Stars End - Starfishers Triology Book 3

Fourteen: 3050 AD

The Main Sequence

Beckhart's word proved good. Angel City was quiet. Central Park, a recreational area at the city's heart, had been equipped with field tents, trailers, and miscellany the Admiral had borrowed from the Corps. Storm and benRabi set up for business before noon.

"Mouse," benRabi said, "you get the feeling we're being rushed?"

"It's not a feeling, Moyshe. It's a fact."

"How do we stall?"

Men with briefcases were lining up to obtain the little catalogs Moyshe's team had brought along. "Buy time," Jarl had said. It did not look like they would be given a chance. The various purchasing agents, impelled by the war scare, wanted the bidding to begin right away.

The Marines proved to be perfect policemen. They helped immeasurably. They showed favoritism only to Starfisher tourists. The Admiral seemed determined to avoid a significant incident, and to help the local shopkeepers relieve the Seiner sightseers of all their hard currency.

Storm lost his first tourist their second day on The Broken Wings. The man turned up again before Mouse learned that he had been taken. He was none the worse for wear. He was a mess cook from Danion who knew nothing anyone wanted to know.

"It's started," Mouse told benRabi when Moyshe relieved him. "Make sure everybody checks in before they wander off. Check their passes. The ones we have to watch have been given a red one."

"You know who grabbed the man?"

"No. I didn't try to find out. I just passed it to Beckhart. I figure we might as well let his people do it. We'll have more people to watch our criticals."

Moyshe lost several people on his shift. There was only one incident with anyone who mattered. His people handled it perfectly, and presented the would-be kidnapper to Beckhart's Marines.

The man turned out to be a frustrated newshawk trying to get around Seiner and Confederation censors. Beckhart booted him off planet.

Days ground by, producing no insoluble problems. The auction bidding was wild. Prime ambergris nodes repeatedly brought record prices. There were rumors that Confederation meant to get a stranglehold on the trade. Outsiders and private industry wanted to grab while the grabbing was good.

That rumor made Moyshe nervous. The way the Admiral shrugged it off, he suspected the Bureau had an angle.

The war scare, if not genuine, was convincing. Confederation and Ulantonid forces were marshaling on the boundaries of the March of Ulant. People were getting scared.

Did they mean to fight one another? Or some third party? The news people were wondering too. Luna Command had been leaking one line of news one week, another the next.

News snoops became Moyshe's biggest problem. They used every trick to capitalize on an opportunity to approach real Seiners. Moyshe did three interviews himself. Someone had tipped the media that he was a former Bureau agent.

He refused interviews after someone discovered that he and Mouse had been responsible for Jupp von Drachau's famous raid in the Hell Stars.

Then Seiners ceased to be newsworthy. The sword-rattling on the frontier faded away.

Luna Command had admitted that a secret research station and its entire solar system had been destroyed. The hitherto hypothetical nova bomb had been developed there, and proven in unfortunate circumstances.

Maybe there is a God, Moyshe thought. A loving God willing to turn an insane weapon on its creators.

There was a tape of the disaster. Navy claimed it had been shot by a supply vessel entering the system by happenstance. It got hours of air play.

It was awesome, but there was something odd about it. Moyshe could not shake the feeling that it had been faked.

Beckhart seemed to be amused by the whole thing. That was not his style. Not in the face of a genuine disaster.

Moyshe was using a free minute to try digesting sixteen months of back news when Amy walked into his trailer-office. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.

"That's some greeting from a husband." She pouted. "I thought you'd be glad to see me." She pulled his rolling chair from behind his desk, spun him, and plopped into his lap.

"I'm not. It's too damned dangerous."

"You must've found yourself a girlfriend. Yeah. I know all about you Navy men."

"The danger... All right. I give up." He hugged her. "Let me knosh on your neck, woman."

There was a knock. "Up, girl. Enter."

A harassed and apologetic youth bustled in. "Messages and mail," he said. "Looks like some real excitement starting."

"How so?"

"Read. Read." The messenger folded his receipt and left.

The top flimsy was a copy of a terse communique from Gruber. He had sent a strong probing force toward Stars' End. It had been driven away by a combined force of Sangaree and McGraw pirates. "Amy! Read that."

She did. "What?"

"An alliance between the Sangaree and pirates?" He initialed the copy, flipped it into Mouse's In box.

The next flimsy was intriguing. Freehauler merchantmen off Carson's and Sierra reported that the Navy squadrons there had taken hyper. He passed the copy to Amy.

