Starfishers - Starfishers Triology Book 2 Read online

  Centuries earlier there had been but two states on Earth, World Commonweal and United Asia. United Asia had remained impotent throughout its brief, turbulent history. World Commonweal might have created a planetary state, but had collapsed at Fail Point, so called because at that point in time agro-industrial protein production capacity had fallen below the population's absolute minimum survival demand.

  "You missed the best part of it, Walter. During the first week the Mauritanians shot down half of their own air force. And the Empire lost a whole armored brigade in a swamp because Ja ordered them to march in a straight line all the way to Timbuktu. The holonets had a field day. That's the lilac brown shade there. We've got a Foundation certificate for it."

  Perchevski lifted the stamp and examined its reverse. "I already have a copy. I'm just looking."

  "Anyway, the Mauritanians have been less klutzy than the Imperials. They're closing in on Dakar."

  "What's the Council doing?"

  "Laughing a lot. They're going to let him go down. The word's out that other countries shouldn't accept refugees from the Empire. Ja and his gang have done too much damage to Old Earth's image."

  "Old Josh? You're kidding. How do you lower something that's already at the bottom?"

  "You see anything you want?"

  "You, my love."

  "Smart ass."

  "Wednesday night?"

  "What've you got in mind?"

  "A cribbage game."

  "I'll call you. If it does any good. If you're not off to some weird place with a name like Toilet Bowl."

  "Actually, I was thinking about going to the archaeological digs at Ley."

  "Funny you should mention them. More coffee?"

  "Sure. Why?"

  "They broke into a new chamber last month. It was in pretty good shape."

  "Is it open?"

  "They put a transparent tube in. You can walk through and look, but you can't get close to anything or get in the way."

  "Call me, then. If you want to go see."

  "Excuse me, Walter." Another customer had come in. "Yes sir? May I help you?"

  "How are you in Twenty-first Century France?"

  Perchevski lost himself in the bits of paper that told tales of a remote, turbulent era. He finally selected seven pieces for his collection, paid for them from the Walter Clark account.

  "Max, thanks for the coffee. And hold that Berlin piece, will you? I'll let you know as soon as I make up my mind. Like maybe Wednesday?"

  "All right, Walter. Ill call you tomorrow."

  "Leave a message if I'm not there."

  "I will."

  He clambered aboard a bus and returned the two hundred kilometers to his apartment.

  You're a fool, he told himself. To go all that way for an hour of gossip.

  But damn, did he feel better.

  He had traveled a lot farther in the past. He doubted that Max had a ghost of a notion just what she meant to him. She was one of the few stable realities in his life. She was a landmark by which he guided himself back from the wildernesses of Bureauland.

  He mounted his new stamps in his albums using a surgeon's care. He took down a notebook and marked their catalog numbers off his list of wants, noting the date and price he had paid for each. He entered the total in his cumulative ledger, then marked down the fact that two more album pages had been filled.

  The detailed record keeping was necessitated by something within him, some compulsion to put down tiny proofs that he was interacting with the universe, if only through the hieroglyphics of numbers. He had other notebooks in which he kept other records. He did a lot of bookkeeping on the events of his life.

  None of it ever left his apartment.

  He wondered what the Bureau snoops made of the lists and notes. He was sure they checked them whenever he was away.

  He finished his record keeping. He looked around the sterile room. It suddenly became very tight, very lonely.

  He tried the holo, turning to the Luna Command news channel. He caught it in a low cycle. There was nothing on but an endless parade of public service messages, though once a commentator mentioned rumors of a forthcoming major news event involving Navy. Something big was expected, but its nature could not be determined. Security remained unusually tight.

  "Sure," Perchevski growled at the cube. "The Chief of Staff will probably announce this year's winners in the Fleet Backgammon Playoffs."

  Luna Command was heart and brain of Confederation. It was headquarters for the Services, which were Confederation's bone and sinew. It was the hub of a human enterprise kept unified only by its military. And the only exciting thing that had happened there in Perchevski's lifetime had been the discovery of the prehistoric alien base on the moon's dark side.

