The Voyage of the Star Wolf

by David Gerrold

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen Bach, security officer, was the shortest of the group. She stood five foot nine in her combat gear. She had a smoldering expression that was its own warning sign. She was of African-Altairian descent and she was not to be treated casually. Rumor had it that she had broken the arm of her karate instructor during the third lesson.

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Irma Stolchak, life-support technician, stood half a head taller. She was big-boned and friendly-looking, but there was a narrow cast to her eyes—as if she had been hurt once too often and had been left with a terrible suspicion about the rest of humanity.

  Crewmember First Class Ayoub Haddad, quantum mechanic, was of pure Jordanian descent—although none of his ancestors had walked on the soil of Earth for nearly seven generations past. He wore a deceptively friendly expression. He was fascinated by machines, because machines always did exactly what they were supposed to do—even when they broke down.

  Crewmember First Class Ori Nakahari, unassigned, was the youngest son of a wealthy Japanese-Martian family. He enlisted two days after the mauling at Marathon. His parents had angrily disowned him for giving political concerns a higher priority than family concerns. Ori had not wept.

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Valentine Michael Jones, unassigned, was called “Jonesy” because everybody named Jones was called “Jonesy.” He was just a little too tall, a little too skinny, and more than a little goofy-looking. The joke about Jonesy was that he was still a virgin—because he wasn’t yet certain which sex he was opposite to.

  Crewman First Class Brian Armstrong, unassigned, was a side of beef with a grin. He was a big, good-natured champion who looked more like a sexual athlete than a starman. He was quick-witted, good-looking, friendly, and popular, about as perfect a human specimen as could be found anywhere in the fleet. So why was he on the LS-1187? Because he’d boffed the wrong bimbo and the bimbo’s father had been a vice-admiral. ’Nuff said about that.

  They were new. They were eager and fresh-faced and they didn’t know. They’d come directly from the transport dock and their first glimpse of the LS-1187 was enough to tell them the worst.

  They were on a catwalk overlooking the work bay and the starship gleamed beneath them. The six of them stopped to look at her. Jonesy put his hands against the slanting glass wall. He pressed his face close and his expression glowed. But he was the only one. The others were already realizing what ship this was. Their expressions were sinking fast.

  “Come on, Jonesy.” Brian Armstrong poked him. “You’ve seen starships before.”

  “Not this one. This one’s ours.”

  “Wake up and really look at her, Jonesy.”

  “I don’t care. She’s still beautiful.” But he let himself be led along. The walkway extended the length of the ship, all the way to her stern airlock. The long walk gave them a chance to see every scorch and blister and battle scar on the starship’s ceramic hull. This close, they could see how badly she was scored with blast marks and wavy rainbow discolorations—the visible aftermath of being brushed by the fringe of a marauder’s hyperstate envelope.

  Stolchak spoke her disappointment first. “Look at that. What a mess. We really did it this time.”

  Armstrong stared out the glass. “I wonder if it’s true that she’s jinxed—”

  Nakahari grinned at him. “Well, she scrambled her own captain. See there? Her port-side disruptors overloaded.” He shuddered grotesquely and laughed. “Now they say his ghost stalks the inner hull, howling for revenge!”

  “Knock it off, you guys,” said Bach. “She’s just another starship.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Stolchak. “Look at that.” She pointed to the shadowed numbers on the starship’s slender hull. “No name. You know what that means.”

  “Yeah,” said Bach. “Anonymity.”

  They reached the end of the walkway, turned left along a transverse walk, and found themselves at an access bay, where a docking tube led across to the ship’s stern airlock.

  There was no one on duty at the bosun’s station to check them in. They exchanged curious glances, then one by one, each of the six slid his or her identity card into the reader and waited for it to beep green.

  Inside the starship, it was worse. Wall panels hung open, their covers missing or broken. Gaping holes revealed torn wiring harnesses and broken structural members. There were empty places where system modules should have been installed, and internal sensory fixtures hung brokenly from their sockets. The light panels glowed unevenly; many of them had annoying cyclical quavers.

