Why did he hate so much?
"Come on, Doc. They're on their way down. Can't you hear them?"
The crowd noise and sirens were yielding to the rumble of assault landing craft descending on penetration runs. The Broken Wings' atmosphere howled its protest of the violation.
Jupp was on his way.
Someone stuck his head through the doorway. Mouse shot, missed, jumped into the hallway and shot again. "Doc, will you come on?"
"I'm sorry, Marya. Really. It's the way things had to be." He snagged the needlegun in passing, skipped a fresh corpse, and pursued Mouse into the emergency stairwell.
Later, as they waited in the crowd watching the invaders pour through the main city locks, Niven asked, "What was that crap about getting off before Navy finds out?"
"We're supposed to be the Starduster and Piao, remember?"
"But they'll know when... "
"Not yet. Look." The Marines entering the city wore uniform gear, but it was not Service issue. It was like nothing Niven had ever seen.
Mouse had chosen the waiting place with care. A man loaded with brass headed directly toward them. "Mr. Piao?" He avoided looking at Niven. His attitude seemed one of mixed awe, fear, and loathing. "You have the material for my officers?"
"That I do, Colonel." Mouse proffered a thick package. "Congratulations. Your men are as efficient as ours."
The Colonel reddened. His mouth snapped open, but he caught himself. Carefully, he said, "More so, Mr. Piao. As you'll someday learn."
"All things are possible to those who believe."
The Colonel riffled through a stack of copies. Other officers gathered behind him. He started passing them papers.
"Let's drift, Doc. They can handle it."
Niven did not miss the wariness in all those Marine eyes. "What was that all about?"
"Oh. They think we're Piao and the Starduster too. They think we worked a deal with Luna Command so we could knock over the Sangaree and take control of their nets."
"What's all the smoke screen for?"
"We've got to keep the Starduster story alive, at least till Jupp makes his hit. Otherwise they might evacuate their production facilities. By the way, I wanted to say you did a job digging all that info out. The Old Man is going to love you."
Niven did not follow it. "It's too Byzantine for me. Are the Sangaree supposed to find out that they're Marines? And then figure we didn't say anything about the production facilities because that would cut off our own supply?"
"Wait till you're in on one of the Old Man's complicated ones."
"Mr. Piao?" a Marine non-comm asked.
"Yes."
"If you'll follow me, sir. Your transportation." Marines surrounded them. A precaution against assassination, Niven supposed. Those bounties still existed.
Sounds of sporadic fighting came from the city. Believing the raiders to be Starduster men, the Sangaree minions would battle hard. The Starduster's viciousness toward collaborators was legend.
The Marines guided them into an armored personnel carrier. They had it to themselves. It rumbled away toward Angel Port.
"Mouse, I get the feeling the Admiral threw in a few twists just to make it interesting. What happens when the Starduster finds out that we've been using his name in vain?"
Mouse was in a bright, expansive mood. He had had a beautiful day. He had carved his initials on the Sangaree soul. He had vandalized their house of crime. "I'll tell you a secret, Doc. If you promise you won't ever let the Old Man know you know." He looked at Niven expectantly.
"All right. I give. What?"
"You really are the Starduster."
"What?"
"The Starduster. Piao. The Old Man invented the whole thing. The Starduster is whoever he points at and says, ‘You!' "
"Well, shit. Mouse, I really needed that. Here you've had me scared to death that the son of a bitch was going to crawl out of the woodwork and cut my throat. I got a year's vacation coming after debriefing. And, dammit, as soon as it goes through, I'm going to... "
"Don't count on it, Doc. Not when you're working for the Old Man."
October 3047. Captain Jupp von Drachau, commanding Special Action Task Force IV, with a heavy siege squadron attached, surprises and commences reduction action against Sangaree manufacturing facilities hidden in the inner asteroid belt surrounding Delta Sheol, a white dwarf in the mini-cluster called the Hell Stars. Destruction is swift, savage, and complete. At the same time Confederation and local police agencies begin closing down the drug networks formerly rooted on The Broken Wings.
Admiral Beckhart has taken every point in a victorious round against his oldest and most favored enemy.
Nine: 3048 AD
Operation Dragon, Danion
BenRabi started to push into his cabin, still glaring at the Sangaree woman.
"I should've bent her on The Broken Wings," Mouse snarled. "You should've... " He had not forgiven Moyshe the weakness that had left her alive.
"I can't stomach contingency assassinations, Mouse."
"Yeah? Look over there and think about it some more. How much mischief could she do?"
"All right. So it makes a perverted kind of sense. If you figure a ghost like The Broken Wings will come back to haunt you."
"It will. It always does. Maybe I'll settle this up... "
BenRabi shook his head. "Not here. Not now. Not after what we just went through."
"I didn't mean right now. I'm not a fool, Moyshe. It would look like an accident."
"Let it be, Mouse."
There was no compassion in Mouse. I should be flint too, benRabi thought. But I don't have his knack for hating.
BenRabi found the things and people in his life too transient for more than mild aversion.
"She'd better move fast when we hit dirt again, then." Mouse growled. "One getaway is all she gets... I hope we find Homeworld before I check out."
BenRabi felt a twinge of jealousy. Mouse knew the nature of his Grail. His feet were set inalterably on the path that led to it, though it was a cup of blood.
"For your sake, I hope so." Moyshe laughed softly, bitterly. Sometimes he had to, or scream. "See you later." He pushed into his cabin.
He hoped their year cooped up here would soften Mouse, but feared there was no hope. Marya would not let time work. Memories of her children would lead her on...
Mouse's hate was old and strong, and deeper than Confederation culture usually ingrained. If he were indeed a Storm, that would explain it. The Storms of the Iron Legion had had an old-fashioned, Biblical way of looking at things.
Sangaree manipulations, during the war in the Shadowline, had destroyed the family.
But Mouse did not have to be a Storm. His hatred could be stardust-related.
"The joy that burns, the dream that kills," Czyzewski had called the drug only seconds before his own addiction had carried him into the big, endless dream of death. The drug was the leading plague of the age, and had touched virtually every human being. It had taken more lives than had the bitter Ulantonid War.
Stardust was the pusher's dream. It was immediately addictive. One flight and the user was hooked forever. An addict could not taper off. Neither could he withdraw cold. Nor could he substitute another, less fearsome drug in its place.
For the poor Inner Worlder addiction ended hard: by suicide, by being slain while trying to steal enough to finance another fix, or by finding death in the constant dogfighting among have and have-not addicts. And many times the end came slowly, screamingly, in an institution where the warders could do nothing but watch, protect the world by keeping the addict restrained, and try to develop hearts of stone.
The sordid facts of stardust addiction tickled the Sangaree conscience not at all. They had a product to market, a stellar to turn.