STARS’ END
The Main Sequence
The lights came on. McClennon, Mouse, and Amy sat in silence. The tapes had been grotesque. Storm finally squeaked, “Admiral... That’s really what we’re up against?”
McClennon peered at Amy. She met his gaze for an instant. “Moyshe,” she whispered, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“It is,” Beckhart promised Mouse. “It’s tough to swallow. Even when you’re there yourself. All that ruthlessness, for no discernible purpose, only makes it more frightening”
McClennon took Amy’s hand. It was cool. She was shaking. “You need something?”
“I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute.”
McClennon turned, “Admiral. I’ve seen that kind of ship before.”
“What? Where? How?” Beckhart came toward McClennon like a tiger stalking game. He seemed to have caught a sudden fever. A haze appeared on his upper lip. “Where?” he breathed.
“The Seiners have one at their xeno-archaeological research facility. You remember, Amy? I asked if it had been built by an intelligent slug? The one nobody wanted to work.”
“That’s right. You’re right, Moyshe, It was exactly like the ships in the tape.”
“Tell me about it,” Beckhart said.
“There isn’t much to tell,” McClennon replied. “The Seiners found it in the Nebula. They considered it comparatively modern. They found it surrounded by ships left behind by the people they think built Stars’ End. The same people who, I think, built the base Darkside. They assumed the ship had been attacked by accident during the Ulantonid War. I said its crew might have been studying the ships belonging to the Stars’ End race. That’s all.”
Beckhart became thoughtful. “That isn’t all, Thomas. There’s always more. You just don’t know it. Is there a connection? Think about it. Stars’ End might be more than just a handy arsenal.”
Beckhart was talking to himself, not his audience, McClennon smiled. The Admiral was making the sort of random connections that, when they paid off, caused him to be so effective.
“Thomas, I want you and Amy to talk to Doctor Chancellor’s people. They came off the Lunar digs. There might be an angle.”
“They should get together with Amy’s friend, Consuela el-Sanga. She’s more knowledgeable than we are.”
“Fine. Fine. We’ll arrange that. Meantime, get your brains boiling. Open them up to unexpected possibilities... Tell you what. We’ll have another little get-together after dinner. With them included. Marathon brought me some new material. I’ll lay it out then.”
McClennon caught a bleak note. “Bad, eh?”
“Worse than you’ve seen.”
Beckhart used the evening session to present the report from the Ulantonid deep probe. Afterward, he asked, “Any speculations, people?”
The science people were guarded. They wanted more data. McClennon asked, “Did Luna Command run that through the big brain?”
“Yes. And it asked for more data too. I think it has a human bias built in. It wouldn’t accept the numbers. It suggested that Commander Russell be replaced by somebody less inclined to exaggerate.”
“Looks to me like there’s enough data to draw some first approximation inferences. Like, the Globular and war fleets represent an effort to destroy any present and potential sentience. It looks like an effort to eliminate competition and remodel the galaxy for the comfort of one race.”
A scientist protested, “You can’t draw those inferences. They’re anthropocentric. It could just as well be a religious crusade.”
“What?” Mouse snarled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Easy, Mouse,” Beckhart said, “No idea is too bizarre right now. The truth is going to be something off the wall. Brainstorm, people. Come up with as many ideas as possible, then winnow them as we accumulate more data. We shouldn’t use the facts to build something acceptable. The truth may not be.”
The scientists were becoming restive. Beckhart continued, “One unpalatable fact that jumps right out is that they’re going to try to destroy us. Add to that their incredible numbers. Add to that the fact that the Globular is forty thousand years away. People, I think we’ve found us a war that will last forever.”
McClennon could not handle the numbers. Forty thousand years? Eight times as long as recorded history? That was one long-term operation.
The other side had been involved for the gods only knew how long already. Millions of years?
The oddities of the alien base on the moon’s dark side, the abandoned ships in Three Sky, and Stars’ End itself, seemed a little less strange when seen in that light. Presuming the mysterious builders had been enemies of the centerward race, their works might constitute a counter-operation of equally cosmic scale. He tried to tote up a picture based on known factors. It did not scan. There were too many questions. What was the role of the Sangaree? What had become of the builders?
Mouse leaned his way. “This is a little much for me, Tommy. I’m just a simple-minded soldier.”
McClennon grinned. “I’ll go along with the simple-minded.” He had spent the afternoon with a Psych team. They had performed wonders. He felt content and optimistic.
Mouse was out of sorts. He had come off The Broken Wings moody and uncommunicative. The definitive proof was that the science team boasted several attractive women. None had yet been honored by the swoop of the eagle. Amy had mentioned it in one of her friendlier moments. McClennon had not noticed it himself.
“You going to be in the mood for a game after this?” McClennon asked. Mouse had not shown much interest in chess lately, either.
“I don’t think so. What’s going on?” A petty officer was whispering to the Admiral.
Beckhart announced, “The Sangaree just left Stars’ End. They left the McGraws to the Starfishers.” He smiled. “Looks like the incidence of piracy may fall off.”
“What will they do?” McClennon asked.
“We don’t know. Let’s hope they give it a good think. I left Strehltsweiter with a message for her bosses. Maybe Homeworld will make them listen.”
“What kind of message?” Mouse demanded.
“I told them to change their ways. I said I’m not interested in wiping them out, but I will if they don’t shape up. I told them I could repeat the lesson at Osiris if they insist. I let her think we know where Osiris is, too.”
“Do you?” Thomas asked.
“No. I lie a lot.”
For the next week McClennon split his time between the Psych and scientific teams. The Psych sessions bled the pressure ofi his chaotic mind. Gradually one personality — McClennon — took hold. He suffered only one minor episode.
Marathon dropped hyper off Three Sky. Signals from von Drachau’s Lepanto indicated that she and her escort had penetrated the Yards. There had been a few skirmishes, but nothing serious. The Starfishers were talking, but stalling.
The Admiral observed, “Gruber is trying to fox us. He’s sitting tight at Stars’ End. Know what he’s doing? Betting to an inside straight. He’s thinking, if he can pull some of those weapons out quick enough, he can turn the tables on us.”
Beckhart thereupon demonstrated his proconsular power. He contacted the Seiner leadership, told them the time. He designated it as launch minus twenty-five hours. He ordered the channel kept open and the countdown broadcast at five-minute intervals. Incoming traffic was to be recorded and otherwise ignored. Requests for delays and further negotiations consequently fell on deaf ears.
At launch minus two hours twelve minutes the Seiners of Three Sky surrendered unconditionally. Fleet Marines began occupying key installations immediately.
Beckhart summoned McClennon. “Thomas, we’ve finished twisting their arms here. Find your lady and ask her if she’s going or staying. We space for Stars’ End in one hour.”
“Yes sir. Sir, I just came through Communications. The Sangaree raidfleet is still headed for Homeworld.”
“Good. We’ll be able to release a few squadrons, then.” His eyes went glassy. “The big strike is getting closer. The Blues have picked their spot. We’re waiting till the other side walks into it. Find your lady.”
Amy was easily found. She would not leave her cabin unless dragged. He knocked. “It’s McClennon,” he said. “The Admiral sent me.”
She seldom talked to him unless under pretext of business.
“What does he want?”
“We’re spacing for Stars’ End. You want to stay here, or go along?”
“They gave up?”
“They didn’t have much choice.”
She sighed. “Moyshe, I try hard to understand what’s happening. But I can’t. Do you think he’ll keep his word?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. We’ll find out the hard way. He’ll leave people here to establish the new order. I wish I could find out what their instructions are. What are you going to do? You have to decide quick. We’re ready to leave.”
“I’m going to Stars’ End. Consuela is out there.. They made her head of the whole team.”
“Well, good for her.” He did not depart immediately. She refused the opportunity he offered.
It keeps right on hurting, he thought as he stalked along the passageway. She won’t even try to understand.
After relaying Amy’s decision, he went looking for his partner.
He found Mouse in the wardroom, staring mindlessly into a holovision cube. He sat, “What’s the matter, old buddy? Want to talk?”
Reluctantly, Mouse killed the holoshow. “Not yet, Tommy. I’m not ready.”
“All right. You noticed that little blonde Lieutenant from Weapons? Tanni Something.”
“From B Missiles? Primo stuff. Looks like she’d turn a man every way but loose. There’s something about the little ones...”
“They say she’s a Scorpio.”
Mouse laughed. “You didn’t fix me up, did you?” Mouse had been known to opine that Scorpio women were the hottest in the known universe. McClennon could not get him to elucidate the workings of a geocentric astrology transferred to Outworlds skies.
“Not exactly. I asked a few questions. I figured the answers might pique your interest.”