  And there was graffiti on the walls. There were posters, and slogans. Raucous music was playing from a rattling speaker and a hyperkinetic voice was bantering: “Good morning, starshine! You’re listening to Flamin’ Damon and the Allied Star Force Distribution Network. Recorded Live and Lively! on YOUR homeworld in New America! Here’s one of the classics—”

  A cluster of sullen crewmen were lounging near the stern utility shaft. They were unshaven and wearing non-regulation gear. One was wearing a gaudy dashiki, another was wearing only a kilt.

  The six new crewmembers ignored their sideways looks and headed forward through the aft keel. A blue-skinned woman passed them, heading sternward. She was eerily beautiful, tiny-boned and delicately featured. Her hairless skull was outlined with delicate feather-like scales, shading upward to become a purple and crimson mohawk of sensory quills.

  Brian Armstrong stopped in his tracks and stared unashamedly. “Wow,” he said. “Quillas.”

  The Quilla giggled and lowered her face to hide her smile, but almost immediately she peeked back up at Armstrong. Her eyes twinkled with promise. He flushed in response, but turned around in his tracks to watch her pass, even walking backward to keep her in sight as long as he could—he was awestruck by her presence—until he backed into a structural member, banging his head sharply. Bach and Nakahari both laughed.

  Irma Stolchak was less sanguine. “Oh, great,” she said. “That’s just what we need—a shared consciousness. Have you ever worked with a massmind? No? Well, I have. What one knows they all know. There are no secrets with a Quilla aboard.”

  Nakahari poked Armstrong. “You’d better be careful. You know what they say about Quillas! You know, their—(ahem)—”

  “Really—?” Armstrong was honestly interested.

  “And that’s it on the men here,” Stolchak was saying to Bach. “They’re not even going to be looking at you and me.”

  Bach shook her head, smiling quietly. “It’s all right. I’m not sure I’d want to get involved with any man assigned to this ship.”

  They reached the engine room then, a three-story chamber built around a large spherical framework: the singularity cage containing the pinpoint black hole that powered the starship and also served as focus for the hyperstate generators. Three huge cylinders pointed into the singularity cage, one from directly above and one coming up from each side, corresponding to the three projections on the ship’s outer hull. There were catwalks and ladders all around the cylinders and the framework. Consoles were spotted everywhere, and there were massive banks of equipment dominating the bulkheads both forward and aft. Conduits and cooling tanks lined all the walls. This was the heart of the starship.

  At the moment, however, the heart of the starship was having a serious cardiac arrest.

  Oily black smoke was pouring out of one of the three great cylinders surrounding the singularity cage. Nobody else in the engine room was paying much attention, except for the two crewmembers frantically working on it. Haddad noticed though. Fluctuator sockets were his specialty. He stopped and stared, wanting to do something but not knowing if he should or not. He stepped forward uncertainly.

  The other five continued forward, passing two beefy members of the Black Hole Gang, Reynolds and Cappy. Both were dressed casually, in shorts and T-shirts only. Cappy was the bigger of the two, Reynolds was the darker. They were heading aft, rolling an equipment cart before them.

  “Uh-oh,�
�� said Reynolds. “Fresh meat.” He grinned. “Who did you guys piss off?”

  Armstrong was still looking back toward the engine room, not at where he was going. He banged into and tripped over the equipment cart and fell flat on his pride.

  “Watch it—are you okay?” Cappy asked. He was a broad, stout man. He looked almost as wide as he was tall.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Armstrong said ruefully as he picked himself up. “Sorry.”

  “You’d better see the doctor about that vision problem. Her name’s Williger.”

  “Her?” asked Armstrong. “Is she good-looking?”

  “Good-looking? Molly Williger? Uh—” Cappy blinked at the question. His expression went very strange. “Oh, yeah. She’s . . . unbelievable!”

  Farther forward, Stolchak and Bach had to step aside to let pass several robots and crewmembers in fire-fighting gear; they were heading swiftly back toward the engine room.

  Stolchak shook her head. “This is not my idea of a good time.”

