Starfishers - Starfishers Triology Book 2

by Glen Cook

  BenRabi finally spied something familiar. It was a spatial display globe that lurked blackly in a far corner. Centered in it were ten golden footballs apparently representing harvestships. He supposed the quick, darting golden needles represented service ships. They were maneuvering against scarlet things which vaguely resembled Terran sharks. The tiny golden dragons at the far periphery, then, should represent distant starfish. Stars' End would be the deeper darkness biting a chunk from the display's side. He saw nothing that could be interpreted as Sangaree. He hoped they would stay gone, though it was not their style and he did not expect it.

  "Mr. benRabi?" The old man said.

  "Why dragons?"

  "Image from our minds. You'll see."

  "I don't understand."

  Instead of responding, the old man plunged into a prepared speech. "Nobody explained this to you, did they? Well, our drives are dead, except for minddrive. The sharks can't kill that till they get to us here, or till we stop getting power from the fish. But we're in trouble, Mr. benRabi. We do have minddrive, but the sharks mindburned most of my techs." He indicated the nearest stretcher. A girl barely out of creche smiled in vacant madness. "I've lost so many I'm out of standbys. I'm drafting marginal sensitives from the crew. You're subject to migraine, aren't you?"

  Moyshe nodded, confused. Here they came with the headaches again.

  He had suspected for several months now... But the implications were too staggering. He did not want to believe. The psi business had been discredited.

  Maybe if he remembered that hard enough this man and place would go away.

  "We want you to go into rapport with a fish."

  "No!" Panic smote him. He did not entirely understand his response.

  A niggling little demon named Loyalty, to whom he seldom listened, urged him to surrender for the sake of information. Beckhart would reward him with a shovel full of medals.

  He thought of sudden, terrible headaches, and of frightening, haunting dreams. He recalled his fear that he had made involuntary contact with the starfish. "I couldn't."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know how."

  "You don't need to. The techs will put you in. The fish will do all the work. All you do is serve as a channel."

  "But I'm tired. I've been up for... "

  "Tell me a story. So has everybody else." He gestured impatiently. A couple of technicians, hovering nearby, approached. "Clara, put Mr. benRabi in Number Forty-three." Both techs nodded. "There's nothing to be afraid of, Mr. benRabi."

  Moyshe wanted to protest being pushed around, but lacked the will. The technicians pressed him into a couch. He surrendered. Undoubtedly he had been through worse.

  The technician whom the old man had called Clara reminded him of the professional mother of his childhood. She was grey-haired, cherry-faced, and chattered soothingly while strapping his arms to those of the couch. She placed his fingers on grip-switches before she started on his legs.

  Her partner was a dark-haired, quiet youth who efficiently prepared Moyshe's head for the helmet. He began by rubbing Moyshe's scalp with an unscented paste, then he covered benRabi's short hair with a thing like a fine wire hairnet. Moyshe's skin protested a thousand little tingles that quickly faded.

  I'm taking this too passively, he thought. "Why are you strapping me down?" he demanded.

  "So you can't hurt yourself."

  "What?"

  "Take it easy. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a precaution," the woman replied. She smiled gently.

  Damn, he thought. Better be two shovels full of medals.

  "Lift your head, please," the younger Seiner said. Moyshe did. The helmet devoured his head. He was blind.

  His fear redoubled. A green ogre with dirty claws shoved nasty hands into his guts, grabbed, yanked. His heart began playing a theme for battle drums. Words came echoing through his mind, Czyzewski's, from his poem "The Old God": "... who sang the darkful deep, and dragons in the sky." Had Czyzewski had starfish in mind?

  Moyshe felt his body growing wet with fear-sweat. Maybe the contact wouldn't work. Maybe his mind wouldn't be invaded. That had to be the root of his terror. He did not want anything looking inside his head, where the madness lay behind the most fragile of barriers.

  It had taken him all year to get it under control... Guns, dragons, headaches, improbable, obsessive memories of Alyce, continuous instability... He did not dare go under. His balance was too delicate.