“I’m interested. That little bomb is ready to go off. You can tell just by the way she moves. Blow in her ear and you’re liable to start something five guys couldn’t handle. But I’m also not interested. If you know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t. You’ve been celibate for a month. I thought I’d see entropy shift into reverse first.”
“I got things to work out, Tommy, Can we drop it?”
“If you want. We’re heading for Stars’ End.” As if to back him up, the ship’s hyper alarm sounded
“I heard they finally gave in.”
“Now all we’ve got to do is impress Gruber.”
“The Old Man will find a way.”
“He always does, doesn’t he?”
“Tommy, what do you think our chances are?”
“What?”
“Our chances of coming through this thing with these centerward creatures.”
“We’ll never know, Mouse. It’s going to go on for a long time. Our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren are going to be fighting this war. And it’s a sad thing.”
“Sad? How so?”
“It may destroy us. As a race. I don’t mean destroy like wipe us out. I mean put an end to what makes us what we are. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. You know how I get.”
“You think too much.” Mouse smiled.
“The human race is crazy, see. No two of us are alike. And when we form up in mobs, no two mobs are alike. We’re always flying off in a skillion different directions. Everybody doing their own thing. Every culture, too. And that’s a survival trait, I think. There’s almost a Darwinian thing with cultures. Some die out, and others come to life. There’re always some on the way out and some on the way in. The thing is, there’re always a lot of different ones around. When one goes down, there’s always another there to take its place.”
“I’m not following you,” Mouse said in a slightly amused tone. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Look, this centerward race... To fight it we’re going to have to pull together. Generation after generation. Like an anthill. We’re going to turn into a warfare race. Our whole focus will be the struggle. Kids will be born to a system that will turn them into the best soldiers possible. If they’re survivors, they’ll work their way up and get old in harness. They’ll have kids of their own, who will follow in their footsteps. After a few generations nobody will know there’s any other way of life. And then, in a way, we’ll be just like the things we’re fighting. The diversity will be gone. And we’ll be trapped in a dead end. Because every culture is a dead end eventually. I mean, what does a warfare society do after it polishes off its last enemy? Turn on itself?”
Mouse looked at him askance. “You do worry yourself about some strange things, my friend.”
“I think it’s a valid concern. I think we should start taking the long view now and try to retain all the diversity we can.”
“So write a report suggesting a study.”
“I think I will.”
“It won’t matter much when they wipe us out, Tommy. And from where I sit, that looks inevitable. All we can do is delay it. That’ll be like trying to keep the river from getting to the sea by bailing it with a teacup.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
The ship shuddered. It seemed to twist away around them. Marathon was on her way to Stars’ End, that legendary, inviolable, virgin goddess of a fortress world that had intrigued a half dozen races for countless centuries.
The Main Sequence
Marathon dropped hyper ten days after departing Three Sky. She cruised norm thirty hours before being joined by the heavy squadrons from The Broken Wings. Beckhart was afraid Gruber might still need convincing.
“There’re a hundred harvestships there,” Amy protested. “You know how big they are, Moyshe. Plus all the service ships. What makes anybody think a few dozen Navy ships could whip them? The whole Sangaree raidfleet couldn’t.”
“I hope you don’t have to find out.”
Mouse explained, “These ships were built for that kind of thing, Amy. All they can do is destroy. Especially the Empire Class. Other ships. Orbital fortresses. Cities on the ground. They were built to chew them up. What you Starfishers have is a bunch of ships built to do other things. Their guns were hung on them as an afterthought. Your harvestships were put together in jumbles, just growing, never designed for any special purpose.”
“I still think you’re all overconfident.”
Both Thomas and Mouse shrugged. McClennon said, “You could be right. We’re supposed to believe we’re invincible.” He glanced at Mouse. “Maybe that’s why this centerward thing is so oppressive. It shakes our faith.”
They were in Marathon’s wardroom. Most of the science team were there too. The countdown to hyper drop had declined past the ten-minute mark. People with no duty assignment had gathered to look at what McClennon called a thirty-first-century war god.
An untouchable world. A dead metal machine voice that shrieked against the big night, threatening anyone who came near. Stars’ End. The arsenal of yesterday, more securely defended than the virtue of any medieval virgin.
“You don’t need to worry,” McClennon said. “If there were any chance of trouble, we wouldn’t be sitting around here. We’d be on battle stations.”
“The Weapons people aren’t on alert,” Mouse said. He was staring at a small blonde woman wearing Weapons insignia over her Lieutenant’s stripes. “Watch how she moves, Tommy.”
McClennon smiled. “I think he’s coming around. The tomcat is coming through.”
Mouse reddened slightly.
“Jesus,” McClennon said softly. “You? Embarrassed?”
“I don’t know, Tommy. It seems like I’ve changed a little. I don’t understand myself.”
“One minute to hyper drop,” a remote voice announced. It drowned in the chatter of the wardroom.
Beckhart and the chiefs of the science team stalked in and took seats near the holo globe that had been set up at the compartment’s center.
“Looks smug, don’t he?” McClennon said.
The wardroom fell silent, Marathon dropped hyper. In moments a featureless ball filled the holo globe. Surrounding details appeared as the ship’s sensors picked them up. First came the escort vessels, then the harvestfleets, then vistas of lifeless wreckage left by the fighting with Sangaree and McGraws. The planet, though, showed no changes.
McClennon had seen it before. He was not amazed. The builder race had removed any topography Stars’ End may have had. It was a world machined smooth.
“Like a big-ass cue ball,” Mouse murmured.
“It doesn’t look so friendly when it opens up,” Thomas said. He shuddered, remembering. “It gets what looks like a sudden case of acne...”
Someone sat down beside him. At the same moment he saw a Communications messenger whisper to Beckhart and pass a flimsy. What was it? he wondered.
“Commander McClennon?”
He glanced to the side and found himself face to face with the little blonde Weapons officer. “Yes,” he gulped, taken aback.
“In, I’m Tanni Lowenthal. Weapons.” She wriggled her diminutive derriere a centimeter closer.
Mouse chuckled. Thomas turned. Storm’s attention seemed inalterably fixed on the holo globe. As was Amy’s, though color was climbing her throat.
“What can I do for you?” Thomas asked.
“Nothing. I just wanted to meet you. Someone said you were you, so I thought I would introduce myself. You’re famous, you know.” She laid a hand on his. It was small and hot and felt strong. He nearly jerked away.
Mouse made a small sound again.
“It’s really strange, isn’t it?” the woman asked. “Stars’ End, I mean.”
“Very. Especially when it’s in a bad mood.”
“Oh. That’s right. You were here before, weren’t you? When you were with the Starfishers.”
The conversation lasted only a few minutes. The woman abruptly said, “That’s my cue. Off to the salt mines. Bye.” She squeezed his hand and looked him directly in the eye for a second.
“Bye.” Baffled, he looked around to see what had happened during his distraction.
Beckhart, apparently, had announced something. He had missed it. “What was that, Mouse?”
“The Seiners have it open already. We can send our people down right away.” Storm was fighting laughter. He nodded toward Tanni’s departing figure. “That’s what you get for asking questions, Tommy. The word gets back.”
Amy glared into the globe. Her jaw was tight. Her face was red. Smoke seemed about to pour from her ears. “How did that half-witted sex machine ever earn a commission?” she demanded.
Still grinning, Mouse said, “She’s probably quite competent at what she does.”
“I don’t doubt it a bit. She looks the type.”
Mouse made a little wave signal to tell McClennon to make himself scarce. Amy was ready for a scene. A scene she had no right to make, inasmuch as she had declared her relationship with McClennon void.
McClennon rose and moved nearer the Admiral. When he had a chance, he asked, “Will I be able to go down? Just to poke around?”
Beckhart looked thoughtful. “I suppose. It seems safe. They’ve been down for a week and nothing’s happened. But wait till the science people are all down. Ask Amy to see me in my office later, will you? I think I’ve got a liaison job for her.”
“Yes sir.” He wandered back to Mouse and Amy. Storm had calmed her down. He was still grinning.
“Tommy, I think I’ll take you up on that game you’ve been talking about. You see a table?” The new was wearing off. Ship’s crew were drifting out.
“Over there, Amy, the boss wants you to come to his office when you get a chance.”
He and Mouse pushed through the crowd and seized a pair of table seats. Mouse produced his portable chess set.
“I wish you’d wipe that smirk off your face. Makes you look like an idiot.”
“I can’t help it, Tommy. It’s really funny, the way she zeroed in. Isn’t she something?”
“No doubt about that. I’m wondering what.”
“I couldn’t decide if you were going to attack her right there or have a stroke. You can find out what, you know. She told you who she was and where to find her. Now it’s your move.”
Science team people began descending to the planet next working day. The afternoon of the same day witnessed the arrival aboard of a company of stone-faced Seiner dignitaries. Mouse and McClennon were assigned to make them welcome. Amy turned out to help.
