Starfishers Triology - Shadowline Part 3

He had an adopted daughter named Moira. She was a white girl-child he had found wandering Edgeward's rudimentary s.p.a.ceport. She had been abandoned by Sangaree slavers pa.s.sing through hurriedly, hotly pursued by Navy and dumping evidence wherever they could. She had been about six, starving, and unable to cope with a non-slave environment. No one had cared. Not till the hard-sh.e.l.led, bullheaded, misanthropic dwarf, Edgeward's involuntary clown laureate, had happened along and been touched.

Moira was not his first project. He was a sucker for strays.

He had cut up a candyman pervert, then had taken her home, as frightened as a newly weaned kitten, to his tiny apartment-lair behind the water plant down in Edgeward's Service Underground.

The child complicated his life no end, but he had invested his secret self in her. Now, obsessed with his own mortality, he wanted to leave her with memories of a man who had amounted to more than megaliters of suit-sweat and a stubborn pride five times too big for his r.e.t.a.r.ded growth.

Frog wakened still unsure what he would do. The deepest route controls that he himself had set on previous penetrations ran only a thousand kilometers up the Shadowline.

That first quarter of the way would be the easy part. The markers would guide his computers and leave him free to work or loaf for the four full days needed to reach the last transponder. Then he would have to go on manual and begin breaking new ground, planting markers to guide his return. He would have to stop to sleep. He would use up time backing down to experiment with various routes. Three thousand kilometers might take forever.

They took him thirty-one days and a few hours. During that time Frog committed every sin known to the tractor hog but that of getting himself killed. And Death was back there in the shadows, grinning, playing a little waiting game, keeping him wondering when the meathook would lash out and yank him off the stage of life.

Frog knew he was not going to make it back.

No rig, not even the Corporation's newest, had been designed to stay out this long. His antique could not survive another four thousand clicks of punishment.

Even if he had perfect mechanical luck he would come up short on oxygen. His systems were not renewing properly.

He had paused when his tanks had dropped to half, and had thought hard. And then he had gone on, betting his life that he could get far enough back to be rescued with proof of his accomplishment.

Frog was a poker player. He made the big bets without batting an eye.

He celebrated success by breaking his own most inflexible rule. He shed his hotsuit.

A man out of suit stood zero chance of surviving even minor tractor damage. But he had been trapped in that d.a.m.ned thing, smelling himself, for what seemed half a lifetime. He had to get out or start screaming.

He reveled in the perilous, delicious freedom. He even wasted water scouring himself and the suit's interior. Then he went to work on the case of beer some d.a.m.n fool part of him had compelled him to stash in his tool locker.

Halfway through the case he commed Blake and crowed his victory. He gave the boys at the shade station several choruses of his finest shower-rattlers. They did not have much to say. He fell asleep before he could finish the case.

Sanity returned with his awakening.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n, you stupid old man. What the h.e.l.l you doing, hey? Nine kinds of fool in one, that what you are." He scrambled into his suit. "Oh, Frog, Frog. You don't got to prove you crazy. Man, they already know."

He settled into his control couch. It was time to resume his daily argument, via the transponder-markers, with the controller at the Blake outstation. "Sumb.i.t.c.h," he muttered. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d going to eat crow today. Made a liar of him, you did, Frog."

Was anybody else listening? Anybody in Edgeward? It seemed likely. The whole town would know by now. The old man had finally gone and proved that he was as crazy as they always thought.

It would be a big vicarious adventure for them, especially while he was clawing his way back with his telemetry reporting his sinking oxygen levels. How much would get bet on his making it? How much more would be put down the other way?

"Yeah," he murmured. "They be watching." That made him feel taller, handsomer, richer, more macho. For once he was a little more than the town character.

But Moira...His spirits sank. The poor girl would be going through h.e.l.l.

He did not open comm right away. Instead, he stared at displays for which he had had no time the night before. He had become trapped in a spider's web of fantasy come true.

From the root of the Shadowline hither he had seen little but ebony cliffs on his left and flaming Brightside on his right. Every kilometer had been exactly like the last and next. He had not found the El Dorado they had all believed in back in the old days, when they had all been entrepreneur prospectors racing one another to the better deposits. After the first thousand virgin kilometers he had stopped watching for the mother lode.

Even here the immediate perception remained the same, except that the contour lines of the rift spread out till they became lost in those of the h.e.l.l plain beyond the Shadowline's end. But there was one eye-catcher on his main display, a yellowness that grew more intense as the eye moved to examine the feedback on the territory ahead.

Near his equipment's reliable sensory limits it became a flaming intense orange.