  Guns! Did the image of the gun have anything to do with the Stars' End weaponry? Was it some twisted symbol his mind had created for a part of the mission that Psych had not wanted him to remember?

  Somewhere, a voice. "We're ready, Mr. benRabi." The old woman. It was an ancient trick for calming a man. It worked, a little. "Please depress your right side switch one click."

  He did. He lost all sensation. He floated. He saw, smelled, felt nothing. He was alone with his tortured mind.

  "That's not bad, is it?" She used the voice of the professional mother this time. His cunning, frightened mind made it that of the woman of his youth. He remembered how she had comforted him when he had been afraid.

  "When you're ready, depress your right switch another click, then release it. To withdraw you have to pull up on your left switch."

  His hand seemed to act on its own. Down went the switch.

  The dreams he had been having returned space swimming, the galaxy wrong in color, Stars' End strangely misty yet bright. Things moved around him. He remembered the situation tank. This was like being bodiless at the heart of the display. The service ships were glimmering needles, the harvestships glowing tangles of wire. The sharks were reddish torpedoes in the direction of the galaxy. Far away, the starfish looked like golden Chinese dragons. They were drifting toward him.

  Moyshe's fear faded as though a hand had erased it from the blackboard of his mind. Only an all-encompassing wonder remained.

  Gently, warm, friendly as a loving mother, a voice trickled into his mind. "I do it. Starfish, Chub." There was a wind-chimes tinkle of something like laughter. "Watch. I show me."

  A small dragon rose from the approaching herd, did a ponderous forward roll. Shortly, "Oh, my! Old Ones don't like. Dangerous. This no time for fun. But we winning, new man-friend. Sharks afraid, confused. Too many man-ship. Running now, some. Many destroyed. Big feast for scavenger things."

  The creature's joy was infectious, and Moyshe supposed he had cause—if the sharks were indeed abandoning herd and harvestfleet.

  Funny. His conscious mind was not questioning, just accepting.

  His fear remained, down deep, but the night creature held it at bay, infecting him with its own excitement. When did the power thing start? he wondered. It had already, the starfish told him. He did not feel anything other than this creature Chub exploring the ways of his mind like a kid on holiday exploring a resort hotel.

  "Shark battle won, mind battle won," the starfish said after a while, when Moyshe finally had himself under control. "But another fight coming, Moyshe man-friend. Bad one, maybe."

  "What?" And he realized, for the first time, that he really was talking with his mind.

  "Ships-that-kill, evil ones, return."

  "Sangaree. How do you know?"

  "No way to show, tell. Is. They come, hyper now. Your people prepare."

  BenRabi did not want to be out here during combat. He felt exposed, easy prey. Panic began to well up.

  The starfish's control did not slacken. He soon forgot the danger, became engrossed in the wonders around him, the rippling movements of retreating sharks, the ponderous approach of dragons, the maneuvers of the shimmering service ships as their weary crews prepared for another battle. The galaxy hung over everything like a ragged tear in the night, vast in its extension. How much more magnificent would it be if it could be seen without the interference of the dust that obscured the packed suns at its core? Nearby, Stars' End waited, a quiet but furious god of war as yet unconcerned with the
goings-on around it. Moyshe hoped no one aroused its wrath.

  "Coming now," his dragon told him. Spots appeared against the galaxy as Sangaree raidships dropped hyper. Down in his backbrain, behind his ears, Moyshe felt a gentle tickle. "More power," Chub told him.

  The raidships radiated from their drop zone in lines, like the tentacles of a squid. They soon formed a bowl with its open side facing the harvestfleet. It was an obvious preliminary to englobement.

  The distant, decimated shark packs milled uncertainly. They withdrew a little farther. They were not yet wholly defeated.

  A ball of light flared among the Sangaree. A lucky mine had scored. But it made little difference. The power and numbers remained theirs.

  Only a handful of service ships remained combat-worthy. Even the halest of the harvestships had lost some main power and drive capacity to shark attack. Minddrive and auxiliary power were insufficient for high-stress combat maneuvering.