"All Naval personnel here have had their liberties cancelled. Two of the squadrons up top have been told to make ready to space. What do you think?"

"The war thing about the break?"

He shrugged.

The only other item was a magazine, Literati, with attached envelope hand-addressed to a Thomas McClennon, Captain, CN.

It baffled Moyshe.

"I see you've been promoted," Amy said. Suspicion edged her voice. He glanced at her, surprised. Anger and fear colored her face in turn.

"What the hell?" He set the envelope aside and turned to the magazine's contents page. Halfway down he encountered the title, "All Who Were Before Me In Jerusalem," followed by the promoted name. "No," murmured, and, "I don't understand this."

"What is it?" Amy looked over his shoulder. "Am I supposed to congratulate you? I don't understand what's happening."

"I don't either, love. Believe me, I don't." He slipped one arm around her waist, turned to the story.

It was the version he had written aboard Danion, before deciding to become a Seiner. How had the magazine obtained it?

He threw his thought train into reverse.

He had not packed the manuscript in any of the bags he had lost when his gear had gone back to Confederation without him. Though he had not seen the manuscript since then, he was sure it was in his cabin. He had not moved it. He was absolutely certain he had not.

"Amy, remember my story? The one you never could understand? You know what happened to the manuscript?"

"No. I figured you trashed it. I didn't ask because I thought you'd get mad. I never gave you any time to write, and I know you wanted to."

He made a call to Security aboard Danion. Fifteen minutes later he knew. The manuscript was not in his cabin.

Thinking it safely stowed away, he had not worried about it before. He worried now.

Everything he and Mouse had learned about the Starfishers had been in that manuscript, penned between the lines and on the backs of sheets in invisible ink. If that had reached the Bureau...

"Amy, that business with the Sangaree failsafer... Come on. We've got to talk to Jarl." He grabbed her wrist and dragged her. He snatched the flimsies from Mouse's In tray.

"What are you mad about?" she asked. "Slow down, Moyshe. You're hurting me."

"Hurry up. This's important."

They found Kindervoort at a place called Pagliacci's. It was a dusky, scenty, park-facing restaurant where both Seiner and Confederation luminaries dined and amused themselves by pumping one another over pasta and wine. BenRabi pushed past the carabinier doorman, overran a spiffy maître de, stalked across a darkly decorated main dining room, through garlicy smells, to a small, private room in the rear. Admiral Beckhart held court there these days.

He and Kindervoort were playing a game of fence-with-words. Kindervoort was losing. He was relieved by Moyshe's appearance.

Moyshe slapped the papers down in front of Kindervoort. "We've been had."

Kindervoort scanned the top flimsy. "Where're your ships headed?" he asked Beckhart.

The Admiral chuckled. "I don't ask you questions like that. But not to worry, my friends. It doesn't involve your people. Not directly." He chuckled again, like an old man remembering some prank of his youth.

Kindervoort read the second flimsy, then thumbed through the magazine. "I suppose you want me to congratulate you, Moyshe. So congratulations."

"Jarl, I didn't finish that story till a couple days before the landsmen went home. And I came into this mess graded Commander. Someone had to put the story on the ship to Carson's."

"And?"

"It wasn't me that did. I left it out of my stuff because it carried the notes I'd kept for him."

"Ah. I see." Kindervoort considered Beckhart.

The Admiral smiled, asked, "This lovely lady your bride, Thomas?"

Amy favored him with an uncertain smile.

"Watch him, honey. He's another Mouse. He can charm a cobra."

Kindervoort stared and thought. Finally, he asked, "Did they get anything critical?"

"I can't remember. I think it was mostly social observations. Like that. Impressions. Guesswork."

"Sit down, Thomas," Beckhart said. "Mrs. McClennon. Drinks? Something to eat?"

"It's benRabi now. Moyshe benRabi," benRabi grumbled.

"I'm used to McClennon, you know. Surely you can't expect an old dog to learn new tricks." He rang for service. "Mrs. McClennon, you've caught yourself a pretty special man. I consider my men my boys. Like sons, so to speak. And Thomas and Mouse are two of my favorites." BenRabi frowned. What was the man up to? "So, though he defected and it hurts, I try to understand. I'm glad he finally found someone. He needs you, Missy, so be good to him."

Amy began to relax. Beckhart charmed her into giving him a genuine smile.

"There we go. There we go. I recommend the spaghetti, children. Astonishingly good for this far from nowhere." Jarl coughed, a none too subtle reminder that there was business to be discussed.

