Starfishers

by Glen Cook

  “Let’s dance,” Amy suggested. “That’s what we came for.”

  Time drifted away. Moyshe began to enjoy himself. He discovered that he was spending the evening with a woman who mattered more than the bag of duffel with sex organs she had been when they had arrived.

  Somewhere along the way one of Amy’s cousins invited them to a room party. No longer tense and wary, he said, “Why not? Sounds good.” A moment later he and Amy were part of a gay crowd on scooters, shooing pedestrians with rebel yells. The partiers were mostly youngsters recently graduated from the creche schools, almost as new to the harvestship as Moyse. In a small group, confined to a cabin, he found them less reserved than the older Seiners he met while working.

  They seemed to have Archaicist tendencies oriented toward the late twentieth century youth cults. At least the cabin belonged to someone fond of the approximate period. Moyshe could not identify it for certain.

  Liquor flowed. Smoke filled the air. Time passed. Quiet in a corner, with Amy most of the time but sometimes without, observing, he gradually settled into a strange mood wherein he became detached from his environment. The bittersweet smoke was more to blame than the alcohol. It was dense enough to provide a high without his having to toke any of the odd little cigarettes offered him.

  Marijuana, someone called them. He vaguely remembered it from childhood, as something the older kids in his gang had used. He had never done dope himself.

  His companions coughed and gasped and made faces, but persisted. The drug was part of the period cult. He drifted farther from reality himself, floating free, till he swam in a mist of uninhibited, irrational impressions.

  The touch of a woman on his hand—sail on, silver girl—and the flavor of whiskey on his tongue. Dancing light, harsh in a distant corner, all shadows and angles beside him. His fingers slipped into the warm place at the back of Amy’s neck. She purred, moving from the arm of the chair into his lap. He thought sex . . . No. He was not drunk enough to forget Alyce. Fear arose. Shadows grew, beckoning. In their hearts lurked dark things, wicked spirit-reevers from the deeps of the past come to stalk him along the shores of the future. There was a magic at work in that room. He and Amy were suddenly alone amid the horde.

  Alone among the golden people, all of them ten years their junior, each with a newly minted shiny innocence—on some becoming tarnished. He did not care.

  They talked, she a little deeply, and he with scant attention. He was not ready to explore her yet. But it seemed, from hints she dropped, that their pasts might read like sides of the same coin. An unhappy affair lay behind her, and something physical, sexual, that she was not yet ready to yield, was troubling her now. He did not press. His own midnight-eyed haunts were lurking in the wings.

  On. On. Near midnight, in a moment of clarity, he noticed her left-handedness for the first time because of the way she offered him a can of Archaicist-trade beer. Left-handed, pop the top, shift hands, offer with a bend of the wrist because he was right-handed. He marveled because he had not noticed it earlier. He was supposed to be an observant man. It was his profession. October thoughts died as his interest increased and he became aware of the intenseness of Amy’s every move.

  She laughed a lot, usually at things that were not funny. Her own fanged shadows were closing in, memories that she had to exorcise with forced mirth. She was trying to keep her devil out of sight, but he found its shaggy edges familiar. It was a cousin of his own.

  While a dozen people silently considered the songs of someones named Simon and Garfunkel, or Buddy Holly, he discovered how nicely they fit. She spent an hour in his lap without making him uncomfortable. His left hand touched the back of her neck, his right lay on the curve of her left hip, and her head rested nicely on his left shoulder, beneath his chin. Her hair had a pale, pleasant, unfamiliar scent.

  Weren’t they a little old for this?

  Shadows in the doorways, shadows on the walls. Don’t ask questions. He listened to her heartbeat, three beats for his two.

  He shivered as his monster shuffled closer. Amy moved, wriggling nearer. She chuckled softly when he grunted from the pain-tweak of her bony bottom shifting in his lap.