  BenRabi sensed something changing. He cast about, finally saw the great silver sails that had been taken in before the earlier fighting spreading between Danion's arms and spars. The ship looked so ragged, so injured, so vulnerable... A blizzard of debris drifted about her, held by her minuscule natural gravity.

  The Sangaree maneuvered closer but held off attacking.

  "Trying to talk First Man-friend into surrender," Chub to benRabi. "Creatures of ships-that-kill want herd without fight."

  "Payne won't give up," he thought back.

  "Is true, Moyshe man-friend."

  The starfish drifted closer. They were almost upon the Sangaree. They meant to join the battle this time, though cautiously. Their enemies still watched from afar, looking for another chance to savage fleet and herd.

  "Fight soon, Moyshe man-friend."

  The slow, stately dance of enmity ended. The negotiations had broken down. The Sangaree struck fast and hard, firing on the service ships to show their determination. The service ships dodged. Suddenly, there were missiles everywhere, streaking around like hurrying wasps. Beam fire from the harvestships wove gorgeous patterns of death.

  And Moyshe became depressed. He had done his Navy fleet time. He could see the untippable balance written in the patterns. There was no hope of victory.

  Chub chuckled into his consciousness. "You see only part of pattern, Moyshe man-friend."

  In the far distance a starfish crept close to a raidship. The vessel's weapons could destroy the dragon in an instant—but the ship stopped attacking. It simply drifted, a lifeless machine.

  "We do mind thing," Moyshe heard. "Like Stars' End, with much power. We stop ships-that-kill like human eyeblink, so fast, if no guns, no drive field to fear."

  A second raidship fell silent, then a third and a fourth. Moyshe felt less pessimistic. The raidships would be locked into an overcommand directed by a master computer aboard the raidmaster's vessel. That master computer would be burning up its superconductors trying to adjust fire fields to accommodate the losses. If it became the least hesitant, the least unsure of its options...

  A too-cautious starfish burped a ball of gut-fire. The micro-sun rolled through space sedately, devoured another raidship.

  "Bad, Moyshe man-friend. Old Ones angry. Will give away unsuspected attack."

  The Sangaree hemisphere closed steadily. Its diameter rapidly dwindled. The harvestships threw everything they had, fire heavier than anything benRabi had ever witnessed, yet were barely able to neutralize the incoming. Offensive capacity seemed to have been lost.

  The starfish mindburned another raidship, and proved Chub and the Old Ones right. The fireball had given them away. Moyshe felt the deep sadness of his dragon as one of the herd perished beneath Sangaree guns.

  The starfish threw a barrage of fireballs before beating a hasty retreat. Sangaree missiles broke up most of them.

  The globe closed around the harvestfleet. It tightened like a squeezing fist. A desperate ship's commander, piloting a three-quarters dead service ship, knocked a small hole in the globe by ramming a raidship and blowing his drives.

  "They'll know they were in a fight," Moyshe thought. There was no response from Chub.

  The Sangaree stepped up the attack. Their ships began piling up toward Stars' End. Moyshe suddenly intuited their strategy. "They're going to push us into the sharks!"

  Again there was no response from his dragon, unless it were that wind-chime tinkle he caught on the extreme edge of his sensitivity.

  The Sangaree seemed to have managed some equipment adjustments during their absence. They appeared to have no trouble detecting the sharks now. And, since detecting the starfish attack, they were having no trouble keeping the dragons at bay.

  Chub returned to his mind suddenly. "It works well, Moyshe man-friend. Be patient. Will have little time to chat. Is hard to think thoughts in commanders of ships-that-kill, and in machines-that-think. Sangaree minds twisted. Different than man-minds." The dragon faded away.

  What was this? he asked himself. Were the fish trying to control the Sangaree?

  The raidships massed thickly, then pushed hard. The sharks grew agitated, as if dimly aware that they were about to be drawn into the inferno. The starfish began drifting their way, as if to cover the fleet's retreat.

  "Be ready, Moyshe man-friend!" It was a sudden bellow, and all the warning he received.

  The trickle in the root of his brain suddenly became a flaming torrent. It hurt! God, did it hurt! Searing, the power boiled through him, into whatever Danion used to control and convert it, and out to the silvery sails. Moyshe followed the flow for an instant, then became lost in an ocean of pain.

