Starfishers

by Glen Cook

  He did not want to go. This being outside, this being free, this made everything he had endured worthwhile. At Stars’ End death had been leaning over his shoulder. Here, unthreatened, he found himself closer to heaven than anything else he could imagine. It was almost a religious experience, like a first space-walk EVA, or a first orgasm.

  Reluctantly, he commanded his left hand to lift.

  All the aches and pains of mortal flesh crept back into his consciousness, and for an instant he understood those people who sought the false nirvana promised by drugs and religion.

  Something stung his arm as the helmet slid off his head.

  “Just a precaution,” Clara told him. “You shouldn’t have much of a contact reaction, but we never know for sure.”

  The agonies of the flesh receded. His incipient migraine died unborn. “That was something,” he said. “I didn’t want to come back.”

  “You’ve got the true linker touch, then,” Hans told him. “They never want to go and they never want to come back.”

  “Eat big and get a lot of sleep,” Clara said. “Contact takes more out of you than you think.”

  He shared three more extended sessions with Chub, and they became solid friends—within the limits of two such alien backgrounds.

  His fifth training link brought him in touch with a creature calling itself a Judge of the Old Ones. The Judge was nothing like Chub. It was completely and truly alien. It entered his mind as coldly as a serpent, digging, exploring, till he felt like a bug under a microscope. It made no effort to teach him, nor did it chat, nor conceal its task of determining if he was fit to link with starfish. Moyshe was glad to break that contact, real-world pains notwithstanding.

  He went into contact with the Old Ones twice more, and each was as chill and phlegmatic as the Judge. These were the passionless creatures Czyzewski must have had in mind when he had penned “The Old God.” Their minds were exactly what benRabi imagined a god’s to be.

  Then there were two glorious, rollicking, fun days with Chub, who had been appointed his “permanent” link. Irreverent, Chub made the most libelous observations about the Old Ones Moyshe had encountered. BenRabi countered by trying to teach the starfish the concept of humor.

  And then it was over. The dream came to an end.

  “Good-bye, Moyshe man-friend,” Chub said, setting benRabi’s mind to echoing sadness. “I will think of you often, stranger than any man-friend.”

  “I’ll remember you, too, Chub,” Moyshe promised. “Try to catch me when I reach out in my dreams.” He ripped upward on his exit switch.

  Clara and Hans thought he was in pain and tried to give him a second pain shot, but he pushed them away. He let the tears flow. Then he hugged Clara. “Good-bye.” He took Hans’s hand. “I’m going to miss you both.”

  They stood and watched as, slump-shouldered, he shuffled out of Contact for the last time.

  Nineteen: 3049 AD

  The Homecoming

  The days were gone. And with them most of the hours. He was down to his last few and still he had not contacted Kindervoort, still he had not found the courage to seize what he wanted. While he had slept Danion had dropped hyper preparatory to launching a service ship.

  The starfish and sharks would be orbiting the remnants of the harvestfleet. Chub would be out there watching for the little steel needle that would take him away forever.

  He lay in his bunk and remembered story time at the creche where he had lived as a small child. All those tales had had heroes who had never been indecisive, never been terribly afraid. But they had all come from a remote and probably unreal past.

  There was little room for the self-assured Mouse types in this kaleidoscopic modern universe. Nowadays timidity was pro-survival.

  He often wondered if Mouse was genuinely as cool as he appeared. He had to be bothered by something beside takeoffs and landings.

  In two hours the service ship would leave for Carson’s. What could he do? What should he do? He knew what he wanted, knew what Amy wanted, but still he teetered between the new commitment and the old. To betray Bureau secrets for personal gain, he felt, would constitute a self-betrayal.

  It looked like he had picked up a bunch of new haunts to replace the ones he had conquered. The new ones at least made more sense.

  His remaining time dwindled to an hour. His things were packed. He prowled his cabin like a beast caged, unable to remain still. And Amy sat on her bed, motionless, alternately sulking and subjecting him to verbal assaults. He had to get out, had to get away . . .

