The five great harvestships barely moved. Their velocity
relative to the debris was a scant three kilometers per hour.
Gnatlike service ships flitted before the head and flanks of their
line, nudging any flying mountain that threatened collision.
It was almost an embarrassment, the way those swift monsters of
the spatial deeps had to crawl. Elsewhere they could have sprinted
off and left light lagging like a toddler behind an Olympic runner.
Here they could not match the pace of a lazily strolling old
man.
Those battered survivors of Payne’s Fleet had been making
the passage for a week.
The dense boulder screen gave way to a less crowded region
occupied principally by asteroidal chunks the size of small moons.
The harvestfleet accelerated. The line dispersed.
“Well, you kept asking about the Yards,” Amy told
benRabi. “We’re there.” She indicated the
viewscreen they had been watching.
“Yes, but . . . ” All Moyshe saw
was a big asteroid illuminated by Danion’s powerful
lights. A few smaller boulders drifted around it. Not one star was
visible in the background. All outside light was screened by the
dust of the nebula. Danion seemed to be stalking that big asteroid.
“But what?”
“There’s nothing here. We’re in the tail end
of nowhere. I expected a hidden planet. Maybe even Osiris.
Something First Expansion. Strange cities,
drydocks . . . ”
“Planetary docks? How could we take Danion into
atmosphere? Or lift her out of a gravity well? Most of your Navy
ships wouldn’t try that.”
“But you’d have to have thousands of people to work
on a ship this big. Tens of thousands. Not to mention a hell of an
industrial base, and one all-time grandfather of a
drydock.”
“The dock’s right in front of you.”
“What? Where?”
“Watch and see.”
He watched. And he saw.
A gargantuan piece of rock began separating from the asteroid.
In time it exposed a brightly lit interior vast enough to accept a
harvestship. Diminutive tugs swarmed out. Some pushed the cork.
Some hurried toward Danion like eager bees to a clover
patch.
BenRabi saw a glow in the remote distance. Another asteroid was
opening its stone mouth.
“We’re going inside?”
“You got it. You catch on quick, don’t
you?”
“Smart mouth.”
“They’ll lock the door behind us. Then they’ll
flood the chamber with air. The work goes faster that way. And the
dock will hide us from any snoopers who wander by.”
“Who would come poking around in a mess like this? That
would be asking to get fine-ground between those flying
millstones.”
BenRabi was less surprised by the existence of the nebula than
by the Seiners’ willingness to hazard it. Similar asteroidal shoals
existed inside several dust nebulae.
“But they come anyway. Moyshe, this’s the Three Sky
Nebula.”
“No. Not really? Yes. I guess you’re
serious.”
One of the most dramatic actions of the Ulantonid War had
occurred in the outer shoals of the Three Sky Nebula. After the
war, the repatriated human survivors had circulated stories of
having seen abandoned alien ships there. Some had been wrecks, some
had appeared to be intact.
Three Sky had won an immediate reputation as a Sargasso of
space. The treasure-seekers, xeno-archaeologists, and official
investigators who went there hunting the alien ships were seldom
seen again.
“The expeditions . . . There must have
been fifteen or twenty that disappeared. What happened to
them?”
“We interned them before they could stumble onto something
and run home to report it. They’re doing what they came to
do. They just can’t go home.”
“Why risk setting up here if the traffic gets so
heavy?”
“The risk isn’t that big. We don’t
have visitors very often. Not when they always disappear. And, of
course, it’s such an unlikely place to look for
us.”
“Still . . . There’s been talk
at Luna Command, off and on, about sending a squadron to back up an
investigation. In case it’s McGraws or Sangaree that have
been getting the others.”
“If that happened, we’d fight. And we’d win.
Only a fool would attack what we’ve made out of Three Sky.
We’ve been here since before the Ulantonid War. That’s
a lot of time to get ready. It’d be almost like guerrilla
warfare. We think we can hold off Confederation if we ever have
to.”
“I think you’re a little over-optimistic. For
people who don’t have the muscle to duke it out with the
sharks. I’ll let you know for sure after I’ve looked
things over.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I haven’t met a Seiner yet who had the
least idea of just how big and strong Confederation is. Or how
tough Luna Command can be when they put their minds to it. Or that
your weapons systems are prehistoric relics. Danion’s
got a ton of firepower, but one Empire Class battleship could carve
this whole harvestfleet up like a side of beef and never get in a
sweat.”
“I think you’re probably too impressed with your
Navy. Our shortcomings were calculated into our defense
plans.”
BenRabi decided not to argue. Each of them was telling the truth
as he or she knew it. “Are the creches here?”
“Some. All of them will be someday. It’s a big job,
civilizing a nebula.”
“Mainly an engineering problem, I’d
think.”
“Yes. But it takes time and money. Especially money. We
have to buy everything we can’t manufacture ourselves. Which
means we have to wait for the auctions because our credit is pretty
slim.”
“Ah. I begin to see why the good doctor was making do with
primitive equipment.”
