BenRabi was trying to clip a couple of stubborn, noxious-looking
hairs out of his right ear. Amy called, “Ready yet,
honey?”
“Half a minute.” He had butterflies. He did not want
to go. The stalls and arguments had run out, though. He had to meet
Amy’s family. Such as it was.
He was about to be exhibited to her mother. A prime trophy, he
thought. Former landsmen turned Seiner, on his way up. A prize for
any single girl.
He had been getting that feeling from Amy. The new was wearing
off. The magic was fading. He was becoming an object of value
instead of one of emotion.
Was the problem his or hers? Was he reading her wrong? He always
misinterpreted women.
“Moyshe, will you come on?”
He stepped out of the bathroom. “How do I look?”
“Perfect. Come on. We’ll be late for the
shuttle.”
“I want to make a good impression.”
“Stop worrying. Mom would be happy with a warthog, so long
as I was married.”
“Thanks a lot.”
A flash of the old Army returned. “Any time.”
They rode a scooter out one of the connecting tubes, into the
halls of the asteroid. Amy slowed to pass a series of doors with
temporary plaques hung on them, reading names Moyshe found
meaningless. “We’re here.”
The plaque said stafinglas. Amy parked the scooter among a small
herd nursing charger teats.
“What’s that mean? Stafinglas?” Moyshe
asked.
“I don’t know. I think it’s made
up.”
“That’s where your mother lives?”
Amy nodded. “We’ve got to hurry. They’ll start
pumping the air out of the lock in a couple minutes. They
won’t let us board after they start.”
Could he stall that long? He decided that would be a petty
trick. Much as intuition warned him that the trip was a waste, it
was important to Amy. The thing to do was grit his teeth and ride
it out.
The shuttle was a small, boxy vessel useful for nothing but
hauling passengers. The seats were full when Moyshe and Amy
boarded. Dozens of people stood in the aisles. BenRabi recognized a
few as Danion crewfolk.
“Lot of relatives of Danion people in this
Stafinglas, eh?”
“Yes. The old harvestships are like family enterprises.
Three or four generations have served in the same ship.
It gets to be a tradition. Almost nobody ships outside their own
fleet. They say that’s why we’re getting into this
nationalistic competitiveness between fleets. There’s talk
about having a computer assign new crews by lot.”
Moyshe smiled. “Bet that’s a popular
idea.”
“Like the black plague.”
His feet hurt and his back ached before the shuttle reached its
destination. It was a six-hour passage. He spent every minute
standing.
Stafinglas was exactly what Moyshe expected. An asteroid with
kilometer upon kilometer of broad tunnels which served as
residential streets. “I’m home,” he told Amy.
“It’s just like Luna Command.”
She gave him a funny look. “Really?”
“On a smaller scale.” He wanted to tell her it was
not a natural or comfortable way to live. Instead, he asked,
“You ever been down on a planet?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious.” He could not explain. She did not
have the experience to understand.
“Anything else I should know about your mother? I want to
make a good impression.”
“Stop saying that,” Amy snapped. “Stick to
literary things. You can’t miss. Duck an argument.
She’s contrary as hell. She’ll start a fight just to
find out how stubborn somebody is.”
He looked at her askance.
“We had some beauts when I was young. Nothing I did and
nobody I knew was ever good enough. Talk libraries if you know
anything about them. She’s librarian for
Stafinglas.”
The more Amy talked about her mother the less he wanted to meet
the woman. He had encountered dragons before. They rolled right
over him.
“We’re here.” Amy stopped at a door, reluctant
to take the last step.
“Well?”
Biting her lower lip, Amy knocked.
Four hours later they excused themselves to go out for lunch.
Neither spoke till they had drawn their meal trays. As he settled
at a table, Moyshe said, “Jesus, do I have a
headache.”
“Headache? Not here?”
“Tension headache. Not migraine.” It had been bad.
Much worse than he had expected. The woman was a classic. He
glanced at Amy. Want to know what a woman will be like in
twenty-five years? Have a good, long look at her mother.
“I’m sorry, Moyshe. I . . . I
can’t even make excuses for her. There isn’t any excuse
for that kind of behavior.”
“Uhm. Maybe I’d better get used to it. Maybe she was
just saying what a lot of people think. Me and Mouse and the others
may have to live with that the rest of our lives.”
“You should have fought back.”
“Would that have changed anything? No. It would’ve
kept her going that much longer.”
Moyshe was still numb. As an Old Earther he had been fighting
prejudice since entering the Navy. He had thought he possessed a
thick hide. But never had he encountered anyone as virulent as
Amy’s mother. Outworlders went through the forms of equality,
keeping their prejudices subtle and silent. Amy’s mother was
open and vicious and adamantine about hers. Neither suasion nor
force would alter her thinking in the least.
She had disowned Amy before it was over.
“You want to try again?” Amy asked.
He was startled. “What?”
“She is my mother, Moyshe.”
He reached across the table, took her hand for a second.
“I know.” She was doing her brave act to conceal her
pain. “I know. I’ve got one too. And she isn’t
that much different.”
“They want the best for you. And they think they’re
the ones to decide what’s best.” Amy gulped several
mouthfuls. “Mother never was good at expressing feelings
positively. Maybe that’s why I’m a little weird. I
spent a lot of time with her while I was growing up. She never
qualified for fleet duty. That was the big disappointment of her
life. Till we gave her something else to feel sorry for herself
about.”
Amy almost never mentioned her father. All Moyshe ever learned
was his name and the fact that he had been killed in an accident
here in the nebula. Apparently, despite protestations to the
contrary, Amy’s mother had found the accident convenient.
“We’d better not go back, Moyshe,” Amy
decided. “Not today. Let’s give her a chance to calm
down and get used to the idea.”
“Okay.”
They had to kill four hours before a shuttle became available.
Moyshe thought Amy would use the time to visit old friends. She did
not. She said all her real friends were aboard Danion. She
became defensive. She did not want to face any more disapproval.
The stay-at-home Seiners were, apparently, less cosmopolitan than
the people of the harvestfleets.
Going back, Amy suggested, “If you want, tomorrow we can
sneak over and see those alien ships. The research center
isn’t that far.”
Moyshe perked up a little. “All right. That’s a good
idea. I’ve been looking forward to it. What do we do about
our work assignments?”