Mouse asked, “What’s that you’re wearing?”
“My dress uniform.”
“What dress uniform?”
“My police uniform. Your Admiral had it flown over during the night.”
McClennon observed, “I didn’t know you had one. I’ve known you a year and a half and never saw you wear it.”
“That’s where we went wrong, Moyshe. We spent all that time hiding.”
He expected a difficult, delicate afternoon. He did not argue. “You may be right.” He scanned a list on a clipboard. “How many of these people do you know?”
She scanned it too. “Only a few, by reputation. Gruber. Payne. They’re all Fleet and Ship’s Commanders.”
Over a hundred names were on the list. “Mouse, we can’t give them all honors.” He glanced at the sideboys waiting to pipe the visitors aboard.
“No shit. It’d be tomorrow before we finished.”
Amy had seen enough of the back and forth of senior Navy officers to know what they were talking about. “Don’t bother,” she suggested. “We don’t do that kind of thing. They wouldn’t know what it was. Just be polite.”
Mouse went to talk it over with the chief petty officer in charge of the sideboys. McClennon stood with Amy, studying his list in order to avoid eye contact.
“You look good in that uniform,” she said softly. “All those medals...”
“Beckhart likes to hand them out.”
“You’ll get another for this business?”
“Probably.”
“Moyshe... Something I should tell you. When I said we were hiding from each other... I was hiding from you. And fooling myself. The reason I was so eager to throw a net on you...”
He glanced at her. She was showing a lot of color. “Yes?”
“It’s embarrassing. I don’t like myself very much when I think about it.”
“Well? I don’t like the things I’ve done, either.”
“I was the Ship’s Commander’s special agent. I was supposed to keep an eye on you and report to him. Because he wanted to make you into the head of a Starfisher secret service. That meant you were going to be important. I wasn’t important. I wasn’t ever going to be. The only way I could have gone any higher was if Jarl died or left Danion.”
McClennon saw what she was trying to say. “It’s all right. I understand. And now I know why you did so many things I thought were strange.”
“Moyshe...”
“Forget it. We’ve got pain enough. Don’t drag up any old stuff.”
A red light came on over the lock housing. The ship-wide address system announced the arrival of the visitors’ shuttle. It admonished all hands to remain courteous and helpful in every circumstance. The lock cycled. A great burly bear of a man stepped inside. He looked around as if expecting to be assaulted by the legions of the damned.
“Gruber,” Amy whispered.
“Get him, Mouse,” Thomas said.
“Me?”
“You got more balls and more suave than me.” Mouse introduced himself as Captain Storm of Admiral Beckhart’s staff. He introduced Thomas and Amy, then asked the Fishers to follow them.
The sideboys stood at superb, perfectly matched attention while the Seiners disembarked.
The Marine sentries at the wardroom door were military perfectionists too. They snapped to present arms. Admiral Beckhart was waiting inside. He wasted little time introducing himself, or excusing himself for having assembled them virtually at gunpoint. He presented the Ulantonid tapes. While they ran, Mouse and McClennon passed out copies of the known data on the centerward threat. Amy distributed copies of the tapes. The lights came up. Beckhart said, “Gentlemen, you’ve just seen the reason for our unfriendly behavior. I’ll now answer any questions. Doctor Chancellor, Captain McClennon, Captain Storm, and your own Lieutenant Coleridge will also speak with anyone who likes.”
McClennon was amazed by the reserve of the Seiner leaders. Even the worst tape scenes cause no stir. They remained obstinately uncommunicative.
Danion’s Ship Commander isolated Amy. They fell into heated discussion. The others asked only a few questions while Amy’s interrogator worked, then conferred with Payne and Gruber.
The Fishers ignored Storm and McClennon completely.
Replying to a Gruber query, Beckhart said, “We’ll be completely open with the available data. In accordance with High Command directives, you’ve received copies of almost everything. The centerward race threatens all of us.”
McClennon told Mouse, “Ever notice the Old Man’s split personality? He’s three different people, depending on who he’s talking to.”
Mouse smiled. “We all are. More than three, usually. He’s just obvious.”
“Think they’re buying it?”
“Payne’s people are. Most of the others aren’t, Gruber looks like he’ll give us the benefit of the doubt.” He picked lint off his dress black tunic. “We’re victims of our reputation. They can’t believe we’re being straight.”
Gruber proved willing to listen. That willingness extended the session for hours. Stewards came in, set up tables, served a meal.
Gruber finally seemed satisfied. His sub-chieftains began filing out, following Mouse to the lock.
Amy walked with McClennon. Starting at the desk, she said, “I’m going back to Danion now.”
“Okay.”
“Moyshe... I’m sorry.”
“I am too, Amy. About everything. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Stay happy, Moyshe.”
“You too.”
She was the last Seiner into the lock. Mouse turned to McClennon. Thomas nodded.
Mouse ordered the lock cycled.
“Think it went over?” McClennon asked.
“I don’t know, Tommy. I don’t... Tommy? What’s the matter? Chief, help me here. Stretcher. Somebody get a stretcher.”
The episode was McClennon’s worst yet. It took the Psych team three days to bring him out.
It had surprised him completely.
The Main Sequence
“I don’t think you should go, Thomas,” the Admiral said. “Let Mouse handle it. Suppose you had one of your attacks?”
“I’ll be all right. Look. Ask Lieutenant Corley. She says it’ll take a week to reach another crisis point.”
“Mouse?”
“Somebody has to look over their shoulders, right? Otherwise we won’t know if they’re getting anywhere. That’s just the way those people are. They’re not going to say anything till they’re sure nobody can shoot them down. Scientists would rather be dragged through the streets naked than be wrong. If Tommy goes, we’ll have twice as many eyes.”
“All right. Thomas, you know the woman who heads the Seiner team. Talk to her. Take a recorder. I want to hear what she says.”
Twelve hours later McClennon and Storm, accompanied by a pair of Marine sergeants, entered the cold metal halls of Stars’ End. The dock ring of their landing bay was a good twenty kilometers below the featureless planetary surface. The plunge down the long, dark shaft had been harrowing. Mouse had lost his supper.
The Marines began horsing an electric truck off the shuttle.
Mouse walked along a steel passageway, away from the dock ring. He peered into what had to have been Ground Control in an age gone by. “Tommy, come take a look in here.”
McClennon had to stoop beneath the passageway ceiling. He joined Storm. “What?” He saw nothing but a Marine sentry.
“By that console thing.”
“Oh. A skeleton.”
The reports said bones could be found throughout the fortress. Thousands of skeletons had been encountered.
“We’re ready, sir,” one of the Marines said.
McClennon snapped a picture of the bones. “All right. Mouse, let’s hit Research Central first.”
“Right. We’ll probably get everything there anyway.”
“Be charming. Consuela el-Sanga looks vulnerable.”
“Am I ever anything else?”
The little truck streaked through the endless halls, down ramps, around perilous turns, ever deeper into the metal world. The Marine driver fled on as if being pursued by the shades of the builders. He shuddered visibly each time they encountered one of the skeletons. They passed through one chamber where a score of the builder folk had died.
“The bones that have touched and shaped our lives,” Thomas said. “From afar, like virgin princesses.”
“You getting poetic again?”
“I do when I’m depressed.” He glanced at the Marines. They stared forward impassively. “And this place is depressing.” The soldiers seemed to have come out of a robot factory. They had shown no reaction to the Admiral’s tapes.
The driver’s suicidal rush was the only evidence that either man was disturbed.
The truck swooped into a level with ceilings vaulting a hundred meters high. Brobdingnagian machines crowded it, rising like the buildings of an alien city. There was life here, and light, but it was all machine.
“I wonder what they are.”
“Accumulators for the energy weapons,” Mouse guessed.
“Some of them. Some of them must be doing something with the air.”
“Look!” Mouse squealed. “Sergeant, stop. Back up. Back up. A little more. Look up there, Tommy. On the fourth catwalk up.”
McClennon spotted the androgynous little machine. It was busy working on the flank of one of the towering structures. “A maintenance robot.”
“Yeah. All right, Sergeant. Go ahead.”
They descended more levels, some as high-ceilinged as that of the robot. They saw more of the mobile machines, built in a dozen different designs.
Obviously, only the builders had perished. Their fortress was very much alive and healthy. Storm and McClennon saw no evidence of breakdown.
“It’s like walking through a graveyard,” Mouse said, after their driver had had to wend his way across a vast, open floor where hundreds of skeletons lay in neat rows. “Chilling.”
“Know what, Mouse? I think this is really a pyramid. It’s not a fortress at all.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not? Think about it. Can you think of any strategic reason for putting a world fort out here?”
“Sure.”
“Such as?”
