Stars End - Starfishers Triology Book 3 Read online

  Was this why he was so reluctant? Because Amy came on like a spoiled child?

  Why did he resist it? If he was to make a life here he had to surrender to the culture. This one had scant tolerance for prolonged bachelorhoods.

  Older singles tended to get shoved beyond the social fringes. He was out there now. And Mouse, for all the charm he exuded, was slipping too. The ladies were not buzzing round so much anymore. He had made it too clear that he was available for good times only, not for long times and old-style fidelity.

  If Amy was the best available, why not?

  Part of it was habit. He had been a loner for too long, caught up in a profession where responsibilities to anyone else made a deadly liability. That was why, through mission after mission, he had fought his growing friendship for Mouse.

  He had failed at that, and Mouse had too. They saw so little of one another nowadays... That was a pity. Just when they had given in to it, life had taken a twist and spun them along separate paths.

  That would end with his transfer to Security, wouldn't it?

  "There's a bright side to everything, I guess," he murmured.

  Thinking about Mouse, he remembered their last evening together. He could have sworn Mouse had been hinting that he should do something about Amy. It was a damned conspiracy!

  Why the hell would Mouse want him married? Mouse did not believe in the institution.

  He should take the plunge. But not too soon. He could not let Amy get the idea that she could manipulate him.

  He sat with his head in his hands, scurrying around the slot-tracks of an uncertain mind. The tracks did not always follow sane routes. There were moments when he did not know who or where he was. Sometimes he did not understand what was happening, or why. Sometimes he woke up thinking he was back on The Broken Wings, or in Luna Command. There had been a night when he had called Amy Max while they were making love... And a time when he had thought she was Greta... Frightening though they were, those had been isolated incidents. So far.

  He and Amy made love fiercely, desperately.

  She started getting dressed immediately afterward. "What's going on?" he asked.

  "You forgot? We're supposed to have supper with the Sheik and his harem."

  "One thing I'm going to tell you right now, woman. And you better understand it. That man's my friend. Learn to fly with it." He had forgotten the dinner. Completely. There wasn't a ghost of memory to be found anywhere in his head.

  They joined Mouse and his shrinking clutch of dollies an hour later. BenRabi found his eye roving. Mouse had several honeys he would not mind topping himself. He dared not let Amy notice him looking. Any woman who got that jealous of a male friend...

  This affair is headed for trouble, he thought.

  Kindervoort appeared suddenly.

  Jarl Kindervoort was a tall, lean man who reminded benRabi of Don Quixote, or the Pale Imperator in Czyzewski's novel, His Banners Bright And Golden. Like Amy, and most Danion Seiners, he was pale, blond, and blue-eyed. BenRabi liked him as a person and found him physically repulsive. It was a combination he did not comprehend.

  He did not quite understand Kindervoort's position in the Danion scheme either. Kindervoort was, apparently, Amy's immediate superior. Amy was only a Lieutenant, a low-grade officer, yet her boss seemed to speak for Danion's whole Security force. The ship had a population matching that of a fair-sized city. Could the police force be that small?

  Kindervoort had high cheekbones and a lantern jaw. They gave him a death's head look. His pale eyes were seldom happy. He could have given Mouse lessons in cold stares. Yet he was a genuinely warm and caring person. He asked, "May I join you?"

  "Sure, Jarl," Mouse said. "Glad to have you." Amy and benRabi nodded. Kindervoort settled down, plunged into his meal tray. He did not join the table banter. Neither did benRabi, though Amy brightened for a while and kept up with Mouse in a thrust and parry duel of the risqué and outré.

  During his dessert Kindervoort asked, "You told him yet?"

  "What? Oh. I forgot," Amy replied.

  "Told me what?" benRabi asked.

  "We're moving you to Security. Starting tomorrow. For the auction project."

  "Oh. That. I know."

  "Who told you?"

  "I'm not stupid, Jarl. I may act it, but I'm a trained professional. I can see the signs and add the numbers."

  "Ah. Exactly. That's why we want you on the auction thing. You're a professional. And you know The Broken Wings. Payne's Fleet has gotten the shove into the barrel this time. Payne thinks Danion should provide the protection for our auction crew. Off the record, I'd guess we get the auction because Gruber doesn't want any Payne people with him at Stars' End."

