Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Fifty-Eight: 3032 AD

Mouse sat in the crawler operator's seat, watching Cassius and Pollyanna. Polly kept zigging round, unable to stand still. She kept looking at Cassius strangely. And Cassius kept smiling that funny, boyish, embarrassed smile.

Mouse was a little surprised at Walters too. Cassius never thought out loud. Not about the way he felt.

Walters asked Pollyanna, "You know the character in The Merchant of Venice, the Jew, who does the soliloquy about his right to hurt like anybody else?"

"Shylock."

"Yeah. Shylock. That's me. I'm like him. I've got a right to be human too. It's just that I'm so old and been in this business so long that I don't show it anymore."

"But that wasn't what Shylock was really talking about. He was just trying to rationalize the revenge he was taking on... " She shut up.

Mouse did not know Shakespeare, but he got the feeling Pollyanna had reached the sudden conclusion that Cassius and this Shylock were alike after all. He lifted a leg onto the control panel, leaned back, chewed the corner of a fingernail. "You're not going to start singing your death song, are you?" he asked Cassius.

"Me? Never. I may not be completely happy with my life, but I sure as hell plan to stick around as long as I can. No, I've been thinking about getting out of the mainstream. If this kind of life has been in it. I might become a crazy old hermit on a mountain somewhere, coming down to prophesy at the villagers once a year. Or run off to the Starfishers. Or become a McGraw or a Freehauler. Anything to get away from the past. I'd just as soon do my fade before Confederation starts investigating the Shadowline, too. I don't have the patience to deal with those people. That's why I left the Corps."

"Somehow," Mouse said, "I can't picture you being anything but what you are. What about those bombs? Wouldn't you say Michael's had enough time to decide?"

Dee, still standing in the middle of the cabin, had not spoken for a long tune. Only his eyes had moved, watching every muscle in Cassius, Mouse, and Pollyanna. And the weapon hanging with such apparent negligence in Cassius's hand. "What're you going to do?" he whimpered.

"Now, if it was up to me and I could do what I want," Cassius replied, "I'd kill you. But I won't. Unless you don't start talking about those damned bombs. You've had your time. Talk. And talk straight, because you're going to be out there beside me when we disarm them. How are they armed? How did you plan to set them off?"

The tractor's comm buzzed, demanding attention. "Mouse, get that. Michael, start talking."

"Guarantees, Cassius. I want guarantees," Dee countered. "You don't know what he's like. You don't know what he'll do if I don't set them off."

"Who?" Mouse asked.

Dee ignored him. "He'd destroy the whole universe to get you and the Storms. He's been a raving madman since you killed Rhafu."

"All right, damn it. I'll keep you in my closet if I have to. Just tell me how to get rid of those bombs."

"Your word?"

"What do you want? Me to cut my wrist and write it in blood? You're getting too good a deal now, and you know it."

"They're radio-controlled. My driver has the trigger."

"How long before he pushes the button?"

"He won't. He doesn't know he has it. I screwed up. I was too sure I'd find Gneaus here."

"Ah." Cassius chuckled evilly. "Fooled you."

"You promised."

"Cassius," Mouse said, "here's a little something to brighten your day. Helga's surrendered Festung Todesangst."

"What?" Michael demanded.

"That's the word from Naval Intelligence."

"For God's sake, why?" Dee demanded. "I don't believe it. She would have blown her scuttles... "

"I don't know why," Mouse said. "The report came from the Corps, filtered through Intelligence. They didn't explain. They just said it was a standoff, with Helga threatening to blow the scuttles and the Marines hanging on but not pushing her so hard she'd really do it. Maybe she got wind of what happened at Twilight and decided it wasn't worth it anymore. She suddenly just gave up."

Michael frowned and shook his head. "What the hell's the matter with her?" he muttered to himself. "The spoiled, self-centered twit. Just because she got what she wanted. We needed... "

Cassius was frowning, too. "It's got to be a trick. She put the bombs on timer or something. Dees are always up to tricks."

"Cassius, they got Benjamin and Homer out. They look like they'll be all right. We'll be able to resurrect them."

"Uhm? Good. Maybe. If she didn't have them programmed, or something. What kind of deal did she make? It can't be anything good for us."

Michael turned on Mouse. The Dee cunning took control of his face. He shook with anticipation, sure his daughter would have made a worthy trade.