“I’ll take care of everything.”
Amy took sleeping pills as soon as they reached their cabin.
Despite a long, long day, Moyshe was not in the mood for bed. He
strolled down the passageway and awakened Mouse.
“How’d the get-together go?” Mouse asked. And,
without awaiting an answer, “That bad, eh?”
“It’s a whole different world, Mouse. I thought I
knew how to handle prejudice . . . I never saw
anything like it. Her mother was the worst, but there was plenty
everywhere else we went, too.”
“I know. Grace took me for a little tour this
morning.”
“You guys got out of bed long enough?”
“Hey, you got to do something the other twenty-three hours
of the day.”
“So tell me. And where’s the board? I’ve been
here three minutes and I still haven’t seen a chess
board.”
“Sorry.” Mouse grinned. BenRabi had accused him of
being unable to relate with the human male unless a chess board was
interposed. “Guess I’m preoccupied.”
“She show you anything interesting?”
“I’m not sure. You can’t break the habits of
trade-craft. So you look and you listen. But you don’t find
anything that gives you a handle on these people.”
“Where’d you go?”
“To some kind of office complex first. Like a government
and trade headquarters. We hunked around there for five hours. They
had everything out in the open . . . You know,
like no confidential files or anything, and nobody getting excited
because you pick up a paper and read it. You take white. But there
wasn’t anything there. I mean, nothing anybody back home
would give a damn about. I didn’t see a damned thing worth
remembering.”
“What the hell kind of weird move is that?”
Mouse smiled. “Some Seiner pulled that on me the other
day.”
“And lost.”
“Yeah. But I was better than him. Hey. You know what
they’re doing? They’re getting ready to go back to
Stars’ End.”
“That isn’t any secret.”
“No. But they’re so damned serious. I mean, Grace
and I went to this one asteroid they were making into a dry-dock.
After we left the other place. I got to talking to this engineer.
Her husband is on the team that’s adapting a shuttle to
piggyback the Stars’ End weapons to orbit.”
BenRabi raised his attention from the board. “Curious.
Everywhere you go . . . They’re so damned
sure of themselves, aren’t they?”
“Awfully. Maybe we’re too sure they can’t do
it. Maybe they have an angle.” Mouse’s attention had
left the board too. He seemed to have a question he was afraid to
ask. Moyshe felt the intensity of it, boiling there behind his
friend’s eyes.
“I’ve got a hunch that they do. Through the
starfish, somehow.”
Mouse returned to the game. His unorthodox opening got him into
trouble early. BenRabi had him on the ropes, but let him wriggle
loose by making a too-eager move. It cost him a knight.
“You always did get too excited,” Mouse observed.
“How has your head been?”
“I had a
headache today. Just tension, though. Why?”
“Just asking.” A move later, “What I meant was
that disorientation stuff you had because of the Psych program. Any
trouble?”
“Not much. Not like it was, I have my moments. You know.
Blanking out for a second, then coming back wondering where I am
and who I am. They don’t amount to anything. They don’t
last long enough for anybody to notice.”
“Good. I was scared when you were doing that Contact
stuff. Thought you might get mixed up while you were in, and come
back somebody else permanently.”
“You didn’t, by chance, have anything to do
with getting me transferred, did you?”
“I would have if I’d thought I had the drag. For
your own good. But I didn’t.” Mouse rose, indicated
that Moyshe should follow him. He stepped into the passageway,
tapping his ear.
“What is it?”
“Don’t want them to know I know this. The orders
came from up top. Way up top. I know this woman who works in
Communications. She told me a couple things she thought I already
knew. Naturally, I played along.”
“Naturally. If it’s female, you’ll go along
with anything.”
Mouse grinned. “One of these days I’ll tell you
about the Admiral sending me to pimp school. Whoring isn’t
the oldest profession. Pimping is. You’d be knocked on your
ass if you saw what a really good pimp can do with
women.”
“He sent you to school?”
“Yeah. Hell, Moyshe, it’s the oldest trick in the
spy business. You teach a guy how to make a woman fall for him,
then turn him loose on the women who work for the organization you
want to penetrate.”
“I thought it worked the other way around. Women seducing
men.”
“It’s done. It doesn’t work as well. Men
don’t respond the same to emotional blackmail.”
“What did your friend have to say? We can’t stay out
here too long.”
“Buddy, we’re headed for the top. Somebody upstairs
has decided we’re the medicine Seiner foreign relations
needs. This auction project is a test. If we come through,
they’ll give us a shot at setting up our own secret
service.”
BenRabi had had a few hints. He had formed a few suspicions.
Still, he was not ready for the truth.
“A real fleetwide secret service. Inside and out.
Intelligence and counter-intelligence. The works. For all the
Starfishers. The way it sounds, they’ll give us anything we
want and turn us loose. They’ve got friends landside who try
to keep them informed. The friends have fed them enough, the last
couple of years, to get them worried about what’s going on in
Luna Command.”
“Ah. I begin to smell the rat. We’ve got
connections. We could turn a few of our old buddies.”
“You’ve got it.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I was about to ask you, Moyshe.”
“After you.”
“All right.”
“All right. It would be a challenge. We’d be going
head to head with the Old Man. It would be a hell of a
match-up.”
BenRabi was not pleased. “I take it you’re
excited.”
“Damned right I am. Not meaning to brag, but if we’d
gone back, I’d have had Beckhart’s job eventually. He
said so himself. And you’d have become my Chief of
Operations. He thought we had what it takes, Moyshe. You see what
I’m driving at?”
“I think so.” BenRabi was disappointed for a moment.
There was not a shred of loyalty in Mouse. His attitude was wholly
mercenary . . . What the hell am I crying
about? he wondered. I started this side-changing stuff.
He cast Mouse a sharp glance. More and more, he suspected his
partner had stayed here only because he had, not out of
conviction. What did that mean when taken with this sudden
enthusiasm for directing an organization targeted against their
former employer? What had become of his obsession with destroying
the Sangaree?
“So what I think you should maybe be thinking
about,” Mouse said, “is how we could set it up. Who we
should use, where we should keep our eyes open, like that. And
structure, too. You’re more of a theorist than I
am.”
“Communications would be the big problem, Mouse.” He
tried not to take Mouse’s chatter seriously. The obstacles to
creating an effective Seiner secret service were insurmountable.