  The partiers began drifting out, off to their private places, to be lonely, or frightened, or together till the reality of morning swept them back to work and today. Soon there were just three couples left. Moyshe shivered as he lifted Amy’s chin. She resisted a moment, then surrendered. The kiss became intense. The shadows retreated a bit.

  “Come on,” she said, bouncing up, yanking his arm. They darted into the passageway, boarded the scooter, and flew to his cabin. She went in with him, locking the door behind her.

  But the time was not yet right. They spent the night sleeping. Just cuddling and sleeping, hiding from the darkness. Neither was ready to risk anything more.

  She was gone when he awakened. And his wants and haunts were strangely quiet.

  Where would they go from here? he wondered.

  Twelve: 3047 AD

  The Olden Days, The Mother World

  Perchevski shuffled from foot to foot. He was too nervous to sit. He had not realized that going home would unleash so much emotion.

  He glanced around the lounge. The lighter would be carrying a full load. Tourists and business people. The former were mostly Ulantonid and Toke. They huddled in racial clumps, intimidated by Old Earth’s xenophobic reputation, yet determined to explore the birth world of Man. The Toke nerved themselves with bold talk. Their every little quirk or gesture seemed to proclaim, “We are the Mel-Tan Star Warriors of the Marine Toke Legion. We are the Chosen of the Star Lords. The delinquents of a decadent world cannot frighten us.”

  But they were scared.

  No enemy could intimidate the Toke. The Toke War had proven that. Only the stroke of diplomatic genius that had made a place for them in Service, and a place for Toke in Confederation, as equals, had saved the Warrior Caste from extinction.

  It’s a pity we can’t work something like that for the Sangaree, Perchevski thought.

  But there had been no hatred in the Toke War. It had been an almost clinically unemotional contest for supremacy in the star ranges of the Palisarian Directorate.

  The Ulantonid were less bellicose than the Toke. Their war with Confederation had been unemotional too. Another blood-flavored wrestling match for supremacy.

  These looked like a Catholic group headed for Rome, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.

  “Shuttle Bravo Tango Romeo Three One is now ready for boarding for passengers making a Lake Constance descent. Passengers for Corporation Zone will please assemble at Shuttle Bay Nine.”

  “I’d like to meet her,” said a stranger near Perchevski.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The woman who does the announcing. She can put her shoes under my bed anytime.”

  “Oh. The voice.” It had been a soothing, mellow, yet suggestive voice. Similar voices did the announcing in every terminal Perchevski had ever visited.

  The tourists and business people boarded first. Luna Command made a habit of doing little things that avoided irritating civilians. The individual Serviceman was supposed to remain unobtrusive.

  Only one check on Luna Command’s power existed. The operating appropriation voted by a popularly elected senate.

  The Toke Marines stood aside for Perchevski, who had come in his Commander’s uniform.

  It was a long, lazy twelve-hour orbit to Lake Constance and Geneva. Perchevski read, slept, and pondered the story he had recently begun. He tried not to think about the world below.

  The holonets could not begin to portray the squalid reality that was Old Earth beyond the embattled walls of Corporation Zone.

  The shuttle dropped into the lake. A tug guided it into a berth. Perchevski followed the civilians into the air of his native world. He had come home. After eight years.

  Geneva had not changed. Switzerland remained unspoiled. Its wealth and beauty seemed to give the lie to all the horr
or stories about Old Earth.

  It was a mask. Offworld billions cosmeticized the Zone, and Corporation police forces maintained its sanctity at gunpoint. The perimeters were in a continuous state of siege.

  There were times when Luna Command had to send down Marines to back the Corporation defense forces. The excuse was protection of Confederation’s Senate and offices, which were scattered between Geneva, Zurich, and the south shore of the Bodensee.

  Once there had been a social theory claiming that the wealth coming into the Zone from the Corporations headquartered there would eventually spread across the planet. A positive balance of trade would be created. And the positive example of life in the Zone would act as a counter-infection to the social diseases of the rest of the planet. Change would radiate from Switzerland like ripples in a pond.