“We’ve colonized more than seven thousand asteroids,
Moyshe,” Amy proudly declared. “But we’ve only
just begun. They’re all cramped. The harvestships are
cramped. Our other hidden places are overcrowded. We’ve been
taking in Confederation’s dropouts for two hundred years. The
ones who didn’t become McGraws or run away to the
outworlds.”
Outworlds was a word as relative as yonder. For
benRabi, born an Old Earther, it meant anything off Old Earth.
Around Luna Command it meant any planet not one of the original
seven founders of Confederation. Those seven usually called
themselves The Inner Worlds. But out on the fringes of
Confederation outworlds were human planets not signatory to the
federal pact. BenRabi was unsure which meaning Amy wanted to
convey.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“Why here?”
“Because of the industrial advantages. The stories those
internees took back were true. There’s a lot of salvageable
stuff here. We’ve identified over thirty thousand wrecks and
abandoned ships. Built by seven different races.”
“Really?” He ticked fingers. He could name five, not
counting humanity. Six if he counted the prehistoric race that had
built Stars’ End. “I’ll give you human and
Ulantonid. From the war. Who were the others?”
“I thought you’d wonder why they’d be
here.”
He frowned at her. Was she trying to bait him by showing off her
superior knowledge? Savoring one minuscule advantage? He knew more
than she about almost everything and she seemed to take it as a
personal affront.
“I imagine because it’s a good place to lay an
ambush. That’s why Carolingian came here during the
war.”
Her smile shrank. “Yeah. And because it’s close to
the obvious space lanes. Moyshe, there’ve been battles here
for ages. Probably for millions of years. Or even billions. Except
for the wrecks from the Ulantonid war, which I didn’t even
count, none of the ships here were built by any race we’ve
ever met. They were all extinct before man ever left Old Earth. Or
at least they were gone from this part of the galaxy. They all
pre-date any of the races we have encountered.”
“Ask the starfish about them.”
“We did. We’re not stupid. But they don’t have
much to tell. They don’t pay any more attention to hard
matter races than we do to bacteria. Less, really, because
we’re curious and they aren’t. We’re pretty sure
one bunch of ships, though, belonged to a race that moved the
ancestors of the Sangaree from Earth to wherever it is their
homeworld is.”
“Ah? Don’t let Mouse know about that. He’ll
drive you crazy trying to get to them.”
Only in this century had geneticists surrendered to the popular
notion that Human and Sangaree sprang from the same root stock. The
man in the street would not believe in a parallel evolution so
similar that it could produce a being indistinguishable from
himself. Scientists had demurred, citing no evidence on Old Earth
for extraterrestrial intervention . . .
Then the abandoned alien base beneath the moon’s dark side
had been discovered. Some major rethinking had been necessary. Then
had come confirmation of reports that the human female could,
occasionally, be impregnated by the Sangaree male.
The most famous—or infamous—of Sangaree agents,
Michael Dee, had been half human.
“Mouse will be protected from himself.”
BenRabi studied her. She wore an oddly ferocious expression.
“Amy, I’ve been here almost fourteen months and
you’re still springing surprises on me. When are you going to
run out?” He stared into the hollow asteroid and awaited her
response.
“Moyshe, what happened to the people who built
Stars’ End?”
“We’ll probably never know. Unless somebody cracks
its defenses.”
“We’ll do that. We’re going back. That was a
rhetorical question.”
“Wait a sec. Back? To Stars’ End? After what
happened? You’re out of your minds. You’re all raving
lunatics.”
She laughed. “Moyshe, they left their ships behind when
they disappeared. Right here. God knows how many of them there are.
Three Sky occupies a cubic light-year. We haven’t explored a
tenth of it. They had their yards and secret places too. Most of
the ships we find were theirs. They were the people who transported
the Sangaree, we think. We have explorers who don’t do
anything but hunt for their hideouts. Every one we find is one we
don’t have to build for ourselves.”
He spoke to the engulfing maw in the viewscreen.
“She’s serious.”
“Absolutely, darling. Absolutely. Oh, we’re not
really sure that it was the same race that did all three
things. But the computers go with the probability. See, these are
mostly good ships, Moyshe. They aren’t derelicts. Some of
them still have a little emergency power left. They try to scare us
off with mind noises the way Stars’ End does. And they have
parts missing. Somebody took off all their weapons. I wish we had a
whole army of xeno-archaeologists and anthropologists. It’s
really interesting. I always go see what they’re working on
whenever we come in. The scientists don’t go very fast.
They’re mostly ones we captured, so they aren’t real
enthusiastic about helping us out. They train some of our people as
aides, sometimes. Old folks and birth defect types who can’t
do much else.”
“That don’t make sense. People don’t abandon
good ships, Amy. Where did they go? Why? How? And if they did build
Stars’ End, why?”
She shrugged. “They weren’t people, Moyshe. Not our
kind. Don’t judge their motives by ours.”
“I wouldn’t . . . though some
ideas would seem universal. Just thinking questions out
loud.”
“The questions are why I wish we had more
scientists.” She switched the viewscreen over to a stern
camera. Danion was well into the asteroid’s
interior. “They could be the same creatures that did the
tunneling at Luna Command. But were they really? Is there a
connection between the moon and Three Sky and Stars’ End?
