by Mike Resnick
“Some other time, Tchaka.”
“What's the mater?”
“My pet just saw the lizard in your ear. If you get any closer you're going to have the opportunity to let science do for your hearing what it did for your vision.”
“An ultrasonic ear to go along with my eye,” said Tchaka, toying with the idea. “I'll sleep on that one, Nicobar. And now, can I arrange something for you to sleep on, my friend?”
“Later,” said Lane, sipping at his drink.
“Whatever you wish,” said Tchaka. “Anything for my old friend Nicobar.”
“Until he runs out of money,” said Lane dryly.
“You must never confuse friendship with loyalty,” said Tchaka. “I am friendly to everyone, but I am loyal only to Tchaka's interests.”
“Reasonable,” said Lane.
“I am all things to all men,” said Tchaka easily. “To you I am reasonable. To someone else I am unfathomable and unknowable. Would you believe,” he continued, grinning and grinding his fingers into the hardwood bar, leaving fingerprint indentations almost a centimeter deep in it, “that to some people I am actually a figure of terror?”
“I can't imagine why,” said Lane, wondering if any other man in the galaxy could match strength with Tchaka.
“And to some,” continued Tchaka, “I am a man of total mystery.”
“I never thought of you as being especially mysterious,” said Lane. “But speaking of mysteries, I've got a little one to share with you. What do you know about black holes?”
“Black, white, pink, red, brown, polka-dot, they're all the same to Tchaka,” he replied with a lecherous grin that showed off his golden teeth to best advantage.
“Seriously,” said Lane, “do you know anything about them?”
“Tchaka knows a little something about almost everything.”
“Including black holes?”
“Including black holes.”
“What would you say if I told you that something I was chasing got within five hundred miles of one and then veered away?”
“I'd say you were wrong,” said Tchaka, without hesitation.
“I wasn't wrong,” said Lane.
“What did it look like?” asked Tchaka.
“I don't know. I was too far away to see it.”
“Then how do you know it was there, Nicobar?”
“My ship's sensors followed it all the way to the hole,” said Lane.
“What happened to it after it avoided the hole?”
Lane shrugged. “I don't know. It left the system and I went back to work.”
“You weren't curious?”
“Not enough to go after it,” said Lane. “Besides, if it could buck a black hole's gravitational field, my ship wasn't likely to be much of a match for it.”
“Probably not,” agreed Tchaka, sucking thoughtfully on a bottle.
“Ever hear of anything like that?” asked Lane.
“Just once,” said Tchaka.
“Oh? From who?”
“Old man in the corner,” said Tchaka, nodding toward an ancient, wrinkled man who sat motionless at a table, a huge bottle of almost pure alcohol beside his elbow. “It was thirty years ago, maybe even forty. He came in one day and got rip-roaring drunk. It wasn't so busy in those days, so I helped him sober up. He talked all night and most of the morning about something that ducked around a black hole. I thought he was just raving, but when he sobered up he said the whole damned thing over again. Mentioned it the next night, got laughed at, and never talked about it again. Want to meet him?”
“Not especially,” said Lane.
“That's why I love you, Nicobar.” Tchaka laughed. “Always gracious. Hey, Mariner!” he shouted to the old man. “Come on over here and grab yourself a free drink, courtesy of Nicobar Lane.”
The old man looked up, seemed to consider the offer, then arose painfully and hobbled over to the bar. He took the drink Tchaka offered him, downed it without a word or a breath, then wiped his mouth with a tattered sleeve. He had been strong and vigorous once, and even now he looked more pained than wasted.
“Thanks,” he said at last, in a voice that seemed even older than the body that housed it.
“You're welcome,” said Lane, leaning on the bar in the hope that the Mufti would get another glimpse of Tchaka's ear-lizard. “What's your name, old man?”
“I'm not really sure,” said the man. “I've been called the Mariner for so long that I've forgotten what my real name is. I guess I must have one, though.”
“Why do they call you the Mariner?” asked Lane.
