Starfishers - Starfishers Triology Book 2

by Glen Cook

They were going to give him another medal when he got back. He could see it coming. He would rather have that damned year off.

  The party was a carbon of the previous one. Same people. Same music. Same conversation and arguments. Only he and Amy were different. They watched their drinking and tried to understand what was happening to them.

  The partiers were younger than he or Amy, and uncomfortable with the gap, though Amy's cousin did her best to make them part of things. Moyshe never felt unwelcome, only out of place. He supposed he had been as much an anomaly before, but had been too preoccupied to notice.

  Had Amy manipulated the invitation? If so, why? Another Kindervoort ploy? Both Jarl and Mouse seemed eager to push them together.

  Why did he question everything? Even the questioning? Why did he feel that he was losing his grasp on his place in the universe?

  They cuddled. They drank. The shadows closed in. They probed one another's pasts. He learned that she had once had an abortion after having been tricked into pregnancy by a man who had wanted to marry her, but whom she had loathed. He resisted the temptation to ask why she had been in bed with him in the first place.

  He also learned that she was afraid of sexual intercourse because of some failing in herself. What? She shied away from explaining. He did not press.

  Time marched. The sun of the party zenithed and hurried on. He and Amy stayed till everyone else had gone.

  They feared leaving more than overstaying their welcome. That room locked them into a cell with well-known walls. Their interaction was defined by rules of courtesy toward their hostess. The limits would expand a pale of hurt.

  Yet courtesy demanded that they leave before Amy's cousin found their presence painful.

  The subtle differences between weeks coalesced and came to a head when they reached benRabi's cabin. Amy was frightened, unsure. So was he. This time, they knew, something would happen. The Big It, as they had called it when he was first becoming sexually aware.

  Like kids, they were eager and afraid. The pleasant sharing they wanted carried with it a big risk of pain.

  Thus did the sins of the past leave their marks. Both were so frightened of repeating old mistakes that they had almost abandoned trying anything new.

  Moyshe watched the processes of his mind with mild amazement. The detached part of himself could not comprehend what was happening. He had survived affairs. Even with the Sangaree woman. Why this retrogression to the adolescent pain and confusion of the Alyce era?

  There was a long, pale, tense moment when the night balanced on the edge of a double-edged blade. Amy stared at him as he slowly dismounted from the scooter. Then, with a grimace, she jammed the charging plug into a socket.

  Moyshe yielded to a surge of relief. She had saved him the need to make a decision. She would bear the blame if anything went wrong.

  They remained nervous and frightened. The tension had its effect in temporary impotence and difficult penetration. They whispered a lot, reassuring one another. BenRabi could not help remembering the first time, with Alyce. Both of them had been virgins.

  Now, as then, they managed the main point only after trying too hard. Experience made it easier from there.

  The truly cruel blow did not fall till the ultimate moment.

  At the peak instant Moyshe felt a flood of hot wetness against his groin, something he had thought the exclusive domain of pornography.

  Amy started crying. She had lost bladder control.

  Ego-mad with that stunning proof of his manhood, benRabi laughed and collapsed upon her, holding her tightly.

  She thought he was laughing at her.

  Her nails ripped his skin. Angry words filled the air. She tried to knee him. He rolled away, baffled and babbling.

  Hair streaming, wet with their sweat, trailing a damp, wrinkled sheet, Amy fled into the corridor. By the time benRabi got into his jumpsuit and started after her, she was a hundred meters down the corridor, scooter forgotten, trying to wrap herself in the sheet as she fled.

  "Amy! Come back. I'm sorry."

  Too late. She would not listen. He started after her, but gave it up when people began coming out to see what was going on.

  He went back and pondered what he had done.

  He had given her a gut-kick in a festering wound. This must have happened before and have caused her a lot of grief. This was why she had been so frightened. But she had come to him anyway, hoping for understanding.

  And he had laughed.

  "Fool," he said, flinging a pillow against a wall. Then, "She should have warned me... " He realized that she had, in her timorous way.

