“Then she’ll expect us.” He shrugs. “Better think about it.” While he is at it, a squad of Seiners appears.
“Looks like the job gets done for us.” They stop at her door.
“They’re not thinking!” Mouse is shaking, excited and afraid.
My heart begins a flamenco beat. The Seiners push through the door. As Mouse said, they aren’t thinking. Two fall before they get out of sight, dropped by what’s
waiting there for Mouse and me. Loud reports (later: gunpowder pistols, homemade). Some grunts, a scream. The remaining two men are inside.
“Come on!”
I don’t know what he has in mind, but I follow. In the door low he goes, pauses to lift a weapon from a dying Seiner. As I do the same, I see the Sangaree woman beyond him, back to us, struggling with the last Fisher. She disarms him. Her hand darts past his guard, smashes his windpipe.
My grunt tells her of our presence.
“Slowly,” says Mouse as she turns. “I’d hate to shoot.” Hope is thick in his voice.
For once she does as told, has no instant, sharp reply. As she faces us, her distress is very evident. But it fades into her oppressive smile. “Too late. The last signal’s already sent. They’ll be here soon....”
Underlining her words, strident alarms hoot. Shortly, Danion shivers--service ships launching, I think. “I’ll go on station,” I say. “Watch her till the masters-at-arms show.” I start for Damage Control Central.
How fast news travels! By the time I arrive, the duty section is abuzz about the appearance of fifty Sangaree ships. Frightened landsmen are certain these are our last hours. I don’t comprehend till I overhear Seiners out-admiraling Payne himself. They’re certain we’ll fight.
I shudder.
The Sangaree maneuver in the darkness beyond these walls. Outnumbered service ships race toward them. I wonder if Payne will call for help from other fleets--no, he won’t know where they are. Security. Unanswerable questions dash across my mind, the biggest, still: what do I want?
The attack that comes isn’t Sangaree. Sharks, distressed by the new arrival, strike in all directions. News filters in from Operations, some good, some bad. The Sangaree are having a hard time. The sharks are concentrating on Danion.
In the sea of nothing our ships are killing, being killed by, sharks. The Sangaree fight an enemy undiscoverable while, foolishly, trying to move to a position of vantage vis-a-vis the fleet.
Danion shivers constantly, all weapons in action. In the heart of the great mobile we wait, wait, wait for a shudder and alarms to announce the sharks have scored. There is fear aplenty, and courage brewing. For once
there is no tension between landsman and Seiner. We are brothers before an unprejudiced Death.
And, though I note it not, my soul is quite content.
Danion reels. Sirens hoot. Officers shout. A damage-control team piles aboard an electric truck and hurries to aid technicians in the affected area. Behind, here, the mood turns quickly grim. Though we feel so little, the damage is tremendous there. Two thousand persons, ten percent of Demon’s population, perished in a moment--an oppressive weight indeed.
And here I sit, awaiting my dying turn.
Somewhere offstage, the Sangaree decide they’ve had enough, leave us their ghostly foe.
“Suits,” says the bleak-faced Seiner directing D. C. operations. He sees the end. From lockers come space-suits one by one. I slip into mine, remembering I’ve never worn one except in fun, or way back during midshipman training. I think of Mouse, not yet here, and wonder what has become of him.
Danion screams. She whirls beneath me and I fall. Suit servos hum and force me to my feet. The lights pale, die, return as stored power’s injected. In my heart I know we’re dead. The sharks have gotten our power and drives. The end.
Someone is yelling my name. “What?” I reply. I’m too scared to listen closely, hear only that my team is going out. I jump at the truck. Seiner hands pull me aboard.
Twenty minutes later, in an odd part of the ship devoted to nuclear plant, my team captain sets me to sealing ruptured piping. Here whole passageways are open; occasionally I glimpse a starless night. I think nothing of it for a long while. Too busy am I, doing the work of a Seiner.
Only hours later, when the pipes no longer bleed, when I spy a vacuum-ruined corpse tangled hi a mass of wiring dark against an outer glow, do I pause. Space. This is what I’m not supposed to see. I must look. I walk to the hole, see nothing but the tangle of harvestship.