Were we meant to find Stars’ End and Three Sky? Is it all
some kind of big puzzle that we’re supposed to figure out? Is
it a test?”
“You think they were planning to come back?”
“Who knows? The questions are all a hundred years old. The
answers haven’t been born. And if we ever do answer any of
them, then right away we’re going to ask three more.
“Anyway, those old ships are our main reason for being
here. Some we fix up and use. They make good service ships. If they
can be adapted. We scavenge some for materials to build
harvestships. We only buy outside if we have to. Usually the
Freehaulers make our purchases landside, for a commission, and make
delivery to an asteroid at the edge of the nebula. They think
it’s just a way station. They don’t ask questions. Too
many questions is bad for business. They don’t try very hard
to follow us around, either. They’re good people.”
“Is that a cut?”
“If you think so.”
“I suspected the Freehaulers. I know they had something to
do with me and Mouse getting caught. How’s chances of me
getting to look at one of those ships? I know a little about
xeno-archaeology.”
A girl’s face crossed his mind. Alyce. She had been his
Academy love. She had been a recorder at the alien digs in the
moon. She had taught him a little, and the Bureau had taught him
more.
Sooner or later, the Bureau touched every base.
“You’ll have to ask Jarl. I don’t think
he’ll let you, though. We’re going to be awful busy
repairing Danion.
Plus you’ve got your citizenship classes and your beer
nights with Mouse.”
“Now don’t start that again. He’s my friend,
and that’s the way it’s going to stay. It don’t
hurt for him and me to play a couple of games of chess once in a
while. You can come keep an eye on us if you think we’re
cooking up a plot against the Greater Seiner Empire,
Lieutenant.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I don’t feel like it. I
always . . . ” She stopped before she
began waving the red flag. Their positions were inflexible.
Argument would be pointless. “Moyshe, we’ve got to get
Danion whipped into shape fast. The fleets are coming in. As soon as
they’re all here we’re leaving for auction and another
crack at Stars’ End.”
“Stars’ End. Stars’ End. That’s all I
hear anymore. And it’s completely insane. We can’t
stick our necks in that noose again, Amy. Look what it cost last
time. And remember, I was there too. I was outside with the
starfish. I know what that planet can do.”
“We’ve got to have those weapons, Moyshe. You saw
the casualty reports. You saw the extrapolations. What the sharks
are doing now is going to look pacifistic in ten years. We’re
talking survival, Love. And you’re still thinking power
politics.”
“You’ll just get yourselves killed.”
“Either way, then. But we’ll handle Stars’
End. Honest. The fish really do know how to open the way. They
found the key while we were there before.”
“Huh?” He had not caught a hint from Chub.
“The Sangaree, or
Confederation . . . ”
“They’d better come toting their guns if they want
to steal it from us, Moyshe. Because they’ll have a hell of a
fight on their hands. There’s a lot of us, honey. And
we’re looking for a fight. People have been pushing us ever
since I can remember. We’re tired of it. Once we get those
weapons . . . ”
“And sharks, darling. Don’t forget the sharks. Oh,
it’s bound to be a gay party. How do I get transferred to a
ground job?”
“You don’t.” She laughed. “I just heard
a couple hours ago. You’re going to be transferred to
Security for the auction project.”
She did not tell him that the auction project would be a pilot
for a more ambitious program. If he and Storm performed well and
faithfully they would be given joint chieftainship of their own
espionage outfit. She did not think her own boss, Jarl Kindervoort,
knew yet. The Ship’s Commander seemed reluctant to discuss it
with the man.
“Auction? That’s Mouse’s special haunt.
How’d he get stuck with it, anyway?”
“It’s going to be yours, too. Our new mindtechs will
start coming aboard in a couple of days. And you’ll move over
to the project.”
“Why?”
“Because you know The Broken Wings.”
“Yeah. And I want to forget it.” His previous
mission, as a Bureau agent, had taken him to The Broken Wings. It
had been a nasty affair.
“That’s where the auction’s going to be held.
They already sent the permission request. It’s just form from
here on.”
“Form? What you want to bet the place is crawling with
Confies and Sangaree? You people stirred up some bad
feelings . . . ”
“She hit you pretty hard, eh?”
“What?”
“The woman. The Sangaree woman. That Marya
Strehltsweiter.”
“What? How did you? . . . Mouse.
Shooting off his mouth.”
“He didn’t exactly volunteer it. And he told Jarl,
not me. I found out when I was looking through the files for
something else.”
“All right.” His heart hammered for no reason he
could justify to himself. So he had gotten involved with the woman.
He had not known she was Sangaree then. “It’s
over.”
“I know. I knew that a long time ago. Mouse wrote that
report after you shot her. I guess he thought it was important for
Jarl to understand what you were going through.”
That did not sound like Mouse. “She would’ve killed
all of us. Sooner or later. I had to do it. I never shot anybody
before.”
“Especially somebody you still halfway cared about,
eh?”
“Yeah. Can we drop it?”
