Starfishers

by Glen Cook

  “What’re the tests for?”

  “I don’t know. Just some tests.”

  He caught a whiff of untruth. He was not supposed to learn their purpose. He always hated that kind of test, though people were always taking them back home: IQ, emotional stability, prejudicial index, social responsiveness, survival index, environmental response, flexibility, adaptability, the government’s euphemistically labeled Random Sample Report . . .

  Bureau agents suffered bombardment with them during briefing and debriefing. They even had a test to test one’s resistance to testing. His was strong. He did not like having people look inside him. He did too damned much of that himself.

  “Wouldn’t be the famous Warner test, would it?”

  She did not respond. He tried a couple of different tacks, could not get a rise out of her, so gave up.

  They had to make a detour returning to the scooter. Their planned path was blocked with casualties just in from one of the dead harvestships.

  “It’s bad, Moyshe,” Amy said looking down that long hallway of stretchers. “They’ve been bringing people in since the shooting stopped. They may never get them all out of the wrecks. They’re falling in toward Stars’ End too.”

  “Where are they going to put them? We’ll end up having to sleep standing up.”

  “We’ll find something.”

  “Reminds me of my senior year midshipman cruise,” he said. “There were war scares that summer too. The Shadowline War and the Sangaree. And somebody had found a McGraw world. The fleet was tied up. Academy contracted our shipboard astrogation training to private carriers.”

  Memories. That had been the summer he had ended it with Alyce . . .

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Eh? Why?”

  “Because I don’t know anything about you. You never talk about yourself. I want to know who you are.”

  “Well, I got the worst billet on the list. Some people didn’t like me. It was a raggedy-ass Freehauler on the Rim Run from Tregorgarth to The Big Rock Candy Mountain to Blackworld, then Carson’s, Sierra, and The Broken Wings. Broomstick all the way, with crazy passengers. The Freehaulers carry some real weirdos. Between The Broken Wings and Carson’s, coming back, we got jumped by McGraws. My first taste of action.”

  After he had been silent a few seconds, she asked, “What happened?”

  “It was a complete surprise. McGraws don’t usually bother Freehaulers, but Navy was pushing them hard and we were carrying weapons for Gneaus Storm . . . ” Why was he telling her this? It was none of her business. Still . . . Talking kept his mind off the upcoming tests.

  “Go on, Moyshe.”

  He did not doubt that details of the incident were in Kindervoort’s files.

  “Tinker’s Dam—that was the ship—had a cranky drive. Just a hair out of synch. The Freehaulers couldn’t afford to tune it till after the run. So the McGraws couldn’t phase in and pull us into normspace. They tried putting a warning shot across our nose. The drive did one of its tricks, phased in with theirs, and dragged us both into the explosion. The McGraw was destroyed. Tinker’s Dam was hurt pretty bad, but we kept one section airtight. I was trapped there with this crazy family from some First Expansion world. They hated everybody, and Old Earthers and aliens especially. And it was up to me and a Ulantonid radioman to find out where we were and call for help. Took three weeks to rig a transmitter, and three more months before anybody caught our signal. It was miserable. There I was, nineteen years old, scared to death, and all that on me . . . Hey! Where are we?”

  Chagrined, Amy replied, “I was listening. I guess we took a wrong turn. We’ll have to go back.”

  Back they went till she found a passage that would take them in the right direction. It led through a women’s intensive-care ward. The casualties were out where the harried nurses could examine them at a glance. There were at least three hundred women crammed into a ward meant for fifty. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?”

  “They’re moving the walking wounded into the residential blocks.”

  Moyshe stopped suddenly, stricken. The face of the final patient, confined to a burn tank, was one he had not expected to see again. “Marya!”

  She was alive, and inside her tank, amid the jungle of tubes, she was aware. She met his gaze, tried to communicate her hatred. Her I.V. monitor fed her a little nembutol.

  “Moyshe? What’s the matter?”