I stand there frozen, disbelieving, I don’t know how long. No stars. Where can we be that there are no stars?
The ship is revolving slowly. Something gradually appears, the source of the glow on Danion’s hull. I recognize it. The galaxy, edge on, as seen from outside. My premonitions return to haunt me. Far, I see another harvestship coruscating under shark attack. My own has shuddered to several while I’ve worked. But my eyes hurry on, to a coin-sized brightness in the direction of spin.
Self-illuminated, no sun. Beyond the galactic rim. My heart stutters, my fear redoubles. There is only one place....
Star’s End.
What are the Seiners doing?
Something breaks, something blossoms across the night. Fire. Fire like a dying star. A harvestship is burning in a flame only a multidimensional shark could ignite. They’re getting more cunning, hitting us with antimatter gases. My grief is like a physical blow. In the corner of my mind, a strange voice asks, as a Fisher would, if the death does good for the fleet. Are sharks there dying too?
Star’s End. My eyes return. All my myths have hemmed me in. I serve the most pleasant, am trapped between the wicked and ugly--I have no doubts the Sangaree will soon return. It is not in their nature to quit when the stakes are so high.
The permanencies of my universe are here awarring, and doubtless one will fall... I fear it.
I comprehend why the Seiners have come. As all who seek Star’s End do, they want the fortress world’s fabulous guns. For centuries opportunists have tried to master this planet. Who owns its timeless weapons is dictator to The Arm. No defense of today could stand against Star’s End’s power. This is the salvation for which the Seiners faintly hope. What I don’t see is how they hope to penetrate the planet’s defenses. Battle fleets have failed.
A touch. A voice comes by conduction. “Let’s go. Danion’s hit inboard of us.” In the words I imagine great sadness, but none of the fear I feel. I follow the man, rejoin my team. We return to D. C. Central, through locks, through regions of ship ruined as by weapons of war. Hard to believe it is done by a creature I can’t even see.
They’ve prepared a room for us to relax in, safe enough to shed our suits--nothing there, except people, that sharks can harm. I see Mouse, freshly wounded.
“Should’ve bent her,” he says. “Waited me out. Now she’s up to deviltry.”
I look at his arm. It’s mangled. His face is drawn, but he doesn’t complain. She must have really surprised him. “Thing like a hatchet,” he says.
Unless that arm is quickly tended, hell lose it. I find an officer, ask for a doctor, get told he’s on his way. I think of the Sangaree woman.
I’ve had a feeling for her, I realize, a strange, miscege-nous desire (I’ve had feelings for many people, though I’ve long lied myself into not caring). My emotions kept me from letting Mouse do what should have been done--and now I pay. Before me, blood of a friend; in my mind, a gunmetal smile. “I’ll take care of it.”
From the tool crib I draw a laser cutting torch, no questions. The attendant assumes I need it. Outside D. C. Central I open an access plate and make the adjustments taught me in Navy schools. I have an unwieldy gun. I borrow an electric scooter.
She will be somewhere where she thinks she can take out the crew without damaging the ship. To her mind, something involving air. Hydroponics? No. Central blowers. From there, by cutting off air or introducing chemicals, she can neutralize most of us.
I arrive
, see I’ve reasoned well. Dead men guard the door. Beyond is a vast place, as it must be to serve a ship so huge. Somewhere in this mechanical jungle she waits....
Time so swiftly passes. A half hour departs and still I’m creeping among Brobdingnagian machines. Danion still shivers, but the battle is so old it no longer forces itself on the consciousness. I’m tired. I’ve been up for twenty hours. Finally I spy the mighty consol from which Danion’s lungs are controlled.
I crawl, I climb, I find myself a perch on a high catwalk from which most all the board’s visible. I see only empty seats where technicians once manipulated our air, a couple of corpses. She’s well armed.
From somewhere she appears, as if spontaneously generated. My eyes have wandered. I lift my weapon and aim, but...
“Maria... Marya...” It rips itself from me. She has been closer to me than most women--I never met my mother.
Her head comes up in startled play, searching. Suddenly there is an explosion of that mocking smile. “Why Moyshe, what are you doing here?” She’s looking for me, eyes narrow over the smile, hand on her gun a-twitching. “You’re trying to destroy us.”
