Stars End - Starfishers Triology Book 3

by Glen Cook

  McClennon told Mouse, "Ever notice the Old Man's split personality? He's three different people, depending on who he's talking to."

  Mouse smiled. "We all are. More than three, usually. He's just obvious."

  "Think they're buying it?"

  "Payne's people are. Most of the others aren't, Gruber looks like he'll give us the benefit of the doubt." He picked lint off his dress black tunic. "We're victims of our reputation. They can't believe we're being straight."

  Gruber proved willing to listen. That willingness extended the session for hours. Stewards came in, set up tables, served a meal.

  Gruber finally seemed satisfied. His sub-chieftains began filing out, following Mouse to the lock.

  Amy walked with McClennon. Starting at the desk, she said, "I'm going back to Danion now."

  "Okay."

  "Moyshe... I'm sorry."

  "I am too, Amy. About everything. I never wanted to hurt you."

  "Stay happy, Moyshe."

  "You too."

  She was the last Seiner into the lock. Mouse turned to McClennon. Thomas nodded.

  Mouse ordered the lock cycled.

  "Think it went over?" McClennon asked.

  "I don't know, Tommy. I don't... Tommy? What's the matter? Chief, help me here. Stretcher. Somebody get a stretcher."

  The episode was McClennon's worst yet. It took the Psych team three days to bring him out.

  It had surprised him completely.

  Twenty-three: 3050 AD

  The Main Sequence

  "I don't think you should go, Thomas," the Admiral said. "Let Mouse handle it. Suppose you had one of your attacks?"

  "I'll be all right. Look. Ask Lieutenant Corley. She says it'll take a week to reach another crisis point."

  "Mouse?"

  "Somebody has to look over their shoulders, right? Otherwise we won't know if they're getting anywhere. That's just the way those people are. They're not going to say anything till they're sure nobody can shoot them down. Scientists would rather be dragged through the streets naked than be wrong. If Tommy goes, we'll have twice as many eyes."

  "All right. Thomas, you know the woman who heads the Seiner team. Talk to her. Take a recorder. I want to hear what she says."

  Twelve hours later McClennon and Storm, accompanied by a pair of Marine sergeants, entered the cold metal halls of Stars' End. The dock ring of their landing bay was a good twenty kilometers below the featureless planetary surface. The plunge down the long, dark shaft had been harrowing. Mouse had lost his supper.

  The Marines began horsing an electric truck off the shuttle.

  Mouse walked along a steel passageway, away from the dock ring. He peered into what had to have been Ground Control in an age gone by. "Tommy, come take a look in here."

  McClennon had to stoop beneath the passageway ceiling. He joined Storm. "What?" He saw nothing but a Marine sentry.

  "By that console thing."

  "Oh. A skeleton."

  The reports said bones could be found throughout the fortress. Thousands of skeletons had been encountered.

  "We're ready, sir," one of the Marines said.

  McClennon snapped a picture of the bones. "All right. Mouse, let's hit Research Central first."

  "Right. We'll probably get everything there anyway."

  "Be charming. Consuela el-Sanga looks vulnerable."

  "Am I ever anything else?"

  The little truck streaked through the endless halls, down ramps, around perilous turns, ever deeper into the metal world. The Marine driver fled on as if being pursued by the shades of the builders. He shuddered visibly each time they encountered one of the skeletons. They passed through one chamber where a score of the builder folk had died.

  "The bones that have touched and shaped our lives," Thomas said. "From afar, like virgin princesses."

  "You getting poetic again?"

  "I do when I'm depressed." He glanced at the Marines. They stared forward impassively. "And this place is depressing." The soldiers seemed to have come out of a robot factory. They had shown no reaction to the Admiral's tapes.

  The driver's suicidal rush was the only evidence that either man was disturbed.

  The truck swooped into a level with ceilings vaulting a hundred meters high. Brobdingnagian machines crowded it, rising like the buildings of an alien city. There was life here, and light, but it was all machine.

