Starfishers

by Glen Cook

  Marya was insatiable. The only word he found to fit her was “hungry.” He had never encountered a woman who had such a need for a man.

  Niven astounded himself. Their lovemaking became so savage, so narrowly scoped, that it was more like combat. As if, “Let he who first cries ‘Hold! Enough!’ be damned forever.”

  They seemed to do nothing but sleep and copulate, making attack after attack in some sort of sexual war. The outside world seemed to have lost all meaning.

  Yet there was method. There was rationality. In struggling to please Marya, who was struggling to distract him, Niven kept himself motivated by remembering who she was. He kept trying to convince himself that he was doing this to sabotage the enemy chain of command.

  He knew Marya was not motivated entirely by lust either.

  Oh, but they did have one hell of a good time on the rumpled sheets of that battlefield.

  In the interims Niven sometimes wondered what had become of Mouse. Mouse, he reflected, sure had the free hand he always wanted.

  Brandy, recognizing the way of things, had taken her brother out the first night. They were staying upstairs with the doctor. Michael, looking a little better, sometimes wandered in, moped around without saying much, then wandered out again. Brandy stayed away all the time.

  “What are we doing?” Niven once muttered to himself. They were enemies to the death. That was the prime rule, the blood rule, by which he and she were supposed to live and die. Yet they were denying it, or sublimating it in the form of love . . .

  He began to dread mission’s end. Debriefing . . . He would have to answer questions. He would have to explain.

  Niven was snoring. He had one arm beneath Marya’s neck.

  The building shuddered like a dog shaking off water. A window cracked. Tableware clattered onto the kitchen floor. The whole neighborhood reverberated to the explosion.

  Niven jerked upright. “D-14,” he grunted.

  “What?”

  “What was that?”

  “An explosion.”

  They dressed, almost racing. Reflections of dancing firelight colored the cracked window. Marya looked out. “Oh, Holy Sant!”

  “What?”

  “The warehouse . . . ”

  “Eh?”

  “I’ll be right back . . . What’s that?”

  A yell had come from somewhere downstairs. Cries and screams followed it.

  Niven knew that first yell. That was Mouse in assassin’s mind.

  Earlier, he had seen the shape of the needlegun lumping her underwear in a dresser drawer. He beat her to it.

  The door crashed inward. A ragged, battered, bloody Mouse hurtled through. He was so keyed for action that he looked three meters tall.

  “Easy,” Niven said, gesturing with the needlegun. “Everything’s under control, Mouse.”

  Mouse was not hurt. The blood was not his own. “Got everything,” he croaked through a dry throat. “Message away. Got to bend the bitch and get out.”

  That was their business, but . . . Niven could not permit the woman’s murder. That she was Sangaree seemed irrelevant. “No. There’s no need. Not this time.”

  Mouse was coming down. Thought was replacing action. He glanced at Niven’s weapon, at the woman. “All right. You’re the boss, Doc. But I’ve got to get something out of this. Where’re the damned kids?”

  “Upstairs. But I won’t let you kill children, either.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Doc. Wouldn’t even drown a puppy. You know old John. So tie her up, will you? Can’t have her coming after us.” He backed out the door.

  Siren howls tortured the streets. The grumble of a gathering crowd slipped tentacles into the room. “Sorry it had to end this way, Marya. But business is business.”

  “I almost believed . . . ” She stared at him. For an instant she looked small and defenseless. He reminded himself that she was Sangaree, that she would become instant death if he were careless. “I suppose you’re soothing your conscience. I wouldn’t if the tables were turned. You’ve hurt us too much already.”

  Not a smart thing to say to somebody pointing a gun at you, Niven thought. He shrugged. “Maybe. It’s not conscience, though. A different weakness. You’d probably have to be human to understand.” He left it to her to figure out what he meant.

  Mouse returned with the children and doctor. In the process he had acquired a weapon. “Tie these three, too, Doc.”

  The doctor was more frightened than Brandy or Michael. Humans on the fringes of the Business generally imagined operations by and against the organization to be more deadly than they were.

