Starfishers

by Glen Cook

  “Not a nibble,” he overheard one man complain to another. The listener nodded tautly, as though he were hearing it for the nth time. “Told you it would be a waste of time, Charley. They’re all hedonists.” The speaker glared at a raucous group of Archaicists. “We won’t see one thing new before next auction.”

  His table caught benRabi’s eye and interest. The man had laid out a display of British coins and stamps. “Excuse me, sir.”

  “Yeah?” the complainer growled. Then he recognized Moyshe as an outsider who might have something to offer. BenRabi could see excitement rising in him. More companionably, “Sit down. Sit down. Name’s George. What’s your field?”

  “Victorians. Tell me, how does a Starfisher come by . . . ”

  A quick, conspiratorial smile flashed across the man’s face. “I would’ve bet you’d ask that, friend. I got lucky one time. I bought this unclaimed trunk when I was on The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Opened it up and, Holy Christ!” George launched a narrative which included the minutest detail of his lucky day. Collectors were that way, and every one had his story.

  Moyshe studied him. How had he gotten down onto a Confederation world? Why? Was this another tidbit that should be red-tagged? Did Starfishers make many surreptitious visits to the worlds of their hunters?

  “I didn’t know if I’d run into any collectors out here,” Moyshe said, “but I brought my trading stock just in case. I’m more into stamps than coins. British and American and German. If you know anybody. I’ve got some good stuff.”

  “Know anybody? Look around you. See all those birddogs on point?”

  I’m a champion fool, Moyshe thought suddenly. I could retire on my collection if I could sell it at market. Hell. I’m rich.

  Prize money had a way of piling up. He only used his to support his hobbies.

  “Come on, friend. Sit. How many times do I have to tell you? Paul, get the man some coffee.” All warmth now, George practically forced him into a chair. Moyshe surrendered. Amy attached herself to its back.

  She must be assigned to me, the way she’s sticking, benRabi thought. It’s not my overwhelming charm keeping her here.

  “Like I said, I’m George. Grumpy George, they call me. But I kind of grow on you after a while.”

  “BenRabi. Moyshe benRabi. I was noticing this stamp here . . . ” He and George swapped stories for an hour.

  “I’m glad you dragged me over here,” Moyshe told Amy afterward.

  “Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” Her tone said she was not having fun.

  “What’re you doing tonight?” he blurted. He felt as nervous as a youngster trying to make his first date. “About the ball, I mean. One of the Archaicist groups is having that American Deep South Civil War thing . . . ”

  She smiled a sad smile. “I don’t have any plans, if that’s what you mean. But you don’t have a costume.”

  “Is it mandatory?”

  “No. You know Archaicists. They’ll put up with anything to interest people in their pet periods. That one’s already popular. The American ones are here. Our ethnic roots mostly go back to North America. Are you asking me?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Good.” She laughed. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  “What? Shouldn’t the man? . . . ”

  “Not when he’s a landsman. The rules. You’d get arrested if you went running around looking for me.”

  “Oh. All right. What now?”

  “There isn’t much happening. Unless you want to join the Archaicists, or go to a ball game.”

  “Let’s just circulate.” He might pick up something interesting.

  They milled in the press, watching several Archaicist performances, Mouse handling the Tregorgarthian youths, a fencing tournament, and the endless chess matches. Life aboard Danion was little different from that aboard a warship on extended patrol. The limits just were not as narrow.

  Amy introduced Moyshe to scores of people whose names he forgot immediately. “This is getting to be like an overgrown cocktail party,” he observed. “I hated them when I was line. You had to attend. They’re the reason I decided to be a spy. Spies don’t have to be nice to people they don’t like.”

  Amy looked at him oddly.

  “Just joking.”

  “Your friend is good at everything he does, isn’t he?” She had become impressed with the way Mouse had handled the Tregorgarthians.

  “When he gets interested in something he gives it everything. He’s got a knack for switching on and off to complete commitment.”

  “And the girls. How does he find the time?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, I’d be cutting a swath myself.”