  "What? Stars' End? Christ! I'm starting to hope a rogue singularity comes romping around and gobbles up that goddamned gun-runner's pyramid like a big fat chocolate cherry."

  "Moyshe! What in the name of... "

  "Jarl, you people are crazy. Every last one of you. I won't stand around on the steps of the Senate screaming ‘Beware the Ides of March!' but only because none of you whackos have got the sense to listen. It's going to kill you. Can't you get that through your thick heads? But what do I care? You're only taking me down with you. All right. What do you want me on The Broken Wings for?"

  "Security shift leader down in Angel City. Night shift. I picked your men already. I want you to start drilling them tomorrow. The feedback we get says it might get hairy."

  "What'd I tell you?" benRabi told Amy. To Kindervoort, "At the risk of sounding inane, why me?"

  "You and Mouse both. Because you know the city."

  "Yeah. And he gets stuck with the other shift? Twelve hours at a crack. Wait. It's only nine on The Broken Wings, but that's bad enough, watch and watch with some guy around every corner waiting to burn you. You know what you're asking us to walk into?"

  "What?" Kindervoort would not meet his eye. He knew.

  "Mouse killed her kids. I shot her here. And you let her get away. She'll be there if she has to walk halfway across the galaxy. When she hears our fleet is going to handle it... It won't matter if she can get her people's okay. She'll come, Kindervoort. With every goddamned thing she can lay hands on. Come to think of it, the Heads will probably back her even if they don't like it. They're going to be damned hot about what happened to the raidfleet at Stars' End."

  "Anything else bothering you, Moyshe?"

  "What?"

  "I'd like to hear all your objections now. So we can get them out of the way ahead of time."

  "All right. Why trust me? I'm the man you caught leading Navy ships to your herd, remember?"

  "Three points. One, you're a convert. I saw your test results. Two, the Ship's Commander recommended you. And the third I'd rather keep to myself."

  BenRabi tried to remember all the tests he had taken, both before and after deciding to remain with the Starfishers. They had seemed standard, but he might have missed something. "Typical security-type job? Three hours' sleep and ten minutes for personals every day? Need them or not?"

  "Probably." Kindervoort smiled.

  His smile did not have the desired effect on benRabi. Moyshe saw it as grim, not friendly.

  "Then I'd better settle my affairs. Because I don't expect to get through this one alive. I was going to put this off a few days. Mouse, want to be best man? Jarl, you can stand witness. Everybody's invited. I'll put on a party in my room afterwards. If we can come up with anything drinkable."

  Nobody said anything for several seconds. Mouse stared blankly. Kindervoort managed to appear both surprised and amused. Mouse's girls just looked puzzled.

  Amy showed a half dozen quick reactions. Lack of comprehension. Stunned disbelief. Shock. Distress that threatened to become anger. "It isn't fair," she murmured. She wanted a pompous, ostentatious Archaicist affair with all the splendor of old-time royal weddings. "You're making fun of me." Their friends knew how badly she wanted him to propose.

  He had to reas
sure her quickly.

  "Jarl, can we get it done now?"

  "We could start in ten minutes if you're serious."

  "Go ahead."

  "Moyshe, that isn't fair!" Amy cried. "You never even asked me! And I'm not dressed for it and I haven't got anything to wear and... " She had a whole list of ands and buts. BenRabi and Kindervoort waited till she got them out of her system.

  "Do I call or not, Amy?" Kindervoort asked.

  "Oh!" She hit the table with her fists. "Yes! Yes, dammit! Call him. Moyshe benRabi, you are the meanest, connivingest man I've ever known. How can you do this to me?"

  "Hey! You've been all over me about it... "

  "Isn't love wonderful?" Mouse asked the air. Amy stopped bitching. Mouse had given her a look which warned her that she was pushing her luck.

  The ceremony was not what she wanted. Moyshe kissed her and whispered, "If I get out alive, you'll have the real thing. The big one you want. That's a promise."

