Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

by Glen Cook

  "What's this got to do with Plainfield?" Moira demanded. Her voice was plaintive. "It's awful complicated."

  "Patience, child. Patience. I'm getting to it. At the Modelmog we want you to vamp a poet named Lucifer Storm. He's a talented young man, they say, and quite handsome. You shouldn't find him repulsive. Attach yourself. He'll be your passport into the Fortress of Iron. That's the headquarters of the mercenary Gneaus Storm. Dee is in and out of there all the time. You should have no trouble making contact. Become his consort."

  "I see. Live with him and spy on him."

  "Exactly."

  "For how long?"

  "There's more than Frog's paybacks to worry about, girl. There's Edgeward. I'm a big fish around here, but out there I'm just a minnow. I can't make enemies out of sharks."

  Moira was intelligent. She recognized his problem, thought she found it emotionally unpalatable. "All right. Butyou're making it too complicated. I'll mess it up for sure."

  Blake chuckled. "I've been studying Moira Eight, too, dear. She's no dummy. Her acquaintances say she's a very good actress, both on stage and in her personal life. Dramatist White thinks he's made a real find."

  Moira shrugged. Secretly, she was pleased. Mr. White never said anything of the sort to her.

  "My Dad, and my grandfather, they treated old Frog pretty bad. If I'd been in charge, I'd have done it different. Frog was important. He reminded us that we aren't gods. He reminded us that what was good for the Corporation wasn't always good for Edgeward's people. He didn't realize it, and my Dad only saw the edges of it, but your old man kept Edgeward from turning into something like Twilight. You'll see what I mean if we send you. Blake and Edgeward still have a human side—despite my Board of Directors. I digress. I'm sorry. It's my hobbyhorse."

  "May you never dismount, sir," Korando said.

  "Albin is my conscience. He came from Twilight."

  "I know. He was an exile. Frog brought him in. He's sort of my brother. That was a long time ago."

  "A long time ago," Korando agreed. "Had a habit of collecting strays, didn't he?"

  Grimly, Blake said, "I wish he were here today. I've got to present this to the Board pretty soon. He's the kind who could have bullied them into line. They were afraid of him. Still are, in a way. As if he might come back to haunt them."

  "He has, hasn't he?" Moira asked. "When do we start? What do we have to do?"

  Thirty-Eight: 3031 AD

  Going home did nothing to brighten anything. The Fortress of Iron was gravid with bad news.

  Wulf and Helmut had put a prize crewman aboard the singleship Dee had stolen. She and her escort had been attacked while returning home. The guilty warships had been of Sangaree configuration. Only one of them had survived. Wulf and Helmut had been forced to let it escape. Its crew had managed to recapture the medicare cradles containing Benjamin and Homer. The High Seiners had tracked the fleeing ship. They said it had made planetfall on Helga's World.

  "We're right back where we started," Storm groaned from his own cradle.

  "Oh, no," Helmut told him. He wore a sickly grin. "We're way worse off. The Fishers say Michael and Fearchild Dee arrived on Blackworld this morning."

  "That's impossible." Storm's heart hammered so hard his cradle fed him a mild sedative.

  "Not quite," Wulf said. "His wife got him out. She was on Helga's World. He instelled her during the chase. She spaced and followed you to the prison. That's the story they're telling on Blackworld."

  "He's got a new wife?"

  "All we know is what we get in the reports," Helmut growled. "It's the old wife. I thought she was dead, too. But our man got into their pockets while they were explaining to Seth-Infinite. He even found out how she followed Dee."

  "How?"

  "Limited range, general broadcast instel. A little node of a thing he swallowed before he was captured. It didn't last long, but it got her into the area of the asteroid."

  "We get an ultimatum?"

  "The minute that raidship grounded," Wulf replied. "No signature, of course. We take the Blackworld contract or we never see Benjamin or Homer again. I guess they'll try to frame Blake Mining with the snatch."

  Storm lay back, stared at a pale ceiling. He needed no signature to know who had sent that message. Helga Dee. And she would not bother trying to cover her tracks. He was tempted to ignore it. Benjamin and Homer were his flesh, but he could balance their lives against those of all the Legionnaires who would die in combat. "What's our movement status?"