“Did Mouse really do that? Inject her children with
stardust?”
“Yes. Mouse plays for keeps. He doesn’t have trouble
with his conscience. Not the way I do.”
“You really think the Sangaree will be at the
auction?”
“They’ll be there. They hold a grudge the way Mouse
does. Amy, I don’t want to get involved in that. I’m
happy where I’m at. I like linking. Chub is a good friend. I
was just scared there at first. I’ve been getting to know the
other members of the herd . . . Hell, sometimes
I go in just to bullshit with Chub.”
BenRabi could relax with the starfish as he could with no human.
He did not feel naked when he let the starfish see what he really
felt and thought. Chub made no value judgments. His values were not
human. He had, in fact, helped Moyshe make some small peace within
himself.
Parts of his mind remained inaccessible to the starfish. Whole
sections were hidden behind rigid walls. Moyshe could not guess
what might lie there. He could sense nothing missing from his
past.
Seiner life was changing Mouse, too, he reflected. Storm was
becoming even more sure of himself, more bigger-than-life than he
had always been. BenRabi could not pin it down. One or two nights a
week playing chess together was not the same as sharing a minute to
minute life under fire.
Mouse was an operative born. He had changed allegiance, but not
professions. He had become part of Jarl Kindervoort’s
staff.
Flying easy. That was what benRabi had been doing since his
release from the hospital. The only pressure he faced was
Amy’s near-militance in hinting about their getting married.
Under Chub’s ministrations his neuroses were scaling away. He
had come to the Seiners with a great many.
“Not much more to see,” Amy told him. The rearmost
cameras were inside the asteroid. The tugs were guiding the cork
back toward the entrance.
“What? Oh. I’d better go say good-bye to
Chub.”
He reached Contact almost as quickly as he had the day of the
last battle. “Clara. Where’s Hans?”
“He’s off. We don’t have anything
going.”
“I want to go in. They’re telling me I’m going
to be transferred.”
“You can’t. We’re closed down, Moyshe.
They’ll be cutting power in a minute. Heck, the herd should
be out of range by now.”
“Clara, I probably won’t ever get another
chance.”
“Ah, Moyshe. It’s silly. But all right. Get on the
couch.” She prepared his scalp and the hairnet device in
seconds. The helmet devoured his head almost before he could catch
his breath.
He shifted to TSD, then onward.
The colors of the nebula were incredible. It was a dreary place
to the eye, completely dark unless illuminated artificially. In
this internal universe Moyshe could reach out and touch all the
specks of it, the clouds of luminescent dust, the glowing asteroids
majestically circling the nebula’s center in their
million-year orbits. He could even sense the protostar down in the
nebula’s heart, lying patiently in its time-womb, gathering
the sustenance it would need to blaze for eons.
“Chub!” his mind shouted into the color storm.
“Are you there? Can you hear me?”
For a time he thought there would be no answer. The herd lay far
off the bounds of the nebula, beyond the pain threshold of its
diminutive gravitation.
Then, “Moyshe man-friend? What is happening?”
The link was tenuous. He could barely discern the
starfish’s thoughts. He could not locate the creature with
his inner sight.
“I came to say good-bye, Chub. They say I’m not
going to be a mindtech anymore. You were right. They want me to go
back to being what I was.”
“Ah. I am saddened, Moyshe man-friend. I am saddened
because you are sad. We have been good friends. I am pleased that
you thought it important to let me know. So many linkers just
disappear. Perhaps this last time we can break through those
barriers, Moyshe man-friend.”
But those corners of benRabi’s mind would not yield.
“Moyshe.” Clara’s voice seemed to come from
kilometers away. “They’re going to shut the power off.
You’ve got to come out.”
“Farewell, Moyshe man-friend.” BenRabi could feel
the sadness in the starfish.
“Go softly, golden dragon,” he whispered. “My
heart flies with you down the long dark journey.”
Chub’s sadness welled up. Moyshe could not stand it. He
pounded the switch beneath his left hand.
There was very little pain. He had not been under long. “I
don’t need it, Clara.” He pushed the needle away.
“Moyshe. You’re crying.”
“No.”
“But . . . ”
“No. Just leave me alone.”
“All right.”
He heard the hurt in her voice. He struggled off of the couch,
pulled her to him. “I’m sorry. Clara, I haven’t
known you very long. But you’ve been a good friend.
I’ll miss you. And Hans, too. Tell him to behave.”
“I see that he does. He’s my grandson.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.” What had he heard about
Hans’s sister? Or was it mother? She had been lost with
Jariel. Clara had never let on.
“There’re a lot of things you don’t know,
Moyshe benRabi. About people. Because you never get around to
asking.”
“Clara . . . Clara, come visit. Will
you?”
“Yes.”
“Promise? Amy would love to meet you.”
“I promise. Now get out of here before somebody calls the
boss and wants to know what the hell’s going on up
here.”
“Thanks, Clara. Thanks a lot. For everything.”
His return trip was less precipitous. He was not eager to get
home. Amy was bound to be waiting with some unimaginative new
approach to the subject of marriage.