  The fire-team was followed by Korie and Leen. Korie was leading; Leen was shouting at his back. “I’m not doing anything until you take a look at it! I am not eating the paper on this one! You hear me?”

  “Fluctuator sockets don’t just diffuse for no reason at all!” Korie shouted back over his shoulder. “I told you I wanted all the assembly valves rebuilt!”

  “Dammit—you put a scope on it and see for yourself!” Leen pushed past Stolchak, angrily shoved the equipment cart out of the way and hollered after Korie, “This is the best you can get out of a low-cycle installation. Seven-fifty, max!”

  “Bullshit!” said Korie. He pushed Armstrong and Nakahari aside and strode into the engine room. “Those mods are rated to nine-fifty before they redline!”

  “Only if confidence is nine or better! This ship is a six! Seven-fifty is your max!”

  Leen followed Korie straight to the fluctuator socket. Thick smoke was still pouring out of it. Under the direction of the fire-team, the robots were spraying the whole thing with damping foam. Sparks were showering from the cylinder all along its length. The smell of ozone filled the air. Acrid steam roiled outward where the foam spray hit the conduction fields. Haddad was right in the thick of it, dancing and pointing. He had a sodden handkerchief over his nose and mouth. He was directing the fire-team as if he were their chief.

  Korie said, “Shit,” and stepped over to a rugged-looking vertical console. He punched open a panel with his fist and pulled the large red lever inside it. Immediately the conduction fields in all three fluctuators collapsed—it was like being hit with a hammer of air; but the sparking stopped. The steam and the smoke began fading away. The whir of the ventilators increased and a noticeable breeze swept cold air into the engine room.

  Korie turned sourly to the two crewmembers who had been fighting with the system and said dryly, “First, you flush the system . . .” He tapped out a program on the console. “Then you call up a total System Analysis Report and look for the anomaly.”

  He scanned through the system schematic quickly, calling up display after display. All were green. He stopped scrolling through the schematic when he found a schematic with a section in flashing red. He slipped easily into teaching mode and pointed. “All right, what’s that? Anybody?” He glanced around, read the nametag on Haddad’s chest. “Haddad?” Abruptly he frowned. “How long have you been aboard? You’re supposed to check in.”

  “Uh”—Haddad glanced at his watch—“thirty seconds.”

  “Right.” Korie pointed again. “What’s that?”

  “Assembly valve irregularity. Lack of synchronization probably.”

  “Right.” Korie shot a triumphant look to Leen. To Haddad, he said, “Go ahead. Pull it. Let’s have a look.”

  Haddad dropped the duffel he was still carrying over his shoulder and went immediately to work. He put on a pair of thick gloves, opened a panel in the side of the fluctuator, reached in and unclipped the assembly valve. It was a set of shining interlocking cylinders and modules.

  Korie took a fire extinguisher from one of the robots and sprayed the valve to cool it off. He handed back the extinguisher and took the assembly valve from Haddad, quickly unscrewed one end of it, opened it up and looked inside. He held it out for Leen to see—

  Leen looked, but didn’t comment.

  Korie reached into the chamber and pulled out a burnt something. It looked like a carbonized rat, but without head or tail or even legs; just a clump of charred fur.

  “Cute,” said Korie. “Very cute. You know what would have happened if we had tried to inject into hyperstate with this in the assembly valve?”

  Leen didn’t answer. He just lowered his eyes to the floor for a moment, then looked back up to Korie.

  Korie nodded. “Right. Find out who did it. And transfer him dockside.”

  “Not a good idea,” Leen said quietly. “The doctor has a whole cageful of those furballs in her lab. Everybody who wants off—” He didn’t finish the thought.

  Korie met his gaze straight on. “Anyone who would knowingly sabotage this ship’s engines isn’t good enough to be a member of this crew. I still have pride in this ship and I don’t want anyone on the crew who can’t share the feeling. Find the man who did this and get him off my ship.”

  “Captain Lowell wouldn’t have done that—” Leen started.