“How do you run an S or K net without communications? See
what I mean? We’re out here and the targets are the hell and
gone somewhere else.You and I were always where we could use a
public comm if we had to. Or we could use the Navy nets. Say we got
somebody into Luna Command. He finds out something we should know
right now. What does he do? Run outside and yell real
loud?”
“We’ll figure it out, Moyshe. Don’t worry
about the details that way. Don’t be so negative all the
time. Instead of saying, ‘It’s impossible,’ say,
‘How can we do it?’ Figure a way, then organize to fit
it. Let’s get back in there before they get too
suspicious.”
They exchanged a couple of moves. Moyshe said, “I yield. I
would’ve had you this time except for that one stupid
move.”
“It was a bad opening. I deserved to get stomped. Another
game?”
“Just one. Then I’d better turn in. Amy’s
sneaking me out for a look at their xeno-archaeological project
tomorrow.”
“Wish I could go. But Jarl will have fits enough about
you.”
The main research station was awesome.
“What they did,” Amy explained, “was take over
one of the drydock asteroids. So they could study the ships
inside.”
The planetoid was smaller than the one that had engulfed
Danion, but still was vast. At least a hundred ships
floated in its interior. Some were so alien their lines almost hurt
the eye.
Around the inner face of the asteroid lay an office and
laboratory level. It was roofed by a layer of glassteel. The
researchers and their staffs could look up at the ships floating
overhead. People in the bay could see what was going on in the
offices and labs. The asteroid had been given spin along its
longitudinal axis instead of using artificial gravity generators,
which would have been in continuous imbalance by facing inward.
Moyshe and Amy entered through a lock in the asteroid’s
end, and observed briefly from a lookout there. Moyshe was
impressed. The line of ships marched on till it vanished in the
distance.
“They bring them in this end,” Amy said. “They
look them over, study them, and the ones that aren’t useful
they move up the line.” She indicated a remote vessel. Tugs
were guiding it away. “The far end is industrialized. The
ships the scientists don’t want they break up for raw
materials or refit for us to use. Let’s see if we can find a
scooter.”
An hour later Amy introduced him to a woman named Consuela
el-Sanga. “Consuela is an old friend, Moyshe. Consuela,
Moyshe might be able to give you an idea or two.”
Consuela el-Sanga was a small, dusky woman in her early fifties.
She bore the stamp of the preoccupied researcher, of a person who
had devoted a lifetime to her curiosity. Moyshe liked her
immediately, and as quickly felt a kinship. She was a shy,
diffident individual in matters outside her expertise.
“Are you a xeno-archaeologist, Mister benRabi?”
“No. Amy’s exaggerating. I’m not even a gifted
amateur. My only claim is that I followed the Lunar digs close till
a year ago. I had a friend on the project.”
Darkness hit him. It had the impact of a physical blow. A
woman’s face floated before him. He had not seen that face in
years. Alyce. Academy love. The girl who had worked at the Lunar
digs . . .
“Moyshe!” Amy sounded frightened.
“What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
He held up a hand, patted at the air. “Okay. Okay.
I’m okay.” He shook his head violently. “Just a
delayed reaction to the spin here,” he lied.
“I’ve never been in centrifugal gravity.”
Inside, panic. What the hell was this? It had not happened for
months. He realized he was talking, and talking fast. “I was
at the digs a year and a half ago. They’d just opened a new
chamber, in almost perfect condition. They thought some of the
machinery might still work.”
Amy and Consuela watched him carefully. “You sure
you’re all right?” Amy asked.
“Sure. Sure. Miss el-Sanga, what could I do to
help?”
“I really don’t know. We could walk you through one
of the ships we think relates to the Lunar base, for a
layman’s opinion. We’re sure there was a connection,
but, because of politics, we can’t work with the people
there.”
“It’s a pity, too.”
“Come along. We’ll start with artifacts recovered
from the ships. So you’re married now, Amy.”
BenRabi caught an odd note in what could have been either
statement or question. He gave the women a closer look. There was a
slight tenseness between them, as if there had been more to their
relationship than friendship and shared interests. He filed it in
the back of his mind.
“Took me long enough, didn’t it?” Amy tried to
sound light. She failed.
The moment of disorientation had turned something on inside
Moyshe. His mind went to work agent-wise. The cameras rolled. The
cross-reference computer clicked. His surroundings took on more
depth, more meaning. They became brighter and more interesting. His
movements became quicker and more assured.
“This is what we laughingly call the museum,”
Consuela el-Sanga said, pausing before opening a door.
“It’s not, really. It’s just a storage room.
Whoever those people were, they didn’t leave much behind.
Mostly just trash. But that’s all archaeologists ever have to
work with. Broken points, potsherds, and whatever else the ancients
threw out behind their huts.”
Moyshe moved up and down rows of metal shelves. They contained
hundreds of items, each tagged with a date, ship number, inventory
number, and brief guess as to what the object might be. Some were
referenced to other inventory numbers.
Twice he paused, reexamined an item, said, “I saw
something like this at the Lunar digs. I’d say there’s
a definite connection.”
The second time, Consuela el-Sanga responded, “Not
necessarily. Parallel function. Say a comb. Any creature with hair
would invent a comb. Wouldn’t you say? So the existence of a
comb wouldn’t prove anything but a common physical
trait.” And when Moyshe finished with the racks and shelves,
she said, “Now into my office. I’ll show you our two
real treasures.”
Moyshe and Amy followed her through another door.
“You haven’t seen these either, Amy. We found them
while you were out. They were both part of the same
find.”
Consuela El-Sanga took two plastic cases from her desk. She
handled them with loving care.
Moyshe accepted one, Amy the other. The item benRabi held was a
piece of paper that had been torn into small fragments. A very few
faded marks were visible.
“Is it a photograph?” Amy asked.
“Good guess,” Consuela said. “We had a hell of
a time with them.” Moyshe traded with Amy. The second object
was an extremely faded, flat, two-dimensional photo. It
had been torn in two.
Consuela continued, “First we pieced all the tears
together. Then we did scans with low-intensity lasers and computer
enhancements. We came up with these.” The woman glowed with
pride as she handed over reproductions of the items.
