That Alyce creature must have been a hypnotic key, he thought. She was supposed to unlock all the spooks hidden behind the barriers Chub had been unable to penetrate. But the key had not opened the lock all the way. No more than Mouse had back when, when he had tried before their scheduled return to Confederation.
Something had shorted out. Something was trying to take him back not just to Thomas McClennon before this mission, but all the way back, to a day when he had not as yet undergone any personality programming.
He did not want to make that journey. He wanted what he had found in the high rivers between the stars. He fought. Deep inside, he howled and clawed like a wild thing tangled in a hunter's net.
There were angry shouts in the street whence he had come. The Marines were disarming his men. Ordinary precaution, he supposed. His team had been operating outside its "reasonable jurisdiction."
Mouse made his decision. It favored discretion. He stooped to recover Marya's weapon...
"Don't!" The voice was soft enough not to be heard far, yet commanding. BenRabi/McClennon shrank into the shadows of Jellyroll's legs. His Amy Many-Names had appeared. She bore a nasty little pistol. Her features were as cold as Mouse's became when he went into assassin's mind.
Mouse looked at her, saw the absence of emotion, slowly straightened. He did not drop his stunner.
"Where's Moyshe?" she snapped. "The grubs will be after him. I've got to find him first. He's suddenly the key to everything. You two never really crossed over, did you?" The words tumbled out of her mouth almost faster than her lips could shape them.
Mouse did not answer. He just stared into Amy's eyes, holding them. He clutched his weapon and waited for her coldness to thaw.
Or was he waiting for McClennon? Thomas was not sure. Mouse might be turning his own peril into some kind of test.
McClennon was sure Amy's determination would not persist. She was not trained for it.
"Where's Moyshe?" she demanded again. Her voice rose, squeaked.
"Here, Love." He eased from the shadows. "Don't move. Please?"
Her gaze darted his way, noted his stunner.
Mouse raised his weapon.
"No, Mouse. Not my wife, you don't."
Mouse stopped. McClennon's tone halted him. He swung his head for a cautious look at his partner.
"Moyshe, why?" Amy asked plaintively. Her weapon did not waver a millimeter from dead center on Mouse's chest.
"Why what, honey?"
"This betrayal. We gave you everything... "
"What betrayal?"
He could hear the I she was saying inside. She had opened her fortress unvanquishable to him, and now his promises appeared false. He had come to her bearing banners of love, false banners, and had raped and plundered her soul.
He could hear her pain, but hadn't any idea what had brought it on. "What betrayal?" he demanded. "What's happened?"
"The Marines are arresting everybody. ‘Interning them,' they call it. Your Beckhart sent Gruber an ultimatum. We open Stars' End for Navy or he nova bombs the Yards."
No, McClennon thought. There's something twisted here. Something not quite straight. Not that Beckhart would not make the threat. He would, and would follow through for the sake of the Stars' End weaponry. He was a man who believed in his mission. But the timing seemed askew.
Or was it? The Starfishers and Sangaree were inextricably entangled at Stars' End. Beckhart was free to move against the home ground of either. It was a remarkable opportunity. Earlier, he had gloated about having hit Homeworld's sun...
Damn! Damn! Damn! he thought.
The agent part of him, the old intuition, put together everything Beckhart had, and had not, said, and threw forth one incontrovertible answer. The Admiral had been after Stars' End from the beginning. From the moment he had summoned Cornelius Perchevski from his interlude with his quasi-daughter Greta...
As Moyshe benRabi it had been his mission to come up with leverage Beckhart could use to force the Seiners to open the fortress world to Luna Command.
He had been doing the Admiral's work even when he had thought he was working against the man. Damn! Damn! Damn!
And he did have the lever the Admiral needed. Beckhart had given that away in threatening Gruber.
The Admiral needed the location of the Seiner Yards. Mouse must have told the Old Man his partner could clue him in.
Gruber would yield to the threat. Not gracefully, but he would yield. No sane man would do otherwise once the fate of Homeworld became known.
Gruber would surrender. The single most commonly known fact about Beckhart was that he was a man of his word with a threat. He would use the bomb if refused. But McClennon was sure the Old Man was running one colossal bluff right now. He could not have the coordinates of the Yards. Three Sky was huge, even if he knew to look there. Insofar as Thomas knew, there were just three people on The Broken Wings who could tell Beckhart what he had to know. Jarl and Amy would not talk. He was in one hell of a tight place. The Starfishers did not call their nebula Three Sky among themselves. McClennon doubted that one in a thousand knew that landside name, and not one in a hundred of those the coordinates for the Yards themselves. Mouse did not know. McClennon had acquired the information entirely by accident, while arguing with Amy.
"Where's Jarl?" he asked. He wondered how effectively his orders had been carried out after he had alerted the fleet. Well, probably. Amy was carrying on like they were the only red pass people left.
Tears rolled as she replied, "He's dead, Moyshe. He killed himself. Only about fifteen minutes ago. I got away while they were distracted."
"While who was distracted?"
"The military police."
So. That roadblock had been a setup. And Jarl, intuiting Beckhart's thrust, had gone the only way he could to avoid checkmate.
And Amy intended eliminating another information source. Him.
Where was the harvestfleet? Had Beckhart gotten his bluff in on Payne too?
Then what would Amy do about herself? Put a lasebolt through her own brain? She was capable. She seemed a bit self-destructive.
What if Beckhart's claims about a centerward race were valid? That meant the whole human race, as well as several neighboring races, were threatened with extinction.
It seemed a lot more than Seiner freedom lay on the line.
The weight of the decision he had to make seemed as heavy as that Atlas had borne. Heavier. Hundreds of worlds might depend upon his choice... Ambergris and the Stars' End weapons. They might make all the difference.
What to do?
He leaned against Jellyroll's leg and stared at the symbols of the sides of his conflict. Which should he betray? Which should he destroy?
It was in his hands alone now, and there was no evading the decision. He could not let it ride in hopes it would sort itself out. No god from a machine would swing down on a wire to relieve him of his burden.
He had always had a yearning to become a hero, even for the few shooting star moments Confederation culture allowed. He would become one to the trillions if he delivered Stars' End and its arsenal. He would stand beside Jupp von Drachau, destroyer of Sangaree... But that would make him Iscariot to millions of Starfishers.
His fingertips sensually caressed his weapon. There lay all solutions. In the gun. The final argument. In the words of ancient Mao, "All power comes from the mouth of a gun." War and violence, he thought. A certain breed claimed they solved nothing. Those folks ignored the fact that dead men seldom argued.
He remembered a small Ulantonid nun, seen in passing in the Blake City spaceport on Carson's an eon ago, while he and Mouse had been waiting to join the Starfishers. She had served a dead man...