Yellow. Radioactivity. Shading to orange meant there was so much of it that it was generating heat. He glared at the big screen. He was over the edge of the stain, taking an exposure through the floor of his rig.

He started pounding on his computer terminal, demanding answers.

The idiot box had had hours to play with the data. It had a hypothesis ready.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Frog did not like it. "Try again."

The machine refused. It knew it was right.

The computer said there was a thin place in the planetary mantle here. A finger of magma reached toward the surface. Convection currents from the deep interior had carried warmer radioactives into the pocket. Over the ages a fabulous lode had formed.

Frog fought it, but believed. He wanted to believe. He had to believe. This was what he had given his life to find. He was rich...

The practicalities began to occur to him when the euphoria wore off. Radioactivity would have to be overcome. Six kilometers of mantle would have to be penetrated. A way to beat the sun would have to be found because the lode was centered beyond the Shadowline's end...Mining it would require nuclear explosives, ma.s.ses of equipment, legions of shadow generators, logistics on a military scale. Whole divisions of men would have to be a.s.sembled and trained. New technologies would have to be invented to draw the molten magma from the earth...

His dreams, like smoke, wafted away along the long, still corridors of eternity. He was Frog. He was one little man. Even Blake did not have the resources to handle this. It would take a decade of outrageous capitalization, with no return, just to develop the needed technologies.

"d.a.m.n!" he snarled. Then he laughed. "Well, you was rich for one minute there, Frog. And it felt G.o.dd.a.m.ned good while it lasted." He had a thought. "File a claim anyway. Maybe someday somebody'll want to buy an exploitation franchise."

No, he thought. No way. Blake was the only plausible franchisee. He was not going to make those people any richer. He would keep the whole d.a.m.ned thing behind his chin.

But it was something to think about. It really was.

Piqued by the futility of it all, he ordered his computer to lock out any memories relating to the lode.

Eleven: 3031 AD

Ca.s.sius stepped into the study. Mouse remained behind him.

"You wanted me?"

Storm cased the clarinet, adjusted his eyepatch, nodded. "Yes. My sons are protecting me again, Ca.s.sius."

"Uhm?" Ca.s.sius was a curiosity in the family. Not only was he second in command, he was both Storm's father-in-law and son-in-law. Storm had married his daughter Frieda. Ca.s.sius's second wife was Storm's oldest daughter, by a woman long dead. The Storms and their captains were bound together by convolute, almost incestuous relations.h.i.+ps.

"There's a yacht coming in," Storm said. "A cruiser is chasing her. Both s.h.i.+ps show Richard's IFF. The boys have activated the mine fields against them."

Ca.s.sius's cold face turned colder still. He met Storm's gaze, frowned, rose on his toes, said, "Michael Dee. Again."

"And my boys are determined to keep him away from me."

Ca.s.sius kept his counsel as to the wisdom of their effort. He asked, "He's coming back? After kidnapping Pollyanna? He has more gall than I thought."

Storm chuckled. He killed it when Ca.s.sius frowned. "Right. It's no laughing matter."

Pollyanna Eight was the wife of his son Lucifer. They had not been married long. The match was a disaster. To understate, the girl was not Lucifer's type.

Lucifer was one of Storm's favorite children, despite his efforts to complicate his father's life. Lucifer's talents were musical and poetic. He did not have the good sense to pursue them. He wanted to be a soldier.

Storm did not want his children to follow in his footsteps. His profession was a dead end, an historical/social anomaly that would soon correct itself. He saw no future or glamour in his trade. But he could not deny the boys if they chose to remain with the Legion.

Several had become key members of his staff.

Of the men who had created the Legion only a handful survived. Grim old Ca.s.sius. The spooky brothers Wulf and Helmut Darksword. A few sergeants. His father, Boris, and his father's brothers and brothers of his own-William, Howard. Verge, and so many more-all had found their deaths-without-resurrection.

The family aged and grew weaker. And the enemy behind the night grew stronger...Storm grunted. Enough of this. He was becoming the plaything of his own obsession with fate.

"He's bringing her back, Ca.s.sius." Storm, smiled secretively.

Pollyanna was an adventuress. She had married Lucifer more to get close to men like Storm than out of any affection for the poet. Michael had had no trouble manipulating her unsatisfied l.u.s.t for action.

"But, you see, when he added it all up he was more scared of me than he thought. I caught up with him on The Big Rock Candy Mountain three weeks ago. We had a long talk, just him and me. I think the knife did the trick. He's vain about his face. And he still worries about Fearchild."

Mouse did his best to remain small. His father's gaze had pa.s.sed over him several times, a little frown clicking on and off each time. There would be an explosion eventually.