  He went looking for his partner. Maybe Mouse could help. Paranoia had its merits.

  They had seen little of one another after benRabi had begun mindtech training.

  Mouse answered his door with pleased surprise. First thing he said was, “I was just going to look for you.” His one hand was shaking. “Want to play a game while we’re waiting?”

  “All right.” They could help each other. A game or two might relax them both.

  “How’s Amy taking it?”

  “Like a trouper. A storm trooper.” Mouse was awfully excited. His shakes were not always confined to his bad hand. Moyshe paid no attention. The usual pre-fly jitters, he thought.

  “Did you hear what I found?” Mouse bubbled. “Been after it for years. I finally got it off one of our own people, a guy who carried it for luck.” He displayed an ancient bronze coin with a hole in the middle. BenRabi judged it to be at least two thousand years old, Oriental, in good condition, but comparatively common. Certainly nothing special. Mouse’s excitement began to puzzle him.

  “Nice, I guess. Amy’s really taking it worse than I expected.” He glanced at the coin again, because Mouse kept shoving it in front of him. “You sure it isn’t fake?”

  “She’ll get over it. They always do if you’ve loved them right. No, it’s not fake.” Mouse seemed disappointed about something. “You take white.”

  BenRabi tried to broach his problems over his almost ritualistic opening. “Mouse, I want to stay here.”

  Mouse looked at him strangely, as if with mixed emotions, as if he had been expecting this but hoping for something else. He fingered his coin nervously, replied. “Let’s talk about it after the game. How about a drink? You look like you could stand to unwind.”

  A man about to undergo high acceleration and temporary weightlessness should not imbibe, but benRabi agreed. He needed something. Mouse went to a cabinet, got a bottle of something pre-mixed. While he hunted glasses, benRabi examined the cabin. Almost everything that was Mouse was gone, all the memorabilia that for a time had made the place his home. Everything but the ubiquitous chess set.

  A glass broke. Mouse cursed, gathered the pieces, cursed again as he cut himself. “Why the hell aren’t these things made out of plastic?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use your bad hand.” Then benRabi saw why he was. With his good hand Mouse was smearing something gooey over Security’s bug. He then brought the drinks, resumed the game.

  It was a slow one. Mouse was off his usual confident form. He had to study every move carefully. He kept fingering his coin as if he wanted to wear it out before boarding the service ship. BenRabi downed his drink, and several more, began to relax, to turn off the troubled part of his mind. He got involved in the game. For once he was holding his own. Mouse, despite his studiousness, remained remote, disturbed, and inattentive.

  Mouse suddenly unleashed a series of rapid moves. BenRabi’s queen went, and then, “Checkmate!”

  The alcohol no longer helped. The defeat, so small a thing but so inevitable, suddenly became an analog of benRabi’s whole life. His depression deepened.

  A moment later, while fumbling the pieces into their box with his bad hand, Mouse said, “I kept this out so we could play on the way home. But now you say you want to stay.”

  “Yes. This is what I’ve been looking for . . . ”

  “I was afraid of that.” Mouse turned. His fumbling had not been without purpose.
His good hand clutched a Fisher weapon salvaged from Marya’s cabin.

  “You should’ve figured, Moyshe. You should’ve run to Kindervoort.” Mouse was playing the game to its end. “Wheels within wheels, you know. We’re still working for Beckhart. I can’t just leave you.”

  Maybe he had known, down deep, he thought. Maybe he had come here so Mouse could make his decision for him.

  “Psych programed you to cross over. So you could get where I couldn’t. They might even have known about Stars’ End. That’s what that gun thing makes me think of.”

  Moyshe glanced at the coin turning in Mouse’s bad hand. Strange that he had never mentioned wanting one of that type. Maybe it was a hypnotic key. Maybe it had opened the full mission to Mouse’s memory.

  “It was meant long term from the beginning, Moyshe. We need ambergris for the fleet. All of it. For the war.”