  He pointed.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No. I thought she was dead.”

  “She would have died if we hadn’t gotten her here so quick.”

  “But . . . ”

  “You used the torch from too far away.”

  “I see.”

  She dropped the subject, realizing he wanted done with it.

  He should have realized that Marya would not go easily.

  Did she have a partner? The answer was critical. His life might depend on it.

  And if he survived here, Marya would come after him landside. He was winning the battles, but the war remained in doubt.

  He did not look forward to their next encounter.

  “What’s the rush, suddenly?” Amy asked. He was almost running.

  Kindervoort was not pleased with his being late, but he shuffled Moyshe into a testing room without remonstrance. “This’s benRabi.”

  Psych types took over. Moyshe suffered through the old parade of idiot questions. Since childhood he had been trying to beat them with random answers—which was why his test sessions always lasted so long. The computers needed a big sample to pin him down.

  When the psychs were done they turned him over to regular medical types who gave him a thorough physical. They were in love with his head. He told the life story of his migraine three times, and endured dozens of shallow and area skull scans.

  They also wanted to know all about his instel implant.

  He developed a sudden muteness. Bureau activities were beyond discussion.

  Just when he was about to scream they turned him loose. The chief examiner apologized profusely for taking so long. There was not a hint of sincerity in his tone. Both he and Moyshe knew the time factor was Moyshe’s fault.

  Moyshe was told to get a good night’s rest before going back to work.

  He hoped they had not learned anything, but suspected that they had. Profile tests were hard to beat.

  Time slipped away quickly, almost as swiftly as it did in the mad, hectic culture groundside. Moyshe returned to Damage Control. His working hours were gruesome.

  Somehow, they got the drives functioning and pushed Danion into a stable orbit. Then the real work began. Everyone not engaged in rescue work, or in keeping the ship alive, began preparing her for a hyper fly to the Yards.

  Moyshe’s work was less demanding than he expected. Danion had suffered more damage to personnel than to plant, had been hurt more by shark attack than by Sangaree fire.

  He heard rumors claiming half the harvestship’s people had perished, or had been made as good as dead by mindburn. His acquaintances had been lucky. He knew no one who had been a victim. But every day, in the course of work, he encountered new faces, and missed a lot of old ones.

  Every time he wakened Moyshe was amazed to find himself still alive. The battle of Stars’ End was over and won, but winning had left the harvestfleet on the brink of disaster. New problems arose as fast as old ones were conquered.

  And the sharks had not given up. They stalked the fleet and herd still, their numbers growing daily. In a week, or a month, they would strike again.

  The fleet was in a race against time. It had to make the Yards before the sharks reached critical . . .

  Time fled swiftly when sudden death lurked behind the veil of time, and every day passing brought Moyshe closer to an hour he dreaded, the moment when he would have to return to Carson’s and his old life.

  He did not want to leave.

  The I want had not sipped at the blood of his soul since the battle, nor had
he had visions of imaginary guns. He seemed to have undergone a spontaneous remission of his mental diseases. In that way the weeks were close to tranquil. His problems became more direct and personal.

  He had found what he needed, a combination of things to do with belonging: a woman, a useful occupation, and a place in a society that considered him something more than a bundle of statistics to be manipulated. He could not yet quite understand what had happened, or why, but he knew he belonged here. Even if he was not yet wholly accepted.

  This was what he had been seeking when he had abandoned Old Earth. Navy had given him some of it, but not enough. This was the real thing.

  He had come home.

  But how could he stay? There were prior demands on his loyalties. He simply could not accept Kindervoort’s terms. He could not betray the Bureau.

  Should he see Jarl and try to arrange something? . . . He vacillated. He swung this way and that. He decided and changed his mind a hundred times a day.

  What about Mouse? What would he think? What would he do and say?