  "I wonder what they are."

  "Accumulators for the energy weapons," Mouse guessed.

  "Some of them. Some of them must be doing something with the air."

  "Look!" Mouse squealed. "Sergeant, stop. Back up. Back up. A little more. Look up there, Tommy. On the fourth catwalk up."

  McClennon spotted the androgynous little machine. It was busy working on the flank of one of the towering structures. "A maintenance robot."

  "Yeah. All right, Sergeant. Go ahead."

  They descended more levels, some as high-ceilinged as that of the robot. They saw more of the mobile machines, built in a dozen different designs.

  Obviously, only the builders had perished. Their fortress was very much alive and healthy. Storm and McClennon saw no evidence of breakdown.

  "It's like walking through a graveyard," Mouse said, after their driver had had to wend his way across a vast, open floor where hundreds of skeletons lay in neat rows. "Chilling."

  "Know what, Mouse? I think this is really a pyramid. It's not a fortress at all."

  "You're not serious."

  "Why not? Think about it. Can you think of any strategic reason for putting a world fort out here?"

  "Sure."

  "Such as?"

  "Right over there are the Magellanic Clouds. Sic somebody on me willing to spend a few hundred millennia conquering the galaxy and chasing me, and I'd build me an all-time fort across my line of retreat before I jump off for a friendlier star-swarm."

  "Now who's getting romantic?"

  "Romantic, hell."

  "They could just go around it, Mouse."

  "That centerward mob don't go around anything. They'd just stay here till they cracked it open."

  "Maybe you're right, but I'm going to stick to my theory."

  They reached the research center a few minutes later. McClennon located Consuela el-Sanga almost immediately, and found her completely free of animosity. He was surprised.

  "Why?" she asked. "I'm no Seiner. I'm just one of their captive scientists."

  "I didn't know." He introduced Mouse. He wondered if Consuela had heard from Amy.

  "Moyshe... That wouldn't be right, would it?"

  "McClennon. Thomas. But call me whatever's comfortable."

  "Thomas, this is the most exciting time of my life. We can finally compare notes with your people... It's like opening up a whole new universe. Come on. Let me show you what we're doing." Her walk had a youthful bounce despite the higher than Seiner-normal gravity.

  Mouse's eyebrows rose questionably. McClennon shrugged. "Come on. Before she changes her mind."

  A horde of people were at work in a nearby chamber, where hundreds of folding tables had been arrayed in long rows. Most were burdened with artifacts, papers, or the tools of the scientists and their helpers. To one side technicians were busy with communicators and a vast, waist-level computer interface.

  Consuela explained, "The people at the tables are examining and cataloging artifacts. We brought along several thousand laymen to help explore. Whenever they make a find, they notify comm center. We send an expert to examine the site. The confab over there is an ongoing exchange with your Lunar dig people. The people at the console are trying to reprogram Stars' End's master brain so it can deal directly with human input."

  "You found a key to the builder language?" Thomas asked.

  "No. That will come after we can talk to the computer."

  "You just lost me. That sounds backwards."

  "It works like this: The starfish commune with the machine. They relay to our mindtechs. The mindtechs relay to
our computer people. They build parallel test programs. Communications send them down. Our computer people here try to feed it back to the master brain. The starfish read the response and feed it to the mindtechs again. And round the circle. The idea is to help the computers develop a common language. So far we've only managed a pidgin level of communication. We think we're on the brink of breakthrough, though."

  "Math ought to be a snap," Mouse said. "It's got to be the same all over the universe. But I can see how you'd have trouble working toward more abstract concepts."

  "Unfortunately, we're using a non-mathematical interface," Consuela replied. "The starfish aren't mathematically minded. Their conscious concept of number is one-two-three-many."

  "Thought you said they were smart, Tommy."

  Consuela said, "They are. But theirs is an intuitive rather than empirical intelligence. But we're making headway. When our computers can link... "

  "Be careful," McClennon admonished. "Be very, very careful."

  "Why?"