  The military did not control Confederation. But the only obstacle to absolute military rule was a gentlemen's agreement among the generals and admirals to accept the forms of democracy. High Command could do anything it damned well pleased, any time it pleased, were it to ignore custom. Out in the remote reaches, far from senatorial eyes, it often did. There were few sanctions the civilian sector could exercise.

  Aggravated, Perchevski killed the holocast. He checked the lunar calendar for the best viewing site, recovered his tunic, and hit public transportation again. He took the high-velocity electric train the six hundred kilometers to the tourist observation dome overlooking Tycho.

  The crater was not the attraction there. People did not come from Confederation's one hundred thirty-four member planets, and more than a hundred dominions, protectorates, associated states, and outright colonies, to look at a hole in the ground. The allies and tributaries were not interested in a crater either.

  Neither was Perchevski.

  Tycho observation dome offered a magnificent view of Old Earth. His homeworld. A world he had not visited in eight years.

  Tycho, or its sister domes, was as close as most tourists cared to get to their biological roots.

  Perchevski lay back in a lounger and half-listened to the canned commentary.

  "... where the race of Man began... possibly also the planet of origin of the Sangaree... first successful extraterrestrial landing, July 20, 1969, in the old dating. Neil Armstrong... ascension of World Commonweal following World War III... Fail Point, July, 2194, led to the Collapse. Reinhardt Ships carried Commonweal refugees to interstellar colonies from 2187 through the end of the Luna Wars in 2226. The Treaties of Jerusalem of 2228 led to the chaotic exploration and random settlement we now call First Expansion.

  "A profligate expenditure of resources and racial will initiated a reactionary isolationism which spanned the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth centuries. Space travel, even to Luna, was discontinued. Contact with the star worlds did not resume till 2613, when Vice-Admiral Takada Yoshimura brought New Earth's fleet back to Luna. A short time later Yoshimura encountered ships of the Palisarian Directorate.

  "The old records in Luna Command revealed the locations of scores of settled worlds. The secondary colonies of the Directorate were under pressure from Toke at the time. The Directorate and New Earth concluded a xenophobic alliance, and began searching for other human allies.

  "The concept, if not the fact, of Confederation had been created.

  "We have our former enemies, the Toke, to thank for midwifing Confederation through its birth pains. The unrelenting determination of the Star Lords and Caste of Warriors united humanity. The conflict endured sufficiently long for Confederation to become a reality, with its military headquartered here in the tunnels of Luna.

  "Confederation and Luna Command have been growing steadily since."

  Perchevski stopped listening. He had heard it all before.

  He knew he would hear it again. The viewing domes were the Meccas of regular hadjs.

  He looked at the Earth and wondered how his parents were doing. He had not heard from either for a long time.

  He slept while returning to his apartment. It had been a long day.
>
  Two messages awaited him. The first was from Max. She wanted to see the xenoarchaeological digs Darkside. The other was from his employers. The printout said: SENIOR STAFF PARTY WEDNESDAY 8 PM ATTENDANCE MANDATORY CONTACT 864-6400-312 FOR FURTHER INFO.

  He sighed, pecked out the number. Max would not like this. He tried her number after he had gotten the story.

  "Max? Walter. Yeah. Thanks for calling. Hey. I've got a problem. Just got word from my boss. I have to go to a staff party tomorrow night. Can't get out of it. I know. I'm sorry. Hey! Want to come along? All the big wheels will be there. The Chief of Staff Navy is supposed to come out with some big announcement. No. I don't think it has anything to do with the March of Ulant. That's all smoke screen, if you ask me. It's at the Command Club. Can you meet me there? Okay. 'Bye."

  He lay back on his bed and wondered what the news would be, and why he had been ordered to make an appearance. He was a senior operative, but certainly not senior staff.

  He also wondered how long it would be before they called him down and stuck him behind a desk. It didn't look as if his vacation was going to go through, and they did not like people just loafing around while they waited for an assignment.

  Again he thought about his parents.

  Seven: 3048 AD

  Operation Dragon, Engagement

  He could not write. He had too much free time. He always worked better when the minutes were quick and crowded.

