them.

“We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see and react. That is all one can do.”

“Of course, of course,” Jaquan added, and Gaylen felt him drop the matter.

They played two quick games, and between Jaquan’s skill and Kiris’s inherent ability to read people Gaylen predictably came in third each time. Then the server mercifully arrived with their meals.

Bers had ordered the biggest, heaviest one and Herdis had gone with the strangest, while the rest of them all had some variation on local produce along with bread. There certainly were more exciting meals to be had and Gaylen preferred meat whenever possible, but any break from spacer rations was a good thing.

He watched the screens as he ate. News arrived here only sporadically, from this and that direction on the occasion that the locals imported or attracted buyers for their produce. So instead of a dedicated news service Josi Ja used a simple, global system of screens on which the stories travellers brought were listed as plain text.

Gaylen saw stories of disasters, commerce and political events he knew to be out of date, a few he’d never heard of and a few recent ones.

The Ulaka Authority was being accused of atrocities on some no-name planet. A single picture actually appeared on screen, showing the littered bodies of people in civilian clothes. They could just as easily have been from any other act of brutality carried out in this awful galaxy, or just an image from Volkan Vol’s old war of conquest. But Gaylen was inclined to believe the account.

Big wars never just ended smoothly, did they? They always left a lot of guns and ships and machinery and angry people who knew how to use them. Years after someone had cut Vol’s head off, the man’s ambitions survived through successors.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Gaylen wasn’t too absorbed in thought to notice the native who had taken to watching them, and neither was Kiris. But she didn’t subtly prod his foot as an alert, and so he took the watching to be simple curiosity. He was mostly through the meal when the man, a broad-shouldered fellow approaching middle age, stood up and strolled over.

“Enjoy, and be merry!” he said, in that vigorous tone the locals used for greeting. “Can I disturb you?”

“Sure,” Gaylen said, although he kept on eating. “What do you want?”

“You are from away,” the man said and waved a hand skyward. “I want news.”

“Are you one of those who manage that network?” Gaylen asked and indicated the screen.

“Sometimes. Most do it from time to time. I think-”

“You are being polite,” Kiris said bluntly. “But you want something specific. Just say it.”

The man looked at her and for an instant Gaylen saw him fighting to stay polite in the face of her attitude.

“Can you tell me something about that?” the man went on after a moment’s hesitation, and indicated the screen.

Someone had brought to the planet an image Gaylen had become familiar with in recent days. It was being shown in practically every significant population centre in the lanes. The background showed the devastating result of an orbital bombing; shattered buildings and streets, and many dots that seemed to be scorched bodies.

In the foreground were the burned corpses of a woman and a child she still clutched to her chest. She was on her knees and stooped over, and the image was so perfectly awful that Gaylen could half-suspect that it had been staged. But then, kill enough people and surely at least a few of the bodies would look... dramatic. And the bombing itself certainly had been real.

“Well...” Gaylen said and stuck another spoonful into his mouth. “What do you want to know?”

The native hesitated before answering.

“Is it the next war?” he then asked severely. “The next big one? Is another one starting up?”

“Reports and opinions differ,” Gaylen replied. “It has been argued that it has already started.”

“So is someone fighting the Authority?” the man asked. “Organised, I mean?”

“Supposedly,” Gaylen said. “There are rumours that a secret network and fleet are being established to take them down. The Authority has been getting more brutal...”

The image had been replaced by unrelated text, but he gestured at the screen anyway.

“... claiming to be breaking subversive elements. But it could just be an excuse.”

“They haven’t faced any consequences from the big powers,” Jaquan said quietly from his own spot at the table.

“Right,” Gaylen said. “So... we can’t tell you what exactly is going on. I stay out of trouble as best I can.”

He shrugged, and fished around for something to add.

“But I can tell you that the Ulaka Authority isn’t going to stop on its own. I met ‘Commander’ Treko a little while back, and he’s just like all of those autocrat types.”

The native nodded grimly.

“I have lived here all my life,” he said thoughtfully. “Here in the valley. We don’t need any more. But thank you.”

Gaylen looked up at the ceiling as the man walked away. Stretched out over much of it was an elaborate, interconnected web of coloured, woven strings. He didn’t know the local culture, but the point of the decoration wasn’t much of a puzzle. The colours were gentle and warm, the pattern regular and harmonious and yet with some evidence of having been made by many different people rather than a single artist. And as far as he could tell the entire thing wasn’t more than a few years old. He would have been willing to put down a bit of money that it had been made shortly after Volkan Vol’s war had stretched a tentacle to this quiet little place.

Gaylen looked over his own shoulder, then parted the drapes slightly. Just enough so he could peek out.

The mountainside was marked by the scars of starship-mounted weapons. Nature had had several years to patch things up a bit, but craters weren’t so easily wiped away, and whatever large building had stood there hadn’t been rebuilt.

The locals could see this every day, probably from most spots in the valley. Small wonder that in here, a place of relaxation and community, they wanted the ugly scars out of sight.

Gaylen dropped the drapes and continued with his meal.

Winds.