  "This is the boss machine, right?"

  "So the fish say."

  "Okay. That makes it big and powerful. It might be playing games with you. It's insane."

  "Come on," Mouse protested. "How can a machine go crazy?"

  "I don't know. I do know I was in Contact during the first battle. I got a little direct touch. It was plain out of its micro-electronic mind. I'd be afraid it could use its capacity to seize control of my own command computers."

  "He's right, Captain. Thomas, we know. It's a real problem. Most of the starfish are riding herd on its psyche. Only a few are helping communicate. It seems to have several psychological problems. Loneliness. A god complex. A deeply programed xenophobia and bellicosity... It is, after all, the directing intelligence of a weapons system."

  "A defensive weapon," McClennon suggested. "Mouse laughed at this. But think about it. Is Stars' End a pyramid?"

  "I don't understand."

  "I'm going to wander around," Mouse said. "Don't run off without me, Tommy,"

  "I won't. By pyramid I mean it serves the same function as Old Earth's Egyptian pyramids."

  "A tomb? I don't think so. The idea isn't new, but it's been mostly a metaphor."

  "Assume the builders knew... You don't have all the data." He explained about the centerward race and his suspicion that the builder race had been fleeing it. "Okay. They come to the end of the road. There's nowhere to run, unless they jump off for the Magellanic Clouds. I think they gave up. I think they stopped, built themselves a pyramid, put their treasures inside, and died out."

  Miss el-Sangra smiled. "A romantic theory that fits the known facts. And a few you've conjured up, I think. Ingenious, Thomas. I suppose we'll be able to answer you when we complete contact with the master control."

  A boyhood incident came to mind. He had discovered—independently, so far as he could discern later—that A squared plus B squared equaled C squared. He had been excited till he had explained it to a friend. The friend had laughed and told him that Pythagoras had crossed the finish line thirty-five hundred years ahead of him.

  He felt the same deflation now.

  "I hear you and Amy broke up."

  "Yes. I didn't realize you knew."

  "She called yesterday. She was very depressed about it."

  "She took something personal that wasn't."

  "That was the feeling I got. Her story was one-sided, but I got the impression you were trying to do what was right for everybody."

  "I tried. I don't know how successful I was."

  "You two shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. Landsmen and Seiners don't speak the same language. I've been with them thirty-six years and I still have problems."

  "We were both looking for something. We were too eager to grab it."

  "I've been through that, too."

  "Help her, will you? I never meant to hurt her."

  "I will. And don't feel so guilty. She's more resilient than she pretends. She likes the attention."

  "I thought you were friends."

  "She was a lot more than a friend for a while, Captain. Till she met Heinrich Cortez."

  "Oh."

  "Hey, Tommy!" Mouse bore down on them like a mini-juggernaut. "Come here." He about-turned and steamed a reverse course.

  "Excuse me, Consuela." He chased Mouse down. "What?"

  Mouse stopped. "I just talked to a gal who's doing the same thing for the Fishers that we're doing for Beckhart. She was pissed. These clowns, some of them, have been here for ten days. The Fishers have eight thousand people down already. And they haven't even started looking at weapons systems. They don't even care. All they want to do is collect broken toothbrushes and sort old bones."

  "They'll get to it, Mouse. You've got to give them a chance to let the new wear off. And they've got to get a dialogue going with the master control. If they manage that, it'll save time. In the long run. The machine can redesign the weapons for us. That would save ripping the old ones out of here, orbiting them, then building ships around them."

  Mouse calmed himself. "Okay. Maybe you're right. But I still don't like to see everybody doing something else when weapons are the reason we're all here."

  "What if the weapons technology requires other preexisting technologies?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Go back a hundred years. Build me a pulse-graser with the technology available then. You couldn't do it. You'd have to create the technology to create the technology to construct the pulse accumulators. Right?"

  "Sometimes I don't like you a whole lot, Tommy." Mouse grinned. "I'll tell the Seiner lady to be patient."