  Brandy asked, “What’re you doing, Gun?” Straight out, emotionlessly. As if she were used to being under the gun.

  “Business, dear.”

  “Oh.” She sped her mother a disgusted look.

  “He’s the Starduster,” Marya told her.

  “And you fell for his story?”

  Niven tore sheets into strips, tied the doctor, then the girl, then Michael. “Told you I knew a pirate, Captain.”

  “Good,” Mouse said. “Let me have the gun, Doc.”

  “Eh? Why?”

  “Because I need it.”

  Puzzled, Niven handed the weapon over. Mouse tossed it into the hallway.

  Niven shook his head, said, “We’d better get moving. They won’t stay disorganized forever.”

  “One thing first.” Mouse shoved his weapon under his arm. He took a hypo from the doctor’s bag and filled it from an ampule he carried in his pocket. “This one’s for your great-grandfather, kids. And all his brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Niven demanded.

  “Just business, Doc. Turnabout’s fair play, right? We should expand our own markets.” He raised Michael’s sleeve.

  Marya understood instantly. “No! Piao! Not my children. Kill me if you want, but don’t . . . ”

  Mouse answered her with a tight smile. “Just business, lady. Gag her, Doc. Hurry. We got to get the stuff out before Navy pops to we’ve cut out the instel here.”

  Niven suddenly understood what Mouse was doing. “Hey! You can’t . . . ” He wanted to stop it, to protest, to refuse, got confused by the reference to Navy. “Stardust?”

  Mouse nodded, smiling wickedly. His hand strayed toward his weapon.

  “Oh.” How could the man be so cruel? That was murder in the worst possible way.

  Marya needed gagging desperately. Her screams could attract attention . . .

  Dazed, Niven silenced her. Her flesh seemed icy beneath his fingertips. He felt the rage and hatred boiling inside her. She started shaking.

  For an instant he thought she was having a seizure.

  Mouse injected the children. That wicked little smile kept playing with his lips. He was blissfully happy in his cruelty.

  Why did he hate so much?

  “Come on, Doc. They’re on their way down. Can’t you hear them?”

  The crowd noise and sirens were yielding to the rumble of assault landing craft descending on penetration runs. The Broken Wings’ atmosphere howled its protest of the violation.

  Jupp was on his way.

  Someone stuck his head through the doorway. Mouse shot, missed, jumped into the hallway and shot again. “Doc, will you come on?”

  “I’m sorry, Marya. Really. It’s the way things had to be.” He snagged the needlegun in passing, skipped a fresh corpse, and pursued Mouse into the emergency stairwell.

  Later, as they waited in the crowd watching the invaders pour through the main city locks, Niven asked, “What was that crap about getting off before Navy finds out?”

  “We’re supposed to be the Starduster and Piao, remember?”

  “But they’ll know when . . . ”

  “Not yet. Look.” The Marines entering the city wore uniform gear, but it was not Service issue. It was like nothing Niven had ever seen.

  Mouse had chosen the waiting place with care. A man loaded
with brass headed directly toward them. “Mr. Piao?” He avoided looking at Niven. His attitude seemed one of mixed awe, fear, and loathing. “You have the material for my officers?”

  “That I do, Colonel.” Mouse proffered a thick package. “Congratulations. Your men are as efficient as ours.”

  The Colonel reddened. His mouth snapped open, but he caught himself. Carefully, he said, “More so, Mr. Piao. As you’ll someday learn.”

  “All things are possible to those who believe.”

  The Colonel riffled through a stack of copies. Other officers gathered behind him. He started passing them papers.

  “Let’s drift, Doc. They can handle it.”

  Niven did not miss the wariness in all those Marine eyes. “What was that all about?”

  “Oh. They think we’re Piao and the Starduster too. They think we worked a deal with Luna Command so we could knock over the Sangaree and take control of their nets.”

  “What’s all the smoke screen for?”

  “We’ve got to keep the Starduster story alive, at least till Jupp makes his hit. Otherwise they might evacuate their production facilities. By the way, I wanted to say you did a job digging all that info out. The Old Man is going to love you.”

