Starfishers Read online

  The Bureau supported his quest, knowing he was searching. Psych did not miss much. They might even know what he needed. Whatever, his masters were certain they would show a return on their investment.

  Few of the Bureau’s agents were sane in the accepted sense. It recruited obsessives intentionally. BenRabi did not think that sane men would make good operatives.

  It took a madman to want into Intelligence in the first place.

  He smiled, mocking himself.

  The lighter shuddered, rocked, shoved against his back. He was on his way to the orbiting Starfisher.

  He watched Mouse, who was three rows ahead of him. The small man trembled as if suffering from a palsy. The getting off the ground part of space travel seemed to be the only terror his universe held. His reactions to everything else seemed as intense as those of a stone.

  “So the Rat’s chicken.”

  The Sangaree woman was on the other side of the aisle, smiling. He had not seen her sit down. Did he have to take this and the pain too?

  Four: 3047 AD

  The Olden Days, The Broken Wings

  Mouse was right. The outfit didn’t whisper for days. Niven’s tension dissolved. He started living his cover.

  He began reviewing psychiatric statistics at Angel City’s medical center. Bureau planners had calculated the cover mission both to gather information of potential interest and to keep the opposition undecided.

  On the surface there was no logical reason for a prime agent to spend all his time developing a mental-illness profile for an outpost city. And even less sense in it for the Starduster.

  He found the data intriguing. He began enjoying it.

  Then he met the woman.

  She materialized at the edge of his vision for an instant. She was long, willowy, dark-haired. High, large, firm breasts locked a stunning holographic picture into his mind forever.

  She vanished before he could get a better look.

  His papers hit the floor. He grabbed, wondering if wishful thinking had bitten him. Those knockers . . .

  It was lust at first sight.

  Then she was peeking back around a grey metal cabinet in open-mouthed curiosity. Niven looked up into dark eyes. He dropped his notes again. Bewilderment danced across her features.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Just clumsy. You startled me.” He had never been comfortable with women. Especially those who attracted him so strongly, so suddenly.

  It had been years since a woman had aroused him instantaneously. He considered himself with amazement.

  The tough program did not keep his stomach from knotting, or his hands from shivering. It was silly. Adolescent. And he could not help himself.

  He knew that he would bitterly recriminate himself for his weakness later. He always did.

  He fumbled with the papers again.

  She smiled. “Better let me do that.” She knelt, shuffled his notes together.

  Mona Lisa, he thought as he peered down her deeply cut blouse. Her mouth is exactly the same. And her face has the same shape. But freckled.

  She wore no makeup. And didn’t use anything but shampoo on her hair. She wore it brushed straight down. It hung wild and free, and had a hint of natural curl.

  She’s turned me into gelatin, he thought. He wanted to say something. Anything. He could think of nothing that did not sound juvenile, or insipid. But he wanted to know her. Wanted her.

  “You work here?” he gobbled. His throat was tight and dry. He expected her to laugh.

  He knew she was no employee. He had spent two days in Records already. She was the first person he had encountered, excepting the ratty old nurse who had explained the system, and who stole through now and then to make sure he did not leave obscene graffiti or drop a grenade down the toilet.

  While he was keeping the cover, Mouse was alley-prowling, searching for the key that would open the operation. Prepared sound tapes made it seem he was hard at work in their suite.

  “No. I came in to do some research. How about you?”

  “Research. A project for Ubichi Corporation. Oh. Gundaker Niven. Doctor. Social Psychology, not Medicine.”

  “Really?” She smiled. It made her that much more desirable. “I guess you’ve heard it before. You don’t look it.”

  “Yeah.” He did not have to force much sour into his reply. He was a born homeworlder. That much of the cover was easy to keep. “You’re from Old Earth, everyone thinks . . . ”

  The social handicap of an Old Earth birth, properly exploited, could be converted to a powerful asset. For no logical reason Outworlders felt guilty about what had become of the motherworld. Yet Earth’s natives had made it the hell it was.

  Escape was available to the willing. The willing were few. People with adventure in their genes had gotten out in the first centuries of space travel, around World Commonweal’s Fail Point, during First Expansion, and other early migrations. Modern departures came primarily through the Colonial Draft, as Earth’s planetary government sold huge blocks of conscripted labor in return for forgiveness of indebtedness. Those few natives who wanted out usually chose military service.

  Niven did not suspect that she might be Sangaree. He thought he had scored the Old Earth point.

  “You must be an exceptional man . . . Excuse me. That’s rude.”

  “That’s prejudice.”

  She handed him his notes, huffed, “I said I was sorry.”

  “Forgiven. I don’t expect an outsider to understand Old Earth. I don’t understand it myself. Won’t you introduce yourself?”

  "Oh. Yes. Marya Strehltsweiter. I’m a chemopsychiatrist. I’m doing my internship here. I’m originally from The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” For an instant she fell back inside herself. “I have one more year to go.”

  “I’ve been there,” Niven said. “It’s magnificent.” Oops, he thought. That was a screw-up. Dr. Gundaker Niven had never visited The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

  “I miss it. I thought The Broken Wings would be exotic and romantic. Because of the name. You know what I mean? And I thought I’d get a chance to know myself. I never had time at home.”