  The harvestship began moving toward the massed raidships, all weapons firing, not aiming, simply trying to erect an irresistible wall of destruction. The compacted Sangaree were unable to bring all their firepower to bear. They wavered, wavered.

  A raidship blew up. It left a momentary hole in the fire pattern. Another vessel began to come apart.

  Service ships were doing the same. One harvestship ceased firing. Her auxiliary power was exhausted. Sangaree missiles began picking her apart.

  BenRabi felt that infinite sadness again.

  The enemy drifted backward, not really retreating, just being pushed inexorably. It could not last, but the harvestfleet's ferocity, for the moment, was greater than the raidfleet's.

  Afar, the starfish suddenly struck at the sharks, who scattered in dismay. The strike was pure bluff on the dragons' part. A determined shark attack would have destroyed the herd in minutes.

  Something screamed across benRabi's mind, a mad voice babbling, shrieking fear and incoherencies. Its power was such that it inundated his pain. He made no sense of the mind-touch, other than warning and terror.

  Phantoms, grotesqueries from the most insane medieval imagination, gathered in space around him. Things that might have been gargoyles and gorgons, Boschian nightmares writhing, all fangs and talons and fire, became more real than the battleships. Every one of them shrieked the message, "Go away or die!"

  I've gone completely insane, he thought. My mind has snapped under contact pressure. They can't be real. He screamed.

  Then the warm feeling came, soothing, gently calming his terror, pushing the madness away. His dragon told him, "We succeed, Moyshe man-friend. Maybe win." Then, darkly, "Monsters are Stars' End sending. Fear and visions are Stars' End mind-thing. Planet machine is mad. Mad machine uses madness weapons. Soon, other weapons.

  "Look, Moyshe man-friend!"

  Shielded by Chub's touch, Moyshe turned his attention to a Stars' End grown huge with their approach. The Sangaree were silhouetted against the glowing planetary disk. The face of the world had become diseased behind them. It was spotted blackly in a hundred thousand places.

  The disk was receding. The harvestfleet was on the run, scattering as fast as it could. Moyshe suspected that, had any been able, the harvestships would have gone hyper. That could not be accomplished on minddrive.

  The Sangaree coul
d not jump out while locked into their master battle-computer. Breaking lock and getting up influence took time.

  Two thousand kilometers closer to the fortress world's weapons, they were trying. With the desperation of the condemned they were breaking lock, scattering, throwing out defensive missiles, trying to get up influence.

  They did not have time. The mad world's weapons reached them first.

  "Close mind!" Chub shrieked. "Get out! Not need power now. Save mind!"

  How? He couldn't remember. It became another nightmare, of the sort where all efforts to elude pursuit were vain.

  Feeling returned to his left hand. Another hand rested upon it, pulling upward. The reality of the Contact Room returned.

  He could feel his helmet, the couch beneath him—and a tremendous sense of loss. He missed his dragon already, and in missing Chub he understood Starfishers a little better. Maybe the contact was one reason they stayed so far from the worlds of men. The fish-Fisher thing was a unique experiential frontier.

  Perhaps only one in a thousand Fishers would ever experience contact, but that one could share the vision with his blind brethren... He had suffered a range of emotions out there. Only one thing had been missing while Chub was in his mind. The ordinary, everyday insecurity which so shaped human life.

  He was drowning in his own sweat. And he was shivering cold, as if his body temperature had dropped while he was linked. The room surrounding him was silent. Where were his technicians? Was he alone? No. Someone had helped him get out.

  The thoughts, reflections, fears flashed by in scant seconds. Then:

  His head exploded in a thundering migraine, the most sudden and terrible of his experience. It obliterated all conscious control and thought. He screamed. He fought the straps that held him, the helmet that stole his vision. He became pure trapped animal.

  Danion shuddered, staggered, staggered. Vaguely, through the agony, he heard screams. Loose objects rattled around. Gravity surged and faded. Mind monsters momentarily broke through the pain, taunting him with visions of Hell.