  "Go. We can start any time."

  "Activate Trojan Hearse," Storm ordered.

  Nobody protested. Nobody acted surprised. He was amazed. That had done everything but laugh when, years ago, he had presented the contingency plan. They had seen no need to be ready to break into Festung Todesangst.

  "The operation went active the day Michael left," Wulf said. "We've already located one of Helga's ravens. Ceislak took the ship yesterday. He's on his way to Helga's World now."

  Storm smiled his first smile in a long time. Hakes Ceislak was a fine, bloodthirsty youngster with a flair for commando operations. If anybody could slip a shipload of Legionnaires into Festung Todesangst as pretended corpses, he could.

  "How many? All volunteers, weren't they? I don't think she'd blow the scuttle bombs unless she thought she was dead anyway, but I don't like anybody taking risks if they don't want to."

  "A full battalion. All volunteers. We turned another thousand away. They thought they might have to dig you out too. Ceislak picked the men he wanted."

  "All right. We go to Blackworld. We stir it up there, and get their attention till Ceislak can do his job. He's going to need a lot of stall time. If he takes the raven in off schedule she'll smell us out."

  "He needs almost five months." Helmut shrugged apologetically. "It was the only raven we could find."

  "We'll miss Ceislak on Blackworld," Wulf said. "I've been studying the layout. Blake's position is so much better than what Richard has to work from that he's got to have a whole bag of tricks up his sleeve."

  "Of course he does," Storm said. "He's Richard Hawksblood. He wouldn't have taken the commission if he didn't think he could win. If it gets hairy, we'll miss Ceislak bad."

  Cassius said, "My friend Beckhart might be persuaded to take that job off our hands. If we can deliver proof of a link between Helga and the Sangaree."

  Mouse had begun to feel lost. He asked, "Why would that matter?"

  "He'd have to have an excuse to nose around in a private war," his father told him. "Then he'd jump on it so he can grab Helga's World for Luna Command. Sangaree would make him a great causus belli."

  "I know they've done studies on the cost of taking her out," Cassius said. "Us, too, for that matter. The base plan was to saturate her defenses with missile fire. Go for overload and totalkill. They'd love to have us open the door and let them get their hands on all that sweet information."

  "Arrange it," Storm ordered.

  "You sure? He takes the place and the government gets a hammerlock on every corporation in this end of Confederation."

  "I know," Storm said. "I know. No matter what way you go, it's no-win."

  "What about Blake Mining?" Helmut asked. "They've been crying like babies for two weeks. I got a full-time guy in Communications giving them the stall."

  "Keep him on the job. Meantime, start your preliminary movement. Surprise them. I'll be along as soon as Medical turns me loose."

  "One more thing," Wulf said, as Mouse started to roll his father away.

  "What?" Storm snapped. "What the hell other bad news can you hit me with?"

  "Good, bad, who knows?" Wulf asked. "A message from Lucifer. He's a little embarrassed. Turns out his wife is an agent. For Blake, of all outfits."

  "So? Does it matter anymore?"

  "Maybe not. But answer me this, Colonel. Why was she planted on us? She hooked up with Lucifer before any of this broke. Which to me means she can't have anything to do with the Sha
dowline."

  "Wheels within wheels," Cassius observed. He laid a gentle hand on Mouse's shoulder. "Some of us get born into the game. The wheels turn each other. Sometimes they never find out why."

  "Ach!" Storm growled. "Take me down, Mouse."

  The Fortress was a citadel of gloom. There wasn't a smile in the place. The Legion was a worm wriggling on a hook. A big fish was coming up to bite.

  "It looks hopeless, doesn't it, Father?" Mouse asked.

  "So it does, Mouse. So it does. But maybe we'll fool them all. It's always darkest before the Storm."

  "Is that a pun?"

  "Me? Make a joke of the family name? Horrors."

  Thirty-Nine: 3028-3031 AD

  Moira strained to get used to the name she was supposed to assume at Weideranders. She tried even harder to become a genuinely creative artist. She failed abysmally. She had absolutely no talent for anything but acting.