  And all the while, like a recording mechanism, he kept making his notes for the Bureau. Sometimes he worried about getting them off the ship, but that did not much matter. Writing them down fixed them in his backbrain, from which the Psychs could dredge them with narcohypnosis.

  Assuming he went home.

  Assuming he wanted them recovered. He had not wanted this mission back when, and wanted it even less now. By carrying it out he might destroy something that had become dear.

  He was in a proper mood for concluding Jerusalem. And he had found just the quote for summation:

  The world was all revenge and thou hadst said:

  “It is a seething sea!” Earth had no room

  For walking, air was ambushed by the spears,

  The stars began to fray, and time and earth

  Washed hands in mischief . . .

  —Firdausi (Abul Kasim Mansur)

  All Jerusalem’s characters had perished while trying to seize their hearts’ desires. Farewell, old companions, he thought.

  So much for that. It had been a pretentious trial of modern literature anyway. He did not like the thing anymore. Only his suicidal mood had let him finish quickly, rather than with the intimate detail he had planned originally. Sometimes he felt so like his own creations, denied anything but a deadly end . . .

  Ten days remained on his contract when he received the second summons from Contact. Jarl Kindervoort relayed it personally.

  “I’d really rather not do any more mindteching, Jarl,” he said. “I’m not trained for it, and I’m perfectly happy where I’m at.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t myself.” Kindervoort seemed caught in a baffled daze. “You know too goddamned much already. But orders are orders, and these came from the top.”

  A chill breeze swept Moyshe’s cabin. He knew too much . . . Would they let him go? If they did . . . Kindervoort was capable of arranging a deep-space accident that would silence the returning landsmen.

  Would Jarl’s superiors authorize an incident? Starfishers were feisty, but did not go out of their way to provoke Confederation.

  “What’s going on, Jarl?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t like it. They’ve shut me out. They want you reassigned to Contact. That’s all I know. I’m just a messenger boy. Grab yourself a scooter and go. Here’s your pass.”

  “But I don’t want to . . . ”

  “You’re still under contract. You agreed to perform whatever duties were assigned.”

  “Damn. All right. Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  Moyshe reached Contact a half hour later. He found the same old man in charge. “You’ll be working with Hans and Clara again, Mr. benRabi. Strictly basic contact exercises. I don’t know which fish your rapport will be. They decide that for themselves.”

  “Why am I here? There’s no point in this. I’m leaving the end of next week.”

  The man acted deaf. “You’ll probably link with several fish during the coming week. They like to get different perspectives on a mind before they decide on a permanent partner. Hans. Clara. Mr. benRabi is here. Go ahead with the basic program.”

  “Now wait a goddamned minute . . . ”

  The old man walked away, pursuing a black-uniformed electrician whose repair work did not please him.

  “Good morning, Moyshe,” Clara said. “Good to have you back. How have you been?”

  And the youth, Hans, said, “We’ll be your regular support team. They’ve given us Number Fifty-one . . . ”

  “Who the hell does that guy think he is? When I speak to somebody I expect them to answer.”

  “Take it easy,” Hans suggested. “He does that to everybody. You’ll get used to him.”

  “He’s a dreadful boss,” Clara said. “Just dreadful. But we won’t have him much longer. They’re booting him upstairs. Why don’t you show Moyshe our station, Hans. I’ll get us all some coffee.”

  “What do you think is going on?” benRabi asked Hans. He sat on the end of the Contact couch. “I’ve got no business being here.”

  Hans shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest. They just told us you’d be our new mindtech, that we should start breaking you in. Clara thought you’d decided to stay. Didn’t you?”

  “What’s that?” Clara asked.

  “Say that Mr. benRabi decided to stay with Danion.”

  “Yes. Hasn’t he?” She handed Moyshe a cup of coffee. “Black?”

  “That’s fine. No, I’m not staying.”

  “I don’t understand.” She seemed confused.