"You? Tortured? Dee?" Ca.s.sius could not express his incredulity as a sentence. "You're sure this isn't something he's cooked up to boost his ratings?"

Storm smiled. His smile was a cruel thing. Mouse did not like it. It reminded him that his father had a side that was almost inhuman.

"Centuries together, Ca.s.sius. And still you don't understand me. Of course Michael has an angle. That's his nature. And why do you think torture is out of character for me? I promised Michael I would protect him. All that means, and he knows it, is that I won't kill him myself. And I won't let him be killed with my knowledge."

"But..."

"When he crosses me I still have options. I showed him that on The Mountain."

Mouse shuddered as a narrow, wicked smile of understanding captured Ca.s.sius's lips. Ca.s.sius could not fathom the bond between the half-brothers. It pleased him that Storm had circ.u.mvented its limitations.

Ca.s.sius was amused whenever a Dee came to grief. He had his grievances. Fearchild was still paying for the hand.

These are truly cruel men, Mouse thought, half-surprised. My own people. I never really realized My own people. I never really realized...

He had been gone too long. He had forgotten their dark sides.

"To business," Ca.s.sius said. "If Michael has Pollyanna, and Richard is after him, there'll be shooting. We belong down in Combat."

"I was about to suggest that we go there." Storm rose. "Before my idiot sons rid me of this plague called Michael Dee." He laughed. He had paraphrased Lucifer, who had stolen the line from Henry II, speaking of Becket. "And poor pretty Pollyanna along with him."

Poor Lucifer, Mouse thought. He'll be the only real loser if he manages to keep Michael from docking He'll be the only real loser if he manages to keep Michael from docking.

Storm whistled. "Geri! Freki! Here!" The dogs ceased their restless pacing, crowded him expectantly. They were free to range the Fortress, but did so only in the company of their master.

Storm donned the long grey uniform cloak he affected, took a ravenshrike on one arm, strode off. Ca.s.sius trailed him by a half-step. Mouse hurried along behind them. The dogs ranged ahead, searching for the trouble they would never find.

"Mouse," Storm growled, stopping suddenly. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

"I sent for him," Ca.s.sius replied in that cold metallic voice. Mouse shuddered. He was imagining it, of course, but Ca.s.sius sounded so deadly unemotional and lifeless..."I contacted my friends in Luna Command. They arranged it. The situation..."

"The situation is such that I don't want him here, Ca.s.sius. He has a chance to go his own direction. For G.o.d's sake, let him grab it. Too many of my children are caught in this trap already."

Ca.s.sius turned as Storm resumed walking. "Wait in my office. Mouse. I'll bring him around."

"Yes, sir."

Mouse began to feel what his father felt. An air of doom permeated the Fortress. A sense that great things were about to happen hung over them all. His father did not want him involved. Ca.s.sius thought he belonged. Mouse was shaken. A clash of wills between the two was inconceivable, yet his presence might precipitate one.

How could the Fortress be in danger? Combat simulation models suggested that only Confederation Navy had the strength to crack it. His father and Ca.s.sius got along well with the distant government.

Alone in the Colonel's inner office he began to brood. He realized he was mimicking his father. And he could not stop.

Was it Michael Dee?

The foreboding was almost palpable.

Twelve: 2844 AD

Costumed to the ears, wearing the heavy, silly square felt hat of a Family heir, Deeth stood beside his mother. Guests filed past the receiving line. The men touched his hands. The women bowed slightly. Pugh, the twelve-year-old heir of the Dharvon, honored him with a look that promised trouble later. In response Deeth intimidated the-ten-year-old sickly heir of the s.e.xon. The boy burst into tears. His parents became stiff with embarra.s.sment.

The s.e.xon were the only First Family with a presence on Prefactlas. They had the most image to uphold.

Deeth recognized his error as his father gave him a look more promising than that of Dharvon w'Pugh.

He was not contrite. Hanged for a penny, hanged for a pound. The s.e.xon kid would have a miserable visit.

The evening followed a predictable course. The adults began drinking immediately. By suppertime they would be too far gone to appreciate the subtleties of his mother's kitchen.

The children were herded into an isolated wing of the greathouse where they could be kept out of the way and closely supervised. As always, the supervision broke down.

The children shed their chaperones and got busy establis.h.i.+ng a pecking order. Deeth was the youngest. He could intimidate no one but the s.e.xon heir.

s.e.xon fortunes would decline when the boy a.s.sumed his patrimony.

The Dharvon boy had a special hatred for Deeth. Pugh was strong but not bright. Only by malign perseverance did he corner his prey.