  “War? What war? Nobody takes the Ulantonid rearmament business serious. You told me it was manure yourself.”

  Mouse shrugged. “You were a remote data-collector. One of my missions was to be your keeper. Most of the rest was window-dressing and obfuscation.”

  Though it was a club-footed effort, Mouse was trying to do more than just explain. He did not like what he was doing. He was trying to convince himself.

  Yes. They had grown too close. Far too close. They cared.

  “We’re friends, Moyshe. So let’s fly gentle, eh?”

  Yes, gentle. As in chess, he was outskilled here. He was the half of the team trained and programed for the “soft” work. Mouse always handled the “hard.” Friendship or no, Mouse would bend him if he did not cooperate. Mouse was the perfect agent. He let nothing stand in the way of getting his job done.

  BenRabi searched his partner’s face. He saw the pain there. Maybe, he thought, Mouse doesn’t want to go back either. But Mouse’s nature would leave him less choice . . . It would be stupid to push him. He tended to overreact under stress.

  BenRabi’s shoulders slumped. He surrendered. Back to being a chip in the stream.

  A dread voice rang through Danion, godlike, calling all departing landsmen to Departure Station for payoff and checkout. Mouse pocketed his weapon, said, “Sorry, Moyshe.”

  “I understand.” But he did not, not really.

  Mouse nodded to the door. “Let’s go.”

  They went. Moyshe gave him no trouble, even when the opportunity arose. He had given up completely.

  No home at all, he thought. Guess I’ll never have one. I’ll just go on being a chip in a universe like those Sierran flood rivers. I’m back where I started.

  He stared at the lock that would open on the service ship. One long step through and he would come out in the terminal on Carson’s. How much would things have changed during their absence? Greta would have grown . . .

  Greta. “Mouse, I forgot to get something for Greta. I’ve been gone a whole damned year . . . I got to bring her something.”

  “Mr. benRabi?” A man pushed through the crowd, some of benRabi’s belongings in hand. “You left some of your things.”

  Moyshe recognized him. He was one of Kindervoort’s people. Had they found his notes? “Mike, do I have time to get a souvenir for my daughter?”

  Still talking about Moyshe’s forgetfulness, Mike stepped between benRabi and Mouse. Landsmen milled around them, talking excitedly of home, rushing to the paymaster when their names were called. BenRabi paid no attention. He was fascinated by the sudden despair on Mouse’s face.

  “The weapon, please?” Mike said.

  Several men surrounded them now. Kindervoort himself was approaching, having just left a nearby office.

  Mouse surrendered the gun meekly, consternation becoming a weak smile.

  “Told Beckhart it wouldn’t work,” he said loudly. “But he never listens to the man in the field . . . ”

  There was a stir. Shouts. Screams. Mouse hit benRabi with a flying tackle. Mike grunted, twisted, came down atop them, an expression of incredible surprise fixed on the unburned half of his face. The shouting redoubled. People tried to run. A handgun flashed again. Security men tried to reach the source of fire.

  “Wheels within wheels,” Mouse said into benRabi’s ear, his voice coldly calm. Kindervoort, kneeling beside them, looked at him questioningly. “This was mine,” Mouse told him. “I figured he’d have a fail-safer in.”

  Fail-safer. That was a trade name for a man hyped and programed to do everybody in if a mission went bust. Fail-safers seldom knew what they were. Usually they were innocents dragged in off a street somewhere and run through the Psych mill. Even after assassinating agents about to defect or to be captured they seldom knew what they had done, why, or for whom.

  BenRabi had never considered himself, Mouse, and this mission that critical.

  “Sorry, Moyshe. I didn’t think I should tell you. Made it look better, you believing.”

  Is he telling the truth? Moyshe wondered. Or is he playing the ends against the middle? Is he just bending with the breeze, hoping to keep his skin?

  “We had to spot him before we could cross over, and this was the only place to do it. It’s too late for him now. He can’t hunt us down.” Mouse shrugged, then smiled. So did benRabi.

