"First battle won," he says when I'm under control, "but another fight come."
"What?" I speak in return with my mind.
"Ships-that-kill, bad ones, return."
"How do you know?"
"No way to show, tell. But come, hyper now. Your people prepare."
I go silent. So does he. I take in the wonders about me, the rippling movement of sharks far out, the ponderous approach of dragons, the shimmering maneuvers of service ships, preparing for another fight. The galaxy hangs over all like a hole in the night. Nearby, Star's End sits, waiting.
"Coming," says my dragon. My attention turns. Glimmering ships appear against the galaxy. Sangaree. Down in my backbrain, behind my ears, there is a gentle tickle. "Power."
Sangaree ships radiate from the arrival zone in lines like octopus legs, form a hemisphere. They intend to englove us. Far, the sharks mill uncertainly, retreat.
A light-ball flares among the Sangaree. A Fisher mine has scored. But it makes no difference. This battle we can't win. The service ships number but ten, all wounded, and even the most hale harvestship has lost power and drives. Minddrive and stored power just aren't enough.
The Sangaree maneuver closer, but there's no firing. My dragon says they're treating with Payne for surrender— a herd's no good without a fleet.
The herd drifts closer, almost onto the Sangaree. They'll join this battle, but cautiously because sharks still watch from afar.
"Fight soon."
The Sangaree fire on the service ships, our most expendable vessels. They'll force us to submit.
The slow, stately dance of enmity ends. The Sangaree move fast, service ships evade, missiles are everywhere like hurrying wasps. Beam-fire weaves beautiful webs of death. My terror is replaced by depression. I see no way to win.
Far, a Starfish approaches a Sangaree. Dangerous. The ship's weapons can easily destroy him—the ship stops firing.
"We do shark-thing," echoes in my mind, "but more power. We stop fleet fast if no guns." Another Sangaree falls silent. A Starfish burps gut-fire. The ball hurtles through space, so slowly seeming—Sangaree burning.
The hemisphere closes about us. The open side, toward Star's End, grows rapidly smaller. The diameter shrinks, two harvestships unleash fire of fantastic magnitude, yet scarcely enough to neutralize the growing attack.
The Starfish mind-burn another Sangaree, turn to run.
They've waited too long. Their central fires are seen. Chub's sadness touches my mind as a dragon dies.
The Sangaree globe closes. Like a squeezing fist, they tighten up, pile up toward Star's End. Their attack grows terrible. They begin pushing—and I see their goal, the confused sharks milling against the galaxy. I suppose they think we'll give up before enduring that again... .
"It works well," my mindvoice says. "Is hard to think thoughts in bad commander. Sangaree heads twisted." The Sangaree are thickly massed now, pushing hard. The sharks are more agitated. The Starfish are cruising their way, ready to cover if we retreat.
The trickle in the root of my brain waxes, becomes a flaming torrent. It hurts, my God; it hurts! Burning, the power surges through me. I'm scarcely able to observe.
Then the harvestships surge toward the Sangaree, all weapons firing—I think with no aim, just to hurl all destruction possible. The Sangaree push back—but waver, waver.
In pain, I sweep the night. Sangaree ships burn, service ships the same. A harvestship stops shooting. The Sangaree begin knocking it apart—they've lost all patience. I suffer another sadness, my own, for those were my people... .
The Sangaree withdraw—not retreating, but pushed. We may not last long, but our ferocity is, for the moment, greater than theirs.
Something screams across my mind. It's a mad voice babbling, shrieking fear, incoherencies. I sense little sense, but warning touches me, terror. Phantoms taunt, grotesqueries as of the worst medieval imagination gather in space before me, gargoyles and gorgons, Boschian nightmares writhing, fangs and talons and fire. They shriek, "Go away, or die!" Insanity. They're not real. I'm trapped in the thoughts of a mad mind. ... I scream.
Nightmare is after me like a drug dream (it's like descriptions of stardust deprivation), burning now, with salamanders. I must escape this haunted place. Again, I scream. The madness deeply holds my mind.
Then the warm feeling comes, gently calms my soul, soothes my fear, pushes the terror and madness away. My dragon from the stars. ... He tells me, "We succeed. Maybe win." Then, darkly, "Fear is Star's End mind-thing. Planet is mad machine. Mad machine use madness weapons.
"See!"
Shielded by his touch, I turn to Star's End. The Sangaree
are silhouetted against the right planet. The face of the world is diseased behind them, spotted blackly, covered with sudden clouds.
I see we are no longer advancing. Indeed, the planet is receding. We're running full speed, dispersing. I know that, if we could, we'd hyper. But we can't on minddrive. Nor can the Sangaree while they're combat-locked. A hundred miles closer than we, they're scattering, breaking lock—too late! The mad machine's weapons arrive.
"Close mind! Get out!" my dragon shrieks. "Not need power now." I understand because of the earlier nightmares—Star's End's are weapons of a terrible kind, of the mind. I stop looking—though I have no eyes to close here
—lift the switch beneath my left hand.
I feel the helmet now, the couch, and loss. I miss my dragon, and, in missing him, I understand Starfishers a little better, why they enjoy being so far from the worlds of men. This Fish-Fisher thing is a whole new experiential frontier... . My body is wet with sweat, I'm shivering cold. The room is silent. Where are my techs? Am I alone? My head is a thundering migraine. Rational thought is impossible. I want free of the straps that bind my limbs... .
Danion staggers, staggers, staggers. I hear screams— I'm not alone! Loose things racket around; I suffer momentary visions of beasts of hell. Terror grips me anew. The Star's End weapons have arrived, and I'm pinned here, helpless... .
Slowly, slowly, it fades. The screams die (some, I think, were my own), are gradually replaced by excited chatter—I can distinguish no words. My head is tearing itself apart. I was a kid the last time it was this bad. I shout. Someone finally notices me. The helmet comes off, a syringe stabs my neck. Tingles spread. The migraine begins to pass.
The room is cloaked in gloom. Stored power is almost gone, I guess. A drain, the fighting. But the faces I see are joyous—with the exception of those gruesomely vacant few of mind-techs who didn't get out in time.
"We've won!" says the motherish half of my tech-team. "Star's End killed them." Not all, I suspect, though I say nothing. Some broke lock, and will carry a grudge... .
"And four harvestships," says a sad-faced man passing.
A Pyrrhic victory. We won, but there is nothing to celebrate. Our joy dies.
I'm ready for collapse, yet hours pass before I rest. First, I search for Mouse, find him in D.C. Central, un-
conscious on a stretcher, his arm crudely bandaged and splinted. Then it's back to my team, patching pipes. There is so much to do, just to keep Danion alive. But power we eventually restore, life support we repair, drives we jury-rig. It's not too hard. The damage is more to people than plant (over half the crew is gone). The surviving service ships are recovered. A watch for sharks is set, but those nightmares have gone to places of easier hunting.
There is no time for mourning, so fierce is the battle for life. We save Danion, but abandon the Star's End project. The war with sharks may well be lost.
Months pass. Something dread approaches: time to return to Carson's.
It is five months since I want drank of the blood of my soul. Five peaceful months. I belong, finally—but I'm afraid to ask to stay. For weeks I worry asking, decide, undecide. I'm so terribly afraid of being turned down; and a little afraid of being accepted.