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

getting married.
    Marriage was important to the Seiners. In Confederation it was
more an amusing relic, an entertainment or daydream for the young
and the romantic. He could not reconcile his attitudes with Seiner
seriousness. Not yet.
    The Starfishers had won his loyalty, but they could not make him
a different man. They could not make him reflect themselves merely
by adopting him.
    Was Mouse having the same trouble? he wondered. Probably not.
Mouse was a chameleon. He could adapt anywhere, vanish into any
crowd.
    “I have to go to work,” Amy told him. Weariness
seemed to be dragging her down.
    “You’d better get some rest yourself,
honey.”
    After she left he took out his stamp collection and turned the
well-thumbed album pages. Mouse had opened a Pandora’s box by
mentioning Max and Greta. After a while he pushed the album aside
and tried to compose a letter to the girl.
    He could not think of much to say.
     
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Five: 3049 AD
The Contemporary Scene
    Admirals and generals did not have to endure the usual waiting
and decontamination procedures getting into Luna Command. The
security checks were abbreviated. No staff-grade officer had gone
sour since Admiral McGraw had turned freebooter following the peace
with Ulant. Admiral Beckhart entered his office just three hours
after his personal shuttle berthed a little south of the Sea of
Tranquility.
    He had not spared the horses, in the vernacular of another age.
The mother had dropped hyper midway between Luna and L-5. The first
message he had received had been code-tagged, “Personal
presence required immediately. Critical.”
    Either the bottom had dropped off of the universe or
McClennon and Storm had come home with their saddlebags dripping
delicious little secrets.
    The Crew, as he called his hand-picked brain-trust, were in the
office when he arrived.
    He raised a hand. “As you were. What have we
got?”
    Jones asked, “You don’t want to shower and
change?”
    Beckhart looked ragged. Almost seedy. Like a derelict costumed
as an Admiral.
    “You clowns sent a Personal Presence, Critical. If
I’ve got time to shit, shower, and shave, you should’ve
said it was urgent.”
    “Maybe we were hasty,” Namaguchi admitted.
“We’d just scanned the crypto breakdown. We were a
little excited.”
    “Breakdown? What the hell’s going on?”
Beckhart tumbled into a huge chair behind a vast, gleaming wood
desk. “Get to the point, Akido.”
    Namaguchi jerked out of his seat, flipped a square of manila
across the gleaming desk.
    “Numbers. Your handwriting hasn’t
improved.”
    “The Section’s doing up a printout. That, sir, is
what Storm had for us.”
    “Well?”
    “Morgan Standard Coordinate Data, sir. A stellar
designation. Took us two days to convert it from the Sangaree
system.”
    “Sangaree? . . . Holy Christ! Is
it? . . . ”
    “What we’ve been waiting for all our lives. Where to
find their home star.”
    “Ah, god. Ah. It can’t be. Two hundred years
we’ve been looking. Cutting and dying and generally carrying
on like a gang of fascist assholes. So it paid off. I bet my butt
on a long shot and it paid off. Give me the comm. Somebody give me
the goddamn comm.”
    Jones eased it across the desk. Beckhart punched furiously.
“Beckhart. Priority. Hey! I don’t give a damn if
he’s banging the Queen of Sheba. Personal, Critical, and
I’m going to have your ass for breakfast if you
don’t . . . Excuse me, sir.” His
manners improved dramatically.
    “Yes, sir, it is. I want a confirmation of our position on
Memorandum of Permanent Policy and Procedure Number Four.
Specifically, Paragraph Six.”
    A long silence ensued. Beckhart’s cronies leaned closer
and closer to their chief. The man on the other end finally said
something.
    “Yes, sir. Absolutely. I have the data in my hand, sir.
Just decoded. Give me von Drachau and the First
Fleet . . . Yes, sir. What I want is a blank
check for a while. I can get started