  He had to do something before her anger ossified into hatred.

  He tried. He really tried. He returned her clothing with a long, apologetic note. He called, but she would not answer. He visited Kindervoort and asked his help, but that seemed to do no good.

  Their paths no longer crossed. She did not return to work. He could not corner her and make her listen.

  The sword had fallen.

  His new supervisor, another of Kindervoort's people, was a small, hard character named Lyle Bruce. Bruce was uncommunicative and prejudiced. He was intolerant and grossly unfair. Repairs had to be done his way even though he was less skilled than Amy.

  Mouse and benRabi took it all and smiled back. So Bruce tried harder. "His turn in the barrel will come," Mouse promised. "This is just some test Kindervoort is putting on."

  BenRabi agreed. "He won't last. I'll sweet him to death."

  BenRabi was right. Next week Bruce was replaced by a man from Damage Control. Martin King was not exactly friendly, but neither was he antagonistic. He was a prejudiced man controlling his prejudices, for the good of Danion. He did nothing to hamper their work.

  At shift's end one day he told Moyshe, "I'm supposed to take you to Kindervoort's office."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "He didn't say."

  "What about supper?"

  "Something will be arranged."

  "All right. Let's go."

  Kindervoort's office was a place comfy-cozy in nineteenth-century English decor. Lots of dark wood, scores of books. A fireplace would have set it off perfectly.

  "Have a seat, Moyshe," Kindervoort suggested. "How's it going out there?"

  BenRabi shrugged.

  "Dumb question, huh?" He left his chair, came around his desk and sat on its corner. "This isn't really business. Relax." He paused. "No, that's not all the way true. Everything gets to be business, sooner or later. I want to talk about Amy. You willing?"

  "Why not?" After all, this was the man he had come running to when things had fallen apart.

  "It's personal. I thought you might be touchy."

  "I am."

  "And honest. I'll be honest too. I want to help because you're my friends. Not close, but friends. And I've got a professional interest, of course. There's going to be more of this kind of trouble. That's bad for Danion. I want to find ways to smooth things over."

  Nicely rehearsed speech, Moyshe thought. "You want to use me and Amy as guinea pigs?"

  "In a way. But it's not just an experiment. You're what counts in the end."

  Moyshe fought his reaction to Kindervoort's appearance. He pushed back the anger and resentment this interference stimulated...

  Swirling visions of stars and darkness. The image of the gun flaming on a black velvet background. He had never had it so strongly, nor in such detail. Fear replaced anger. What was happening? What did this deadly vision mean to his unconscious mind?

  "Moyshe? Are you all right?" Kindervoort bent over him, studying his eyes. His voice was remote.

  BenRabi rumbled for an answer. His tongue betrayed him. Ghosts had begun dancing inside his head. He could not focus his attention.

  A burning crowbar drove through his right eyesocket.

  "Migraine!" he gasped.

  It was so sudden. None of the little spots or the geometric figures that were the usual warnings. Just the ghosts, the guns, a
nd that curiously familiar stellar backdrop.

  BenRabi groaned. The devil himself had him by the skull, trying to crush it down to pea size.

  Kindervoort bounced back around his desk, took something from a drawer, dashed through a door into an adjoining bathroom, returned with pills and water. BenRabi watched with little interest. The pain had become the dominant force in his universe. There was just him and it... And now voices.

  He heard them, faint and far away, unintelligible but real, like snatches of conversation caught drifting down a hallway from a distant room. He tried to listen, but the agony made a flaming barrier against concentration.

  "Moyshe? Here're some pills. Moyshe? Can't you hear me?"

  A hand grabbed benRabi's chin, pulled back. Fingers forced his mouth open. Dry, bitter tablets burned his tongue. Water splashed him. A hand covered his mouth and nose till he had no choice but to swallow. The hand departed. He gasped for air.

  He had not screamed. Not yet. Because he could not. The pain was killing him, and he could do nothing but cling to its shooting star. Down it went, down into darkness...