  Something was wrong with his head. Skeletons were coming out of their closets in there. Especially the Alyce affair. The unbreakable walls of Tyre were crumbling.

  It had been years since he had thought about Alyce. Why now? That hasty Psych programing before the mission? Or were the edges of his sanity just fraying?

  He had two bad days. There were moments when he did not know where he was or why, or, sometimes, just who he was.

  He sometimes felt his life was managed by guardian devils. The Fates pursued him like indefatigable hounds, with malice their only joy.

  The ship dropped hyper without warning. "Are we finally there?" he asked the air. He stepped into the corridor. Most of the landsmen were there.

  Jarl Kindervoort's voice filled the ship. ‘Passengers, remain in your quarters. Strap in for acceleration. We're about to engage a Confederation squadron that has been following us."

  "Engage?" Moyshe said. "What the hell? Mouse? What's going on? Jupp's not supposed to move for two weeks yet."

  Mouse shook his head warningly. People were listening. The Sangaree woman appeared to be in a black rage.

  "Wheels within wheels," benRabi whispered. "Beckhart's doing it to us."

  "Let's hope we didn't suddenly get expendable," Mouse'said. "What's going on?"

  "Oh, damn! I figured you knew. Beckhart? Maybe Jupp thought he saw a chance? Maybe that frontier thing broke?"

  "What? That's bullshit. The Ulantonids know better. It's the Old Man. Got to be."

  "Better strap in. Say any prayers you know." BenRabi had seen several battles while in the line. They had ruined his taste for space warfare. Defeats were too total and final.

  The vessel shuddered while he was strapping in. He recognized a heavy missile salvo departing. The ship clearly mounted weaponry not customary for her class.

  Would the nasty surprises never end?

  For a few seconds his mind fell apart completely, into absolute chaos. A tiny part of him seemed to be outside, watching the disorder.

  All-clear bells and his door buzzer sounding bracketed the reassembly process.

  A crewman stepped into his cabin. "Mr. benRabi? Will you come with us, please?"

  He was as polite as the spider inviting the fly.

  There was going to be trouble.

  A half-dozen people wearing guns backed him. BenRabi joined them in the passageway.

  Another group had collected a stoic Mouse.

  How had they blown it?

  Kindervoort was directing the pickup himself. He looked like a man with a compulsion to explain. And to ask. Moyshe hoped he would not get primitive.

  Mouse seemed to fear that. But hatchetmen lived by the Old Testament: eye for an eye, live by the sword...

  "Got you, boys." Kindervoort grinned toothily. He had an overbite.

  BenRabi had an irrational aversion to the man. It had nothing to do with the situation. More like loathing at first sight.

  Kindervoort had a colorless, fleshless face. His skin lay stretched drumhead tight over prominent cheekbones and a lantern jaw. Shadowed hollows lay between. He achieved a deathshead look when the light was wrong.

  BenRabi automatically disliked anyone with that gaunt, graveyard look.

  "Ah, here you are," said the Ship's Commander as they shuffled into his darkly decorated office.

  The furniture was of mahogany-toned imitation woods crafted in antique styles. The walls and ceiling had been artificially timbered to suggest the captain's cabin of a sailing ship. There were reproductions of antique ship's lanterns, a compass, a sextant, a chart of Henry the Navigator, framed prints featuring caravels, clippers, and the frigate Constellation. "Any trouble, Jarl?"

  "No sir. The Bureau doesn't employ fanatics. May I present Commanders Masato Igarashi Storm and Thomas Aquinas McClennon, of Confederation Navy? They're senior field agents of the Bureau of Naval Intelligence. Commanders, Ship's Commander Eduard Chouteau."

  BenRabi pursed his lips. He had been afraid Mouse's real name might be Storm. Mouse had been conspicuously absent from Academy during their final year of school. That had been the year of the Storm-Hawksblood war in the Shadowline.

  Moyshe had visited Blackworld after that war's end. There had been a Masato Igarashi Storm there at the time, but their paths had not crossed. That Masato had taken command of his father's mercenaries after Sangaree treachery had killed his father, brothers, and most of the family officers.