  Korie cut him off. “Captain Lowell isn’t in command anymore. I am.” Korie handed the assembly valve back to Leen. “Tear them all down. Rebuild them.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself,” Leen said resentfully. “I don’t see the stripes on your sleeve yet. The scuttlebutt has it you’re not getting them—”

  “I don’t need a captain’s stripes to know what’s wrong with these engines.” He added, “Chief—I worked my way through college on a liberty ship assembly line. I was engine calibration crew chief for a year and a half. I signed the hulls of a hundred and sixty-five of these ships. I know what they’re capable of.” And then, in a gentler tone, “And I know what you’re capable of.”

  But Leen was too angry to be easily pacified. “Give it a rest. You know better. This is the garbage can. FleetComm dumps all their problems here; all their losers, loonies, and lost causes.” He added bitterly, “And maybe, if they’re real real lucky, we’ll all fall into a star.”

  Korie was stung, but he was also deliberately patient. “Chief, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Neither does anybody else on this ship. I say so.”

  “Bullshit! Is that more of your damn lies? We’re the bad luck of the whole fleet. Ask anybody. We’re the reason for the Marathon mauling.”

  Korie shook his head. It wasn’t worth arguing about anymore. He’d had this conversation too many times already. “Chief—” he said tiredly. “Clean this mess up. Start with your attitude. There are no losers on this ship.” He started for the exit.

  Leen called after him. “We don’t need an attitude check! We need an exorcist!”

  Over his shoulder, Korie called back, “If that’s what it takes—”

  The Exorcism

  As it happened, Hodel was a licensed warlock.

  His business card listed the areas of his expertise: thaumaturgy, light magic, violet sorcery, channeling, planar hexes, lethetic obsessions, despiritualized curses, demonic possessions, ontological constructions, personal spells, love philters, green magic (several shades), orthomatic snake oil (all flavors), and (of particular importance) . . . karmatic exorcisms.

  Also, fresh strawberries.

  When Korie asked him about snake oil, he replied simply, “How badly does your snake squeal?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I see. You wanted a serious answer?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Actually,” said Hodel, “it is. You see, to explain magic is to destroy it. But”—He pulled up a chair—“Since you insist, here’s what you need to know. Magic isn’t about the physical universe. It’s about the experiential
universe. It’s about your belief system. Magic works because you believe it works.” He pointed at the coffee mug on the table. “I can’t cast a spell that will lift that cup up and move it over there. Magic doesn’t work that way. But I can cast a spell that will cause that cup to be moved—someone will pick it up and move it. Coincidence? Not if you believe in magic. And even if you don’t believe, the cup still got moved. And it doesn’t matter what belief system you use to motivate the move or what gods or demons or other sources you ask to power the move; the simple act of casting the spell or working the ritual or saying the prayer shifts your relationship to the universe so that the result you want is more likely than it was before.”

  Korie looked skeptical. “But who gets the credit for moving the cup?”

  “Who cares?” Hodel asked. “Does it matter? The important thing is that you got the result you set out to get. That’s the way magic works. So, to answer the question you didn’t ask, but you’re planning to, yes, I can cast a spell or lift a curse or perform an exorcism to rehabilitate the karma of this ship. However you phrase it, what you want is to make this crew believe in themselves again. So you have to do something drastic to break the spell of bad feeling that’s poisoning this crew and this ship.” Hodel glanced at Korie sharply. “And, if you don’t mind my saying so, it wouldn’t hurt to do something about the black cloud that’s floating over your head too.”

  “I might be a lost cause. Just concentrate on the rest of the ship.”

  “Sorry, it’s all or nothing. The cure has to be total.”

  Korie studied Hodel for a long moment. “Mike, you surprise me sometimes. I don’t know if you’re serious or if you’re pulling my leg.”

  “You’ll find out when you try to stand up. Do you want the two-dollar exorcism or the four-dollar exorcism?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “With the two-dollar job, I bathe in chaotic vapors and immolate myself in front of the whole crew. Then I chop myself up into little pieces and throw me into the lake. For four dollars I resurrect myself in a pillar of light and sing all six hundred choruses of Lulu’s Lament while standing on my hands on the back of a naked unicorn and accompanying myself on the electric bagpipes.”