  Niven frowned his response. He wanted to keep her talking, to hold her, but did not know what to say.

  “The old story. I got pregnant young, got married, dropped out of school. Had to find work when he took off . . . Did that and went back to school both . . . ” She smiled conspiratorially, winked, “It didn’t do any good to get away. The pain came with me.”

  “Friend of mine told me you can’t run away. Because the things you want to get away from are always inside you.”

  “An Old Earther said that?”

  “We’re not Neanderthals.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’re right. It’s down the chute. If it weren’t for Luna Command and Corporation Center it would be back in the Dark Ages. I’ve had it. Want to duck out for lunch?” He surprised himself. He was seldom that bold.

  “Why not? Sure. It’s a chance to talk to somebody who hasn’t spent their whole life in this sewage plant. You know what I mean?”

  “I can guess.”

  “You on expense account? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be mercenary. But it seems like forever since I ate in a decent place.”

  “We’ll find one.” Anything, lady. Just don’t fade away before I get organized and start talking my talk.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Mouse demanded. Niven had wandered in after midnight. “I was getting scared they’d burned you.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Won’t happen again.”

  “Shee-it. Doc found him a girlfriend.”

  “Hey! You don’t have a copyright on . . . ”

  “All right. I know. Be cool. But give me a yell next time. Just so I don’t get hemorrhoids from worrying. I got it.”

  “What? The clap?”

  “Why we’re here. It’s stardust.”

  “We knew that. Why else this silly-ass double cover?�
��

  “Not little stardust. Not small-time stardust. Stardust big enough to rate a Family proctor in an outback Residency.”

  “You mean the fat broad?”

  “Yeah. She was here because Angel City depots distribution traffic for this whole end of The Arm. I’m talking a billion stellars’ worth a month.”

  “You’re talking out your butt. There isn’t enough ship traffic to handle that kind of smuggling.”

  “Yes there is. If you don’t really smuggle it. If you send it out from a legit source labeled as something legit. If you own the Customs people and the ships and crews and shippers . . . ”

  “Start over. You skipped chapter one.”

  “What’s Stink City known for? Besides the smell?”

  “Organic pharmaceuticals.”

  “Point for the bright boy. All the good organics they dredge out of the muck outside. The main reason Angel City is here. The Sangaree have gotten control of the whole industry. And most of the local officials.

  “They parachute the raw stardust into the swamp. The dredgers bring it in. The field traffic controllers are paid to ignore strange blips on their detection systems. The stuff gets refined here, in the best labs, then they ship it out along with the finest label organics. Their people at the other end intercept it and get it into the regular stardust channels.”

  “How did you dig that out?”

  “Ran into a man who knew. I convinced him he should tell me. Now, figuring how the Old Man works, he probably guessed most of it before he sent us out. So what does he want? The source. Us to find out where the stuff comes from before it gets here.”

  Niven frowned over the drink he had mixed while talking. “It is big, then. So huge it would take a cartel of Families . . . And you tried to tell me the Sangaree outfit here was . . . ”

  “The biggest, Doc. We just might be on the trail of the First Families themselves. And I know what I said. I was wrong.”

  “I’m thinking about retiring. We’re really in it, and that’s the only way out.”

  The Sangaree were a race few in number. They had no government in the human sense. Their major form of organization was the Family, which could be described as a corporation or boundaryless nation led by persons who were related. So-called “possessionless” Sangaree formed the working class.

  The Family was strongly elitist and laissez-faire capitalist. Sangaree cut one another’s throats almost as gleefully as they chopped up the “animal” races.

  A Family Head was an absolute dictator. His followers’ fortunes depended upon his competence. Succession was patrilineal. The existence of proctors only mildly ameliorated the medieval power structure.

  The First Families were the five or six most powerful Families. Intelligence had never accurately determined their number. As a consortium they determined racial policy and insured their own preeminence among their species.

  Very little was known of the Sangaree that the Sangaree did not want known.

  “Oh, hey,” Mouse enthused. “Don’t even joke about getting out. Not now. Not when we’ve got an opportunity like this. This might be our biggest hit ever. It’s worth any risk.”

  “That’s subject to interpretation.”

  “It is worth anything, Doc.”

  “To you, maybe.” Niven nursed his drink and tried to regain the mood he had had on arriving.

  Mouse would not let be. “So tell me about your friend. Who is she? Where did you meet her? She good-looking? She give you any? What’s she do?”

  “I ain’t telling you nothing. You birddog your own.”

  “Hey! Don’t get that way. How long you known me?”

  “Since Academy.”

  “I ever take your girl?”

  “I never caught you.” He mixed another drink.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Jupp did.”

  Mouse flashed him a black look. “Who?” He shook his head, indicated his ear. The room might be bugged. “Carlotta, you mean? She came after me, remember? And he didn’t give a damn.”

  Jupp von Drachau had given a damn.

  Their mutual acquaintance and Academy classmate had been crushed. He had hidden it from his wife and Mouse, though. Niven had been the receptacle into which he had poured all his pain.