  Niven did not follow it. “It’s too Byzantine for me. Are the Sangaree supposed to find out that they’re Marines? And then figure we didn’t say anything about the production facilities because that would cut off our own supply?”

  “Wait till you’re in on one of the Old Man’s complicated ones.”

  “Mr. Piao?” a Marine non-comm asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If you’ll follow me, sir. Your transportation.” Marines surrounded them. A precaution against assassination, Niven supposed. Those bounties still existed.

  Sounds of sporadic fighting came from the city. Believing the raiders to be Starduster men, the Sangaree minions would battle hard. The Starduster’s viciousness toward collaborators was legend.

  The Marines guided them into an armored personnel carrier. They had it to themselves. It rumbled away toward Angel Port.

  “Mouse, I get the feeling the Admiral threw in a few twists just to make it interesting. What happens when the Starduster finds out that we’ve been using his name in vain?”

  Mouse was in a bright, expansive mood. He had had a beautiful day. He had carved his initials on the Sangaree soul. He had vandalized their house of crime. “I’ll tell you a secret, Doc. If you promise you won’t ever let the Old Man know you know.” He looked at Niven expectantly.

  “All right. I give. What?”

  “You really are the Starduster.”

  “What?”

  “The Starduster. Piao. The Old Man invented the whole thing. The Starduster is whoever he points at and says, ‘You!’ ”

  “Well, shit. Mouse, I really needed that. Here you’ve had me scared to death that the son of a bitch was going to crawl out of the woodwork and cut my throat. I got a year’s vacation coming after debriefing. And, dammit, as soon as it goes through, I’m going to . . . ”

  “Don’t count on it, Doc. Not when you’re working for the Old Man.”

  October 3047. Captain Jupp von Drachau, commanding Special Action Task Force IV, with a heavy siege squadron attached, surprises and commences reduction action against Sangaree manufacturing facilities hidden in the inner asteroid belt surrounding Delta Sheol, a white dwarf in the mini-cluster called the Hell Stars. Destruction is swift, savage, and complete. At the same time Confederation and local police agencies begin closing down the drug networks formerly rooted on The Broken Wings.

  Admiral Beckhart has taken every point in a victorious round against his oldest and most favored enemy.

  Nine: 3048 AD

  Operation Dragon, Danion

  BenRabi started to push into his cabin, still glaring at the Sangaree woman.

  “I should’ve bent her on The Broken Wings,” Mouse snarled. “You should’ve . . . ” He had not forgiven Moyshe the weakness that had left her alive.

  “I can’t stomach contingency assassinations, Mouse.”

  “Yeah? Look over there and think about it some more. How much mischief could she do?”

  “All right. So it makes a perverted kind of sense. If you figure a ghost like The Broken Wings will come back to haunt you.”

  “It will. It always does. Maybe I’ll settle this up . . . ”

  BenRabi shook his head. “Not here. Not now. Not after what we just went through.”

  “I didn’t mean right now. I’m not a fool, Moyshe. It would look like an accident.”

  “Let it be, Mouse.”

  There was no compassion in Mouse. I should be flint too, benRabi thought. But I don’t have his knack for hating.

  BenRabi found the things and people in his life too transient for more than mild aversion.

  “She’d better move fast when we hit dirt again, then.” Mouse growled. “One getaway is all she gets . . . I hope we find Homeworld before I check out.”

  BenRabi felt a twinge of jealousy. Mouse knew the nature of his Grail. His feet were set inalterably on the path that led to it, though it was a cup of blood.

  “For your sake, I hope so.” Moyshe laughed softly, bitterly. Sometimes he had to, or scream. “See you later.” He pushed into his cabin.

  He hoped their year cooped up here would soften Mouse, but feared there was no hope. Marya would not let time work. Memories of her children would lead her on . . .

  Mouse’s hate was old and strong, and deeper than Confederation culture usually ingrained. If he were indeed a Storm, that would explain it. The Storms of the Iron Legion had had an old-fashioned, Biblical way of looking at things.