“For the Ancient Mariner.”
“I don't see the connection,” said Lane.
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” quoted the old man. “With me it was planets. Millions of worlds, green worlds, blue worlds, red ones, deserts and oceans and jungles and mountains so tall you couldn't see the tops even on a clear day. I've seen them all, opened up a goodly number of them for colonists. But I could never stay on one, not for more than a month or so. I always thought there'd be a prettier one circling around the next star, always had to go chasing after it. Planets everywhere, a billion worlds for the asking, and none of them for me. So I wound up here, too old and too broke and too sick to go back to any of the Edens I walked out on.”
“The Mariner was the man who discovered Northpoint.” said Tchaka, pouring the old man another glass.
“That's right,” said the Mariner. “Seventy-two years ago. Not one of my greater achievements, I must admit. Named the planet. Named this town, too. I never realized just how well I had named it until I got stuck here.”
“I'll bet you've seen a lot of things in your time,” said Lane.
“That I have,” said the Mariner.
“Ever see anything escape a black hole?”
The Mariner glared at Tchaka. “Is that why you called me over here. To poke fun at me?”
“When we're through talking, Nicobar and I are going to poke a little fun at some of my women.” said Tchaka with a grin. “As for you, old man, no one wants to humiliate you. We just want you to talk to us.”
“About black holes,” said Lane.
The Mariner stared long and hard at them. Then he shrugged, held out his glass for a refill, and began speaking.
“It happened thirty-seven years ago. I was working for the government then, charting habitable planets. I had just left New Kenya, which turned out not to be so habitable after all. Not that it was my fault—I mean, what the hell does an explorer know about volcanoes and earthquakes? I think they lost about half a million people in that holocaust.
“Anyway, they wanted water worlds, Lord knows why, so I set out for the Terrazane sector, where I knew conditions were ripe for a lot of ocean worlds: a whole batch of stars in the G-2 to G-8 range. You ever been out that way, Lane?”
“No,” said Lane.
“Lot of garbage out there,” said the Mariner. “Dust clouds so thick they blot out the stars for hours at a time. Makes a man feel claustrophobic. Just a bunch of junk that never managed to get together to form stars. Some of it was hot, too, though most of it wasn't. Anyway, that's where I got my first glimpse of the Starduster.”
“The Starduster?” repeated Lane.
“The Starduster, the Starduster!” snapped the Mariner. “That's what the hell we're talking about, isn't it? Damned hell-spawned thing that floats out there in the vacuum, living off the stellar dust between the stars. Eats it just like you or I eat a steak.”
“What did it look like?” asked Lane.
“Not sure,” said the old man. “I kept losing sight of it because of all the damned dust. But I was able to track it with my sensors, and I began following it. Pure energy it was, and faster than most spaceships.”
“Was any part of it in the infrared end of the spectrum?” asked Lane.
“Hell, I don't know,” said the Mariner. “But every now and then I could see it shimmering out there ahead of me, so it cou
ldn't have been all infrared.” He paused, looking at his now-empty glass, and Tchaka filled it up again as Lane slapped some more currency down on the counter.
“Thanks,” said the old man. “That was some critter, that Starduster. But big as it was, it was scared to death of me.”
“That doesn't sound very likely, old man,” said Tchaka.
“Maybe not,” agreed the Mariner, “but it's true just the same.”
“How do you know?” persisted Tchaka.
“I'm not sure. Intuition, maybe. Anyway, it tried hell-for-leather to get away from me—and me, I was just young and strong and stupid enough that I wanted to get a better look, so I followed it. It led me a merry chase, I can vouch for that. Three, four, five parsecs, maybe more. Then we came to the Terrazane hole—biggest black hole I've ever seen, almost sixty miles across, without a speck of dust or garbage anywhere near it—and damn me if the Starduster didn't make right for it.”
“See, Nicobar, I told you it sounded like your story,” said Tchaka.
“You ran into it too?” asked the Mariner.
“I don't know,” said Lane. “Probably not. Go on with your story.”