“Right over there are the Magellanic Clouds. Sic somebody on me willing to spend a few hundred millennia conquering the galaxy and chasing me, and I’d build me an all-time fort across my line of retreat before I jump off for a friendlier star-swarm.”
“Now who’s getting romantic?”
“Romantic, hell.”
“They could just go around it, Mouse.”
“That centerward mob don’t go around anything. They’d just stay here till they cracked it open.”
“Maybe you’re right, but I’m going to stick to my theory.”
They reached the research center a few minutes later. McClennon located Consuela el-Sanga almost immediately, and found her completely free of animosity. He was surprised.
“Why?” she asked. “I’m no Seiner. I’m just one of their captive scientists.”
“I didn’t know.” He introduced Mouse. He wondered if Consuela had heard from Amy.
“Moyshe... That wouldn’t be right, would it?”
“McClennon. Thomas. But call me whatever’s comfortable.”
“Thomas, this is the most exciting time of my life. We can finally compare notes with your people... It’s like opening up a whole new universe. Come on. Let me show you what we’re doing.” Her walk had a youthful bounce despite the higher than Seiner-normal gravity.
Mouse’s eyebrows rose questionably. McClennon shrugged. “Come on. Before she changes her mind.”
A horde of people were at work in a nearby chamber, where hundreds of folding tables had been arrayed in long rows. Most were burdened with artifacts, papers, or the tools of the scientists and their helpers. To one side technicians were busy with communicators and a vast, waist-level computer interface.
Consuela explained, “The people at the tables are examining and cataloging artifacts. We brought along several thousand laymen to help explore. Whenever they make a find, they notify comm center. We send an expert to examine the site. The confab over there is an ongoing exchange with your Lunar dig people. The people at the console are trying to reprogram Stars’ End’s master brain so it can deal directly with human input.”
“You found a key to the builder language?” Thomas asked.
“No. That will come after we can talk to the computer.”
“You just lost me. That sounds backwards.”
“It works like this: The starfish commune with the machine. They relay to our mindtechs. The mindtechs relay to our computer people. They build parallel test programs. Communications send them down. Our computer people here try to feed it back to the master brain. The starfish read the response and feed it to the mindtechs again. And round the circle. The idea is to help the computers develop a common language. So far we’ve only managed a pidgin level of communication. We think we’re on the brink of breakthrough, though.”
“Math ought to be a snap,” Mouse said. “It’s got to be the same all over the universe. But I can see how you’d have trouble working toward more abstract concepts.”
“Unfortunately, we’re using a non-mathematical interface,” Consuela replied. “The starfish aren’t mathematically minded. Their conscious concept of number is one-two-three-many.”
“Thought you said they were smart, Tommy.”
Consuela said, “They are. But theirs is an intuitive rather than empirical intelligence. But we’re making headway. When our computers can link...”
“Be careful,” McClennon admonished. “Be very, very careful.”
“Why?”
“This is the boss machine, right?”
“So the fish say.”
“Okay. That makes it big and powerful. It might be playing games with you. It’s insane.”
“Come on,” Mouse protested. “How can a machine go crazy?”
“I don’t know. I do know I was in Contact during the first battle. I got a little direct touch. It was plain out of its micro-electronic mind. I’d be afraid it could use its capacity to seize control of my own command computers.”
“He’s right, Captain. Thomas, we know. It’s a real problem. Most of the starfish are riding herd on its psyche. Only a few are helping communicate. It seems to have several psychological problems. Loneliness. A god complex. A deeply programed xenophobia and bellicosity... It is, after all, the directing intelligence of a weapons system.”
“A defensive weapon,” McClennon suggested. “Mouse laughed at this. But think about it. Is Stars’ End a pyramid?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to wander around,” Mouse said. “Don’t run off without me, Tommy,”
“I won’t. By pyramid I mean it serves the same function as Old Earth’s Egyptian pyramids.”
“A tomb? I don’t think so. The idea isn’t new, but it’s been mostly a metaphor.”
“Assume the builders knew... You don’t have all the data.” He explained about the centerward race and his suspicion that the builder race had been fleeing it. “Okay. They come to the end of the road. There’s nowhere to run, unless they jump off for the Magellanic Clouds. I think they gave up. I think they stopped, built themselves a pyramid, put their treasures inside, and died out.”
Miss el-Sangra smiled. “A romantic theory that fits the known facts. And a few you’ve conjured up, I think. Ingenious, Thomas. I suppose we’ll be able to answer you when we complete contact with the master control.”
A boyhood incident came to mind. He had discovered — independently, so far as he could discern later — that A squared plus B squared equaled C squared. He had been excited till he had explained it to a friend. The friend had laughed and told him that Pythagoras had crossed the finish line thirty-five hundred years ahead of him.
He felt the same deflation now.
“I hear you and Amy broke up.”
“Yes. I didn’t realize you knew.”
“She called yesterday. She was very depressed about it.”
“She took something personal that wasn’t.”
“That was the feeling I got. Her story was one-sided, but I got the impression you were trying to do what was right for everybody.”
“I tried. I don’t know how successful I was.”
“You two shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place. Landsmen and Seiners don’t speak the same language. I’ve been with them thirty-six years and I still have problems.”
“We were both looking for something. We were too eager to grab it.”
“I’ve been through that, too.”
“Help her, will you? I never meant to hurt her.”
“I will. And don’t feel so guilty. She’s more resilient than she pretends. She likes the attention.”
“I thought you were friends.”
“She was a lot more than a friend for a while, Captain. Till she met Heinrich Cortez.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, Tommy!” Mouse bore down on them like a mini-juggernaut. “Come here.” He about-turned and steamed a reverse course.
“Excuse me, Consuela.” He chased Mouse down. “What?”
Mouse stopped. “I just talked to a gal who’s doing the same thing for the Fishers that we’re doing for Beckhart. She was pissed. These clowns, some of them, have been here for ten days. The Fishers have eight thousand people down already. And they haven’t even started looking at weapons systems. They don’t even care. All they want to do is collect broken toothbrushes and sort old bones.”
“They’ll get to it, Mouse. You’ve got to give them a chance to let the new wear off. And they’ve got to get a dialogue going with the master control. If they manage that, it’ll save time. In the long run. The machine can redesign the weapons for us. That would save ripping the old ones out of here, orbiting them, then building ships around them.”
Mouse calmed himself. “Okay. Maybe you’re right. But I still don’t like to see everybody doing something else when weapons are the reason we’re all here.”
“What if the weapons technology requires other preexisting technologies?”
“What do you mean?”
“Go back a hundred years. Build me a pulse-graser with the technology available then. You couldn’t do it. You’d have to create the technology to create the technology to construct the pulse accumulators. Right?”
“Sometimes I don’t like you a whole lot, Tommy.” Mouse grinned. “I’ll tell the Seiner lady to be patient.”
“If the Captains will excuse me?” The senior of their Marine custodians approached them.
“Yes, Sergeant?” Thomas asked.
“The Admiral’s compliments, sirs, and he needs you back aboard ship immediately.”
“What is it?”
“He didn’t say, sir. He said to tell you it’s critical.”
Mouse looked puzzled. McClennon was very much so.
The news hit the busy chamber before they departed.
The starfish had had a brief skirmish with sharks. Hordes of the predators had appeared. A continuous stream were still arriving.
“Holy shit!” Thomas said. “I’d forgotten about them.”
“They didn’t forget us,” Mouse grumbled. “Damnation!”
People swirled this way and that. The mood approached panic. Doctor Chancellor rushed over. “I heard you’re going up. Take this to the Admiral, just in case.” He shoved a folder into McClennon’s hands. “Thank you.” He dashed toward the team working at the computer. They were trying to prepare an instantaneous shutdown of the round-robin should the sharks attack.
“They should tell the idiot box to scrub the problem for them,” Mouse said as they pulled away. “What did he give you?”
“His notes. They look like a cross between a journal and regular scientific notation.”
“Give me some of those.”
Their driver flew around worse than he had coming the other direction.
“Here’s an interesting one,” Mouse said. “No furniture.”
“What?”
“The exploration teams haven’t found any furniture. There goes your pyramid theory.”
“He’s right. I didn’t see anything but machinery. The bodies are all laid out on the floor.”
“Maybe they’re invaders too?”
McClennon shrugged. “Here’s one that will grab you. How big do you think Stars’ End is?”
“Uhm... Venus size?”
“Close. Earth minus two percent. But the planetary part is smaller than Mars. The rest is edifice.”
“What?”
“His word. I’ll give you the question. Since most of the structural volume would be hollow, how come the place has so much gravity? It’s a couple points over Earth normal.”
Mouse sneered. “Come on, Tommy. Maybe it’s the machines.”