  “Neither do I. I tried to tell them somebody screwed up. Nobody would listen. You know how things go. When their minds are made up . . . ”

  “I’d better check,” Clara said. “There’s no point going ahead if it’s all a mixup.”

  “Do that.”

  She returned fifteen minutes later looking more puzzled than ever. “They said go ahead.”

  “Dammit, why?”

  “I don’t know, Moyshe. That’s what they told me.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Thought you were a soldier,” Hans said. “Thought you were used to taking orders you didn’t understand.”

  “I knew they made sense to the man who gave them . . . ”

  Hans smiled.

  Made sense to the man who gave them. He barely heard Clara when she said, “We’d better get started. We’re behind schedule.”

  So Beckhartism existed here too. He must have that look of the born pawn.

  Try as he might, he could see no way the Seiners could profit from training him as a mindtech. Not if he was going back.

  “Ready, Moyshe. Same drill as the other day. It shouldn’t bother you this time. We won’t be drawing power. Just go out and float. Try to open to the fish and get the feel.”

  Hans slipped the helmet over benRabi’s head. Clara’s voice came through, warm and gentle.

  “Remember, one click down on the right for TSD, Moyshe. Two for Contact. Up on the left to come back. Go when you’re ready.”

  He pushed the right-hand switch without knowing why.

  The womblike comfort of total sensory deprivation enveloped him. He let it take him, carrying off the aches and fears of reality. He ran through a mantra several times, trying to take his mind into the same nirvana his flesh occupied.

  This was nice. A man could lower his guard here, could relax his vigil against the universe. Nothing could reach him . . .

  Wrong. His hindbrain, the ancient brain that had crawled out of the sea of Old Earth a billion years ago, could not tolerate an extended absence of stimuli. It became claustrophobic.

  “You’re staying in TSD too long, Moyshe,” Clara said from a thousand kilometers away. “That’s not good for your mind.”

  He depressed the switch again.

  Weirdly distorted and colored space formed around him.

  He was falling toward a milky s
car some cruel god had scratched on the face of darkness. Logic told him it was the galaxy, that it looked both solid and fuzzy because his brain was trying to translate something seen in hyper into conventionalized images.

  What was he seeing? Tachyon scatter? Gravitation? The frenzied dance of the gluons that cement all matter? The scar was most intense toward the galactic core, which would have been concealed by dust clouds in norm space.

  Long pink streaks, like the fire of ruby lasers, winked past him, arrowing to a point of convergence centered on the heart of the galaxy. A barrage of golden tracers skipped along inside the circle of pink lines. Sharks and starfish skipping along with the harvestfleet?

  He extended his attention till he detected several egg-shapes of St. Elmo’s fire, with cometary tails, that had to be harvestships in hyper transit. He searched, but could find no trace of Stars’ End. The fortress world had been left behind. The Seiner gamble had failed. That episode had ended. Payne’s Fleet was running for the Yards . . .

  “Hello, Moyshe man-friend.”

  BenRabi felt a rush of elation as he recognized Chub. It became a feeling of, “I’m home! This is where I belong.”

  “You came back, Moyshe man-friend.”

  “Yes. I didn’t think I would. You survived the battle. I’m glad.” The starfish’s mental fingers slithered into his mind, bringing comfort. He did not resist.

  A feel of laughter accompanied, “Me too, Moyshe man-friend. You came to learn to be linker?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good. I teach. Me, starfish Chub, best teacher ever. Make you best linker of all time. Show Old Ones. We begin. You study universe around, try to see, tell me what you see.”

  Moyshe did as he was told.

  “No. No. See everything at once. Forget eyes. Forget senses of flesh entire, let universe soak in, be one. Forget self. Forget everything. Just be, like center of universe.”

  It was the prime lesson he had to learn, and the most difficult one for the beginning mindtech. He tried valiantly, hour after hour, but it was like forcing sleep. The more effort he invested, the more remote his goal became.

  He heard a faint voice calling. “Moyshe? Moyshe? Time to come out now.”