The photo, in color, was of a creature very similar to the Lunar
dig reconstructions. BenRabi said as much. The other object
appeared to be a hand-written letter.
“Any luck interpreting this?” Moyshe asked.
“No. We haven’t even determined which direction
it’s supposed to be read.”
“You haven’t found any technical manuals or
anything?”
“Not a speck. Just a few characters on nameplates, stuff
like you’d find around instrumentation and doors on any ship.
Any time there’s more than three characters, they’re
arranged in matrices like these.”
“Maybe they had a holographic system for
reading.”
“No. Doesn’t go with a two-d photo. We don’t
think.”
“Very interesting,” Moyshe said, studying the
picture again. “A Dear John letter? And the guy, or gal, gets
mad and tears up the lover’s letter and picture, but then
can’t bear to part with the pieces?”
“That’s one of our hypotheses.”
Moyshe scanned the letter. “Thirty-four different
characters here. Some punctuation?”
“Don’t try to figure it out in your head. Even the
computers can’t get a handle on it. Just think how hard it
would be to break our language without a starting clue. Big
letters, little letters, script, punctuation, spelling variations
by dialect, different type faces, all the stylized lettering and
special symbols we use for technical
stuff . . . You see? We’d need a whole
ship full of old letters, novels, and newspapers to break it. Not
just a few plaques on an instrument panel.”
“Don’t worry, Consuela,” Amy said.
“We’ll be into Stars’ End soon. You’ll find
your answers there.”
“If I’m lucky enough to go. They haven’t
picked the science team yet. I’m worried.”
“You’ll go. You’re the best.”
BenRabi looked at the woman and slowly shook his head. That
Stars’ End insanity again.
“I don’t know what I’d do if they turned me
down, Amy. It’s my whole life. I’m not getting any
younger. And they might use my age to keep me home.”
“Don’t worry. You know they can’t leave you
behind. There’s nobody better than you. And they know how
much it means to you.”
“How soon, Amy? Do you know?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet. But it won’t be
long. A month or two.”
Consuela brightened. “You’re sure they’ll send
me?”
“Of course. Don’t be silly.”
“That’s what I am, you know. A silly old
woman.”
Amy enfolded her in gentle arms. “No you’re not. No
you’re not. Come on, now. Show us one of those
ships.”
Consuela el-Sanga led them to a little four-place air scooter,
flew them out to a vessel. BenRabi felt lightheaded in the lack of
gravity. “I feel like I could fall all the way to the
end,” he said, staring down the length of the hollow.
The ship was one of the least alien of those in the lineup.
“Form follows function,” Moyshe muttered, remembering
the Luna Command constructs, which had very much resembled small
human beings.
The ship’s lock was open. Consuela made fast, led them
inside. She was small, but even she had to stoop in the
passageways.
Moyshe wandered around for an hour. He finally summed up his
impressions by observing, “It’s not that strange. Just
kind of dollhouse. Like it was built for children. You can figure
out what half the stuff is. It’s just parked places we
consider weird.”
“You said it yourself, form follows function,”
Consuela replied. “We’ve done comparative studies
between these, Sangaree, Ulantonid, and our own ships. The physical
requirements of bipeds appear to be universal. Scales seem to be
the most noticeable difference.”
“That ship two ahead of this one. What built it? A giant
slug?”
“We don’t know. It’s funny. There’s
something almost repulsive about it. You have to work yourself up
to it if it’s your turn to study it. It’s like the
alienness oozes out of the metal. It’s more of a mystery than
the other ships. It’s almost contemporary, if our dating
technique is valid. It shows battle damage. It’s the only one
of its kind we’ve ever located. It was as clean as these
others. One of my colleagues believes the crew were forced to
abandon ship after an accidental encounter during some crisis
period, like the Ulantonid War, when everyone was shooting at
anybody who didn’t yell friend fast enough. Curiously,
though, it was surrounded by a whole squadron of our little friends
here.”
“Enemies?”
Consuela shrugged. “Or purely chance. The ships
aren’t contemporary with one another. What were they doing
together? There aren’t enough books to write down all the
questions, Mister benRabi. It gets frustrating
sometimes.”
“I can imagine. Could the crew have been studying the old
ships when they were attacked by a third party?”
“That’s a possibility we hadn’t considered.
I’ll bring it up . . . ”
“Consuela?” someone shouted into the vessel.
“Is that you in there?”
“Yes, Robert. What is it?”
“Somebody’s looking for those people who came to see
you. A man named Kindervoort. He sounded pretty excited.”
“Oh-oh,” Amy said. “I’m in trouble now.
I thought he wouldn’t notice. Consuela, I’d better call
him.”
She placed the call from Consuela’s office. Jarl foamed at
the mouth and ordered them to return to Danion. Now. He
snarled at benRabi, “Moyshe, I don’t care if you cut
those nitwit citizenship classes. They’re a waste of time
anyway. But you’re not ducking out on the training schedule.
Now come back here and get your men ready. You’ve got the
rest of your life to look at old ships. The auction is
now.”
Amy was quiet throughout the return passage. Once she whispered,
“He’s really going to give it to me,” and
clutched Moyshe’s hand. She was shaking.
“He’s an amateur,” benRabi told her.
“You haven’t been chewed out till you’ve taken it
from Admiral Beckhart.” A moment later he grinned and added,
“But if it’s private, he lets you yell back.”
Soon after they returned they heard that another of the great
harvestfleets was entering the nebula. The news generated a fresh
air of excitement aboard Danion.
One by one, the harvestfleets came in. Scores of fresh, eager
young faces appeared aboard Danion as graduates of Seiner
technical schools filled the billets of people lost at Stars’
End. The howl and hammer of repairs went on around the clock. The
excitement and tension continued to mount.
They were going back. This time in full strength, and to stay.
A prideful, nationalistic, bellicose mood gripped the fleets.
Moyshe benRabi and Masato Storm pursued their instruction of the
teams they would direct on The Broken Wings. Their days were long
and exhausting. Moyshe often tumbled into bed without enough energy
left for a good-night kiss.
He began to feel the pressure. It started to intrude into his
sleeping hours. He began to dream of the girl he had left behind,
so long ago. He suffered more momentary lapses of attention while
he was awake.
He began to grow frightened of what might be going on back in
the nether reaches of his mind.