  Seconds later he recovered, the pain vanishing as quickly as it had come. With it went the ghosts and voices. But he remained disoriented.

  Kindervoort was seated behind his desk again, talking urgently into an intercom. "... exact time you went on minddrive." He glanced at his watch. "Were the comnets open? Thanks." He switched off. His expression was grave.

  Moyshe had to have more water. He felt as dry as a Blake City summer. He tried to rise. "Water... "

  "Stay there!" Kindervoort snapped. "Don't move. I'll get it." Glass in hand, he rushed into the bathroom.

  BenRabi fell back into his chair, shivering both from shock and coolness. He had sweated out a good liter. The painkiller, which hit the system as fast as a nerve poison, worked perfectly but did nothing to ease nervous exhaustion. He would not be able to move for a while.

  Several glasses of water and a blanket helped. When he felt human enough to talk again, Kindervoort went on as if nothing had happened. "Moyshe, I think it's important that we work out something between you and Amy. Both on the personal and social level."

  "Uhm."

  "Will you talk to her?"

  "I've been trying for a week and a half."

  "All right. Easy. Easy." He thumbed his intercom. "Bill? Send Miss Coleridge in now."

  Amy burst through the door. "What happened? I heard?... "

  Softly, so Moyshe could not hear, Kindervoort explained. Amy's concern became mixed with dismay. She moved to benRabi. "Are you all right?"

  "I'll live. Unfortunately."

  "Moyshe. Moyshe. What're we going to do?"

  "I'm going to say I'm sorry," he murmured.

  The apologies and explanations came easy with the edge off their emotions, though Amy remained sensitive. Her problem, as Moyshe had suspected, had caused her a lot of grief.

  Kindervoort thoughtfully absented himself. In an hour or so they concluded a cautious truce.

  Fourteen: 3047 AD

  The Olden Days, Academy

  Perchevski stared out the window as the airbus banked into its Geneva approach. Something was happening down by the lake. A cluster of flashing red lights hugged the shore.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot. Air Traffic Control has asked me to relay a Security Service warning. There's trouble on the northbound traffic tube. Terrorists have occupied Number Three Station. They could try to retreat through the tubeway or take passenger hostages. The tube is open, but you'll have to use it at your own risk."

  Perchevski watched the flashing lights and darting gnat figures of Zone police till the bus dropped too low. Later, as he crossed the tarmac to a waiting hovercar, he heard the shooting. An occasional explosion drowned the titter of light weaponry.

  "They're putting up a fight," said the rating leaning against the groundcar. "Sir."

  "Sounds like. What do they want?"

  The rating shrugged, opened the passenger side door. "I don't think anybody asked, sir. The Zonies don't bother anymore. They just shoot them and get ready for the next bunch." He closed the door, moved to the pilot's side. "Company office, sir?"

  "Yes. Who are they? How did they get in?"

  "A new mob, sir. Call themselves the Ninth of June. I don't know what it means."

  "Neither do I."

  "They broke through at Checkpoint Ahrsen yesterday. Usual surprise attack. Another mob hit there the day before and the Zonies didn't get everything put back together fast enough. They always find a way. We had a bunch come in by hot air balloon last year."

  Perchevski left the car for the office where he had helped Greta Helsung catch her rainbow. He checked in, said he was returning to Luna Command, and glanced over what they had on the girl. An hour later he was headed for the lakeside launch pits. He drew the same driver. This time the rating regaled him with a saga concerning his conquest of a "pink patch lady." She had loved him so much she had almost enlisted.

  "Pink patch" people were Old Earthers who worked in the Zone but lived outside. The uniform patch was their entry permit. Each was Kirlian keyed to prevent terrorist use.

  Perchevski was back in his lunar apartment before bedtime next evening. He took a pill and put himself out for twelve hours. Old Earth and his mother had been a miserable mistake.

  He did not check his calls right away. He did not want to risk finding a summons from the Bureau.