  His answer did not satisfy her. She kept trying to pry something out of him. She wasted her time. He had been in the spy business so long that the information shutdown was reflexive.

  “You want to find out about Mouse, go to the horse’s mouth,” he finally told her.

  “I don’t think so, Moyshe.”

  He smiled. Mouse would talk about himself all night, not tell a word of truth, and seduce her three times in the process. “Probably not. We’re different, him and me. I’m the type that would rather observe.”

  Amy linked her arm with his. “Observe for me, observer.”

  “About what?”

  “You came to watch Seiners. Tell me about us. What do we look like to you?”

  “Uhm. Happy. At peace with yourselves and the universe. Here’s a thing. About laughter. It’s different here. Not anything like at home. Like your souls are part of it. Like my people only laugh to push back the darkness. The guy who was doing the comedy routine?”

  “Jake?”

  “Whatever his name is. The one who told the story about Murph, the guy who knew everybody. He even made me laugh. And you know why? Because he was poking fun at things I wouldn’t even have thought about. Or wouldn’t have the nerve to criticize. I’m a moral coward.”

  “Whoa. What’re you talking about? What brought that on?”

  “I just started thinking about my boss. Very dignified gentleman. When he wants to be. All the big-timers are in Luna Command. Only their dignity is almost always pomposity in disguise. Ever since I was a midshipman I’ve had this fantasy about being the king’s secret agent. I’d go around disguised as Joe Citizen. I’d keep a list. Whenever a civil servant or sales person was obnoxious, I’d put their names down and the king’s men would come and get them. I’d also be a sort of wandering clown who made pompous bigwigs expose themselves for what they were. The Bureau would be my first target.”

  “You have hard feelings against the people you work for?”

  Moyshe did not answer. The intensity of Amy’s question scared him off. She was too keen, too tense, too eager all of a sudden. “Let’s change the subject.”

  She did not press. A while later she suggested, “Why don’t you go back to your writing now?”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  “No! That’s not what I meant. Did it sound like that? I’m sorry. I just thought you might feel better now.”

  He reflected for a moment. “I do. Maybe it’ll go better. I hate to admit it, but I’ve had a good time, Amy. Thanks.”

  He allowed her to escort him to his cabin, where he immediately attacked his story. It went well.

  He hardly seemed to have begun though, when Amy pushed his buzzer. “Moyshe. Wake up,” she called from the passageway.

  “It’s open. Time already?”

  In she bounced, charmingly dressed as a southern belle, in lots of pink and petticoats. “Been going good? You’ve got papers everywhere.” She had a Confederate uniform over one arm, and swords and things under the other.

  “Smoking.”

  “I borrowed some things . . . What’s the matter?”

  For an instant he had seen her as Alyce. His past hit him like a tsunami.

  Her smile persisted, but did not ride her voice as she asked, “Moyshe, what’s be
hind you?”

  “Nothing. That costume for me? Give it here and I’ll change.”

  “I’ve been watching you, Moyshe, Something’s eating you. Don’t let it. Puke it up. Get it out where you can stomp on it, chop it up, and kill it.”

  That was the difference between Amy and Alyce. Alyce would never have asked. She would have waited till he wanted to talk.

  “What about you?” he demanded. “Want to tell me what’s behind you?” Best defense is a good offense, he thought, mocking himself.

  She ignored it. “Tell me something.” She spoke softly, with concern, just as she had done that day on the shuttle.

  “I have walked with joy down the passion-shaded avenues

  Abounding in the City of Love. My heart was young,

  And She was beside me; together were we,

  And in that was my totality.”

  “Czyzewski,” she observed. “Yes. I read too. It’s from Sister Love. They say he wrote it before he went into space and lost his mind—if a guy who brags about a love affair with his sister isn’t crazy already. What do you mean by it, Moyshe? Is an old love affair bothering you? That’s silly. You’re not fifteen . . . ”

  “I’m perfectly aware of that. Intellectually. ‘I was then, stark in the gardens of the moon,’ ” he quoted out of context. “Now I’m a tired old man, far from home, futureless, with no friend but a chess-mad Archaicist triggerman I never see except during working hours . . . ” Hold it, he thought. The mouth is playing traitor here.