  Sangaree manipulations, during the war in the Shadowline, had destroyed the family.

  But Mouse did not have to be a Storm. His hatred could be stardust-related.

  “The joy that burns, the dream that kills,” Czyzewski had called the drug only seconds before his own addiction had carried him into the big, endless dream of death. The drug was the leading plague of the age, and had touched virtually every human being. It had taken more lives than had the bitter Ulantonid War.

  Stardust was the pusher’s dream. It was immediately addictive. One flight and the user was hooked forever. An addict could not taper off. Neither could he withdraw cold. Nor could he substitute another, less fearsome drug in its place.

  For the poor Inner Worlder addiction ended hard: by suicide, by being slain while trying to steal enough to finance another fix, or by finding death in the constant dogfighting among have and have-not addicts. And many times the end came slowly, screamingly, in an institution where the warders could do nothing but watch, protect the world by keeping the addict restrained, and try to develop hearts of stone.

  The sordid facts of stardust addiction tickled the Sangaree conscience not at all. They had a product to market, a stellar to turn.

  They were not innately cruel. They simply did not see humans as anything but animals to be exploited. Do the cattleman, butcher, and customer consider themselves cruel to the beef animal? Sangaree thought their customers better than cattle. More like what Renaissance Europeans thought of black Africans. Semi-intelligent apes.

  BenRabi lay on his bunk and wondered about his partner. Mouse claimed his assignments were all counter-Sangaree. To date they had been, and Mouse had prosecuted them with a savage zeal, with cruel little touches, like the injection of Marya’s children. But what was he doing here, now, working against the Starfishers? That did not compute.

  Following the announcement of von Drachau’s raid, Mouse had been in the clouds, as if he were a skying addict himself.

  The Sangaree were the demons of the Confederation era. They passed as human easily. Their Homeworld lay somewhere outside The Arm. Compared to humanity, they were few in number. It was rumored that they could breed only under their native sun.

  The Sangaree produced little for themselves. They preferred instead to raid, to deal in drugs
and slaves and guns.

  Confederation resented them bitterly. Man was their prime victim. The nonhuman races considered them merely a nuisance.

  Someone softly knocked on Moyshe’s door. “Come in,” he said. “Mouse. Thought it was you.” It was the first he had seen Mouse since Kindervoort’s inquisition.

  “The word’s around,” Mouse told him “They’ve all decided that we’re evil, mean, bad, wicked, nasty, crude, rude, and unattractive spies.” He laughed.

  “The Sangaree woman passed the word, I suppose.”

  “Maybe. Why don’t you slide out there and see what’s going on? It’s good for a laugh. Hell, you’d think we were as rare as dodos and smelled like skunks.”

  “Don’t we? Morally?”

  “Ahh . . . Moyshe. What the hell is it with you these days? Hey! You should see the competition laughing up their sleeves. But we get the last laugh. They’re on their way. Kindervoort’s troops snatched a couple beekies this morning. Same way he got us. Knew they were coming. Looks like he knew about everybody, except Strehltsweiter.”

  “Mouse, they’ve got to have a mole in Luna Command. Somebody deep.”

  “That’s what I figure. It’s the only answer that adds up. Moyshe, you should see the kids with their holy attitudes. Like they think they’re a plane above us. Poor innocents.” Mouse smiled at a memory. “You know that Williams girl? I shocked the hell out of her. Asked her her price. She missed the point. That’s real innocence.”

  “Ah, youth. Mouse, what happened to our innocence and idealism? Remember how it was in Academy? We were going to save the universe.”

  “Somebody found our price.” He frowned, dropped onto the spare bunk. “That’s not really true. We’re doing it, you know. It’s just that the mechanics of it aren’t what we thought they’d be. We didn’t understand that everything has to be a trade-off, that whenever we changed things to what we thought they should be, we had to do it at somebody else’s expense . . . Hell, you’ve got me doing it.”

  “What?”

  “Thinking. Moyshe, what’s happening with you? You always were a moody guy, but I’ve never seen you like you’ve been lately. Ever since we left Carson’s . . . ”