She steps over a dead Seiner. “Moyshe!” Accusing. “Not you. You’d be repatriated.”
The lie’s as tall as a mile. After the Broken Wings and Von Drachau’s raid, she’ll have my guts on her
morning toast. She crosses my aim repeatedly, but I won’t end it. I can’t. My aim falls.
In moving I give myself away. The gunmetal smile is replaced by clashing-sabers laughter. Her weapon jumps up.
To this I can react. The blast reddens metal where I crouched. I’m in the open, running. I fire wild, get behind some great machine. Her shouts mock--I catch no words--and beams lick about my covert.
I’m terrified. I’ve swum too deep. I’ve feared this since need drove me to the Bureau. Now I’ll die....
She’s too confident of my ineptness. Something within me breaks; I realize there is something in which I can believe, something to grasp, to serve. I grin, laugh at my laughing soul. The Grail. We’ve found it. We. This ship, this I, we’re part of a We....
In all marvelous stupidity I step into the open. The woman is so startled she hesitates. Against the conditioning of my pyramid of years, I shoot first.
I’m standing over her when Fishers arrive. I have tears. I’ve always wondered about that--Mouse cries as though the dead one were his brother, or more, for we value brothers little these days. One takes the cutting torch. Another asks, “Moyshe benRabi?” He knows, of course. They’ve been watching. Ship’s security doesn’t fold because a battle is on. These, I discover, were coming to do what I’ve done. They received orders concerning me while on their way.
“Yes.”
“Fellow with the headaches?”
I nod.
“Follow me, please.”
I do, though looking back at Maria. Now she is dead, she isn’t just “the Sangaree woman.” She is Maria, Marya, a woman I may have loved some odd, unexplainable way. Perhaps I’ve had a deathwish.
I follow, and somewhere along the line note we’re entering forbidden territory, Operations Sector, where landsmen dare not go. Nervous, I look around. It’s quieter, more remote than the rest of the ship. The people we pass seem more aloof than the technicians to whom I’m accustomed. They must be. They are the men and women who will think us beyond defeat--maybe.
We enter a vast room filled with damaged machinery. Here there has been death aplenty; casualties still wait on
a dozen stretchers. My guide leads me to a man. “BenRabi,” he says, departs.
This room is much like a ship’s bridge, though larger, and the machinery unfamiliar. I see people on reclining couches, heads hidden in great helmets. Technicians grumble over them and damaged gear. A spatial display globe lurks blackly in a corner. Centered in it are seven golden balls, harvestships. Golden needles are service ships, maneuvering against sharks portrayed as scarlet fish. Tiny golden dragons at the periphery mark what must be distant Starfish. No Sangaree are to be seen.
“Mr. benRabi!” I realize the man is after my attention. “Why dragons?”
He stops an angry word. “Image from our minds, archetypal. You’ll see.” “I don’t understand.”
He ignores me. “The drives are dead, except minddrive. For that we need power from the Fish. But sharks have burned out most of our mind-techs.” He points to the nearest stretcher. The face of a girl, a child just out of creche, smiles in vacant madness. “We haven’t standbys to replace them, so we’re drawing marginal sensitives from the crew. You’re subject to migraines?” I nod. I’m reeling. What strange thing... “We want you to go into rapport with a Fish.” Fear. Memories of terrible, haunting dreams, of the pain resulting. “I can’t!”
“Oh?” This man has eyes that reach for my soul--which cowers, though it knows not what to fear. “I don’t know how.” Somehow, this feels lame. “You don’t need to. You just hook up. The Fish will push the power through to the Helmet. You’re just a
receiver.”
“But I’m tired. I’ve been awake for...”
“So is everybody.” He gestures impatiently. A couple
comes. “Put him in Number Three.” They nod. Departing,
I hear, “That the last one?” wearily.
I want to protest, but get no chance. The techs put
me on the couch. Ah, well. I’ve undoubtedly faced worse
for the Bureau.
One tech is a woman reminiscent of the professional mother of my childhood. She is gray-haired, cherry-faced, chatters comfortably while strapping my arms to the couch’s. She points out grip-switches beneath my fingers,
does my legs.