  After the reception began, Kindervoort pulled Mouse and benRabi aside. "Finally got some word on that failsafer."

  Back when the landside contractees had been boarding the service ship for return to Confederation a man had tried to kill them when it had become obvious that they were staying behind. He had suicided after missing. They had assumed he was a Bureau agent failsafing them.

  "The autopsy finally got done," Kindervoort said. "He was Sangaree."

  "Sangaree!" Mouse said it as if it were a swear word.

  "Yes. And he did commit suicide. He was wearing a poison ring."

  "Nobody killed him? There wasn't a second failsafer?" BenRabi shook his head. "That doesn't make sense."

  "It didn't make sense when we thought there were two of them, and one got away," Mouse said. "Looks to me like he was Strehltsweiter's man, not the Admiral's. Makes sense in that context. She wanted us pretty bad."

  "That's the way I figured it," Kindervoort said. "Till now I halfway thought it might have been a setup. To make you look more palatable. It doesn't look that obvious anymore. I'm confused, though. She was in intensive care all the time. Isolated. How did she make contact? How did she relay the order, even assuming the failsafer was pre-programed? If you come up with any theories, let me know. I'd hate to think my own people helped her."

  "Uhm." BenRabi glanced at Mouse.

  Mouse shrugged. "I was sure he was Beckhart's."

  "Ever heard of a Sangaree suiciding?"

  "It happens. Borroway."

  "Those were kids. They didn't have any other way out, and they knew too much."

  "He had to be programed."

  "What's going on?" Amy demanded. "Consoling the victim, Mouse? You look like your best friend just died."

  "We'll talk it out later, Mouse. No, we were just talking about something Jarl brought up. Sort of a puzzle. Let's dance, honey."

  It was a zestless party. It did not last long. Neither did the honeymoon. Mouse dragged benRabi out early next morning.

  "Hey. I'm supposed to be a newlywed."

  "Come on. You been tapping it for eight months. Getting married didn't make it new. Jarl wants us. Time to go into training."

  BenRabi spent the next fourteen hours talking about Angel City, studying maps, teaching the use of small arms in a coliseum cube that had been commandeered for the purpose.

  His group consisted of twenty-five people. Mouse had another the same size. Mouse drilled his mercilessly in unarmed combat. His was the easier task. His students at least had some idea of what he was talking about.

  BenRabi worked at it, but thought the Seiners were taking everything too damned seriously—despite his own admonition about how rough it could get.

  He vacillated between a belief that they would find The Broken Wings hip deep in Sangaree and the opposing view, that Navy Security would be so tight that not one unfriendly would get through.

  His fourth morning of teaching was interrupted by Kindervoort. "Moyshe. Sorry. Got to take you off this today. They've got a tour planned for citizenship applicants."

  "Can't it wait? This auction won't, and these clowns are so bad they couldn't hurt themselves."

  "I argued. I got shouted down. I guess they think it's important that you know what you're fighting for."

  "Yeah? I never did before, and I did my job... "

  "Oh. You're bitter today."

  "Just frustrated. The more I see, the worse it looks. We're going to get hurt if this thing goes Roman candle, Jarl. We won't be ready."

  "Do the best you can. That's all you can ever do, Moyshe."

  "Sometimes that's not enough, Jarl. I want to do enough."

  "Make a vacation out of today. Just relax. I don't think it's that important. They're supposed to show you what life's like for Starfishers who don't live on harvestships. Probably do you good to get away from Amy, too. I don't know what's the matter with her. She's even bitchy around the office anymore."

  "You've known her longer than I have. You figure it out. You tell me."

  Mouse stalked in. "You ready, Moyshe? I scrounged a scooter. Let's go before somebody liberates it back."

  Eight: 3049 AD

  The Contemporary Scene

  Hel did not belong. It was a Pluto-sized twerp of a straggler planet which, like an orphaned puppy, had taken up with the first warm body it had come across. When it did so, it set up for business too far from the unstable Cepheid it adopted. Even at perihelion in its lazy, eggy orbit it did not receive enough warmth to melt carbon dioxide.