BenRabi was trying to clip a couple of stubborn, noxious-looking
hairs out of his right ear. Amy called, “Ready yet,
honey?”
“Half a minute.” He had butterflies. He did not want
to go. The stalls and arguments had run out, though. He had to meet
Amy’s family. Such as it was.
He was about to be exhibited to her mother. A prime trophy, he
thought. Former landsmen turned Seiner, on his way up. A prize for
any single girl.
He had been getting that feeling from Amy. The new was wearing
off. The magic was fading. He was becoming an object of value
instead of one of emotion.
Was the problem his or hers? Was he reading her wrong? He always
misinterpreted women.
“Moyshe, will you come on?”
He stepped out of the bathroom. “How do I look?”
“Perfect. Come on. We’ll be late for the
shuttle.”
“I want to make a good impression.”
“Stop worrying. Mom would be happy with a warthog, so long
as I was married.”
“Thanks a lot.”
A flash of the old Army returned. “Any time.”
They rode a scooter out one of the connecting tubes, into the
halls of the asteroid. Amy slowed to pass a series of doors with
temporary plaques hung on them, reading names Moyshe found
meaningless. “We’re here.”
The plaque said stafinglas. Amy parked the scooter among a small
herd nursing charger teats.
“What’s that mean? Stafinglas?” Moyshe
asked.
“I don’t know. I think it’s made
up.”
“That’s where your mother lives?”
Amy nodded. “We’ve got to hurry. They’ll start
pumping the air out of the lock in a couple minutes. They
won’t let us board after they start.”
Could he stall that long? He decided that would be a petty
trick. Much as intuition warned him that the trip was a waste, it
was important to Amy. The thing to do was grit his teeth and ride
it out.
The shuttle was a small, boxy vessel useful for nothing but
hauling passengers. The seats were full when Moyshe and Amy
boarded. Dozens of people stood in the aisles. BenRabi recognized a
few as Danion crewfolk.
“Lot of relatives of Danion people in this
Stafinglas, eh?”
“Yes. The old harvestships are like family enterprises.
Three or four generations have served in the same ship.
It gets to be a tradition. Almost nobody ships outside their own
fleet. They say that’s why we’re getting into this
nationalistic competitiveness between fleets. There’s talk
about having a computer assign new crews by lot.”
Moyshe smiled. “Bet that’s a popular
idea.”
“Like the black plague.”
His feet hurt and his back ached before the shuttle reached its
destination. It was a six-hour passage. He spent every minute
standing.
Stafinglas was exactly what Moyshe expected. An asteroid with
kilometer upon kilometer of broad tunnels which served as
residential streets. “I’m home,” he told Amy.
“It’s just like Luna Command.”
She gave him a funny look. “Really?”
“On a smaller scale.” He wanted to tell her it was
not a natural or comfortable way to live. Instead, he asked,
“You ever been down on a planet?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious.” He could not explain. She did not
have the experience to understand.
“Anything else I should know about your mother? I want to
make a good impression.”
“Stop saying that,” Amy snapped. “Stick to
literary things. You can’t miss. Duck an argument.
She’s contrary as hell. She’ll start a fight just to
find out how stubborn somebody is.”
He looked at her askance.
“We had some beauts when I was young. Nothing I did and
nobody I knew was ever good enough. Talk libraries if you know
anything about them. She’s librarian for
Stafinglas.”
The more Amy talked about her mother the less he wanted to meet
the woman. He had encountered dragons before. They rolled right
over him.
“We’re here.” Amy stopped at a door, reluctant
to take the last step.
“Well?”
Biting her lower lip, Amy knocked.
Four hours later they excused themselves to go out for lunch.
Neither spoke till they had drawn their meal trays. As he settled
at a table, Moyshe said, “Jesus, do I have a
headache.”
“Headache? Not here?”
“Tension headache. Not migraine.” It had been bad.
Much worse than he had expected. The woman was a classic. He
glanced at Amy. Want to know what a woman will be like in
twenty-five years? Have a good, long look at her mother.
“I’m sorry, Moyshe. I . . . I
can’t even make excuses for her. There isn’t any excuse
for that kind of behavior.”
“Uhm. Maybe I’d better get used to it. Maybe she was
just saying what a lot of people think. Me and Mouse and the others
may have to live with that the rest of our lives.”
“You should have fought back.”
“Would that have changed anything? No. It would’ve
kept her going that much longer.”
Moyshe was still numb. As an Old Earther he had been fighting
prejudice since entering the Navy. He had thought he possessed a
thick hide. But never had he encountered anyone as virulent as
Amy’s mother. Outworlders went through the forms of equality,
keeping their prejudices subtle and silent. Amy’s mother was
open and vicious and adamantine about hers. Neither suasion nor
force would alter her thinking in the least.
She had disowned Amy before it was over.
“You want to try again?” Amy asked.
He was startled. “What?”
“She is my mother, Moyshe.”
He reached across the table, took her hand for a second.
“I know.” She was doing her brave act to conceal her
pain. “I know. I’ve got one too. And she isn’t
that much different.”
“They want the best for you. And they think they’re
the ones to decide what’s best.” Amy gulped several
mouthfuls. “Mother never was good at expressing feelings
positively. Maybe that’s why I’m a little weird. I
spent a lot of time with her while I was growing up. She never
qualified for fleet duty. That was the big disappointment of her
life. Till we gave her something else to feel sorry for herself
about.”
Amy almost never mentioned her father. All Moyshe ever learned
was his name and the fact that he had been killed in an accident
here in the nebula. Apparently, despite protestations to the
contrary, Amy’s mother had found the accident convenient.
“We’d better not go back, Moyshe,” Amy
decided. “Not today. Let’s give her a chance to calm
down and get used to the idea.”
“Okay.”
They had to kill four hours before a shuttle became available.
Moyshe thought Amy would use the time to visit old friends. She did
not. She said all her real friends were aboard Danion. She
became defensive. She did not want to face any more disapproval.
The stay-at-home Seiners were, apparently, less cosmopolitan than
the people of the harvestfleets.
Going back, Amy suggested, “If you want, tomorrow we can
sneak over and see those alien ships. The research center
isn’t that far.”
Moyshe perked up a little. “All right. That’s a good
idea. I’ve been looking forward to it. What do we do about
our work assignments?”