  “Give me that costume. Let me get ready. Please?”

  “All right.” She put a lot into those two words. It reminded him of the professional mother who had taken care of him occasionally while his natural mother had chased ghosts of vanished Earths. She had been able to say the same words the same way, implying that nothing good could possibly come of whatever he planned. She had been able to say almost anything in a way that made it sound like he was condemning himself to the clutches of the Devil, or some equally nasty fate.

  “Well. You make a striking officer,” Amy said when he returned from the bathroom. “If you had a beard you’d look a little like Robert E. Lee.”

  “Yeah? Can you do something about this damned sword? How the hell did they get around without falling on their faces all the time?”

  She giggled as she made adjustments. “What?”

  “Just wondering how many Jewish generals there were in the Confederate Army.”

  “There’re a lot . . . Oh, you mean that Confederation. I don’t get it. Why should that be funny?”

  “You have to know the period.”

  “Well, you’ve lost me. I only know it from military history at Academy. I can tell you why Longstreet did what he didn’t do at Gettysburg, but not what religion he was. Anyway, I’m not Jewish. And you know it.”

  “What are you, then? Do you believe in anything, Moyshe?”

  Poking again. Prying. For her own sake, he guessed. Fisher Security probably would not care about his religion.

  He wanted to make a snappy comeback, but she had struck too close to the core of his dissatisfaction. At the moment he did not believe in anything, and himself least of all. And that, he thought, was curious, because he had not had these kinds of feelings since coming out of the line. Not till this mission had begun. “The Prophet Murphy,” he said.

  “Murphy? I don’t get it. Who the hell is Murphy? I expected death and taxes.”

  “The Prophet Murphy. The guy who said, ‘If anything can possibly go wrong, it will.’ My life has been a testimonial.”

  She stepped back, shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what to make of you, Moyshe. Yes I do. Maybe. Maybe I’ll just make you happy in spite of yourself.”

  “Blood from a turnip, Lady.” He had had enough talk. Taking her arm, he headed for the ball, for the moment forgetting that he did not know where he was going. Then he saw that she had brought an electric scooter. The Seiners used them whenever they had to travel any distance. There were places in Danion that were literally days away by foot.

  Red-faced, he settled onto the passenger seat, facing backward.

  They did not exchange a word during the trip. Moyshe suffered irrational surges of anger, alternating with images of the gun. That thing scared the hell out of him. He was no triggerman. It seemed to have less contact with reality than did his wanting.

  He had become, on a low-key, reflexively suppressed level, convinced that he was going insane.

  Time seemed to telescope. The unwanted thoughts would not go away. His hands grew cold and clammy. His mood sank . . .

  Amy swung to the passage wall, parked, plugged the scooter into a charger circuit. It became one of a small herd of orange beasts nursing electrical teats. “Good crowd,” he said inanely, taking a clumsy poke at the silence.

  “Uhm.” She paused to straighten his collar and sword. “Come on.” Her face remained studiedly blank, landside style. It was a bit of home for which he was ungrateful.

  The ball seemed a repeat of the morning’s get-together. The same people were there. Only a hundred or so were in appropriate costume. Twice as many wore every get-up from Babylon to tomorrow, and as many again wore everyday jumpsuits.

  Moyshe froze just inside the doorway.

  “What is it?” Amy asked.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t have the right, but . . . I feel like something’s been taken away from me.” Had all those Vikings and Puritans and Marie Antoinettes stolen his moment of glory? Had he been bitten by the Archaicist bug?

  “It’s our history, too, remember?” Amy countered, misunderstanding. “You said everybody’s roots go back to Old Earth.”

  A hand took Moyshe’s left elbow. “Mint julep, sir?”

  BenRabi turned to face Jarl Kindervoort, who wore buckskins and coonskin cap. Dan’l Deathshead, he thought. Scair ’em injuns right out’n Kaintuck.