Mouse smiled at him. "Nothing. No deal. Just plain surrender. Like she didn't have anything to live for anymore, so she quit."

"But?... " Cassius started to ask.

Mouse glanced at Michael, who seemed appalled. "They killed her, Cassius. Beckhart himself shut her support systems down."

"Dead?" Dee asked in an incredibly tiny voice. "My little girl? All my children? You've killed all my babies?" Mouse sat up as a mad light caught fire in his uncle's eyes. "You murderers. My wife. My children... "

"They all got a clean death," Mouse snapped. "Which was damned well better than they deserved. They brought it on themselves."

Cassius took a step toward Dee, staring into his eyes.

He spoke slowly, twisting the knife. "He's right. They should have died a thousand deaths each, in fire. And even then they wouldn't have hurt enough to suit me."

Pollyanna screamed. "Mouse!"

Dee plunged forward.

Cassius was not expecting it. He suffered from the lifelong misconception that a coward could not act in circumstances where he did not hold the upper hand.

Michael Dee was a coward, but not incapable of acting.

Cassius's instant of delay cost him his life.

Dee knocked the pistol from his hand, caught it in the air, fired one lucky, nose-destroying shot before Mouse slammed into him from the side and sent the weapon skittering across the cabin. Cassius fell disjointedly, slowly, like an empire, almost in pieces, as if different parts of his body were being acted upon by varying gravities. His mechanical voice box made skritching, clacking noises, but no sound that could be interpreted as anger or a cry of agony. He piled up in a heap, twitching, voice box still making those strange noises.

Mouse and Dee thrashed about on the deck, the youth cursing incoherently and weeping while he tried to strangle his uncle.

At first Dee fought in pure panic. He scratched, kicked, bit. Then reason set in. He broke the stranglehold, writhed away, unleashed a kick that hit Mouse over the heart.

Mouse got onto hands and knees. He put all his strength into attaining his feet. The deck rushed toward him instead.

Dee poised for a killing kick to his throat.

"No."

He turned slowly.

Pollyanna held the weapon that had killed Cassius. Her hands shook. The weapon's muzzle waggled uncertainly, but threatened.

"Pollyanna, dear, put it down. I won't hurt you. I don't want to. Promise. This's between them and me. You're not part of it."

He used his silkiest voice. And he may have meant what he said. He had no real reason to harm her. Not then.

"Stand still," she said as he started toward her, hand reaching for the weapon. She was terrified. This was the moment for which she had been living. This was the instant for which she had put herself through a personal hell. "I am part of it. I owe you, August Plainfield."

Dee's whole face seemed to pucker with consternation.

"You don't even remember, do you? You bloody, cold-hearted snake. You don't even remember the name you used when you murdered my father."

"What on earth are you talking about, child? I've never murdered anyone."

"Liar! You damned liar. I saw you, Mr. August Plainfield of Stimpson-Hrabosky News. I was there. You gave him drugs and made him tell you about the Shadowline, and then you murdered him."

Dee went pale. "The little girl at the hospital."

"Yes. The little girl. And now it's your turn."

Dee attacked, diving first to one side, then bearing in.

Had he remained where he was, waiting, Pollyanna might never have pulled the trigger. In the crux, when it came time to take a life in cold blood, she was not as ready as she had thought.

Dee's sudden movement panicked her. She shot wildly, repeatedly. Her first bolt hit the control console. The second pierced Dee's leg. He pitched past her with a shriek of pain and despair. She fired again, wounding him again. Then again. And again.

Groggily, not even quite sure where he was, feeling like someone had tied an anvil to his chest, Mouse again forced himself up off the deck. He shook his head sharply, to clear the water from his eyes and get them into focus.

He saw Pollyanna pounding Dee's ragged, almost unrecognizable corpse with the butt of the spent weapon while babbling incoherencies about Frog. He dragged himself over, took the weapon away, folded her up in his arms and held her head against his chest.

"It's over now, Polly," he murmured. "It's over. It's all over. He's dead now. They're all dead but us." She cried for almost an hour, the hysteria-sobs gradually becoming the great, deep, soul-wrenching grief-sobs, and those eventually diminishing to sniffles, and finally, to nothing but the occasional whimper of an injured animal.

"You just stay here," he whispered when she finished. "I've got work to do. Then we can go away." He rose, went to the comm panel, found a frequency which worked, and resumed command of the Legion.