The other, a quiet man, efficiently prepares my head for
the helmet. He rubs me with an unscented paste, covers my hair with a thing like a hairnet. My scalp protests a thousand little stings that quickly fade. “Lift, please.” I do. The helmet devours my head. I’m blind.
A green ogre with dirty claws shoves his hand into my guts, grabs, yanks. My heart plays battledrums. Words from Czyzewski’s The Old Gods: “... who sang the darkful deep, and dragons in the sky.” My body’s sweat-wet. Surely the contacts won’t work.
In my ears, a voice. “Ready, Mr. benRabi.” A sweet-voiced woman, ancient trick for calming--which works. “Depress the right grip-switch one click.”
I do. Fear returns. I’ve lost all sensation, I float, see, hear, smell, feel nothing.
“That’s not bad, is it?” The voice of the professional mother again. I remember that plump old woman’s lap and arms and love (but we must all depart that nest), the comfort she gave when I feared.... “When you’re ready, depress the switch another click, then release it. To withdraw, pull up on the left switch.”
I depress the switch.
My dreams return awake, space swimming, the galaxy wrong in color, Star’s End strangely bright. Things move. I remember the display tank. This is like being at the heart of that. Service ships are glimmering needles (invisible to ordinary sight), harvestships glowing balls of wire, sharks red fish-shapes. Far, Starfish are golden Chinese dragons, drifting lazily closer.
My terror fades as if a hand is pushing it back....
Gently warm, a hint of voice trickles into my soul. “I do it. Starfish, Chub.” There’s a wind-chimes tinkle of laughter. “Watch. I show me.”
A small dragon soars from the distant herd, does a ponderous end-over-end roll. Shortly, “Old Ones don’t like. Dangerous. But we winning, new friend. Sharks running. Most destroyed.”
The creature’s joy is obvious. He has the right. The sharks are abandoning the fleet.
My terror is still great, but the night creature holds it back, infecting me with his excitement. Time passes. He learns the ways of my mind. He could play me like a musical instrument if he wanted.
“First battle won,” he says when I’m under control, “but another fight come.”
“What?” I
speak in return with my mind.
“Ships-that-kill, bad ones, return.”
“How do you know?”
“No way to show, tell. But come, hyper now. Your people prepare.”
I go silent. So does he. I take in the wonders about me, the rippling movement of sharks far out, the ponderous approach of dragons, the shimmering maneuvers of service ships, preparing for another fight. The galaxy hangs over all like a hole in the night. Nearby, Star’s End sits, waiting.
“Coming,” says my dragon. My attention turns. Glimmering ships appear against the galaxy. Sangaree. Down in my backbrain, behind my ears, there is a gentle tickle. “Power.”
Sangaree ships radiate from the arrival zone in lines like octopus legs, form a hemisphere. They intend to englove us. Far, the sharks mill uncertainly, retreat.
A light-ball flares among the Sangaree. A Fisher mine has scored. But it makes no difference. This battle we can’t win. The service ships number but ten, all wounded, and even the most hale harvestship has lost power and drives. Minddrive and stored power just aren’t enough.
The Sangaree maneuver closer, but there’s no firing. My dragon says they’re treating with Payne for surrender--a herd’s no good without a fleet.
The herd drifts closer, almost onto the Sangaree. They’ll join this battle, but cautiously because sharks still watch from afar.
“Fight soon.”
The Sangaree fire on the service ships, our most expendable vessels. They’ll force us to submit.
The slow, stately dance of enmity ends. The Sangaree move fast, service ships evade, missiles are everywhere like hurrying wasps. Beam-fire weaves beautiful webs of death. My terror is replaced by depression. I see no way to win.
Far, a Starfish approaches a Sangaree. Dangerous. The ship’s weapons can easily destroy him--the ship stops firing.
“We do shark-thing,” echoes in my mind, “but more power. We stop fleet fast if no guns.” Another Sangaree falls silent. A Starfish burps gut-fire. The ball hurtles through space, so slowly seeming--Sangaree burning.
The hemisphere closes about us. The open side, toward Star’s End, grows rapidly smaller. The diameter shrinks, two harvestships unleash fire of fantastic magnitude, yet scarcely enough to neutralize the growing attack.