“I’ll take care of everything.”
Amy took sleeping pills as soon as they reached their cabin.
Despite a long, long day, Moyshe was not in the mood for bed. He
strolled down the passageway and awakened Mouse.
“How’d the get-together go?” Mouse asked. And,
without awaiting an answer, “That bad, eh?”
“It’s a whole different world, Mouse. I thought I
knew how to handle prejudice . . . I never saw
anything like it. Her mother was the worst, but there was plenty
everywhere else we went, too.”
“I know. Grace took me for a little tour this
morning.”
“You guys got out of bed long enough?”
“Hey, you got to do something the other twenty-three hours
of the day.”
“So tell me. And where’s the board? I’ve been
here three minutes and I still haven’t seen a chess
board.”
“Sorry.” Mouse grinned. BenRabi had accused him of
being unable to relate with the human male unless a chess board was
interposed. “Guess I’m preoccupied.”
“She show you anything interesting?”
“I’m not sure. You can’t break the habits of
trade-craft. So you look and you listen. But you don’t find
anything that gives you a handle on these people.”
“Where’d you go?”
“To some kind of office complex first. Like a government
and trade headquarters. We hunked around there for five hours. They
had everything out in the open . . . You know,
like no confidential files or anything, and nobody getting excited
because you pick up a paper and read it. You take white. But there
wasn’t anything there. I mean, nothing anybody back home
would give a damn about. I didn’t see a damned thing worth
remembering.”
“What the hell kind of weird move is that?”
Mouse smiled. “Some Seiner pulled that on me the other
day.”
“And lost.”
“Yeah. But I was better than him. Hey. You know what
they’re doing? They’re getting ready to go back to
Stars’ End.”
“That isn’t any secret.”
“No. But they’re so damned serious. I mean, Grace
and I went to this one asteroid they were making into a dry-dock.
After we left the other place. I got to talking to this engineer.
Her husband is on the team that’s adapting a shuttle to
piggyback the Stars’ End weapons to orbit.”
BenRabi raised his attention from the board. “Curious.
Everywhere you go . . . They’re so damned
sure of themselves, aren’t they?”
“Awfully. Maybe we’re too sure they can’t do
it. Maybe they have an angle.” Mouse’s attention had
left the board too. He seemed to have a question he was afraid to
ask. Moyshe felt the intensity of it, boiling there behind his
friend’s eyes.
“I’ve got a hunch that they do. Through the
starfish, somehow.”
Mouse returned to the game. His unorthodox opening got him into
trouble early. BenRabi had him on the ropes, but let him wriggle
loose by making a too-eager move. It cost him a knight.
“You always did get too excited,” Mouse observed.
“How has your head been?”
“I had a
headache today. Just tension, though. Why?”
“Just asking.” A move later, “What I meant was
that disorientation stuff you had because of the Psych program. Any
trouble?”
“Not much. Not like it was, I have my moments. You know.
Blanking out for a second, then coming back wondering where I am
and who I am. They don’t amount to anything. They don’t
last long enough for anybody to notice.”
“Good. I was scared when you were doing that Contact
stuff. Thought you might get mixed up while you were in, and come
back somebody else permanently.”
“You didn’t, by chance, have anything to do
with getting me transferred, did you?”
“I would have if I’d thought I had the drag. For
your own good. But I didn’t.” Mouse rose, indicated
that Moyshe should follow him. He stepped into the passageway,
tapping his ear.
“What is it?”
“Don’t want them to know I know this. The orders
came from up top. Way up top. I know this woman who works in
Communications. She told me a couple things she thought I already
knew. Naturally, I played along.”
“Naturally. If it’s female, you’ll go along
with anything.”
Mouse grinned. “One of these days I’ll tell you
about the Admiral sending me to pimp school. Whoring isn’t
the oldest profession. Pimping is. You’d be knocked on your
ass if you saw what a really good pimp can do with
women.”
“He sent you to school?”
“Yeah. Hell, Moyshe, it’s the oldest trick in the
spy business. You teach a guy how to make a woman fall for him,
then turn him loose on the women who work for the organization you
want to penetrate.”
“I thought it worked the other way around. Women seducing
men.”
“It’s done. It doesn’t work as well. Men
don’t respond the same to emotional blackmail.”
“What did your friend have to say? We can’t stay out
here too long.”
“Buddy, we’re headed for the top. Somebody upstairs
has decided we’re the medicine Seiner foreign relations
needs. This auction project is a test. If we come through,
they’ll give us a shot at setting up our own secret
service.”
BenRabi had had a few hints. He had formed a few suspicions.
Still, he was not ready for the truth.
“A real fleetwide secret service. Inside and out.
Intelligence and counter-intelligence. The works. For all the
Starfishers. The way it sounds, they’ll give us anything we
want and turn us loose. They’ve got friends landside who try
to keep them informed. The friends have fed them enough, the last
couple of years, to get them worried about what’s going on in
Luna Command.”
“Ah. I begin to smell the rat. We’ve got
connections. We could turn a few of our old buddies.”
“You’ve got it.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I was about to ask you, Moyshe.”
“After you.”
“All right.”
“All right. It would be a challenge. We’d be going
head to head with the Old Man. It would be a hell of a
match-up.”
BenRabi was not pleased. “I take it you’re
excited.”
“Damned right I am. Not meaning to brag, but if we’d
gone back, I’d have had Beckhart’s job eventually. He
said so himself. And you’d have become my Chief of
Operations. He thought we had what it takes, Moyshe. You see what
I’m driving at?”
“I think so.” BenRabi was disappointed for a moment.
There was not a shred of loyalty in Mouse. His attitude was wholly
mercenary . . . What the hell am I crying
about? he wondered. I started this side-changing stuff.
He cast Mouse a sharp glance. More and more, he suspected his
partner had stayed here only because he had, not out of
conviction. What did that mean when taken with this sudden
enthusiasm for directing an organization targeted against their
former employer? What had become of his obsession with destroying
the Sangaree?
“So what I think you should maybe be thinking
about,” Mouse said, “is how we could set it up. Who we
should use, where we should keep our eyes open, like that. And
structure, too. You’re more of a theorist than I
am.”