"All right," Beckhart said, turning to Kindervoort. "I'm exercising an old man's prerogative. I'm changing my mind. I'm going to spill the facts before there's a bad misunderstanding."

"Yes, do," benRabi snapped.

"Thomas, Thomas, don't be so damned hostile all the time." He sipped some wine. "First, let's swing back to the Ulantonid War. To their rationale for attacking Confederation.

"Our blue friends are obsessed with the long run. Us apes, the best we manage is a ten-year fleet modernization program, or a twenty-year colonial development project. They figure technological and sociological effects in terms of centuries. We'd save ourselves a lot of trouble if we'd take a page from their book. Thomas, sip your wine and be patient. I'm politely getting to the point.

"What I want you to understand is they roam pretty far afield in order to figure out what's coming up the day after next year."

"What's that got to do with whatever you're up to now?" Kindervoort asked.

"I'm getting there. I'm getting there. See. This right here is what's wrong with our species. We're always in such a damned hurry. We never look ahead. My point? Ulant does. When the war hates settled down and we let them build ships again, they resumed their deep probes."

"So?" Moyshe said. He was trying to fly easy, but for some reason he had a chill crawling his spine.

"Let an old man have his way, Thomas. It isn't every day I spout cosmic secrets in an Italian restaurant. Here it is, then. About thirty years ago Ulant made an alien contact. This was a long way in along The Arm. They eventually brought it to our attention.

"People, this race makes our friends the Sangaree look angelic. I've seen them in action myself. Really, words can't express it. What I mean to say is, I hope I don't have to see them again, here in our space. They're bad, people. Really bad. When they get done with a world there's nothing left bigger than a cockroach."

The Admiral paused for effect. His audience did not respond. He looked from face to face.

"That's a bit much to swallow," Moyshe said.

"It is. Of course. It took us a while to bite when the Blues brought it to us. By us I mean Luna Command. They knew better than to go to that dungheap called a Diet. For a good many years now, with the Minister the only civilian in the know, we've been working with Ulant to get ready."

BenRabi recalled his visit to Luna Command before drawing the Starfisher assignment. The place had gone completely weird. The tunnels had been filled with rumors of war, and crowded with military folk from a variety of races and scores of human planets beyond Confederation's pale. Even then there had been the smell of something big in the air.

"Then this confrontation with Ulant is a smoke screen? A light show cooked up with Prime Defender so she and you people could con bigger appropriations? Admiral, the first lesson pounded into me at Academy was that the Services don't make policy."

"Yep. And it's the first lesson an officer unlearns, Thomas. One of my staff boys quoted me a Roman soldier a while back. ‘We are the Empire.' Thomas, the Services are Confederation. Those of us who have gotten old in our jobs take that to heart. We make policy. Me, I shape the whole Confederation outlook. I'm doing it right now, by talking about this. It's no big thing, though. The news is starting to break. So many people are in the know now, truth can't hide. In three months every citizen will have seen tapes documenting the murder of the world I visited... I can run that tape for you if you want. Just come over to headquarters sometime. Then you won't think I'm blowing smoke."

"I don't think it, I know it." But Moyshe was not sure. He had known the Admiral for a decade. He never had seen the man more excited, or more intense. He had assumed an aura, the way Mouse did when he talked about Sangaree. "You talk like a man who's found religion."

Beckhart nodded. "You're right. I'm getting carried away. But I've seen it. It doesn't make any sense, and that's why it's so damned scary. They hop from world to world, like galactic exterminators... I'm doing it again. Sorry."

"Why are you telling us now?" Kindervoort demanded.

"Trying to shed some light on what we're doing. We're going to make our first spoiling strike before the end of the year. We have just a couple of things left to straighten out before we move."

BenRabi had a sudden, intense feeling of danger. Startled, he glanced over his shoulder. There was no one behind him.

Beckhart's explanation, mad as it sounded, did tie the Bureau's frantic behavior into a neat ball. "What's still on your job list?" Moyshe asked. He glared at Beckhart, daring him to say something about Starfishers.

The original assignment now made military sense. Communications were the backbone of the fleet. Every ambergris node obtained would improve Navy's combat efficiency.

Beckhart surprised him again. "Sangaree, Thomas. The worms that gnaw from within."

Moyshe's mental alarms jangled. "You don't expect the Sangaree to be a long-term problem?"

"No. Thanks to Mouse."

"What?" Kindervoort and benRabi spoke together.