“Nope. You’re going to love it. According to this, the builders, before they started building, took a little planet and polished it smooth. Then they plated it with a layer of neutronium. The fortress structure floats around on the neutronium, which may be a cushion against tectonic activity.”
“Whoa!” Mouse clung to the truck as its driver made a violent turn. “How did they stabilize the neutronium?”
“Figure that out, and how they mined it in the first place, and you and me will get rich.”
“What’s the kicker?”
“He doesn’t have one here. I think it’s implied. I didn’t see anything at the Lunar digs or Three Sky that would suggest that level of technology.”
“So the little people are interlopers. Just like us.”
“Maybe.” McClennon had an image of Bronze Age barbarians camped in the street of a space age city.
“Keep talking. I don’t want to think about the fly up.”
A Navy Lieutenant awaited them at Marathon’s ingress lock. “If you’ll follow me, sirs?”
The Admiral awaited them on the bridge. “Ah. Thomas. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Is it critical, sir? We haven’t slept for ages.”
“It’s critical. But the Seiners say it doesn’t look like it’ll break right away. Rest up good before you go over.”
“Over?”
“I’m sending you to Danion. I want you to go into link and give Assyrian and Prussian a fire control realtime.”
“You have got to be kidding.”
“Why? My calculations show them capable of cleaning up that little mess out there. It’s a chance to show Gruber what can happen if he gets tricky.”
“Point. Sir, you’re over-optimistic. Sharks are super deadly. They throw anti-hydrogen when they get mad. Second point. Why me? A Seiner mindtech could do the job, and probably better. They’re better trained.”
“I want you. I don’t want some Seiner who’ll adjust the data to make us look bad.”
“I have to go?”
“It’s an order.”
“Then make it another ship. I’m liable to get lynched aboard Danion.”
“Danion is Gruber’s choice. That’s the ship we know. He has secrets too.”
“Thanks a lot. Sir.”
Mouse stage-whispered, “The ship’s Legal Officer would back you if you want to refuse. You don’t have to work when you’re under arrest.”
“I got troubles enough without getting the Old Man mad at me. Madder at me.”
Beckhart glared at Mouse. “You’re going with him, son. Head bodyguard. Take your two Marines. Tommy, if it will make you more comfortable, stay with the Psych people till time to go.”
“I will.”
Danion had not changed — except there were no friendly faces aboard now. Amy met them at the ingress lock. A squad of grim-faced Security people accompanied her. She installed the party aboard a convoy of small vehicles.
People spat and cursed as they passed.
“Tell me something,” Mouse said. “How come everybody knows we’re here?”
“This isn’t Navy,” Amy replied curtly.
“You keep on and I won’t make love to you anymore.” Mouse laughed when she turned to glare at him.
“Easy, boy,” McClennon said. “We’ve got to get out of here alive.”
Something thrown whipped over their heads.
“Did you see that?” Mouse croaked. “That was Candy... She wanted to marry me.”
“Amy, have you shown people those tapes?”
“What tapes?”
“The centerward...”
Mouse nudged him. “I smell a little political skulduggery, old friend. A little crafty censorship. Old Gruber is afraid he can’t keep people cranked up if they find out what’s really going on.”
“You’re not to discuss that,” Amy said.
Mouse grinned. “Oh! The Saints forfend! Never, my dear. What are you going to do about it if I do?”
“I saw Consuela yesterday,” McClennon said, heading them off.
Amy softened. “How was she?”
“Twenty years younger. Happy as a kid loose in a candy store. She’s hoping you’ll come down.”
“You went?”
“Yesterday. It’s interesting. But I don’t think we’ll get as many answers as questions.”
The convoy entered Operations Sector. A huge door closed behind them, isolating them from the rest of the ship. Mouse wondered aloud why. No one answered him. McClennon’s former tech team, Hans and Clara, awaited him. Their faces were not friendly, but were less inimical than any he had seen outside Operations. Clara even managed a smile.
“Welcome back, Moyshe. You even get your old couch.”
“Clara, I want you to meet somebody before we start. You never got the chance. This is Amy.”
Clara extended a hand. “Amy. I heard so much about you when Moyshe was with us.”
McClennon removed his tunic, handed it to Mouse. The Marine sergeants considered the couch and its technical stations, posted themselves to either side, out of the way.
The Contact room had fallen silent. People stared. Obviously, no one had been warned that Contact expected visitors.
Thomas settled onto the couch. “Clara, I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”
“You don’t forget. Hans.”
Hans said, “You let your hair grow, Moyshe. I’ll have to gum it up good.”
“Haven’t had time for a haircut since we hit The Broken Wings.” He shuddered as Hans began rubbing greasy matter into his scalp, and again when the youth slipped the hairnet device into place. A moment later the helmet devoured his head.
“There’s a fish waiting, Moyshe,” Clara said. “Just go on out. And good luck.”
TSD took him. Then he was in the starfish universe.
Stars’ End was a vast, milky globe surrounded by countless golden footballs and needles. The three Empire Class warships became creeping vortices of color. They were at full battle stations already, with their heaviest screens up. Golden dragons slid across the distance, orbiting well beyond the ships.
And beyond the dragons, against the galaxy... “My God!” he thought.
He saw great shoals and thunderheads of red obscuring the jeweled kirtle of the galaxy. The sharks were so numerous and excited that he could not discern individuals.
“Yes, Moyshe man-friend. Will attack soon,” a voice said inside his mind.
“Chub!”
“Hello. Welcome home. I see by your mind many more adventures lived, Moyshe man-friend. I see doors opened where once shadows lay.”
“What in heaven... You’ve changed, Chub. You’ve become poetic.”
Windchime laughter tinkled through his mind. “Have been so lucky, Moyshe man-friend. First a spy linker who taught jokes, then a she linker filled with poetry.”
McClennon felt the starfish reaching deep within him, ferreting through the hidden places, examining all the secrets and fears it had not been able to reach before. “You remember fast, Moyshe man-friend.”
On cue, an outside voice said, “Linker, Communications. We have an open channel to Assyrian and Prussian Fire Control. Please inform us when you’re ready to begin.”
Fear stalked through McClennon. The starfish reached in and calmed him. “I’m ready now,” he replied.
He listened in as Danion’s communications people closed their nets and linked with the dreadnoughts. He heard the chatter as the Navy and Seiner fleets went on battle alert. From his outside viewpoint he watched screens develop around the Navy ships. The two giant warships began creeping toward the shark storm.
The sharks sensed the attack before it arrived. Suddenly, they were flashing everywhere, trying to reach their attackers and the ships behind them.
McClennon felt the flow from Chub go through his mind into Danion. He saw the response of Assyrian and Prussian. Their weapons ripped the very fabric of space. Sharks by the hundred died.
And by dozens and scores they slipped past and hurled themselves at the massed ships around Stars’ End.
In ten minutes space was aglow from the energies being expended. And ten minutes later still McClennon began to feel bleak, to despair. When he recognized the mood’s source, he asked, “Chub, what’s the matter?”
“Too many sharks, Moyshe man-friend. Attacking was mistake. Even the great ships-that-kill of your people will not be able to endure.”
McClennon studied the situation. Space was scarlet, yes, but he saw no sure indicators of defeat.
Still, starfish could intuit developments before even the swiftest human-created computer.
He began to see it fifteen minutes later. Whole packs of sharks were suiciding in the warships’ screens, gradually overloading them. They were doing it to every ship. Near Stars’ End at least a dozen vessels were aflame with the fire that could burn anywhere, as anti-matter gasses slowly annihilated the metal of their hulls.
It got worse.
“Moyshe?” Clara’s voice seemed to come from half a galaxy away. “You’ve been in a long time. Want to come out?”
“No. I’m doing fine.”
“You’re thrashing around a lot.”
“It’s all right. It’s grim out here.”
A driblet of fear was getting past Chub’s sentinel effort. The starfish himself was in a state of agitation. His kind were being slaughtered.
It got worse.
Prussian was compelled to withdraw. The sharks redoubled their assault upon Assyrian. Hapsburg picked up the realtime link and replaced Prussian.
The Navy squadrons fared better than did the Starfisher harvestfleets. Their fire patterns were virtually impenetrable.
From somewhere, a voice screamed, “Breakthrough! Breakthrough!”
McClennon did not understand till much later. At the moment he thought it meant the sharks had managed their victory. It was not till Chub began exulting that he realized the tide had turned.
The sharks were turning on themselves, pairing off and fighting to the death in ponderous, savage duels. Winners searched for new victims. Here and there, a few began to flee.
Within half an hour the only red to be seen was that fading from fragments of dead shark. Space was aboil with the activity of the scavenger things that followed the sharks. Chub kept giggling like a teenager at a dirty joke. “We do it one more time, Moyshe man-friend. This time when impossible. And in grand style. Grandest style possible. Will make bet. Herd and harvestfleet will have no trouble from sharks again for age of man. So many died here...”