  "If the Captains will excuse me?" The senior of their Marine custodians approached them.

  "Yes, Sergeant?" Thomas asked.

  "The Admiral's compliments, sirs, and he needs you back aboard ship immediately."

  "What is it?"

  "He didn't say, sir. He said to tell you it's critical."

  Mouse looked puzzled. McClennon was very much so.

  The news hit the busy chamber before they departed.

  The starfish had had a brief skirmish with sharks. Hordes of the predators had appeared. A continuous stream were still arriving.

  "Holy shit!" Thomas said. "I'd forgotten about them."

  "They didn't forget us," Mouse grumbled. "Damnation!"

  People swirled this way and that. The mood approached panic. Doctor Chancellor rushed over. "I heard you're going up. Take this to the Admiral, just in case." He shoved a folder into McClennon's hands. "Thank you." He dashed toward the team working at the computer. They were trying to prepare an instantaneous shutdown of the round-robin should the sharks attack.

  "They should tell the idiot box to scrub the problem for them," Mouse said as they pulled away. "What did he give you?"

  "His notes. They look like a cross between a journal and regular scientific notation."

  "Give me some of those."

  Their driver flew around worse than he had coming the other direction.

  "Here's an interesting one," Mouse said. "No furniture."

  "What?"

  "The exploration teams haven't found any furniture. There goes your pyramid theory."

  "He's right. I didn't see anything but machinery. The bodies are all laid out on the floor."

  "Maybe they're invaders too?"

  McClennon shrugged. "Here's one that will grab you. How big do you think Stars' End is?"

  "Uhm... Venus size?"

  "Close. Earth minus two percent. But the planetary part is smaller than Mars. The rest is edifice."

  "What?"

  "His word. I'll give you the question. Since most of the structural volume would be hollow, how come the place has so much gravity? It's a couple points over Earth normal."

  Mouse sneered. "Come on, Tommy. Maybe it's the machines."

  "Nope. You're going to love it. According to this, the builders, before they started building, took a little planet and polished it smo
oth. Then they plated it with a layer of neutronium. The fortress structure floats around on the neutronium, which may be a cushion against tectonic activity."

  "Whoa!" Mouse clung to the truck as its driver made a violent turn. "How did they stabilize the neutronium?"

  "Figure that out, and how they mined it in the first place, and you and me will get rich."

  "What's the kicker?"

  "He doesn't have one here. I think it's implied. I didn't see anything at the Lunar digs or Three Sky that would suggest that level of technology."

  "So the little people are interlopers. Just like us."

  "Maybe." McClennon had an image of Bronze Age barbarians camped in the street of a space age city.

  "Keep talking. I don't want to think about the fly up."

  A Navy Lieutenant awaited them at Marathon's ingress lock. "If you'll follow me, sirs?"

  The Admiral awaited them on the bridge. "Ah. Thomas. I was beginning to wonder."

  "Is it critical, sir? We haven't slept for ages."

  "It's critical. But the Seiners say it doesn't look like it'll break right away. Rest up good before you go over."

  "Over?"

  "I'm sending you to Danion. I want you to go into link and give Assyrian and Prussian a fire control realtime."

  "You have got to be kidding."

  "Why? My calculations show them capable of cleaning up that little mess out there. It's a chance to show Gruber what can happen if he gets tricky."

  "Point. Sir, you're over-optimistic. Sharks are super deadly. They throw anti-hydrogen when they get mad. Second point. Why me? A Seiner mindtech could do the job, and probably better. They're better trained."

  "I want you. I don't want some Seiner who'll adjust the data to make us look bad."

  "I have to go?"

  "It's an order."

  "Then make it another ship. I'm liable to get lynched aboard Danion."

  "Danion is Gruber's choice. That's the ship we know. He has secrets too."

  "Thanks a lot. Sir."

  Mouse stage-whispered, "The ship's Legal Officer would back you if you want to refuse. You don't have to work when you're under arrest."

  "I got troubles enough without getting the Old Man mad at me. Madder at me."