The five great harvestships barely moved. Their velocity
relative to the debris was a scant three kilometers per hour.
Gnatlike service ships flitted before the head and flanks of their
line, nudging any flying mountain that threatened collision.
It was almost an embarrassment, the way those swift monsters of
the spatial deeps had to crawl. Elsewhere they could have sprinted
off and left light lagging like a toddler behind an Olympic runner.
Here they could not match the pace of a lazily strolling old
man.
Those battered survivors of Payne’s Fleet had been making
the passage for a week.
The dense boulder screen gave way to a less crowded region
occupied principally by asteroidal chunks the size of small moons.
The harvestfleet accelerated. The line dispersed.
“Well, you kept asking about the Yards,” Amy told
benRabi. “We’re there.” She indicated the
viewscreen they had been watching.
“Yes, but . . . ” All Moyshe saw
was a big asteroid illuminated by Danion’s powerful
lights. A few smaller boulders drifted around it. Not one star was
visible in the background. All outside light was screened by the
dust of the nebula. Danion seemed to be stalking that big asteroid.
“But what?”
“There’s nothing here. We’re in the tail end
of nowhere. I expected a hidden planet. Maybe even Osiris.
Something First Expansion. Strange cities,
drydocks . . . ”
“Planetary docks? How could we take Danion into
atmosphere? Or lift her out of a gravity well? Most of your Navy
ships wouldn’t try that.”
“But you’d have to have thousands of people to work
on a ship this big. Tens of thousands. Not to mention a hell of an
industrial base, and one all-time grandfather of a
drydock.”
“The dock’s right in front of you.”
“What? Where?”
“Watch and see.”
He watched. And he saw.
A gargantuan piece of rock began separating from the asteroid.
In time it exposed a brightly lit interior vast enough to accept a
harvestship. Diminutive tugs swarmed out. Some pushed the cork.
Some hurried toward Danion like eager bees to a clover
patch.
BenRabi saw a glow in the remote distance. Another asteroid was
opening its stone mouth.
“We’re going inside?”
“You got it. You catch on quick, don’t
you?”
“Smart mouth.”
“They’ll lock the door behind us. Then they’ll
flood the chamber with air. The work goes faster that way. And the
dock will hide us from any snoopers who wander by.”
“Who would come poking around in a mess like this? That
would be asking to get fine-ground between those flying
millstones.”
BenRabi was less surprised by the existence of the nebula than
by the Seiners’ willingness to hazard it. Similar asteroidal shoals
existed inside several dust nebulae.
“But they come anyway. Moyshe, this’s the Three Sky
Nebula.”
“No. Not really? Yes. I guess you’re
serious.”
One of the most dramatic actions of the Ulantonid War had
occurred in the outer shoals of the Three Sky Nebula. After the
war, the repatriated human survivors had circulated stories of
having seen abandoned alien ships there. Some had been wrecks, some
had appeared to be intact.
Three Sky had won an immediate reputation as a Sargasso of
space. The treasure-seekers, xeno-archaeologists, and official
investigators who went there hunting the alien ships were seldom
seen again.
“The expeditions . . . There must have
been fifteen or twenty that disappeared. What happened to
them?”
“We interned them before they could stumble onto something
and run home to report it. They’re doing what they came to
do. They just can’t go home.”
“Why risk setting up here if the traffic gets so
heavy?”
“The risk isn’t that big. We don’t
have visitors very often. Not when they always disappear. And, of
course, it’s such an unlikely place to look for
us.”
“Still . . . There’s been talk
at Luna Command, off and on, about sending a squadron to back up an
investigation. In case it’s McGraws or Sangaree that have
been getting the others.”
“If that happened, we’d fight. And we’d win.
Only a fool would attack what we’ve made out of Three Sky.
We’ve been here since before the Ulantonid War. That’s
a lot of time to get ready. It’d be almost like guerrilla
warfare. We think we can hold off Confederation if we ever have
to.”
“I think you’re a little over-optimistic. For
people who don’t have the muscle to duke it out with the
sharks. I’ll let you know for sure after I’ve looked
things over.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I haven’t met a Seiner yet who had the
least idea of just how big and strong Confederation is. Or how
tough Luna Command can be when they put their minds to it. Or that
your weapons systems are prehistoric relics. Danion’s
got a ton of firepower, but one Empire Class battleship could carve
this whole harvestfleet up like a side of beef and never get in a
sweat.”
“I think you’re probably too impressed with your
Navy. Our shortcomings were calculated into our defense
plans.”
BenRabi decided not to argue. Each of them was telling the truth
as he or she knew it. “Are the creches here?”
“Some. All of them will be someday. It’s a big job,
civilizing a nebula.”
“Mainly an engineering problem, I’d
think.”
“Yes. But it takes time and money. Especially money. We
have to buy everything we can’t manufacture ourselves. Which
means we have to wait for the auctions because our credit is pretty
slim.”
“Ah. I begin to see why the good doctor was making do with
primitive equipment.”