"Why were you sent to the Starfishers, Thomas?"

"To locate you a starfish herd. To get Navy a source of ambergris it wouldn't have to share."

"So you thought. So you thought. Actually, incorporation was a political goal, not military. It hasn't been important to Luna Command. We've known how to find Payne's Fleet for years. That's right, Captain Kindervoort. Starfishers can be recruited. I have agents aboard Danion. Thomas suspected as much when he charged in here with his magazine. But there was no pressing need to incorporate you. Grabbing a fleet might have started a fatal uproar. Nowadays... If I was a Starfisher who hoped for a future in my business, I'd polish up on my Confederation studies."

Kindervoort smiled a thin, wicked smile. "I don't think we need to worry, Admiral."

Beckhart winked at Moyshe, jerked his head to indicate Kindervoort. "Doesn't know me, does he? Thomas, the mission was aimed at the Sangaree. You should have known. That's all Mouse works. Don't interrupt your elders, boy."

BenRabi had intended to ask why he had been sent along.

"I thought the Starfishers, because they deal with the Freehaulers and McGraws, might have a line on Homeworld too. My guess was wrong, but my intuition was right."

You're lying, Moyshe thought. You're editing the past to fit the needs of the present. You knew, and controlled, more than you'll ever tell.

Beckhart said, "Mouse found what I needed. He got it out of the astrogational computer of a mindburned raidship captured at Stars' End. He extracted the data and sent it out. Von Drachau was given the attack mission. Judging from the fleet alert, he pulled it off. He's probably on his way home now, likely with a mob chasing him. The pressure should ease for you at Stars' End, Jarl. You might not have to fight your way in after all. You might say we've done you a favor."

Beckhart leaned back in his chair, grinning at Kindervoort's consternation. "You can't kid a kidder, boy. We guessed what you were up to before you got here. Our agents confirmed what we suspected."

"If you knew that," Moyshe said, "why haven't you given us any trouble? I'd think you'd jump on Stars' End like... "

Kindervoort kicked him under the table.

"Several reasons, Thomas. We're spread too thin already, guarding against their raidships if they get too excited. We've got no feud with you. And you can't do anything but get yourselves killed out there anyway. So why get excited?"

BenRabi studied the old man. Beckhart was excited. What else was up his sleeve? The theft of the Stars' End weaponry after the Seiners opened the planet?

Had Mouse reported their suspicion that the Seiners could manage it?

Why was the Admiral here, now, instead of in Luna Command? Stars' End would be a damned good reason.

It came down to Mouse. Had Mouse simply yielded to his hatreds and passed on the information about the Sangaree? Or was he still reporting?

Kindervoort asked, "If you're spread so thin, how could you mount a raid on Homeworld?"

"It wasn't a raid. It was a wipeout. Let's say the nova bomb disaster wasn't as complete as the news people have been led to believe. Let's suppose a couple of the weapons were taken out before the blowup. Let's take it a little further and speculate that a certain Jupp von Drachau tumbled one into Homeworld's sun."

BenRabi snapped up out of his chair, breaking Amy's sudden iron grip on his arm. He stared over Beckhart's head, into cruel vistas of self-condemnation.

A whole solar system destroyed!

"You're insane. You're all insane."

"I wish you could know how much soul-searching went into the decision, Thomas. I honestly do. And, despite the Four slash Six memo, I don't think the decision would have been made had it not been for the centerward race. Thomas? Come and see those tapes before you judge us. All right?"

BenRabi ignored him. He was back to that failsafer day again. How did Mouse get the manuscript out to Beckhart? Kindervoort had watched them every second. Beckhart's Seiner agents must have handled it while Mouse was holding everyone's attention.

He remembered a Seiner known as Grumpy George. Old George was a coin collector. He and Moyshe had done business several times. George had had a superb collection. He had claimed to have made an outstandingly lucky "blind" purchase during an auction held on The Big Rock Candy Mountain, years ago.

Any truly devoted collector was vulnerable. And George was an obsessive.

This same George had come to Angel City with the first group of tourists. He had stopped by the office to ask about hobby shops. Moyshe had passed him on to Storm. Mouse had given him a list.

"How many hobby shops does the Bureau run, Admiral?"

Beckhart's eyebrows leapt upward. "Damn, ‘Thomas. But you always were intuitive. Just one these days. Oddly enough, it's right here in Angel City."

"In other words, the place has served its purpose."

Beckhart leaned toward Kindervoort. "You see why he made Captain so young?"