  There was none. The only messages were from Max and Greta. Max was missing him. Greta was scared and lonely and amazed by everything.

  Perchevski reacted to Greta's call first He remembered how frightened and lonely he had been when he had come to Academy. Even hating home, he had been dreadfully homesick.

  He made a call to Academy Information, learned that Greta had been assigned to a training battalion, but the battalion had not begun training. The rigorous discipline of Academy would not isolate her for weeks. She could have visitors. She would be allowed a weekly visit from her sponsor after she began training.

  "Things have changed since my day, Lieutenant," he told the woman handling his call.

  "Since mine, too, Commander. We're getting soft."

  "Maybe. Seems like a step in the right direction to me. I'll be there this evening. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me surprise her."

  "Whatever you say, Commander."

  "Thanks for your time, Lieutenant."

  He settled back in his bed, stared at the ceiling, and wondered why he was sponsoring a kid he hardly knew. Sponsorship was serious business. His reponsibility under Lunar law equaled that of a parent.

  "Will you sponsor?" the man had asked, and he had responded without thinking.

  How could he do right by Greta? In his line of work... Maybe Beckhart would move him to a staff post.

  "Old buddy, you backed yourself into a corner this time. How do you get into these things?"

  Ah, what was the worry? Greta would be locked up in Academy for four years. She would have no chance for anything but training and study. His sponsorship would not amount to anything but quotations in her files. She would reach the age of responsibility before she graduated.

  Maybe he knew that unconsciously when he agreed.

  He called Max. No answer.

  He donned his Commander's uniform and took the high-velocity tube to Academy Station. The tube passed through the core of the moon. Academy was Farside.

  Though he still used the Perchevski name, he had abandoned the Missileman's uniform after High Command had announced von Drachau's raid. There seemed little point to the pretense.

  The Bureau apparently agreed. No one had called him on it.

  The tubeways were the gossip shops of Luna Command. There strangers whiled away the long transits by dissecting the latest in scandal and rumor. It was there that Perchevski first heard the March of Ulant discussed seriously.

  Max had talked about it, of course. But Max was a civ. Max had been retailing fourt
h-hand merchandise. The people he overheard were Planetary Defense Corps general staff officers from worlds far centerward of Sol. They were in Luna Command for a series of high-powered defense strategy seminars.

  Cold fear breathed down Perchevski's neck. The what might be debatable, but he could no longer deny that something spooky was going on.

  He had been seeing the colorful and sometimes odd uniforms of the local forces everywhere he had gone lately. There were even a few from worlds not part of Confederation.

  No wonder there were rumors of war.

  He checked in with the local office when he arrived. He was wearing the ring, of course, but redundancy of action and mistrust of technology were Bureau axioms. A staff type told a computer terminal where he was, then in boredom resumed watching a holodrama. He caught a bus to Academy's visitors' hotel.

  Academy was an almost autonomous fortress-State within the fortress-world of Luna Command. Nearly ten percent of the moon's surface and volume had been set aside for the school, which trained every Service officer and almost half of all enlisted personnel. Academy contained all the staff colleges, war colleges, and headquarters of special warfare schools which kept the Service honed to a fighting edge. At times as many as two million people taught and studied there.

  Perchevski had spent eight years in Academy, glimpsing the outside universe only rarely. Passes had been few in his day. Going out usually meant having to take part in some very active training exercise. There had been no time left over for sightseeing.

  He was supposed to have graduated as a dedicated, unquestioning Confederation warrior. He supposed even the best systems made mistakes.

  He enjoyed his venture into the old, familiar halls, remembering incidents, recalling classmates he had not thought of in years. He was amused by all the bright, freshly scrubbed young faces behind those snappy salutes.

  Greta's battalion was quartered not far from the barracks his own had occupied. He spent an hour ambling through school days memories.

  It was late when he located the officer of Greta's Training Battalion. The date-letter designation on the door could be interpreted to tell that Greta's was the forty-third officer candidate unit activated in 3047. He whistled softly. They were taking candidates at a wartime rate.