  Kindervoort certainly had him pat, though the name McClennon seemed like a stranger's, like that of someone he had known a long time ago, in an age of innocence.

  He felt less like Thomas Aquinas McClennon than he did Moyshe benRabi, Gundaker Niven, Eric Earl Hollenkamp, Walter Clark, or... How many men had he been?

  "Take seats, gentlemen," Chouteau said. "And relax."

  BenRabi dropped into a chair, glanced at his partner, Mouse, who also seemed stunned. The simple knowing of a secret name bore so many implications... The spookiest was that someone might have penetrated the Bureau deep enough to have gained access to its primary data system. That meant a mole of a generation's standing.

  "Worrying about your Navy friends?" Kindervoort asked. "Don't. They're all right. They cut and ran. And I mean fast. Guess they figured there wasn't any point to a slugfest when they couldn't gain anything even if they won." He chuckled. So did Chouteau.

  Had to be a deep mole. Nothing else would explain their perpetual success at evading Confederation.

  Kindervoort planted himself in front of benRabi. He leaned close, frowning. Moyshe avoided his deathshead face by staring at Chouteau.

  The Ship's Commander leaned back in his fat, comfortable chair and half closed his eyes.

  Kindervoort said, "But we're not worried about von Drachau or Admiral Beckhart, are we?" He chuckled, again, moved to Mouse. "Why we wanted to see you was these tracers you've got built in. Walking instels they inflict on us. Ingenious."

  They did have a mole.

  Moyshe had thought he was the only human instel. Beckhart had pissed and moaned like the expense of it was coming out of his own pocket. Redundancy had not seemed plausible after that.

  He hadn't really wondered why Mouse was along. Beckhart had issued an assignment. Nobody questioned the Old Man. Not in any way that might look like contradicting his will.

  Mouse looked like death warmed over. Swell. It would do him good to get short-sheeted sometimes too.

  How come Mouse had not been hurting?

  Knowing Beckhart, the Pyschs had programed the headaches. Maybe to divert atten
tion from Mouse. Had Mouse known?

  They had some talking to do.

  Beckhart clockwork, jerking along, often was oiled by the confusion of its parts. Only the master knew all the secrets of his machinery.

  Would there be more?

  Silly question.

  Beckhart's nature semed to demand twists on twists and gaudy smoke screens that concealed truths as slippery as greased snakes. His plots, however, while labyrinthine, had their own tightness and logic. They were mapped by the finest computers in Luna Command. He ran simulation models against even the most ridiculous contingencies.

  Had Beckhart calculated a mole into this scheme?

  BenRabi suddenly intuited that he and Mouse were not partners after all. This time they were voyagers sailing parallel but distinct courses. They had been programed to hide from one another as much as from their targets. And they had been intended for exposure from the beginning.

  Beckhart knew about the mole.

  He wanted them taken captive. He wanted them to spend a year in Seiner service.

  Moyshe got mad. That was a year stolen from his life!

  "The thing's all biological, eh?" Kindervoort asked.

  "What?"

  "This instel. Remarkable gimmick. Our detectors didn't quiver when you came aboard. 'Course, that didn't matter in the long run."

  He was smug, damn him. So was Chouteau, chubby-happy there in his plastic-antique, made for the Archaicist trade captain's chair.

  "How the hell did you get my name?" benRabi demanded. They were in the mood for talking. They might give him something the computers could use to pinpoint the mole.

  Kindervoort ignored his question.

  "We began monitoring the hyper bands when we broke orbit at Carson's. We wanted to see if we could catch anything from von Drachau's squadron. Imagine our surprise when we found out somebody was sending from the ship."

  "You were plain lucky, Jarl," Chouteau said.

  "It wasn't luck that we knew they were coming, just that they started broadcasting in a ship small enough for us to pinpoint them."

  How had they gotten the word?

  Moyshe remembered a raggedy-assed Freehauler boat that had not lifted on schedule. Had the Freehaulers been the mole's couriers? Black Mirage. Remember that ship, Somebody would have to have a talk with her people someday.