Starfishers Volume 2: Starfishers by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Glen Cook
St. Augustine he had worn his uniform.
There were different rules for scalp hunters. Beckhart’s friends and enemies both played by the war rules. The blood rules.
And for reasons Niven did not understand, Beckhart’s command was involved in a war to the death with the Sangaree.
Niven had had all the indoctrination. He had endured the uncountable hours of training and hypo-preparation. He even had the benefit of a brutal Old Earth childhood. But somehow his Academy years had infected him with a humanism that occasionally made his work painful.
A tendency to prolonged introspection did not help, he told himself wryly.
The campaign against the Sangaree could be justified. Stardust destroyed countless minds and lives. Sangaree raidships pirated billions and slaughtered hundreds. Through front men the Sangaree Families obtained control of legitimate business organizations and twisted them to Illegitimate purposes.
The humanoid aliens had become a deadly virus in the corpus of human civilization.
Yet the very viciousness of Navy’s counterattacks caused Niven grave doubts. Where lies justice, he wanted to know, when we are more barbarous than our enemies?
Mouse was fond of telling him that he thought too much and felt too little. The issue was entirely emotional.
Morning brought an indifferent mood. A depression. He simply abdicated all responsibility to Mouse.
“What’s the program today?” He knew his partner meant to break routine. Mouse had had Room Service send up real coffee. Niven nursed his cup. “How are you going to get this past the auditors?”
“My accounts go straight to the Old Man. He stamps the ACCEPTED .”
“Must be nice to be the Number-One Boy.”
“It has its moments. But most of them are bad. I want you to hit the Med Center again. Business as usual. But try to audit their offworld drug traffic if you can. There’s got to be records of some kind even if they only give us a side view. I think most of it is going out of the Center labs, so it’s got to leave some kind of paper trace. If we can’t find the source, maybe we can pinpoint the ends of the pipes.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to spend some of the Old Man’s money. For hidey holes. For tickets out. You know. The insurance. That new Resident will show up pretty soon. We’ve got to be ready when it hits the ventilation.”
“Are you getting close?” Feelings warred within Niven. He wanted out of Angel City and the mission, but not right now. There was Marya to get to know.
“No. Like I said, just buying insurance. I’ve got the feeling this’ll get tight fast when they have somebody to tell them what to do.”
“What do you mean, get tight? It already is. I had sticktights all day yesterday. Some of them stayed so close we could have worn the same shoes.”
“That’s what they get for using local talent. But I think that’s part of their camouflage. We’d figure a place this important would have a battalion of high-powered types baby-sitting it. If somebody hadn’t gotten onto S’Plez, they might have rolled along forever.”
“I’ve got a feeling too, Mouse. And it ain’t a good one. What happens if we get caught in a crunch between them and the Starduster?”
Mouse whipped a finger to his lips. “Let’s not get back to tertiary cover yet,” he breathed. Then he grinned. “Going to suicide? Look, if you have trouble, make the fallbacks. If I can’t make them myself, I’ll drop you a note somewhere. Otherwise, I’ll catch you here tonight. It should be our last here, anyway.”
Niven hit the lobby convinced that Mouse knew a lot more than he was telling. But that would be typical. Mouse was Beckhart’s fair-haired boy. His perfectly expendable fair-haired boy.
He glanced back at the holorama. It was portraying one of the furious electrical storms in Ginunga Gap on Camelot. A herd of wind-whales quartered toward him through the rain and lightning.
For Beckhart the Bureau’s work was
There were different rules for scalp hunters. Beckhart’s friends and enemies both played by the war rules. The blood rules.
And for reasons Niven did not understand, Beckhart’s command was involved in a war to the death with the Sangaree.
Niven had had all the indoctrination. He had endured the uncountable hours of training and hypo-preparation. He even had the benefit of a brutal Old Earth childhood. But somehow his Academy years had infected him with a humanism that occasionally made his work painful.
A tendency to prolonged introspection did not help, he told himself wryly.
The campaign against the Sangaree could be justified. Stardust destroyed countless minds and lives. Sangaree raidships pirated billions and slaughtered hundreds. Through front men the Sangaree Families obtained control of legitimate business organizations and twisted them to Illegitimate purposes.
The humanoid aliens had become a deadly virus in the corpus of human civilization.
Yet the very viciousness of Navy’s counterattacks caused Niven grave doubts. Where lies justice, he wanted to know, when we are more barbarous than our enemies?
Mouse was fond of telling him that he thought too much and felt too little. The issue was entirely emotional.
Morning brought an indifferent mood. A depression. He simply abdicated all responsibility to Mouse.
“What’s the program today?” He knew his partner meant to break routine. Mouse had had Room Service send up real coffee. Niven nursed his cup. “How are you going to get this past the auditors?”
“My accounts go straight to the Old Man. He stamps the ACCEPTED .”
“Must be nice to be the Number-One Boy.”
“It has its moments. But most of them are bad. I want you to hit the Med Center again. Business as usual. But try to audit their offworld drug traffic if you can. There’s got to be records of some kind even if they only give us a side view. I think most of it is going out of the Center labs, so it’s got to leave some kind of paper trace. If we can’t find the source, maybe we can pinpoint the ends of the pipes.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to spend some of the Old Man’s money. For hidey holes. For tickets out. You know. The insurance. That new Resident will show up pretty soon. We’ve got to be ready when it hits the ventilation.”
“Are you getting close?” Feelings warred within Niven. He wanted out of Angel City and the mission, but not right now. There was Marya to get to know.
“No. Like I said, just buying insurance. I’ve got the feeling this’ll get tight fast when they have somebody to tell them what to do.”
“What do you mean, get tight? It already is. I had sticktights all day yesterday. Some of them stayed so close we could have worn the same shoes.”
“That’s what they get for using local talent. But I think that’s part of their camouflage. We’d figure a place this important would have a battalion of high-powered types baby-sitting it. If somebody hadn’t gotten onto S’Plez, they might have rolled along forever.”
“I’ve got a feeling too, Mouse. And it ain’t a good one. What happens if we get caught in a crunch between them and the Starduster?”
Mouse whipped a finger to his lips. “Let’s not get back to tertiary cover yet,” he breathed. Then he grinned. “Going to suicide? Look, if you have trouble, make the fallbacks. If I can’t make them myself, I’ll drop you a note somewhere. Otherwise, I’ll catch you here tonight. It should be our last here, anyway.”
Niven hit the lobby convinced that Mouse knew a lot more than he was telling. But that would be typical. Mouse was Beckhart’s fair-haired boy. His perfectly expendable fair-haired boy.
He glanced back at the holorama. It was portraying one of the furious electrical storms in Ginunga Gap on Camelot. A herd of wind-whales quartered toward him through the rain and lightning.
For Beckhart the Bureau’s work was