“Moyshe?” Clara said. “Still okay? I think we should bring you out. You’ve been under a long time.”
A sadness came over McClennon. For an instant he could not identify its cause. Then he knew. Chub was sorry to see him go. The starfish knew that this time it would be forever.
“I don’t know what to say, Chub. I already said goodbye once.”
Chub tried a feeble joke. McClennon forced a charity laugh.
“Not so good?”
“Not so good. Remember me, Chub.”
“Always. The spy man from the hard matter worlds will remain immortal in the memory of the herd. Stay happy, Moyshe man-friend. Remember, there is hope gainst the world-slayers too. The Old Ones tell me to tell you so. They are remembered from other galaxies. They have been stopped before.”
“Other galaxies?”
“They come to all galaxies eventually, Moyshe man-friend. They are the tools of the First Race, the hard matter folk of the beginning. They do not grow old and die. They are not born as you, but in machine wombs from pieces of adults. They are created things. They do not reason as you. They know only their task.”
McClennon felt the starfish struggling with concepts alien to the starfish mind. There was an aura of the extremely ancient in what the creature was trying to tell him. Chub seemed to be translating very old mood lore into the relative precision of modern human thought.
“They scourge the worlds that they might be prepared for the First Race, Moyshe man-friend. But the First Race is gone, and not there to take the worlds, nor to end the work of their tools. They were gone before the birth of your home star.”
“Who built Stars’ End? Do you know?”
“The little hard matter people, as you thought. Those whose bones you found. They were enemies of the First Race. They won that struggle, but still run from the tools of their foes.”
“But...”
Chub knew his questions before he thought them. “They are old, too, Moyshe man-friend. They flee, and the killers-of-worlds pursue. This is not the first time they have passed through our galaxy. You do not know Stars’ End. It is old, Moyshe man-friend. Older than the stones of Earth. The enemies of the world-slayers are but a ghost of what once was. They perish in flight, and decline, and always they leave their trail of traps for their foes. The herd knew them of old, Moyshe man-friend, in other ages, when the galaxies were young and closer together and our fathers swam the streams arching between them.”
“You’re getting poetic.”
“The moods mesh, Moyshe man-friend. The moods mesh.”
“Moyshe? You’d better not stay much longer.” Clara’s voice was more remote than ever. He began to feel her urgency.
“Linker? Communications. We’re breaking lock.”
“Linker, aye. Chub, I...”
“Coming to you, Moyshe man-friend. You will remember.”
The starfish’s message puzzled McClennon. He would remember what?
Something hit his mind. It was an overpowering wave. Panicking, he yanked upward on his escape switch. “Chub... My friend...” were his last screaming thoughts before the darkness took him.
Pain!
Overwhelming pain, worse than any migraine. His head was pulling itself apart.
He screamed.
“Hold him!” someone yelled.
He writhed against restraining arms. Something pierced his flesh. Warm relaxation radiated from that point: The pain began to lessen. Soon he could open his eyes and endure the light.
“Get back!” Clara snapped at someone. “Moyshe, how do you feel?”
“Like death warmed over. Over.”
Though she looked relieved, she growled, “I told you to come out. Why didn’t you?”
“Chub was telling me about Stars’ End, End. About who built it, and about the centerward race. Race. It was important. Important.”
“You pushed it too far.”
“Give me another shot. Shot. I’ll be all right. Right. How’s the battle coming? Coming? What happened, anyway? Anyway?”
Hans held his arm while Clara gave him the second injection. The pain receded. It became a slight irritation over his eyes, like a sinus infection.
“They made the breakthrough with the Stars’ End master control, Moyshe,” Hans said. There wasn’t the slightest animosity in the youth now. “You held them long enough. Once it found the key, it broke our language in seconds. It saw our problem. It did whatever it did about the sharks.”
“What did it do? Do?”
Mouse stepped around where he could look into McClennon’s eyes. “We were hoping you could tell us. You were out there.”
“I didn’t know what was happening. Happening. One minute we had no hope. Hope. The next minute the sharks sharks had been hit by a hurricane or something. Or something.”
“The Empires didn’t do so hot, eh?”
“They did magnificently. Better than all of Payne’s Fleet Payne’s Fleet did during the first battle. Battle. I think Gruber Gruber will be properly impressed. Impressed. There was just more there there than anybody expected. Expected.”
Mouse frowned at him. He asked Clara, “Why is he doing that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”
“Why am I doing what? What?”
“Echoing yourself.”
“What do you mean? Mean?”
“How soon can we move him?” Mouse asked.
“Any time,” Clara told him. “But he should stay here. Our medical people know how to handle mindtech problems.”
“No. The Admiral wants him right back. Come on, Thomas. Feet on the floor. Let’s see if you can stand.”
“No problem. Problem.” He was weak, but he could get around. Why were they all looking at him that way?
He began to remember.
“He told me I would remember. Remember.”
“Who told you?” Mouse asked as he guided McClennon toward the door and conveyances waiting outside.
“Chub. The starfish. Fish. I’m beginning to. To. Mouse, I’ve got to see the Admiral. Admiral. I’m remembering everything the fish know about the centerward race and their enemies. Enemies.” He turned. “Clara. It was good to see you again. Again. Hans. Be a good fellow. Mind your grandmother. Mother.” He reached with his right hand. Surprised, Hans shook it.
“Of course, Moyshe. Good luck.” He glanced at Clara.
The woman said, “Good luck, Moyshe. Maybe you’ll surprise us again.”
McClennon smiled weakly. “I hope not. Not. No more battles, anyway. Way. Mouse. Let’s go. Go.”
He was driven by anxiety. He wanted to report what he had learned before the memories slipped away.
Mouse stopped to talk to Amy before he boarded the shuttle. “Take care of yourself,” he told her. “And be happy. What’s happened wasn’t your fault. You could say it was fate.”
“I know, Mouse. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.” She smiled wanly. “Greater destinies? It’s probably for the best. Sorry I was such a bitch.”
Mouse shrugged. “No problem. Take care.”
“Take care of Moyshe.” Mouse looked at her strangely.
“He’s your friend, but he’s the husband I’m going to remember.” She leaned close, whispered, “Promise not to tell him till he’s past the worst part. We’ve got a baby on the way.”
“It’s a promise. He doesn’t need that on his mind too.” Storm backed through the hatchway, waved, turned, found a seat. For a time he was too amazed to be disturbed by the fly.
McClennon sat opposite him, beside one of the Marines, writing furiously.
The Contemporary Scene
The Defender Prime of Ulant gave the order. The Climbers left their mother ships. Pursuit destroyers moved to positions in reserve-and-chase, ready to pounce on any courier or fugitive fleeing the battle. The Empires and Conquerors and their Ulantonid, Toke, Khar’mehl, and aChyfNth equivalents began to move. The cruisers, frigates, and bombards formed their holding screen. A gnatlike swarm of singleships put on inherent velocity preparatory to a lightning pass through the enemy, spewing energy and torpedoes and collecting to-the-minute intelligence for the Defender’s master battle computers.
The centerward people were unsuspecting. Even the folk they were attacking had no idea that help had come.
Years of Ulantonid staff planning had gone into this action. It was their game. For the first time ever Confederation personnel were accepting orders from outside commanders. Even the Warriors of Toke set aside their pride and accepted direction from leaders more knowledgeable than they.
Twelve sovereign governments of five races were represented in the Allied fleet.
The Climbers materialized amid the enemy force. They expended their munitions stocks before their foes could react. They returned to their mothers to rearm.
Seconds later the singleships dropped hyper.
It took a special breed to fight the one-man scout ships. Egoists, solipsists, men convinced of their own invulnerability. Men who could not be intimidated by the knowledge that they had virtually no defense but speed and violent maneuverability.
The singleships streaked through the centerward war-fleet, spewing their hunter missiles and flailing with their lone nose-mounted energy beams. For some speed proved a liability. There were so many enemy vessels, shifting in confusion, that there were collisions.
Data flowed to the computers of the Allied fleet. The size, disposition, orientation, vectors, and velocities of enemy units began to appear in the huge displays of the Defender’s command and back-up command vessels. Ships and installations belonging to the race under attack were identified and tagged friendly. Enemy command ships were identified and targeted for special attention by the next Climber sortie.
The General Staff of Ulant had planned thoroughly and well. There were no unpleasant surprises.
The heavies closed and began pounding a technologically inferior enemy.
The advantages were all to the Allies. All but one.
They were outnumbered a hundred to one.
They were a single-minded folk, those centerward creatures. When unable to fight a ship any longer, they took to their shuttlecraft and tried to land on the planet. The handful who reached the surface looked for something to kill, and kept at it till something killed them. Aboard ship and on the ground they had only a limited concept of tactics.
