"Three Sky? Really? I thought it would be way outside our usual sphere." Beckhart's stiffness began to fade. He became the Admiral of old. Smiles and friendship. And willingness to spend a man's life. "The purloined letter thing. That's why ships disappear there." After a pause, "I have things to do before we leave. Meet me in the lobby in half an hour. Ready for space."
"Ready for space?" McClennon asked.
"That was a subtle hint, son. Get cleaned up. I'll have a man bring you a uniform. And try to make peace with your woman."
"Thank you, sir."
He set a record for bathing, shaving, and shifting to the clean uniform. He had ten minutes left when he finished.
One minute later he entered the room Beckhart was using as a brig. It was just a hotel room without windows, with two guards posted outside its only door. Amy and Marya sat against opposite walls, ignoring one another.
"Amy?"
She refused to acknowledge his presence.
He grabbed her chin, forced her to face him. "Look at me, dammit!" For two weeks he had been trying to make her understand. She had refused. He wanted to beat it into her stubborn head. It took an effort to speak calmly. "We're leaving in a few minutes. If you want, you can come with us."
She glared.
"We'll end up at Stars' End. I thought you might want to join your research team there. Instead of being sent straight home."
Still she glared.
"If you go back with the internees, you'll end up at the Yards. With your mother. I thought maybe you'd want to go where you had a friend."
She would not say anything.
"All right. Be stubborn." He turned to the door. "Officer? I'm ready."
"Moyshe, wait. I... Yes. I'll go."
He sighed. Finally. The first yielding. "I'll clear it with the Admiral." A wan smile teased his lips as he left the room.
It would be a long journey. Maybe long enough for him to win his case.
Beckhart did not like his idea at first.
"Sir," McClennon explained, "she's best friends with one of the senior Fisher scientists. If we can tame her, she can help sell cooperation. You keep talking about Ulantonid intelligence tapes. Use them to persuade her. We don't really have to turn her, just to open her mind."
"Thomas... I can see right through you. You don't give a shit about... All right. It's another trade-off. Bring her. But you're responsible for her."
"Tell the guards to turn her over to me."
"Go get her, will you? You're wasting time."
An hour later, they were aboard the shuttle to Marathon. Mouse was shaking. Beckhart was lost in dispatches that had come out aboard the cruiser. Amy had her eyes closed. She was pale and grim.
McClennon stared at her and mentally roamed fields of might-have-beens and should-have-dones. He had gotten her to admit an intellectual understanding of his actions. And her inability to differentiate between personal and social allegiances.
She could not see his betrayal of her people as impersonal. She wanted his feelings for her to have been an agent's play-acting. Somehow, that would absolve her of complicity.
She was a self-torturer.
Could he criticize her? Or anyone else? He lived his life in a self-inflicted Iron Maiden.
He and Amy had been doomed from the beginning. His program's instability had made him a natural victim for her inadequacies. They had been too much alike. And she too much like the Alyce creature programmed as one of his triggers. Maybe his ideal woman was a Marya, a cold, gunmetal woman armored at the pain points. A woman with whom it was unnecessary to exchange emotional hostages.
Had he changed during this mission? People did, but usually too slowly to notice. He did not trust the changes he saw. Too many might be artificial.
The Psychs would sort him out. A small team had come out aboard Marathon. Maybe when they finished he would know who he really was. He was not sure he wanted to know.
Book Three
STARS' END
Twenty-one: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
The lights came on. McClennon, Mouse, and Amy sat in silence. The tapes had been grotesque. Storm finally squeaked, "Admiral... That's really what we're up against?"
McClennon peered at Amy. She met his gaze for an instant. "Moyshe," she whispered, "I think I'm going to be sick."
"It is," Beckhart promised Mouse. "It's tough to swallow. Even when you're there yourself. All that ruthlessness, for no discernible purpose, only makes it more frightening"
McClennon took Amy's hand. It was cool. She was shaking. "You need something?"
"I'll be all right. Just give me a minute."
McClennon turned, "Admiral. I've seen that kind of ship before."
"What? Where? How?" Beckhart came toward McClennon like a tiger stalking game. He seemed to have caught a sudden fever. A haze appeared on his upper lip. "Where?" he breathed.
"The Seiners have one at their xeno-archaeological research facility. You remember, Amy? I asked if it had been built by an intelligent slug? The one nobody wanted to work."
"That's right. You're right, Moyshe, It was exactly like the ships in the tape."
"Tell me about it," Beckhart said.
"There isn't much to tell," McClennon replied. "The Seiners found it in the Nebula. They considered it comparatively modern. They found it surrounded by ships left behind by the people they think built Stars' End. The same people who, I think, built the base Darkside. They assumed the ship had been attacked by accident during the Ulantonid War. I said its crew might have been studying the ships belonging to the Stars' End race. That's all."
Beckhart became thoughtful. "That isn't all, Thomas. There's always more. You just don't know it. Is there a connection? Think about it. Stars' End might be more than just a handy arsenal."
Beckhart was talking to himself, not his audience, McClennon smiled. The Admiral was making the sort of random connections that, when they paid off, caused him to be so effective.
"Thomas, I want you and Amy to talk to Doctor Chancellor's people. They came off the Lunar digs. There might be an angle."
"They should get together with Amy's friend, Consuela el-Sanga. She's more knowledgeable than we are."
"Fine. Fine. We'll arrange that. Meantime, get your brains boiling. Open them up to unexpected possibilities... Tell you what. We'll have another little get-together after dinner. With them included. Marathon brought me some new material. I'll lay it out then."
McClennon caught a bleak note. "Bad, eh?"
"Worse than you've seen."
Beckhart used the evening session to present the report from the Ulantonid deep probe. Afterward, he asked, "Any speculations, people?"
The science people were guarded. They wanted more data. McClennon asked, "Did Luna Command run that through the big brain?"
"Yes. And it asked for more data too. I think it has a human bias built in. It wouldn't accept the numbers. It suggested that Commander Russell be replaced by somebody less inclined to exaggerate."
"Looks to me like there's enough data to draw some first approximation inferences. Like, the Globular and war fleets represent an effort to destroy any present and potential sentience. It looks like an effort to eliminate competition and remodel the galaxy for the comfort of one race."
A scientist protested, "You can't draw those inferences. They're anthropocentric. It could just as well be a religious crusade."
"What?" Mouse snarled. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Easy, Mouse," Beckhart said, "No idea is too bizarre right now. The truth is going to be something off the wall. Brainstorm, people. Come up with as many ideas as possible, then winnow them as we accumulate more data. We shouldn't use the facts to build something acceptable. The truth may not be."