  Hel was a black eight ball of a world silver-chased by ice lying in the canyons of its wrinkled carcass. Its sun was but the brightest of the stars in its sky. No one would expect such a planet to exist, and no one would want to visit it if a suspicion of its existence arose.

  Those were the reasons Confederation's Navy Bureau of Research and Development considered Hel the perfect site for a bizarre, dangerous, and ultra-secret research project.

  Hel Station lay buried in a mountain like a clam in sand. Its appendages reached the surface at just two points.

  The Station was not meant to be found.

  "Ion?"

  Marescu was a sight. His waistcoat was soiled, ragged, and wrinkled. His hose was bagged and falling. His wig was askew. His facial makeup was caked and streaked.

  "Ion?" Neidermeyer said a second time, catching his friend's elbow. "You hear the news? Von Drachau is coming here."

  Marescu yanked his arm away. "Who?" At the moment he did not give a damn about anything, Paul's news included. The agony was too much for mortal man to bear. He yanked a grimy silk handkerchief from a pocket, cleared the water from his eyes. Paul should not see his tears.

  "Von Drachau. Jupp von Drachau. The guy who pulled off that raid in the Hell Stars a couple of years back. You remember. The commentators called him High Command's fair-haired boy. They talked like he'd be Chief of Staff Navy someday."

  "Oh. Another one of your militarist heroes." Marescu could set in abeyance the worst blues for a good fight about the Services. "Fascist lackey."

  Paul grinned, refused the bait. "Not me, Ion. I know you too well."

  No fight? Marescu faded off into his internal reality. Damn her eyes! How could she have done it? And with that....hat blackamoor!

  "Hey. Ion? Is something wrong?"

  More than normal? Ion Marescu was Hel Station's resident crank and grouch, its leading Mr. Blues and Vinegar. Most people shunned him unless work forced contact. He had one real friend, astrophysicist Paul Neidermeyer, a lady love named Melanie Bounds, and managed a certain strained formality with his boss, Kathe the Eagle. Everybody else was fair game for his vituperation.

  "Von Drachau? He's Line, isn't he? Why would they tell a Line officer about this place? They planning on locking him up?"

  "Ion. Man, what's wrong? You look bad. Why don't we take you down and get you a shower and a clean jumper?"

  One of the curiosities of Ion Marescu was that he appeared to change personalities with his clothing. When he
wore standard Navy work clothing he was almost tolerable. When he donned his Archaicist costume he became arrogant, argumentative, viper-tongued, and abnormally misty, as if half the time half of him truly did exist in eighteenth-century England.

  Marescu paused before a mirror inset in the passage wall, ignoring the people trying to pass. "I do look a little ragged, don't I?" he muttered. He adjusted his wig, straightened the ruffles at his throat, thought, I wish this were Georgian England. I could call the bastard out. Settle this crap with steel.

  But you would not have done that with a Negro, would you? You'd have gotten some friends together and played dangle the darky from a tree limb. If you could have stood the shame of confessing to your friends.

  Marescu was not one of Hel Station's more polished Archaicists. The others had brought their costumes and research materials with them. He had taken up the hobby only after the isolation had begun to grind him down. He had sewn his own costume, with Melanie's help.

  He was more devoted than most Station Archaicists. He prided himself on that, as he prided himself on his contrariness, his crotchets, and the perfection of his work with the test programs. He liked to think that he was the best at whatever he did—including at making himself obnoxious. He seldom noticed the compensatory sloppiness he expressed in his personal habits and hobby.

  He had not researched his period thoroughly. He winged most of it. His hobby-era values and beliefs were based on hearsay.

  There were those who thought the dichotomy between a perfectionist work life and slovenly play life, taken far too seriously, was indicative of deep disturbance. Admiral Adler disagreed. She felt Marescu was all showoff.

  Marescu started walking. He had forgotten Paul. Neidermeyer seized his arm again. "Ion, if I can't help, who can? We've been friends for years."

  "It's not something anybody can help with, Paul. It's Melanie. I got off shift early. The quark tube was acting up. The strange positives and bottom negs were coming off almost a milli-degree out of track. They couldn't inject them into their orbital shells... They shut down. She had Mitchell with her."