“Communications would be the big problem, Mouse.” He
tried not to take Mouse’s chatter seriously. The obstacles to
creating an effective Seiner secret service were insurmountable.
“How do you run an S or K net without communications? See
what I mean? We’re out here and the targets are the hell and
gone somewhere else.You and I were always where we could use a
public comm if we had to. Or we could use the Navy nets. Say we got
somebody into Luna Command. He finds out something we should know
right now. What does he do? Run outside and yell real
loud?”
“We’ll figure it out, Moyshe. Don’t worry
about the details that way. Don’t be so negative all the
time. Instead of saying, ‘It’s impossible,’ say,
‘How can we do it?’ Figure a way, then organize to fit
it. Let’s get back in there before they get too
suspicious.”
They exchanged a couple of moves. Moyshe said, “I yield. I
would’ve had you this time except for that one stupid
move.”
“It was a bad opening. I deserved to get stomped. Another
game?”
“Just one. Then I’d better turn in. Amy’s
sneaking me out for a look at their xeno-archaeological project
tomorrow.”
“Wish I could go. But Jarl will have fits enough about
you.”
The main research station was awesome.
“What they did,” Amy explained, “was take over
one of the drydock asteroids. So they could study the ships
inside.”
The planetoid was smaller than the one that had engulfed
Danion, but still was vast. At least a hundred ships
floated in its interior. Some were so alien their lines almost hurt
the eye.
Around the inner face of the asteroid lay an office and
laboratory level. It was roofed by a layer of glassteel. The
researchers and their staffs could look up at the ships floating
overhead. People in the bay could see what was going on in the
offices and labs. The asteroid had been given spin along its
longitudinal axis instead of using artificial gravity generators,
which would have been in continuous imbalance by facing inward.
Moyshe and Amy entered through a lock in the asteroid’s
end, and observed briefly from a lookout there. Moyshe was
impressed. The line of ships marched on till it vanished in the
distance.
“They bring them in this end,” Amy said. “They
look them over, study them, and the ones that aren’t useful
they move up the line.” She indicated a remote vessel. Tugs
were guiding it away. “The far end is industrialized. The
ships the scientists don’t want they break up for raw
materials or refit for us to use. Let’s see if we can find a
scooter.”
An hour later Amy introduced him to a woman named Consuela
el-Sanga. “Consuela is an old friend, Moyshe. Consuela,
Moyshe might be able to give you an idea or two.”
Consuela el-Sanga was a small, dusky woman in her early fifties.
She bore the stamp of the preoccupied researcher, of a person who
had devoted a lifetime to her curiosity. Moyshe liked her
immediately, and as quickly felt a kinship. She was a shy,
diffident individual in matters outside her expertise.
“Are you a xeno-archaeologist, Mister benRabi?”
“No. Amy’s exaggerating. I’m not even a gifted
amateur. My only claim is that I followed the Lunar digs close till
a year ago. I had a friend on the project.”
Darkness hit him. It had the impact of a physical blow. A
woman’s face floated before him. He had not seen that face in
years. Alyce. Academy love. The girl who had worked at the Lunar
digs . . .
“Moyshe!” Amy sounded frightened.
“What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
He held up a hand, patted at the air. “Okay. Okay.
I’m okay.” He shook his head violently. “Just a
delayed reaction to the spin here,” he lied.
“I’ve never been in centrifugal gravity.”
Inside, panic. What the hell was this? It had not happened for
months. He realized he was talking, and talking fast. “I was
at the digs a year and a half ago. They’d just opened a new
chamber, in almost perfect condition. They thought some of the
machinery might still work.”
Amy and Consuela watched him carefully. “You sure
you’re all right?” Amy asked.
“Sure. Sure. Miss el-Sanga, what could I do to
help?”
“I really don’t know. We could walk you through one
of the ships we think relates to the Lunar base, for a
layman’s opinion. We’re sure there was a connection,
but, because of politics, we can’t work with the people
there.”
“It’s a pity, too.”
“Come along. We’ll start with artifacts recovered
from the ships. So you’re married now, Amy.”
BenRabi caught an odd note in what could have been either
statement or question. He gave the women a closer look. There was a
slight tenseness between them, as if there had been more to their
relationship than friendship and shared interests. He filed it in
the back of his mind.
“Took me long enough, didn’t it?” Amy tried to
sound light. She failed.
The moment of disorientation had turned something on inside
Moyshe. His mind went to work agent-wise. The cameras rolled. The
cross-reference computer clicked. His surroundings took on more
depth, more meaning. They became brighter and more interesting. His
movements became quicker and more assured.
“This is what we laughingly call the museum,”
Consuela el-Sanga said, pausing before opening a door.
“It’s not, really. It’s just a storage room.
Whoever those people were, they didn’t leave much behind.
Mostly just trash. But that’s all archaeologists ever have to
work with. Broken points, potsherds, and whatever else the ancients
threw out behind their huts.”
Moyshe moved up and down rows of metal shelves. They contained
hundreds of items, each tagged with a date, ship number, inventory
number, and brief guess as to what the object might be. Some were
referenced to other inventory numbers.
Twice he paused, reexamined an item, said, “I saw
something like this at the Lunar digs. I’d say there’s
a definite connection.”
The second time, Consuela el-Sanga responded, “Not
necessarily. Parallel function. Say a comb. Any creature with hair
would invent a comb. Wouldn’t you say? So the existence of a
comb wouldn’t prove anything but a common physical
trait.” And when Moyshe finished with the racks and shelves,
she said, “Now into my office. I’ll show you our two
real treasures.”
Moyshe and Amy followed her through another door.
“You haven’t seen these either, Amy. We found them
while you were out. They were both part of the same
find.”
Consuela El-Sanga took two plastic cases from her desk. She
handled them with loving care.
Moyshe accepted one, Amy the other. The item benRabi held was a
piece of paper that had been torn into small fragments. A very few
faded marks were visible.
“Is it a photograph?” Amy asked.
“Good guess,” Consuela said. “We had a hell of
a time with them.” Moyshe traded with Amy. The second object
was an extremely faded, flat, two-dimensional photo. It
had been torn in two.
Consuela continued, “First we pieced all the tears
together. Then we did scans with low-intensity lasers and computer
enhancements. We came up with these.” The woman glowed with
pride as she handed over reproductions of the items.