  The theory had been stillborn, as so many social engineering schemes are.

  No one here gives a damn, Perchevski reflected as he entered his hotel room. All that kept Earth going was trillions in interplanetary welfare. Maybe the whole thing should be allowed to collapse, then something could be done for the survivors.

  The motherworld’s people still played their games of nationalism and warfare. They loved their Joshua Jas. And they flatly refused to do anything for themselves while Confederation could be shamed into paying support.

  The too often told tale of welfarism was repeating itself. As always, provision of means for improvement had become an overpowering disincentive to action.

  Perchevski spent his first day at home doing one of the guided tours of the wonders of Corporation Zone. With his group were a few native youngsters who had been awarded the tour as contest prizes.

  They surprised him. They were reasonably well-behaved, moderately clean, and not too badly dressed. A cut above the average run, and not unlike kids elsewhere. The Security guard was not called upon to practice his trade.

  The tour group lunched in the restaurant at the Nureyev Technical Industries chalet atop the Matterhorn.

  “Excuse me, Commander.”

  Perchevski looked up from his sausage and kraut, startled. A girl of sixteen, a tall, attractive blonde, stood opposite him. He was eating alone. His uniform had put off everyone but two Toke Marines, who were still trying to explain their need to a cook who was appalled at the idea of permitting raw meat out of his kitchen. He suspected the Marines wanted to stay near him for a feeling of added security. The Toke were a strongly hierarchical people, and among them warriors were the most respected of castes.

  “Yes?”

  “May I sit here?”

  “Of course.” He was stunned. She was one of the prize winners. Most Old Earthers so hated the Services that even the best intentioned could not remain polite.

  Is she a prostitute? he wondered.

  Whatever her pitch, she needed time. She was so nervous she could not eat.

  She suddenly blurted, “You’re Old Earth, aren’t you? I mean originally.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “The way you look at things. Outworlders look at things different. Like they’re afraid they’ll catch something, or something.”

  Perchevski glanced at the other prize winners. Disgust marked their faces. “Your friends don’t . . . ”

  “They’re not my friends. I never saw any of them before yesterday. How did you get out?” Words tumbled out of her all strung together, so fast he could hardly follow them.

  “Out?”

  “Of this. This place. This world.”

  “I took the Academy exams. They accepted me.”

  “They didn’t stop you?”

  “Who?”

  “Your friends. The people you knew. I tried three times. Somebody always found out and kept me from going. Last time three men stopped me outside the center and said they’d kill me if I went in.”

  “So there’s still hope,” Perchevski murmured. He knew what she wanted now.

  “Sir?”

  “I mean, as long as there’s somebody like you left, Old Earth isn’t dead. You’ve made my trip worthwhile.”

  “Get me out. Can you get me out? Anything is better than this. I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”

  She meant it. Her desperate promise was so obvious it hurt.

  He remembered his own desperation at an even younger age. When you chose the unpopular path you had to cleave to it with fanatical determination. He was moved. Deeply.

  “I entered every contest there ever was just so I could get this far. I knew they wouldn’t keep me from coming here, and I thought maybe I could find somebody . . . ”

  “But you were too scared to do anything when you got here.”

  “They were all outworlders.”

  “You leave Earth, you won’t meet anyone else. I’ve only run into two or three Earthmen in twenty years.” He eyed the group with which the girl had been traveling. The youths seemed to have caught the drift of her appeal. They did not like it.

  “I know. I’d get used to it.”

  “Are you sure? . . . ”

  Three young men drifted to the table. “This slut don’t belong here, Spike.”

  Perchevski smiled gently. “You just made fuck-up number one, stud. Don’t get smoked.”

  That startled them. One snarled, “You’ll shit in your hand and carry it to China, Spike.”

  “May I be of assistance, Commander?”

  The Toke Marine dwarfed the three youths. Adam’s apples bobbed.