  He chose to believe. He did not want to stay here alone.

  That was why he had had so much trouble deciding. Amy was not enough. Chub was not enough. The Seiner culture itself was insufficient. He had needed that one extra, Mouse, his heartline to the past.

  Kindervoort’s men returned. “You get him?” Mouse asked.

  “Somebody did. He was dead when we got there. Looks like a nerve poison.”

  Kindervoort regarded them oddly, appraisingly. “Fail-safer for a fail-safer? Your Admiral is bizarre, but I’ve never heard of that before.”

  Unusual? Moyshe thought. It’s unprecedented. It doesn’t make sense. But what the hell? It was over now. He was home free.

  Home, after all, and with a good woman— Amy was running toward him, through the crowd, pale with worry—and a friend. Life, it seemed, had finally taken a happy turn.

  “Are you ready now?” Amy asked anxiously, after having made sure he was unharmed.

  “Ready? For what?”

  “To cross over, stupid. Are you, darling?” She seemed afraid his stiff-neckedness would persist.

  It did. “Seems like I don’t have much choice. But I won’t talk.”

  “Talk?” Kindervoort asked. “What do you mean? About what?”

  “About the Bureau. About its policies, its goals, its mission, things I might know that you’d want to know. I won’t tell you. The man who was Commander Thomas Aquinas McClennon is dead. Everything he knew died with him. Don’t try to call him back from the grave.”

  “That’s what’s been bothering you?” Kindervoort asked. “Moyshe, Moyshe, why didn’t you say so? I wondered what the hell was stopping you. It was so obvious you wanted to come over. There never have been any conditions. Never. I’m sorry you got that impression. Hell, anything I want to know you don’t—otherwise Beckhart never would have risked you.”

  BenRabi considered. It made some sense. But there were things he could tell . . . The hell with it. He would take the chance. He put an arm around Amy, pulled her close to him. “Thanks, Jarl. Mouse. Oh. Say, Jarl. Is there time for me to get a real Starfisher souvenir for my daughter?”

  “Daughter?” Kindervoort and Amy said together.

  “What daughter?” Amy demanded. “You said you weren’t ever married.”

  “I wasn’t. She’s not really my daughter. A girl I met on Old Earth. I sponsored her. That’s sort of like adopting a kid . . . She doesn’t know where I’m at or what I’m doing or anything.”

  “Find something quick,” Kindervoort said. “The service ship is going to space in twenty minutes.”

  “Hey, Moyshe,” Mouse said. “Throw this in.” He offered the coin with the hole in the center. “Tell her to mail it to the Admiral.”

  “A littl
e personal message, eh?”

  “You might say.”

  “Come on, Amy. Give me an idea.”

  “How come you never told me about this girl? What’s her name anyway?”

  Mouse watched them go, smiling wanly. That was not going to be a classic love match. But it did not have to be. It only had to last a few months more.

  His mission was complete. But a Bureau man did not leave his comrades behind. And a Storm never abandoned a friend.

  About the Author

  Glen Cook was born in New York in 1944. He grew up in northern California and began writing while in seventh grade. He served in the U. S. Navy, spending time with the Force Recon unit of the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion. He attended the University of Missouri and the Clarion Writers' Workshop. He produced his first paid work in 1970.

  Glen says, "Unlike most writers, I have not had a succession of strange jobs like chicken plucking and swamping our health bars. The only full-time employer I've ever had is General Motors." Due to a change of job location in 1988, Glen's writing decreased in volume. Fortunately, he has recently retired and is devoting more time to his writing.

  The long anticipated release of Bleak Seasons in his Black Company series finally occured in 1996. He is also known for his " Garrett Files" detective/fantasy series, his Dread Empire series, and many others.

  Glen's hobbies include stamp collecting, book collecting, and a passing interest in military history. Usually Glen can be found behind a huckster table at those conventions he attends. So, if you are in the dealer's room buying one of his books, and the man behind the table asks if you want it signed, chances are you just met him.