  Blake grumbled, "I guess that'll have to do."

  "Do? What's wrong with it? It's legitimate. And dramatist White says Janos Kasafirek... "

  "I said all right." Blake smiled. "He's been at me harder than you have, pretty lady. He says it's your future."

  She was thrilled. She would really get to do what she wanted... She began cramming classical drama, the Old Earth classics, especially the Elizabethans. She was mad for Shakespeare. Dramatist White actually broke down and told her she played an inspired Ophelia.

  She was floating. Her mission was going to give her a chance to realize her wildest dreams. She would get to study with the great Kasafirek.

  "Slight change in plans," Blake said one day not long before she was due to leave. "They've tightened security in Twilight. You're going to leave here as Pollyanna, instead of waiting till you get to Weideranders."

  She was to be billed as the touring daughter of Amantea Eight, an under-minister in Confederation's Ministry of Commercial Affairs. The lady actually existed and was obscure enough to cause local officials some concern. The obscure career people were the real powers in Luna Command. The identity of surnames was serendipitous.

  Moira thought the going would be easy once she left Blackworld. The character was more nearly the real her than the one she portrayed for Edgeward. Her daydreams often revolved around an acting career. She never had given that serious consideration before because Edgeward had such little use for actresses. She had not thought of leaving home except to go stalking after Plainfield.

  It came time to leave. She went to the crawler locks reluctantly. This would be the end of one life and the beginning of another. The doubts had begun to hem her in. "Albin. What're you doing here?"

  "Boss told me to go with you."

  She spotted Blake, ran to his chair, gave him a quick little kiss. "Thank you. For Albin. I won't be nearly so scared."

  "I thought not. And I thought we might learn something in Twilight. He knows the city. Be good, Moira. And be careful. You're going to be involved with some strange, dangerous men."

  "I'll be all right."

  She enjoyed the ride to Twilight. She had never been outdome before. She saw her world from an entirely new perspective.

  Bleak ghosts of midnight landscapes slid by the crawler. Crewmen made garrulous by her beauty and exotic skin color provided her with a running commentary. This had happened here, that had happened there. Over yonder was a fantastic landmark mountain that stuck straight up a thousand meters, but you couldn't see it on account of it was dark. The crewmen were from The City of Night. They did not know her. She rehearsed her cover for them, as Pollyanna, telling outrageous lies about life in Luna Command.

  She reached Twilight in a bright and cheerful mood. It quickly soured.

  At first glance Twilight Town appeared to be a clone of Edgeward City. She started to say so to Korando. The human factor intervened.

  Two hard-faced policemen began checking papers as the passengers started shedding their hotsuits. They were especially nasty to Edgewarders, but only slightly more civil to the Nighter crew and the citizens of Darkside Landing. They were revelers in petty power, the sadists who gave police a bad image everywhere. Pollyanna lost her temper when they started in on Korando.

  "You," she snapped, using words as gently as a torturer uses small knives. "You with the face like a pig's butt. Yes. You. The one with the nose like stepped-in dog shit. We know your mother made a mistake when she decided against the abortion. You don't have to prove it. Go beat your wife if you have to mistreat somebody in order to feel like a man."

  Korando flashed a desperate "Shut up!" look. She just smiled.

  The policemen were stunned. The other passengers made pained faces.

  The man she had abused grinned malevolently. He had found himself a victim. "Papers, bitch!"

  Malice turned to uncertainty. He looked at her, at her travel pass. White. Meant offworlder. Youth and sex might mean she was the brat of power.

  "These better be good, bitch," he muttered to himself.

  "Give them here, Humph," his partner said. "And calm down."

  "Can you people read?" Pollyanna demanded. "You can? I'm amazed."

  She expected more trouble than they gave her. The one officer became very solicitous once he saw the seals on her pass. "Be cool, Humph. This fluff's straight out of Luna Command."

  Humph grabbed the pass, flipped through it. His eyes widened slightly. He thrust the booklet at Pollyanna. "I'll be watching you, smartass."