  “I don’t think so, Fire Cord. I’d say the Banner is secure. The young men have said their piece. They were just leaving.”

  The Toke Major glared down. At two and a quarter meters and one hundred thirty kilos he was a runt for a Star Warrior. His aide, though, was the kind they put on recruiting pamphlets meant for circulation through the Caste Lodges. He stood quietly behind his officer, filled with that still, dread equanimity that made the Star Warriors unnerving to even the most hardened human Servicemen.

  “’Go you silently, Children of the Night,’” Perchevski quoted from an old song used as a battle anthem by half the youth gangs on the planet. “You, especially, talking head.”

  The slang had not changed much. Unlike the Outworlds, Old Earth had become locked into static patterns.

  The youths understood. There had been a time when he had been one of them.

  They left, strutting with false bravura. Perchevski thought he caught a glint of envy in the spokesman’s eye.

  “Thank you, Fire Cord.” The Security man, busy talking shit to a restaurant girl, had missed the encounter.

  “We share the Banner, Commander. We will be near.”

  “Fire Cord?”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t call them on their own ground.”

  “This is my third visit, Commander.”

  “Then you know.” He turned to the girl again, who seemed petrified. The two huge, leathery-skinned Marines moved to the nearest empty table.

  The girl finally blurted, “Why did you come back?”

  “I don’t know. To remind myself? Looking for something I left behind? Roots? I’m not sure. I wanted to see my mother. It’s been eight years.”

  “Oh.” She sounded envious. “I couldn’t find out who my parents were. I never met anybody who did know. Not my age, anyway.”

  He smiled. “Do you have a name? After that scene, you’d better stay close to me or the Marines. Well have to call you something besides Hey Girl.”

  “Greta. Helsung. From Hamburg. Are they real Star Warriors?”

  He laughed softly. “Don’t let them hear you ask a question like that, Greta from Hamburg. They’re as real as the stink in the sink. I’m Commander Perchevski. If you don’t change your mind, I’ll take you to see somebody when we get back to Geneva.”

  “I won’t change it. Not after all the trouble I had . . . ”

  He peered at her intently. This was too breathtaking, too real, too dream-come-true for her. She did not quite believe him. He could
almost hear her thinking he would use her, then dump her.

  The use temptation existed. She was fresh and beautiful.

  “I mean it, Greta. And don’t be scared. You’re young enough to be my daughter.”

  “I’m not a child. I’m old enough . . . ”

  “I’m aware of that. I’m not young enough. Eat your knockwurst. The meat came all the way from Palisarius.”

  “Oh, God! Really? I didn’t know what I was ordering. I just asked for something that I didn’t know what it was. Just for something different. They didn’t show any prices. It must be awful expensive.” She looked around guiltily.

  “So don’t waste it.” Then, “Price doesn’t matter to most people who eat here. If they couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t come. Go on. Enjoy yourself.”

  Her tour expenses would be covered. Luna Command would pick up the tab. The Services sponsored the contests that gave Zone vacations as prizes. Some inspired social theorist had decided to fish for Old Earth’s Gretas, for the one-in-a-million children who had adventure in their genes and dreams in their hearts.

  The program was as successful as the normal recruiting procedures. It gave interested youths a chance to escape peer pressure. Computers watched and cross-checked the contest entries. Undoubtedly, someone would have contacted Greta if she had not come to him.

  He eyed her and thanked heaven that someone out there still cared.

  He felt pretty good.

  Greta remained nearby throughout the tour, milking him for every detail about outside. Her former companions were not pleased, but the Fire Cord was always too close for their nerve.

  Terrorism was a popular Terran sport. Toke, though, refused to be terrorized. They bashed heads. Their reputation did not make them immune, but it did force the natives to respect them.

  Perchevski took the girl to the Bureau’s front business office that evening. “A potential recruit,” he told the night desk man, who recognized him from a holo portrait that had preceded him down. “Greta Helsung, from Hamburg. Treat her right.”