Tactics were unnecessary when the only strategy needed was the application of overwhelming numbers.
They seemed unacquainted with fear, and constitutionally unable to retreat. They simply fought and died and let someone else take their place.
The only ships to leave the battle were couriers departing at ten-hour intervals.
The pursuit destroyers handled them, as well as couriers coming in.
One by one, Allied warships were destroyed or injured beyond any capacity to continue fighting.
At hour forty of an action originally projected to endure about one hundred hours the Defender Prime instelled Ulant. She expressed her fear that her command was insufficient to fulfill its mission. Effective losses: twenty-four percent of commitment. Current estimated active ratios: 70-1 in the enemy’s favor.
Her figures did not take into account displacements. Her ships were concentrating on the more important and dangerous enemy vessels. A significant percentage of the remaining ships were lightly armed troop transports.
The centerward people stubbornly insisted on devoting strength to their assault on the planet.
The Defender’s pessimism was not unwarranted. Her one-hundred-hour report showed the Allied fleet over fifty percent neutralized. All missile stores had been expended. Breakdowns were claiming the energy weapons. She had lost the use of the last of her Climbers. Her crews were drained by exhaustion.
She disengaged.
The enemy ignored her departure. They closed ranks and continued their disrupted planetary assault.
The Defender received instructions to stand off and observe. Confederation was sending reinforcements. Convoys bearing munitions and repair spares were in space.
In the end, after a month of brutal fighting, the last centerward warship was annihilated. The Allied fleet returned home, to lick its wounds and reflect on the savagery of the encounter. The Defender departed without contacting the planets she had saved. She wanted no replacement enemy fleet finding any information on the mysterious rescuers.
A great victory, by numbers. A huge slaughter. But a Pyrrhic affair. The carefully husbanded and prepared strength of the Allies had been decimated.
At least four more warfleets were moving out The Arm. Nothing, really, had been won, except the knowledge that such a monster force could be overcome. The victory did not fill the several high commands with joy.
It simply unleashed an even more grim foreboding of things to come.
The Main Sequence
McClennon had been relating his memories for months. “Christ, Mouse. I’m sick of it. Why can’t people be satisfied with the deposition tapes?”
Mouse moved a pawn, trying to initiate a trade. “Because it’s so damned fascinating. It’s like meeting somebody who can wiggle his ears. You want to see him do his trick. I can’t help it either. I wish I could get inside your head. Man, remembering what the galaxy looked like before Old Sol was formed...”
McClennon refused the trade. He moved a knight to support his own pawn, glanced at the time. “Four hours. I’m beginning to dread it. They’ll do the whole debriefing routine. For two years of mission. And they’ll stay on me about my starfish memories till they know the whole physical history of the universe.”
Mouse glanced at the clock too. Marathon would be dropping hyper soon, preparatory to decelerating in to Luna Command. “Debriefing doesn’t excite me either. On the other hand, we’ll get to see a lot of people we haven’t seen for a long time. They’ll all be changed.”
“Maybe too much. Maybe we won’t know them anymore.” McClennon tried to focus on his friends in Luna Command. Max would be older. Greta would be a different animal. He might not recognize her now.
His thoughts kept fleeing to the memories. He found something new each time he checked them. They were intriguing, but he could not shed the disheartening parts.
There were not just five warfleets coming out The Arm. There were eighteen. And the galaxy was infested by not one, but four Globulars. He could not console himself with the starfish view that, in the long run, the enemy was never entirely successful. He did not care that this was their third scourging of the Milky Way, that life always survived, and that sometime between the grim passages, over the eons, new intelligence arose to contest the world-slayers’ efforts. He could not be consoled by the knowledge that the enemy would not reach Confederation in his lifetime.
If there was a God, He was cruel. To have allowed the creation of such all-powerful, enduring monstrousness...
“Chub thought he was giving me a gift,” McClennon said. “He knew I was curious about the past. And he knew his species had information we wanted. It was a gift of despair. It just showed us how hopeless the whole thing really is.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You’re down too far.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You told me the fish said they can be stopped. That it had been done before. The Stars’ End people were working on it when the plague got them.”
“They were working on us, Mouse. Trying to breed some kind of killer race of their own.”
Mouse shrugged. “In, Tanni.”
McClennon glanced up into laughing green eyes.
Mouse suggested, “Why don’t you take my friend for a walk? He’s down again.”
The woman laughed. “That’s what I had in mind. Or would you rather play chess, Tom?”
McClennon grinned. “Let’s flip a coin... Ouch! No fair pinching.”
“Come on, you. I’ve got to go on station in an hour.” She undulated out of the wardroom.
“Wait till Max gets a look at that,” Mouse said.
“Hey. She better not. Not ever. Hear? The fireworks would make the nova bomb look pitiful.”
Mouse laughed. “I’m looking forward to it, old buddy. I can’t forgive you for snagging that before I did.”
“You can’t win them all, Mouse.” He hurried after Tanni Lowenthal, Stars’ End, the mission, starfish, and centerward enemies forgotten.
He spent a month in the bowels of Old Earth’s moon. The mind-butchers demolished his soul and on its foundations rebuilt to saner specifications. The first three weeks were horror incarnate. He was forced to face himself by mind mechanics who showed no more compassion than a Marine motor pool man for a recalcitrant personnel carrier.
They did not accept excuses. They did not permit stalling. And even while he slept they continued debriefing him, tapping the incredible store of memories given him by Chub. They were merciless.
And they were effectve.
His sojourn among the Seiners had mellowed his memories of the cold determination of his Navy compatriots. He had come in unprepared. He was less ready to fight the reconstruction.
It went more quickly than his doctors anticipated.
When he was past crisis they opened him up and repaired his ulcerated plumbing.
He was permitted visitors on day twenty-nine.
“Two at a time,” his nurse protested. “Just two of you can go in.”
“Disappear,” Mouse told her.
“Yes sir. Captain. Sir.”
Mouse was nearly trampled by two women. He dropped his portable chess set. Chessmen scattered across the floor. “Oh, damn!”
Greta plopped her behind on the edge of the bed, flung herself forward, hugged McClennon. “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been calling every day since I heard. They wouldn’t let me come before.”
And Max, the old girlfriend, “Christ, Walter. What the hell did they do to you? You look like death on a stick.”
“That’s why I love you, Max. You’ve always got a pleasant word.” He squeezed Greta’s hand. “How are you, honey? How’s Academy?”
She started babbling. Max got on about some new stamps she had at her hobby shop. She had been saving them for him.
Mouse recovered his chessmen, deposited the set on the nightstand, took a chair. He crossed right leg over left, steepled his fingers before his mouth, and watched with a small smile.
McClennon turned his head, trying to hide his eyes.
Softly, Max said, “Walter. You’re crying.”
McClennon hid behind his hand. “Max... It was a rough one. A long one and a rough one. I was lost for a long time. I forgot... I forgot I had friends. I was alone out there.”
“Mouse was there, wasn’t he?”
“Mouse was there. Without him... He brought me through. Mouse. Come here.” He took Storm’s hand. “Thanks, Mouse. I mean it. Let’s don’t let it get away again.”
For a moment Storm stopped hiding behind the masks and poses. He nodded.
Greta resumed babbling. McClennon hugged her again. “I’m having trouble believing it. I thought you’d have forgotten me by now.”
“How could I?”
“What am I? A sentimental fool who helped a pretty girl in trouble. We never knew each other.”
She hugged him a third time. She whispered, “I knew you. You cared. That’s what matters. When you were gone, your friends were always there to help.” She buried her head in his shoulder and blubbered.
McClennon frowned a question at Max, who said, “Your Bureau took care of her like family. She’s got to be the most pampered Midshipman in Academy.”
“And you?”
Max shrugged. “I did what I could.” She seemed embarrassed. “Well, how else was I going to keep track of you? I don’t have connections.”
“I’m glad you’re going to be all right,” Greta murmured. “Dad?”
More tears escaped McClennon’s eyes.
“Did I do wrong? I didn’t mean...”
“It’s all right, honey. It’s all right. I wasn’t ready for that.” He squeezed the wind out of her.
“Just get the hell out of my way, woman!” someone thundered in the passageway outside. Beckhart kicked the door open. “See if you can’t find a bedpan over around Tycho Crater, eh? Go on. Get scarce.”
The nurse beat her second retreat.
The Admiral surveyed the room.
McClennon stared at his professional paterfamilias.
“Looks like everything’s under control,” Beckhart observed.
“Place is drawing a crowd,” McClennon said. “Must be my animal magnetism.”
Beckhart smiled with one side of his mouth. “That’s one crime they won’t convict you of, son. Lay out that board, Mouse. I’ll beat you a game while we wait for the females.”