  “The damn thing fits you better than it does me,” Kindervoort observed.

  “It’s your costume?”

  “Yeah. Let’s see what they’ve got at the bar, Moyshe.”

  Amy had disappeared. And Kindervoort’s tone implied business. Feeling put-upon, benRabi allowed himself to be led to the bar.

  That was another unpleasantness. The setup was Wild West, with a dozen rowdy black hat types attached, busy making asses of themselves with brags and mock gunfights. Acrid gunsmoke floated around in grey-blue streamers.

  Of all the period crap that Archaicists bought, Moyshe felt Wild West was the worst. It was all made-up history, a consensus fantasy with virtually no foundation in actual history.

  His mother’s first Archaicist flier had been Wild West. It had come during his difficulties at Academy, when he had desperately needed an anchor somewhere. She had not given him what he had needed. She had not had the time.

  To top it off, the Sangaree woman was there. She had assumed the guise of The Lady Who Goes Upstairs.

  “Appropriate,” benRabi muttered. Her awesome sexual appetites had grown since The Broken Wings.

  She was watching him with Jarl. Was she getting a little worried? Wondering when he would turn her in? He smiled at her. Let her sweat.

  There was a stir at the door. “Jesus,” benRabi said. “Will you look at this.”

  Mouse the attention-grabber and most popular boy in class, with no less than six beauties attached, had just swept in outfitted as a diminutive Henry VIII.

  “We’re lucky this isn’t a democracy,” Kindervoort observed. “Your friend would be Captain by the end of the year, riding the female vote.”

  Moyshe ignored the pun. Sourly, he said, “Aren’t you?” He was getting irritated with Mouse’s antics. The man was flaunting his successes . . . Envy was one of benRabi’s nastier vices. He tried to control it, but Mouse made that hard.

  He faced the bar, found himself staring at some horrid-looking swill in a tall glass. “Mint julep,” Kindervoort explained. “We try to drink according to period at these things.” He si
pped from a tin cup. The gunfighters were tossing off straight shots. At bar’s end a hairy Viking type waved an axe and thundered something about honey mead.

  “Bet it all comes out of the same bottle.”

  “Probably,” Kindervoort admitted.

  “It’s your ballpark. What do you want, Jarl?”

  Kindervoort’s eyebrows rose. “Moyshe, you’re damned hard to get along with, you know that? Now you frown. I’m getting too personal. How do you people survive, never touching?”

  “We don’t touch because there’re too many of us. Unless you’re Mouse. He grew up with lots of elbow room and not wanting for anything. I don’t expect you to understand. You couldn’t unless you’ve lived on one of the Inner Worlds.”

  Kindervoort nodded. “How would you like to get away from all that? To live where there’s room to be human? Where you don’t have to be an emotional brick to survive?” He took a long sip from his cup, watching Moyshe over its rim.

  He had to wait a long time for an answer.

  Moyshe knew what was being offered. And what it would cost.

  The demons of his mind rallied to fiery standards, warring with one another in an apocalyptic clash. Ideals, beliefs, desires, and temptations stormed one another’s strongholds. He struggled to keep that armageddon from painting itself on his face.

  He was good at that. He had had decades of practice.

  It occurred to him that Kindervoort was Security, and Security men did not deal in the obvious. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  Kindervoort laughed. “All right, Moyshe. But we’ll talk about it later. Go on. Find Amy. Have a good time. It’s a party.”

  He vanished before Moyshe could respond. Amy appeared on cue.

  “Rotten trick, Amy Many-Names, letting that vampire get ahold of me.” Kindervoort’s retreat raised his spirits. He felt benevolent toward the universe. He would let it roll on awhile.

  “What did he do?”

  “Nothing much. Just tried to get me to defect.”

  She just stared at him, apparently wondering why he was not shrieking with joy. Seldom did a landsman receive the opportunity to become a Seiner.

  It was human nature to think your own acre was God-chosen, he realized. And Amy’s was one he would not mind entering—though not on Kindervoort’s terms. He was not in love with Confederation or the Bureau, but he would never sell them out.