“We’ve colonized more than seven thousand asteroids,
Moyshe,” Amy proudly declared. “But we’ve only
just begun. They’re all cramped. The harvestships are
cramped. Our other hidden places are overcrowded. We’ve been
taking in Confederation’s dropouts for two hundred years. The
ones who didn’t become McGraws or run away to the
outworlds.”
Outworlds was a word as relative as yonder. For
benRabi, born an Old Earther, it meant anything off Old Earth.
Around Luna Command it meant any planet not one of the original
seven founders of Confederation. Those seven usually called
themselves The Inner Worlds. But out on the fringes of
Confederation outworlds were human planets not signatory to the
federal pact. BenRabi was unsure which meaning Amy wanted to
convey.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.
“Why here?”
“Because of the industrial advantages. The stories those
internees took back were true. There’s a lot of salvageable
stuff here. We’ve identified over thirty thousand wrecks and
abandoned ships. Built by seven different races.”
“Really?” He ticked fingers. He could name five, not
counting humanity. Six if he counted the prehistoric race that had
built Stars’ End. “I’ll give you human and
Ulantonid. From the war. Who were the others?”
“I thought you’d wonder why they’d be
here.”
He frowned at her. Was she trying to bait him by showing off her
superior knowledge? Savoring one minuscule advantage? He knew more
than she about almost everything and she seemed to take it as a
personal affront.
“I imagine because it’s a good place to lay an
ambush. That’s why Carolingian came here during the
war.”
Her smile shrank. “Yeah. And because it’s close to
the obvious space lanes. Moyshe, there’ve been battles here
for ages. Probably for millions of years. Or even billions. Except
for the wrecks from the Ulantonid war, which I didn’t even
count, none of the ships here were built by any race we’ve
ever met. They were all extinct before man ever left Old Earth. Or
at least they were gone from this part of the galaxy. They all
pre-date any of the races we have encountered.”
“Ask the starfish about them.”
“We did. We’re not stupid. But they don’t have
much to tell. They don’t pay any more attention to hard
matter races than we do to bacteria. Less, really, because
we’re curious and they aren’t. We’re pretty sure
one bunch of ships, though, belonged to a race that moved the
ancestors of the Sangaree from Earth to wherever it is their
homeworld is.”
“Ah? Don’t let Mouse know about that. He’ll
drive you crazy trying to get to them.”
Only in this century had geneticists surrendered to the popular
notion that Human and Sangaree sprang from the same root stock. The
man in the street would not believe in a parallel evolution so
similar that it could produce a being indistinguishable from
himself. Scientists had demurred, citing no evidence on Old Earth
for extraterrestrial intervention . . .
Then the abandoned alien base beneath the moon’s dark side
had been discovered. Some major rethinking had been necessary. Then
had come confirmation of reports that the human female could,
occasionally, be impregnated by the Sangaree male.
The most famous—or infamous—of Sangaree agents,
Michael Dee, had been half human.
“Mouse will be protected from himself.”
BenRabi studied her. She wore an oddly ferocious expression.
“Amy, I’ve been here almost fourteen months and
you’re still springing surprises on me. When are you going to
run out?” He stared into the hollow asteroid and awaited her
response.
“Moyshe, what happened to the people who built
Stars’ End?”
“We’ll probably never know. Unless somebody cracks
its defenses.”
“We’ll do that. We’re going back. That was a
rhetorical question.”
“Wait a sec. Back? To Stars’ End? After what
happened? You’re out of your minds. You’re all raving
lunatics.”
She laughed. “Moyshe, they left their ships behind when
they disappeared. Right here. God knows how many of them there are.
Three Sky occupies a cubic light-year. We haven’t explored a
tenth of it. They had their yards and secret places too. Most of
the ships we find were theirs. They were the people who transported
the Sangaree, we think. We have explorers who don’t do
anything but hunt for their hideouts. Every one we find is one we
don’t have to build for ourselves.”
He spoke to the engulfing maw in the viewscreen.
“She’s serious.”
“Absolutely, darling. Absolutely. Oh, we’re not
really sure that it was the same race that did all three
things. But the computers go with the probability. See, these are
mostly good ships, Moyshe. They aren’t derelicts. Some of
them still have a little emergency power left. They try to scare us
off with mind noises the way Stars’ End does. And they have
parts missing. Somebody took off all their weapons. I wish we had a
whole army of xeno-archaeologists and anthropologists. It’s
really interesting. I always go see what they’re working on
whenever we come in. The scientists don’t go very fast.
They’re mostly ones we captured, so they aren’t real
enthusiastic about helping us out. They train some of our people as
aides, sometimes. Old folks and birth defect types who can’t
do much else.”
“That don’t make sense. People don’t abandon
good ships, Amy. Where did they go? Why? How? And if they did build
Stars’ End, why?”
She shrugged. “They weren’t people, Moyshe. Not our
kind. Don’t judge their motives by ours.”
“I wouldn’t . . . though some
ideas would seem universal. Just thinking questions out
loud.”
“The questions are why I wish we had more
scientists.” She switched the viewscreen over to a stern
camera. Danion was well into the asteroid’s
interior. “They could be the same creatures that did the
tunneling at Luna Command. But were they really? Is there a
connection between the moon and Three Sky and Stars’ End?