  Niven had never told Mouse that he was the reason that von Drachau had abandoned wife and son and had thrown himself into his work so wholeheartedly that he had been promoted ahead of men far senior. Navy was the one institution that von Drachau trusted implicitly.

  He was not alone in that trust.

  The Services were the Foreign Legion of the age. Their people shared a hardy camaraderie based on their conviction that they had to stand together against the rest of the universe. Service was a place to belong. For people like yon Drachau it became a cult.

  Niven never would tell Mouse.

  The evil had been done. Let the pain fade away.

  It was not what Carlotta had done. Faithful, till-death-do-us-part marriage was an Archaicist fantasy. It was the way the hurt had been done. Carlotta had made a public execution of it, flaying Jupp with a dull emotional flensing knife, with clear intent to injure and humiliate.

  She had paid the price in Coventry. She was still one of the social outcasts of Luna Command. Even her son hated her.

  Niven still did not understand what had moved the woman. She had seemed, suddenly, to become psychotic, to collapse completely under the weight of her aristocratic resentment of her nouveau-riche husband.

  Von Drachau, like Niven, was Old Earther. Even before the collapse of his marriage he had been climbing meteorically, surpassing his wife’s old-line, fourth-generation Navy relatives. That seemed to have been what had cracked her.

  “Well, don’t get in too deep,” Mouse warned, interrupting Niven’s brooding. “We might not hang around long.”

  Later, as he drifted on the edge of sleep, trying to forget the trials of life in Luna Command, Niven wondered why Mouse had discussed their mission openly, yet had stifled any mention of von Drachau.

  Protecting their second-level cover? Associates of the Starduster certainly should not be personal friends of a Navy Line Captain.

  Or maybe Mouse knew something that Admiral Beckhart had not mentioned to his partner, Niven thought. The Old Man liked working that way.

  The bastard.

  “Probably both,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Talking to myself. Go to sleep.”

  Beckhart always used him as the stalking horse. Or moving target. He blundered around, stirring things up for Mouse.

  Or vice versa, as Mouse claimed.

  He wondered if anybody had been listening. They had found only one bug in their sweeps. It had been inactive. It had been one of those things hotel managers used to keep track of towel thieves. But it was good tradecraft to assume that they had missed something live.

  Niven was not in love with his profession.

  It never allowed him a moment to relax. He did not perceive himself as being fast on his mental feet, so tended to overpress himself pre-plotting his situational reactions. He could not, like Mouse, just fly easy, rolling with the blows of fate like some samurai of destiny.

  For him every venture out of Luna Command was an incursion into enemy territory. He wanted to go out thoroughly forewarned and forearmed.

  Life had not been so complicated in his consular residency days. Back then friend and foe alike had known who and what he was, and there had been a complex set of rituals for playing the game. Seldom had anyone done anything more strenuous than watch to see who visited him and who else was watching. On St. Augustine he had worn his uniform.

  There were different rules for scalp hunters. Beckhart’s friends and enemies both played by the war rules. The blood rules.

  And for reasons Niven did not understand, Beckhart’s command was involved in a war to the death with the Sangaree.

  Niven had had all the indoctrination. He
had endured the uncountable hours of training and hypo-preparation. He even had the benefit of a brutal Old Earth childhood. But somehow his Academy years had infected him with a humanism that occasionally made his work painful.

  A tendency to prolonged introspection did not help, he told himself wryly.

  The campaign against the Sangaree could be justified. Stardust destroyed countless minds and lives. Sangaree raidships pirated billions and slaughtered hundreds. Through front men the Sangaree Families obtained control of legitimate business organizations and twisted them to Illegitimate purposes.

  The humanoid aliens had become a deadly virus in the corpus of human civilization.

  Yet the very viciousness of Navy’s counterattacks caused Niven grave doubts. Where lies justice, he wanted to know, when we are more barbarous than our enemies?

  Mouse was fond of telling him that he thought too much and felt too little. The issue was entirely emotional.

  Morning brought an indifferent mood. A depression. He simply abdicated all responsibility to Mouse.

  “What’s the program today?” He knew his partner meant to break routine. Mouse had had Room Service send up real coffee. Niven nursed his cup. “How are you going to get this past the auditors?”

  “My accounts go straight to the Old Man. He stamps the accepted.”

  “Must be nice to be the Number-One Boy.”

  “It has its moments. But most of them are bad. I want you to hit the Med Center again. Business as usual. But try to audit their offworld drug traffic if you can. There’s got to be records of some kind even if they only give us a side view. I think most of it is going out of the Center labs, so it’s got to leave some kind of paper trace. If we can’t find the source, maybe we can pinpoint the ends of the pipes.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to spend some of the Old Man’s money. For hidey holes. For tickets out. You know. The insurance. That new Resident will show up pretty soon. We’ve got to be ready when it hits the ventilation.”

  “Are you getting close?” Feelings warred within Niven. He wanted out of Angel City and the mission, but not right now. There was Marya to get to know.

  “No. Like I said, just buying insurance. I’ve got the feeling this’ll get tight fast when they have somebody to tell them what to do.”