Starfishers Volume 3: Stars End by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
     
----

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