Were we meant to find Stars’ End and Three Sky? Is it all
some kind of big puzzle that we’re supposed to figure out? Is
it a test?”
“You think they were planning to come back?”
“Who knows? The questions are all a hundred years old. The
answers haven’t been born. And if we ever do answer any of
them, then right away we’re going to ask three more.
“Anyway, those old ships are our main reason for being
here. Some we fix up and use. They make good service ships. If they
can be adapted. We scavenge some for materials to build
harvestships. We only buy outside if we have to. Usually the
Freehaulers make our purchases landside, for a commission, and make
delivery to an asteroid at the edge of the nebula. They think
it’s just a way station. They don’t ask questions. Too
many questions is bad for business. They don’t try very hard
to follow us around, either. They’re good people.”
“Is that a cut?”
“If you think so.”
“I suspected the Freehaulers. I know they had something to
do with me and Mouse getting caught. How’s chances of me
getting to look at one of those ships? I know a little about
xeno-archaeology.”
A girl’s face crossed his mind. Alyce. She had been his
Academy love. She had been a recorder at the alien digs in the
moon. She had taught him a little, and the Bureau had taught him
more.
Sooner or later, the Bureau touched every base.
“You’ll have to ask Jarl. I don’t think
he’ll let you, though. We’re going to be awful busy
repairing Danion.
Plus you’ve got your citizenship classes and your beer
nights with Mouse.”
“Now don’t start that again. He’s my friend,
and that’s the way it’s going to stay. It don’t
hurt for him and me to play a couple of games of chess once in a
while. You can come keep an eye on us if you think we’re
cooking up a plot against the Greater Seiner Empire,
Lieutenant.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I don’t feel like it. I
always . . . ” She stopped before she
began waving the red flag. Their positions were inflexible.
Argument would be pointless. “Moyshe, we’ve got to get
Danion whipped into shape fast. The fleets are coming in. As soon as
they’re all here we’re leaving for auction and another
crack at Stars’ End.”
“Stars’ End. Stars’ End. That’s all I
hear anymore. And it’s completely insane. We can’t
stick our necks in that noose again, Amy. Look what it cost last
time. And remember, I was there too. I was outside with the
starfish. I know what that planet can do.”
“We’ve got to have those weapons, Moyshe. You saw
the casualty reports. You saw the extrapolations. What the sharks
are doing now is going to look pacifistic in ten years. We’re
talking survival, Love. And you’re still thinking power
politics.”
“You’ll just get yourselves killed.”
“Either way, then. But we’ll handle Stars’
End. Honest. The fish really do know how to open the way. They
found the key while we were there before.”
“Huh?” He had not caught a hint from Chub.
“The Sangaree, or
Confederation . . . ”
“They’d better come toting their guns if they want
to steal it from us, Moyshe. Because they’ll have a hell of a
fight on their hands. There’s a lot of us, honey. And
we’re looking for a fight. People have been pushing us ever
since I can remember. We’re tired of it. Once we get those
weapons . . . ”
“And sharks, darling. Don’t forget the sharks. Oh,
it’s bound to be a gay party. How do I get transferred to a
ground job?”
“You don’t.” She laughed. “I just heard
a couple hours ago. You’re going to be transferred to
Security for the auction project.”
She did not tell him that the auction project would be a pilot
for a more ambitious program. If he and Storm performed well and
faithfully they would be given joint chieftainship of their own
espionage outfit. She did not think her own boss, Jarl Kindervoort,
knew yet. The Ship’s Commander seemed reluctant to discuss it
with the man.
“Auction? That’s Mouse’s special haunt.
How’d he get stuck with it, anyway?”
“It’s going to be yours, too. Our new mindtechs will
start coming aboard in a couple of days. And you’ll move over
to the project.”
“Why?”
“Because you know The Broken Wings.”
“Yeah. And I want to forget it.” His previous
mission, as a Bureau agent, had taken him to The Broken Wings. It
had been a nasty affair.
“That’s where the auction’s going to be held.
They already sent the permission request. It’s just form from
here on.”
“Form? What you want to bet the place is crawling with
Confies and Sangaree? You people stirred up some bad
feelings . . . ”
“She hit you pretty hard, eh?”
“What?”
“The woman. The Sangaree woman. That Marya
Strehltsweiter.”
“What? How did you? . . . Mouse.
Shooting off his mouth.”
“He didn’t exactly volunteer it. And he told Jarl,
not me. I found out when I was looking through the files for
something else.”
“All right.” His heart hammered for no reason he
could justify to himself. So he had gotten involved with the woman.
He had not known she was Sangaree then. “It’s
over.”
“I know. I knew that a long time ago. Mouse wrote that
report after you shot her. I guess he thought it was important for
Jarl to understand what you were going through.”
That did not sound like Mouse. “She would’ve killed
all of us. Sooner or later. I had to do it. I never shot anybody
before.”
“Especially somebody you still halfway cared about,
eh?”
“Yeah. Can we drop it?”