The photo, in color, was of a creature very similar to the Lunar
dig reconstructions. BenRabi said as much. The other object
appeared to be a hand-written letter.
“Any luck interpreting this?” Moyshe asked.
“No. We haven’t even determined which direction
it’s supposed to be read.”
“You haven’t found any technical manuals or
anything?”
“Not a speck. Just a few characters on nameplates, stuff
like you’d find around instrumentation and doors on any ship.
Any time there’s more than three characters, they’re
arranged in matrices like these.”
“Maybe they had a holographic system for
reading.”
“No. Doesn’t go with a two-d photo. We don’t
think.”
“Very interesting,” Moyshe said, studying the
picture again. “A Dear John letter? And the guy, or gal, gets
mad and tears up the lover’s letter and picture, but then
can’t bear to part with the pieces?”
“That’s one of our hypotheses.”
Moyshe scanned the letter. “Thirty-four different
characters here. Some punctuation?”
“Don’t try to figure it out in your head. Even the
computers can’t get a handle on it. Just think how hard it
would be to break our language without a starting clue. Big
letters, little letters, script, punctuation, spelling variations
by dialect, different type faces, all the stylized lettering and
special symbols we use for technical
stuff . . . You see? We’d need a whole
ship full of old letters, novels, and newspapers to break it. Not
just a few plaques on an instrument panel.”
“Don’t worry, Consuela,” Amy said.
“We’ll be into Stars’ End soon. You’ll find
your answers there.”
“If I’m lucky enough to go. They haven’t
picked the science team yet. I’m worried.”
“You’ll go. You’re the best.”
BenRabi looked at the woman and slowly shook his head. That
Stars’ End insanity again.
“I don’t know what I’d do if they turned me
down, Amy. It’s my whole life. I’m not getting any
younger. And they might use my age to keep me home.”
“Don’t worry. You know they can’t leave you
behind. There’s nobody better than you. And they know how
much it means to you.”
“How soon, Amy? Do you know?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet. But it won’t be
long. A month or two.”
Consuela brightened. “You’re sure they’ll send
me?”
“Of course. Don’t be silly.”
“That’s what I am, you know. A silly old
woman.”
Amy enfolded her in gentle arms. “No you’re not. No
you’re not. Come on, now. Show us one of those
ships.”
Consuela el-Sanga led them to a little four-place air scooter,
flew them out to a vessel. BenRabi felt lightheaded in the lack of
gravity. “I feel like I could fall all the way to the
end,” he said, staring down the length of the hollow.
The ship was one of the least alien of those in the lineup.
“Form follows function,” Moyshe muttered, remembering
the Luna Command constructs, which had very much resembled small
human beings.
The ship’s lock was open. Consuela made fast, led them
inside. She was small, but even she had to stoop in the
passageways.
Moyshe wandered around for an hour. He finally summed up his
impressions by observing, “It’s not that strange. Just
kind of dollhouse. Like it was built for children. You can figure
out what half the stuff is. It’s just parked places we
consider weird.”
“You said it yourself, form follows function,”
Consuela replied. “We’ve done comparative studies
between these, Sangaree, Ulantonid, and our own ships. The physical
requirements of bipeds appear to be universal. Scales seem to be
the most noticeable difference.”
“That ship two ahead of this one. What built it? A giant
slug?”
“We don’t know. It’s funny. There’s
something almost repulsive about it. You have to work yourself up
to it if it’s your turn to study it. It’s like the
alienness oozes out of the metal. It’s more of a mystery than
the other ships. It’s almost contemporary, if our dating
technique is valid. It shows battle damage. It’s the only one
of its kind we’ve ever located. It was as clean as these
others. One of my colleagues believes the crew were forced to
abandon ship after an accidental encounter during some crisis
period, like the Ulantonid War, when everyone was shooting at
anybody who didn’t yell friend fast enough. Curiously,
though, it was surrounded by a whole squadron of our little friends
here.”
“Enemies?”
Consuela shrugged. “Or purely chance. The ships
aren’t contemporary with one another. What were they doing
together? There aren’t enough books to write down all the
questions, Mister benRabi. It gets frustrating
sometimes.”
“I can imagine. Could the crew have been studying the old
ships when they were attacked by a third party?”
“That’s a possibility we hadn’t considered.
I’ll bring it up . . . ”
“Consuela?” someone shouted into the vessel.
“Is that you in there?”
“Yes, Robert. What is it?”
“Somebody’s looking for those people who came to see
you. A man named Kindervoort. He sounded pretty excited.”
“Oh-oh,” Amy said. “I’m in trouble now.
I thought he wouldn’t notice. Consuela, I’d better call
him.”
She placed the call from Consuela’s office. Jarl foamed at
the mouth and ordered them to return to Danion. Now. He
snarled at benRabi, “Moyshe, I don’t care if you cut
those nitwit citizenship classes. They’re a waste of time
anyway. But you’re not ducking out on the training schedule.
Now come back here and get your men ready. You’ve got the
rest of your life to look at old ships. The auction is
now.”
Amy was quiet throughout the return passage. Once she whispered,
“He’s really going to give it to me,” and
clutched Moyshe’s hand. She was shaking.
“He’s an amateur,” benRabi told her.
“You haven’t been chewed out till you’ve taken it
from Admiral Beckhart.” A moment later he grinned and added,
“But if it’s private, he lets you yell back.”
Soon after they returned they heard that another of the great
harvestfleets was entering the nebula. The news generated a fresh
air of excitement aboard Danion.
One by one, the harvestfleets came in. Scores of fresh, eager
young faces appeared aboard Danion as graduates of Seiner
technical schools filled the billets of people lost at Stars’
End. The howl and hammer of repairs went on around the clock. The
excitement and tension continued to mount.
They were going back. This time in full strength, and to stay.
A prideful, nationalistic, bellicose mood gripped the fleets.
Moyshe benRabi and Masato Storm pursued their instruction of the
teams they would direct on The Broken Wings. Their days were long
and exhausting. Moyshe often tumbled into bed without enough energy
left for a good-night kiss.
He began to feel the pressure. It started to intrude into his
sleeping hours. He began to dream of the girl he had left behind,
so long ago. He suffered more momentary lapses of attention while
he was awake.
He began to grow frightened of what might be going on back in
the nether reaches of his mind.