The game had hardly started, and McClennon had hardly gotten Greta’s eyes dried. The door swung inward again. The nurse watched with a look of despair.
Tanni Lowenthal’s face rippled with emotions. It selected an amused smile. “Tom. I thought I’d get here first. I guess you don’t run as fast when you’ve got short legs.” She crossed gazes with Max. The metallic scrang of ladies’ rapiers meeting momentarily tortured the air. Then Max smiled and introduced herself. She and Tanni got past the rocky part in minutes.
Beckhart checked his watch. “Damn it, they’re late. I’m going to have somebody’s...”
The harried nurse stepped in. She carried a portable remote comm. “Call for you, Captain McClennon.”
“Let me have that,” the Admiral said. He seized the comm. “Jones? You find her? Got her on the line? All right. Thomas, your mother.” He handed the comm to McClennon and returned to his game.
McClennon did not know what to do or say. He and his mother were estranged. She was Old Earther born and bred, and they had battled fiercely ever since his enlistment. Their last meeting, just before the Seiner mission, had ended bitterly.
“Mother?”
“Tommy? Is it really you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d been killed. When they came to the apartment... God. They say you were mixed up in this war business that’s got the whole world turned upside down. The spikes are everywhere. They’re grabbing people off the streets.”
“I was in it a little.” She had not changed. He hardly had a chance to get in a word of his own.
“They said you got married. Is she a nice girl?”
“It didn’t work out. But yes, she was. You would have liked her.” He checked his audience. Only the Admiral seemed to know his mother’s half of the conversation.
They did not talk long. There had been little to say since he had gone his separate way. It was enough that, for all their differences, they could show one another they still cared.
McClennon handed the comm to the Admiral when he finished. “Thank you, sir.”
“I owe you, Thomas. One mission and another, I put you through hell for four years. I won’t apologize. You’re the best. They demanded the best. But I can try to make it up a little now. I can try to show you that I didn’t take it all away...” Beckhart seemed unable to say what he meant.
“Thank you, sir.”
A baffled, resigned nurse opened the door. A youth in Midshipman blacks stepped in. “Uncle Tom?”
“Horst-Johann! Jesus, boy. I hardly recognize you. You’re half a meter taller.”
Jupp von Drachau’s son joined the crowd. The boy had been closer to McClennon than his father since his parents had split. The boy was in his father’s custody, and resented him for being absent so much. Thomas did not understand the reasoning behind the feeling. The boy saw Jupp more often than him... He thought of his mother and reflected that children applied a special logic to that species of adult called a parent.
He lay back on the bed and surveyed the gathering. Not a big circle, he thought, but all good friends. Surprisingly good friends, considering what he had been through the past few years... Friends whom, most of the time, he had not known he had.
He really had been way out there, lost in the wildernesses of his mind, hadn’t he?
The universe now seemed bright and new, specially made for him. Even his starfish memories and his knowledge of the doom approaching from centerward could not take the gleam off.
Horst-Johann was first to leave, after a promise to visit again come the weekend. Then Mouse, who had to return to his own extended debriefing. Then Tanni, who had to get back for her watch aboard Marathon. She departed after a whispered promise that left him in no doubt that his masculinity had survived the hospital weeks.
Beckhart sat his chair silently and waited with the patience of a statue of Ramses.
A half hour after Tanni’s departure, Max announced, “We have to leave, Walter. Greta has to get back for morning muster. You be good. And try not to collect any more little blondes.”
McClennon grinned self-consciously. “You coming back?”
“For sure. I’m keeping an eye on you. You’re not sneaking off on me again... It’s been a long time, Walter.”
Greta blushed.
“Thanks for coming. And Greta. Thank you. Come here.” He hugged her, whispered, “I’m there when you need me.”
“I know.”
“It’s important to have somebody who needs you.”
“I know. I’ll be back Saturday.”
After the women left, Beckhart sat in silence for several minutes. McClennon finally asked, “Aren’t they going to miss you at the office?”
“I’m not as indispensable as I thought, Thomas. I come back after six months in the field and find them caught up and not a problem in sight.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I really said it before, about as well as I can. That I’m sorry I had to do what I did.”
“Sorry, but you’d do it again.”
“If something comes up. I don’t think it will. Things are damned quiet now. The war has everybody’s attention.”
“Will we be able to do anything with Stars’ End? Or what I learned from the starfish?”
“About the fish info I don’t know. It does prove there’s a hope. Stars’ End... Our Seiner friends have gotten it straightened out. The place is almost a high-technology weapons museum. Some of the simpler systems will be available when next we engage.”
“The gods are dead. Long live the gods,” McClennon murmured.
“What?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“A long time ago, in another life, I promised you a vacation. I sent you to Payne’s Fleet instead. This time I’m sending you home. I’ve already sent word to Refuge to get your house ready. Take Mouse along.”
“Mouse?”
“Mouse took care of you when it got tough. It’s your turn. He’s slipping. The Sangaree are gone. That hate kept him glued together since he was a kid.”
“All right. I understand.”
A mountain of paperwork was needed to close out the mission and put the Board of Inquiry into motion. The latter would be handled entirely by deposition. Thomas rolled through it. Nothing daunted him. The Psychs seemed to have rebuilt him better than original issue. He worked like a slave, and had energy left to flit from friend to friend evenings and weekends. He reminded himself of Mouse in days gone by, when Storm had been everywhere at once, pursuing a hundred interests and projects.
Mouse was the opposite. He could not finish anything.
Then it was all done. Marathon took them aboard and spaced for the quiet Cygnian world called Refuge, which was home for millions of retired civil servants and senior Service personnel.
But for Tanni Lowenthal the journey might have been depressing.
Going home. His showing for the mission some money, some stamps and coins for his collections, some new and old memories, and an armistice with himself. Somehow, it did not seem enough.
But he had found his friends, the people he had thought missing so long. So why was he disappointed?
There had been one soul-scar the Psychs had not been able to heal completely.
He could not forget Amy.
They had never really finished. They had not said the end. They had just gone separate ways.
He liked things wrapped up neatly.
Time passed. Cygnian summer faded into autumn. Fall segued into winter. Mouse and McClennon played chess, and waited, growing closer, till Mouse revealed the whole story of his past, of the origins of his hatred for the Sangaree. Gently, McClennon kept his friend’s spirit from sliding away completely. Gently, he began to bring Mouse back.
The report of the Board of Inquiry, delayed repeatedly, drew no closer.
From Cygnus it did not seem there was a war. Luna Command had expanded its forces six-fold, and had begun building new weapons and ships, but otherwise Confederation seemed to be going on as before.
Tanni visited occasionally. Max and Greta kept in touch.
And yet...
Some nights, when the dark winter skies were terribly clear, McClennon would put aside his stamp collection, coins, or the novel he had begun writing, and would go out on the terrace. Shivering, he would stare up at stars burning palely in unearthly constellations and picture huge ships like flying iron jungles. He would think of swarms of gold dragons, and a million-year-old beast he had taught to tell a joke.
He never loved her more than he did now that she was lost forever. Mouse had told him... She might use his name to frighten his own child. She would not hate him now. She would understand. But there would be appearances to be maintained, and social winds with which to sail...
Life never worked out the way you wanted. Everyone was victimized by social equivalents of the theories of that dirty old man, Heisenberg.
The comm buzzed. McClennon answered. A moment later, he called, “Mouse, Jupp’s coming in to spend a few days.” He returned to the terrace. The ship burned down the sky, toward where the city’s lighted towers made fairy spires that soared above distant woods. McClennon pretended it was a shooting star. He made a wish. “Want to play a game while we’re waiting?”
Mouse grinned. “You’re on.”
“Stop smirking. I’m going to whip you this time, old buddy.”
And he did. He finally did.
Glen Cook was born in New York in 1944. He grew up in northern California and began writing while in seventh grade. He served in the U. S. Navy, spending time with the Force Recon unit of the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion. He attended the University of Missouri and the Clarion Writers' Workshop. He produced his first paid work in 1970.
Glen says, "Unlike most writers, I have not had a succession of strange jobs like chicken plucking and swamping our health bars. The only full-time employer I've ever had is General Motors." Due to a change of job location in 1988, Glen's writing decreased in volume. Fortunately, he has recently retired and is devoting more time to his writing.
The long anticipated release of Bleak Seasons in his Black Company series finally occured in 1996. He is also known for his " Garrett Files" detective/fantasy series, his Dread Empire series, and many others.
Glen's hobbies include stamp collecting, book collecting, and a passing interest in military history. Usually Glen can be found behind a huckster table at those conventions he attends. So, if you are in the dealer's room buying one of his books, and the man behind the table asks if you want it signed, chances are you just met him.