Book 3 - Star's End by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

quit the gang so he would have more time to study.
Halfway through his eleventh year the revelation had come. He
had
to get into space. He had approached a Navy recruiter
clandestinely. The man had arranged for him to sneak through the
Academy exams.
    He never would have made it had there been no special standards
and quotas for Old Earthers. He would have gotten skunked had he
been in direct competition with carefully prepared Outworlders,
many of whom had grown up in the military life. Half the officers
in Service were the children of officers. Service was a complete
sub-culture, and one that was becoming increasingly less connected
with and controlled by the over-culture. He had had motivation.
    At twelve he had run away from home, fleeing to Luna Command and
Academy. In six years he had climbed from dead last to the 95th
percentile in class standing. At graduation he had taken his Line
option and been assigned to the Fleet. He had served aboard the
destroyers
Aquataine
and
Hesse,
and the attack
cruiser
Tamerlane,
before requesting Intelligence
training.
    Following a year of schooling the Bureau had assigned him as
Naval Attaché to the Embassy on Feldspar. He had had a half dozen
similar assignments on as many worlds before his work attracted the
attention of Admiral Beckhart, whose department handled dangerous
operations, and tricks on the grey side of legal.
    He had taken part in several tight missions, and had
reencountered his former classmate, Mouse. They had shared several
assignments, the last being to join the Starfishers to ferret out
information that could be used to force the Seiners to enter the
Confederation fold.
    Some of it Amy had heard before. Some she had not. She was not
satisfied. Her first comment was, “You didn’t say
anything about women.”
    “What do you mean? What’s that got to do with
anything?”
    “Everything, as far as I’m concerned. I want to know
who your lovers were and how come you broke up. What they were
like . . . ”
    “You’ll shit in your hand and carry it to China
first, Lady.”
    He was still a little dopey. He did not realize that he had said
it aloud till he began to wonder why she had shut up so
suddenly.
    After one stunned gasp Amy blew out of the room like a tornado
looking for a town to wreck.
    The lady doctor came out of the background, took his blood
pressure. “She’s pushy, isn’t she?”
    “I don’t know what’s got into her. She
wasn’t like that before.”
    “You’ve had an interesting life.”
    “Not really. I don’t think I’d do it the same
if I had it to do again.”
    “Well, you could, couldn’t you?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Rejuvenation. I thought it was available to everybody
landside.”
    “Oh. Yes. More or less. Some of the brass have been around
since Noah landed the Ark. But Fate has a way of catching up with
people who try to slide around it.”
    “Wish we had it out here.”
    “You don’t look that old.”
    “I was thinking about my father. He’s getting on
now.”
    “I see. How soon can I leave?”
    “Any time, really. But I wish you’d wait a couple
hours. You’ll be weak and dizzy.”
    “Mouse was right about sonic sedation.”
    “I know. But I don’t write the medical budget. Good
luck, Mr. benRabi. Try not to see me again.”
    “I hate hospitals, Doctor.”
    He did. His only stays had been at Bureau insistence, to modify
him mentally or physically.
    He did a few minor exercises before catching a public tram
home.
    Amy was waiting. “Oh, Moyshe. That was stupid of me. You
were right. Those things aren’t any of my
business.”
    She had been crying. Her eyes were red.
    “It’s all right. I understand.” But he did
not. His cultural background had not prepared him for personal
nosiness. In Confederation people lived
now.
They did not
consider the past.
    “It’s just that I
feel . . . Well, everything’s so chancey
the way it is between us.”
    Here she comes, he thought. Hints about