“Not much left to it,” said the Mariner. “I got as close as I dared, then tracked it on my panel. The damned thing went right up to the hole and at the last second it scooted around it.”
“Did you follow it after that?” asked Lane.
“I tried.” said the Mariner. “But it was so far ahead of me that I couldn't catch up.”
“Ever see it again?” asked Lane.
“I thought I did once,” said the old man. “It was in the Canphor system, but whatever it was I saw got the hell out of there so fast I couldn't be sure. Interesting beast, the Starduster. Can't figure out how it breathes or what purpose it has for living. I'd like to find out, though. You going after it, Lane?”
“Not a chance,” said Lane.
“Too bad,” said the Mariner. “I'd have liked to come along.”
“I thought you were too old to ship out,” said Tchaka.
“Oh, I figure I'd die during the trip,” said the Mariner. “But I always wanted to die in space anyway. Doesn't bother me at all. I've seen just about everything there is to see in one lifetime, done everything I ever wanted to do. What the hell do I want to die in some hotel bed in Hellhaven for? I never really got a good look at the Starduster. I'd much rather die trying to get a glimpse of it than sit around here waiting to keel over. Toss my body out into space, let it blow up and go into a million orbits around a million stars. Don't want to be buried on any planet, Tchaka; not even on yours.”
“I wish I could accommodate you, old-timer,” said Lane, “but I hunt animals, not myths.”
“That's too bad, Lane. I could even have told you where to find it.”
“And how could you do that, old man?” said Tchaka, a condescending smile on his huge, thick lips.
“It feeds, just like any other animal,” said the Mariner. “Let me know where you saw it, we'll mark down where I saw it, we'll add the sightings of those fools who think it's the Dreamwish Beast, and we'll get some idea of its feeding patterns.”
“If it eats interstellar dust,” said Tchaka. “How do you know it wasn't just resting there when you found it?”
“It makes sense.” interjected Lane. “Anything big enough to show up on the instrument panel of one of those little government ships they had thirty or forty years ago has to be pretty big, and it's got to expend a lot of energy to be able to outrun a spaceship. I imagine that it feeds ninety percent of the time, maybe more. And besides, if it's an energy form, it's not likely to land on any planets to eat something solid. I would have guessed it fed off solar energy, but I suppose that would make it too much like a cannibal. I don't know what nourishment it can get out of a dust cloud, but for the moment I'm willing to accept that it lives off of them.”
“What happens when it runs out of dust?” asked Tchaka.
“Never will,” said the Mariner. “God was a lousy craftsman. The whole universe is cluttered with His leftovers.”
“It's an interesting animal,” said Lane.
“Then why not go out after it?” said the Mariner.
“I'm a hunter,” said Lane. “I kill things for money. If I don't get paid, I don't kill things. Nobody's going to pay me for killing your Starduster, or Dreamwish Beast, or whatever.”
“Why not?” said Tchaka. “They come out here in bunches to pay you to do just that.”
“No corpse,” said Lane. “Even if I knew how to kill it, which I don't, I imagine its remains would immediately dissipate. No corpus delicti, no money. Museums can't display memories.”
“Still, wouldn't you like to see it close up?” asked the Mariner. “I'd trade my life for one good look.”
“That's because you don't have much life left to trade, old man.” Tchaka laughed. “Nicobar, he's the cautious type. He wants to live to be as old as you.”
“Where did you see it?” asked the Mariner.
“The Pinnipes system,” said Lane.
“Didn't know they had a black hole out there,” said the old man. He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head, lost in thought and computations. “It could be the Starduster,” he said at last. “It just could be.”
“No clouds nearby,” said Lane.
“None that you could see,” said the Mariner. “Maybe they were there anyway. Or maybe it eats other things too. But it could be the same creature. The last Dreamwish Beast sighting was in the Alphard system, you know.”
“That's not that far away from Pinnipes,” said Lane, staring at his glass.
“Just a hope, a skip, and a jump,” agreed the Mariner. “Getting your interest up, Lane?”