“Did Mouse really do that? Inject her children with
stardust?”
“Yes. Mouse plays for keeps. He doesn’t have trouble
with his conscience. Not the way I do.”
“You really think the Sangaree will be at the
auction?”
“They’ll be there. They hold a grudge the way Mouse
does. Amy, I don’t want to get involved in that. I’m
happy where I’m at. I like linking. Chub is a good friend. I
was just scared there at first. I’ve been getting to know the
other members of the herd . . . Hell, sometimes
I go in just to bullshit with Chub.”
BenRabi could relax with the starfish as he could with no human.
He did not feel naked when he let the starfish see what he really
felt and thought. Chub made no value judgments. His values were not
human. He had, in fact, helped Moyshe make some small peace within
himself.
Parts of his mind remained inaccessible to the starfish. Whole
sections were hidden behind rigid walls. Moyshe could not guess
what might lie there. He could sense nothing missing from his
past.
Seiner life was changing Mouse, too, he reflected. Storm was
becoming even more sure of himself, more bigger-than-life than he
had always been. BenRabi could not pin it down. One or two nights a
week playing chess together was not the same as sharing a minute to
minute life under fire.
Mouse was an operative born. He had changed allegiance, but not
professions. He had become part of Jarl Kindervoort’s
staff.
Flying easy. That was what benRabi had been doing since his
release from the hospital. The only pressure he faced was
Amy’s near-militance in hinting about their getting married.
Under Chub’s ministrations his neuroses were scaling away. He
had come to the Seiners with a great many.
“Not much more to see,” Amy told him. The rearmost
cameras were inside the asteroid. The tugs were guiding the cork
back toward the entrance.
“What? Oh. I’d better go say good-bye to
Chub.”
He reached Contact almost as quickly as he had the day of the
last battle. “Clara. Where’s Hans?”
“He’s off. We don’t have anything
going.”
“I want to go in. They’re telling me I’m going
to be transferred.”
“You can’t. We’re closed down, Moyshe.
They’ll be cutting power in a minute. Heck, the herd should
be out of range by now.”
“Clara, I probably won’t ever get another
chance.”
“Ah, Moyshe. It’s silly. But all right. Get on the
couch.” She prepared his scalp and the hairnet device in
seconds. The helmet devoured his head almost before he could catch
his breath.
He shifted to TSD, then onward.
The colors of the nebula were incredible. It was a dreary place
to the eye, completely dark unless illuminated artificially. In
this internal universe Moyshe could reach out and touch all the
specks of it, the clouds of luminescent dust, the glowing asteroids
majestically circling the nebula’s center in their
million-year orbits. He could even sense the protostar down in the
nebula’s heart, lying patiently in its time-womb, gathering
the sustenance it would need to blaze for eons.
“Chub!” his mind shouted into the color storm.
“Are you there? Can you hear me?”
For a time he thought there would be no answer. The herd lay far
off the bounds of the nebula, beyond the pain threshold of its
diminutive gravitation.
Then, “Moyshe man-friend? What is happening?”
The link was tenuous. He could barely discern the
starfish’s thoughts. He could not locate the creature with
his inner sight.
“I came to say good-bye, Chub. They say I’m not
going to be a mindtech anymore. You were right. They want me to go
back to being what I was.”
“Ah. I am saddened, Moyshe man-friend. I am saddened
because you are sad. We have been good friends. I am pleased that
you thought it important to let me know. So many linkers just
disappear. Perhaps this last time we can break through those
barriers, Moyshe man-friend.”
But those corners of benRabi’s mind would not yield.
“Moyshe.” Clara’s voice seemed to come from
kilometers away. “They’re going to shut the power off.
You’ve got to come out.”
“Farewell, Moyshe man-friend.” BenRabi could feel
the sadness in the starfish.
“Go softly, golden dragon,” he whispered. “My
heart flies with you down the long dark journey.”
Chub’s sadness welled up. Moyshe could not stand it. He
pounded the switch beneath his left hand.
There was very little pain. He had not been under long. “I
don’t need it, Clara.” He pushed the needle away.
“Moyshe. You’re crying.”
“No.”
“But . . . ”
“No. Just leave me alone.”
“All right.”
He heard the hurt in her voice. He struggled off of the couch,
pulled her to him. “I’m sorry. Clara, I haven’t
known you very long. But you’ve been a good friend.
I’ll miss you. And Hans, too. Tell him to behave.”
“I see that he does. He’s my grandson.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.” What had he heard about
Hans’s sister? Or was it mother? She had been lost with
Jariel. Clara had never let on.
“There’re a lot of things you don’t know,
Moyshe benRabi. About people. Because you never get around to
asking.”
“Clara . . . Clara, come visit. Will
you?”
“Yes.”
“Promise? Amy would love to meet you.”
“I promise. Now get out of here before somebody calls the
boss and wants to know what the hell’s going on up
here.”
“Thanks, Clara. Thanks a lot. For everything.”
His return trip was less precipitous. He was not eager to get
home. Amy was bound to be waiting with some unimaginative new
approach to the subject of marriage.