Kindervoort simply looked baffled.

An ulcer that had not bothered Moyshe for a year took a sudden bite from his gut.

Someone pounded on the door. "Mr. benRabi, are you there?"

"Come in. What's up?"

"Someone just tried to kill Mister Storm."

"What? How?"

"It was a woman, sir. She just came up and started shooting."

"Is he all right?"

"Yes sir. He took off after her. She headed into Old Town."

Old Town was that part of Angel City which had lain under the first settlers' dome. Today it was largely a warehouse district. It was the base of the city's small underworld.

"You think it's the Sangaree woman?" Kindervoort asked.

"Marya? A grudge like that is the only thing that would set Mouse off," benRabi replied.

"How could she be here?" Amy demanded.

"I'd better go dig him out," Moyshe said. "If it's all right with you, Jarl?"

"It's your shift. Do what you want."

"Amy, stay with Jarl." Moyshe told the messenger, "Find me six off-duty volunteers. Tell them to meet me outside my office. Armed."

"Yes sir."

Moyshe bent, kissed Amy. "In a little while, hon." He wished he could have been a more loving husband lately. Events had permitted them only the most brusque of relationships.

He caught Beckhart giving him an odd look. A baffled, questioning look.

What did that mean? Puzzled, he went to the door.

He paused there, glanced back. Kindervoort and Amy were sipping their drinks, lost within themselves. Poor Jarl. The pressures here were too much for him. He was becoming less and less active, more and more a figurehead. Was it cultural shock?

He would survive. He would make a comeback in his own milieu. He did not worry Moyshe.

His concern was the almost magical disappearance of the Admiral while his back was turned.

He hated to admit it. He loved that old man like a father. Their relationship had that attraction-repulsion of father-son tension. But he could not trust the man. They were of different tribes now.

He had to hurry if he meant to stay ahead of Beckhart.

He was a block from the restaurant when he encountered the first poster. It clung crookedly to the flank of a Marine personnel carrier. He trotted past before it registered. He stopped, spun around. His eyes widened.

Yes. The face of a woman, a meter high, smiled at him.

"Alyce... " he croaked.

Wham! Darkness slammed home. He no longer knew where or who he was. He staggered past the carrier, went down on one knee.

His head cleared. He was in Angel City... He looked behind him. There was a man following him... No. That was last time. Or was it?

For a moment he was not sure if he was Gundaker Niven or Moyshe benRabi. Somebody was trying to kill Gundaker Niven...

He shook his head violently. The mists cleared. Which name he wore did not matter. Niven. McClennon. Perchevski. BenRabi. Any of the others. The enemy remained the same.

He returned to the personnel carrier. The poster was gone. He circled the quiet machine. He could find no evidence one had existed.

"What the hell is happening to me?" he muttered. He resumed trotting toward his headquarters.

He encountered the second poster fewer than fifty meters from his office trailer. It clung to the side of one of the tents his people used for quarters. He reacted just as he had before. He came out of it clinging to a tree, gasping like a man who had almost drowned. The poster was gone.

Had it ever existed? he wondered.

The fragile stability he had constructed with Chub's help was fraying. Was he in for a bad fall?

He clambered into his trailer like a man carrying an extra fifty kilos, dropped into his swivel chair. His heart hammered. His ears pounded. He was scared. He closed his eyes and searched his mind for a clue to what was happening. He found nothing.

It had to be this contact with his past. The benRabi personality was not really him. It could not withstand the strain of the milieu of Thomas McClennon.

Then he noticed the envelope lying on his desk. The envelope that had been attached to the magazine Literati.

He stared as if it were poisonous. He tried to back away. One hand stole forward.

It was from Greta Helsung, the girl he had sponsored in Academy. His pseudo-daughter. It was a grateful, anxious, friendly missive, seven pages of tight script reviewing her progress in Academy, and her continual fears for his safety. She knew that he had been captured by enemies of Confederation. His friends had promised they would rescue him. They would get her letter to him. And this, and that, and she loved him, and all his friends in Luna Command were well and happy and pulling for him, and she hoped she would see him soon. There were several photographs of an attractive young blond in Navy blacks. She looked happy.

There was also a note from an old girlfriend. Max expressed the same sentiments with more reserve.

What were they trying to do? Why couldn't yesterday let him be?

Greta had such a cute, winsome smile...

He sealed his eyes and fought to escape the conflicting emotions.

He began to feel very cold, then to shake. Then to be terribly afraid.