“Not even a little bit,” said Lane. “There's a lot of stars out there, and just one beast.”
“We'll find him,” said the Mariner.
“We won't even look for him,” said Lane.
“What's the matter with you, Lane?” said the Mariner. “You been doing too much killing? Hell, you're deader than the corpses you bring in.”
“What are you talking about, old man?” said Tchaka.
“I'm talking about the kind of a man who would rather kill sitting ducks than go out into the unknown and hunt down the Starduster. I'm so old I can't even stand up without an effort, but that's only on the outside. Inside I'm a damned sight younger than the butcher here.”
Tchaka lowered his lids, watching Lane carefully out of both eyes—the normal and the unique—to see if there would be any reaction. But there wasn't. Lane just gazed calmly at the Mariner.
“Look at him,” said the old man contemptuously. “Not a feeling in his body. He can't even get mad anymore. No, Lane, you're not the man to go out after the Starduster. All you want to do is live vicariously through Tchaka's whores and drugs and watered whiskey.”
“I don't water anyone's whiskey!” said Tchaka with mock indignation. “Except yours, old man. If I gave it to you straight, the shock would kill you. Come to think of it, just about everything I peddle would kill you.”
“What you peddle is for men like Lane,” said the Mariner. “Men like me never needed that stuff, not when I was young and not now when I'm old. I've seen the flare of a star going supernova. I've stood on worlds where no man ever stood before. I've gone spearfishing in a chlorine sea and stood atop the tallest mountain in the galaxy. I've held a diamond the size of your phony eyeball in my hand, and threw it away because my pockets were loaded with bigger ones. I've seen creatures that spend their entire lives following the sunset around their planet, and I've seen beasties that smell colors and see noises. What can you offer me to equal that, Tchaka? A drunken slut, a drug that'll send me off to some brown-gray dreamworld that's not half so interesting as the dullest planet I've put down on? No, goldtooth, sell your wares to someone like Lane. Me, I'll take the Starduster.”
“Are you going to just sit there and take this, Nicobar?” said Tchaka.
“Nope,” said Lane, rising. “I'm ready for your back room now.”
“Ahhh!” said Tchaka, a smile of anticipation making his features even more grotesque. He clapped his hands and gestured to five of his girls, who immediately went through a tasseled doorway behind the bar.
The Mariner began limping back to his table, body stooped but head erect, eyes unblinking and staring straight ahead of him.
“Mariner!” called Lane in a loud, clear voice.
The old man turned to him.
“Do you know where my hangar is?”
“I can find it.”
“Be there two days from now with your gear.”
“You're going after him?” said the Mariner, a tremor of excitement in his voice.
“No,” said Lane. “But if you've got your heart set on dying in space, it might as well be aboard the Deathmaker as any other ship.”
“Thank you, Lane.”
“You're welcome, Mariner,” said Lane. Then he turned and followed Tchaka into the next room.
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* * *
CHAPTER 4
Lane was mildly surprised to discover that the Mariner wasn't a burden.
The old man knew his way around a spaceship. He also possessed a remarkable mind, filled to the brim with the trivia of a thousand planets, much of it quite useful to Lane in his pursuit of exotic life forms. He also knew how to skin a carcass as neatly as any Dabih, which meant that Lane was able to get by with a crew of two: himself and the Mariner.
Even the Mufti, who ordinarily tolerated no one but Lane, took a liking to the Mariner. The old man spent hours each day recalling past glories and adventures in the purplest of prose, and by the time he was done recounting the day's quota of stories the Mufti could usually be found curled up on his lap, purring gently and allowing the Mariner to scratch between what passed for its shoulderblades.
They made two short hunts, each of about three months’ duration. Then Lane took an order for two dozen Horndemons, enormous omnivores with truly phenomenal antlers, from Ansard IV, a planet which was within half a parsec of the Pinnipes system.
“Now maybe we'll catch a glimpse of him,” said the Mariner as the Deathmaker took off for Ansard.