  "I do believe you take after your father." She was a little frightened now. She had to concentrate to maintain her snottiness. "He never forgave your mother either."

  And, before he could reply, in a gentler tone, she added, "A little courtesy doesn't hurt, officer. If you're nice to people, they'll usually be nice to you." She stalked away.

  Korando came over while she was eating a snack at the station canteen. "That wasn't very smart, Polly. But I appreciate it. He forgot all about me."

  For possible watching eyes they pretended to become acquainted. Korando told her he was going to stick a little tighter than he had planned. She needed keeping out of trouble.

  And stick he did, like a limpet. So tight that he got no chance to interview Blake's agent. He stayed beside her until he had seen her enrolled in the Modelmog.

  The trip thither was an adventure, Edgeward having been her whole universe and most of his. The space flies were like a visit to a dome devoted to happy times. The big Star Liners were space-going hotels.

  Weideranders Station was different. That vast space-going roundhouse was too alien. Pollyanna and Korando spent most of their layover in their rooms.

  Pollyanna remembered Weideranders. She had been there before, almost too long ago to recall anything but the fear she had known then. They had been running from men who had wanted to kill the people she was with. She could not face all those corridors and shops and eating places filled with outworlders, Toke, the Ulantonid, Starfishers, and other strange people. Not without coming apart, without anticipating something dreadful.

  She could not have endured it without Korando's help.

  She was easing him into the role Frog had vacated by dying. He seemed to accept it.

  The Mountain was terrifying too. Though it was the gentlest of worlds, it lacked that without which a Blackworlder never felt secure. It had no dome. Neither she nor Korando ever learned to face the open sky.

  Lucifer Storm was almost too easy. She was sleeping with him, loving him, and married to him almost before she herself knew what was happening.

  Janos Kasafirek was impressed with her abilities. She was astounded and delighted. He had a reputation as a savage, unrestrained critic.

  For a time she was thoroughly content. Life seemed perfect, except that she did not get to see Korando as often as she would have liked. Albin was her sole touchstone with her past and home.

  Then, a year after their arrival on The Mountain, Albin announced that he was going home. She protested.

  "There's been trouble," he told
her. "A skirmish in the Shadowline."

  "What can you do?"

  "I don't know. Mr. Blake will need me, though. Be calm, Polly. You've got it under control. I'm nothing but excess baggage now."

  She cried. She begged. But he went.

  Looking back later, she chose that as the day when everything started going wrong.

  During her tenure at the Modelmog, Lucifer's father and Richard Hawksblood fought a brief war on The Broken Wings. Lucifer followed the news uneasily. She tried to comfort him, and quickly became engrossed in the action herself, seizing every sketchy report from the Fortress of Iron, skipping from newscast to newscast to find out the latest. It was her first exposure to mercenary warfare. She was intrigued by the gamelike action and by the odd personalities involved. Once she did become enthralled, Lucifer lost interest. He expressed a virulent disapproval of her interest.

  She was disappointed because the war ended so quickly.

  A few months later Lucifer announced, "We have to go home. I got an instel from my brother Benjamin. Something bad is in the wind."

  "To the Fortress?" She became excited. She would be a step closer to Plainfield. And closer to the mercenaries she found so interesting. Lucifer's father had come to their wedding. What a strange, intriguing old man he had been. Two hundred years old! He was a living slice of history. And that Cassius, who was even older, and Lucifer's brothers... They were like nothing Blackworld or The Mountain had ever seen.

  What had begun as an ecstatic honeymoon was fading fast. She did not mind leaving a scene that promised to become unhappy—except that she would miss Janos Kasafirek and her studies.

  "I don't want to go," Lucifer told her. "But I have to. And it's cruel to take you away from your studies when you're doing so well."

  "I don't mind that much. Really. Janos is getting a little overbearing. I can't take much more. We both need to cool down."

  Lucifer looked at her oddly.

  He changed after they reached the Fortress. His joy, youth, and poetic romance fled him. He became surly and distant, and ignored her more and more as he tried to fit into the Legion. The Legion tried to adjust to him. He could not meld in.