His thoughts kept fleeing to the memories. He found something new each time he checked them. They were intriguing, but he could not shed the disheartening parts.
There were not just five warfleets coming out The Arm. There were eighteen. And the galaxy was infested by not one, but four Globulars. He could not console himself with the starfish view that, in the long run, the enemy was never entirely successful. He did not care that this was their third scourging of the Milky Way, that life always survived, and that sometime between the grim passages, over the eons, new intelligence arose to contest the world-slayers' efforts. He could not be consoled by the knowledge that the enemy would not reach Confederation in his lifetime.
If there was a God, He was cruel. To have allowed the creation of such all-powerful, enduring monstrousness...
"Chub thought he was giving me a gift," McClennon said. "He knew I was curious about the past. And he knew his species had information we wanted. It was a gift of despair. It just showed us how hopeless the whole thing really is."
"I wouldn't say that. You're down too far."
"Why do you say that?"
"You told me the fish said they can be stopped. That it had been done before. The Stars' End people were working on it when the plague got them."
"They were working on us, Mouse. Trying to breed some kind of killer race of their own."
Mouse shrugged. "Hi, Tanni."
McClennon glanced up into laughing green eyes.
Mouse suggested, "Why don't you take my friend for a walk? He's down again."
The woman laughed. "That's what I had in mind. Or would you rather play chess, Tom?"
McClennon grinned. "Let's flip a coin... Ouch! No fair pinching."
"Come on, you. I've got to go on station in an hour." She undulated out of the wardroom.
"Wait till Max gets a look at that," Mouse said.
"Hey. She better not. Not ever. Hear? The fireworks would make the nova bomb look pitiful."
Mouse laughed. "I'm looking forward to it, old buddy. I can't forgive you for snagging that before I did."
"You can't win them all, Mouse." He hurried after Tanni Lowenthal, Stars' End, the mission, starfish, and centerward enemies forgotten.
He spent a month in the bowels of Old Earth's moon. The mind-butchers demolished his soul and on its foundations rebuilt to saner specifications. The first three weeks were horror incarnate. He was forced to face himself by mind mechanics who showed no more compassion than a Marine motor pool man for a recalcitrant personnel carrier.
They did not accept excuses. They did not permit stalling. And even while he slept they continued debriefing him, tapping the incredible store of memories given him by Chub. They were merciless.
And they were effectve.
His sojourn among the Seiners had mellowed his memories of the cold determination of his Navy compatriots. He had come in unprepared. He was less ready to fight the reconstruction.
It went more quickly than his doctors anticipated.
When he was past crisis they opened him up and repaired his ulcerated plumbing.
He was permitted visitors on day twenty-nine.
"Two at a time," his nurse protested. "Just two of you can go in."
"Disappear," Mouse told her.
"Yes sir. Captain. Sir."
Mouse was nearly trampled by two women. He dropped his portable chess set. Chessmen scattered across the floor. "Oh, damn!"
Greta plopped her behind on the edge of the bed, flung herself forward, hugged McClennon. "I'm glad you're back. I've been calling every day since I heard. They wouldn't let me come before."
And Max, the old girlfriend, "Christ, Walter. What the hell did they do to you? You look like death on a stick."
"That's why I love you, Max. You've always got a pleasant word." He squeezed Greta's hand. "How are you, honey? How's Academy?"
She started babbling. Max got on about some new stamps she had at her hobby shop. She had been saving them for him.
Mouse recovered his chessmen, deposited the set on the nightstand, took a chair. He crossed right leg over left, steepled his fingers before his mouth, and watched with a small smile.
McClennon turned his head, trying to hide his eyes.
Softly, Max said, "Walter. You're crying."
McClennon hid behind his hand. "Max... It was a rough one. A long one and a rough one. I was lost for a long time. I forgot... I forgot I had friends. I was alone out there."
"Mouse was there, wasn't he?"
"Mouse was there. Without him... He brought me through. Mouse. Come here." He took Storm's hand. "Thanks, Mouse. I mean it. Let's don't let it get away again."
For a moment Storm stopped hiding behind the masks and poses. He nodded.
Greta resumed babbling. McClennon hugged her again. "I'm having trouble believing it. I thought you'd have forgotten me by now."
"How could I?"
"What am I? A sentimental fool who helped a pretty girl in trouble. We never knew each other."
She hugged him a third time. She whispered, "I knew you. You cared. That's what matters. When you were gone, your friends were always there to help." She buried her head in his shoulder and blubbered.
McClennon frowned a question at Max, who said, "Your Bureau took care of her like family. She's got to be the most pampered Midshipman in Academy."
"And you?"
Max shrugged. "I did what I could." She seemed embarrassed. "Well, how else was I going to keep track of you? I don't have connections."
"I'm glad you're going to be all right," Greta murmured. "Dad?"
More tears escaped McClennon's eyes.
"Did I do wrong? I didn't mean... "
"It's all right, honey. It's all right. I wasn't ready for that." He squeezed the wind out of her.
"Just get the hell out of my way, woman!" someone thundered in the passageway outside. Beckhart kicked the door open. "See if you can't find a bedpan over around Tycho Crater, eh? Go on. Get scarce."
The nurse beat her second retreat.
The Admiral surveyed the room.
McClennon stared at his professional paterfamilias.
"Looks like everything's under control," Beckhart observed.
"Place is drawing a crowd," McClennon said. "Must be my animal magnetism."
Beckhart smiled with one side of his mouth. "That's one crime they won't convict you of, son. Lay out that board, Mouse. I'll beat you a game while we wait for the females."
The game had hardly started, and McClennon had hardly gotten Greta's eyes dried. The door swung inward again. The nurse watched with a look of despair.
Tanni Lowenthal's face rippled with emotions. It selected an amused smile. "Tom. I thought I'd get here first. I guess you don't run as fast when you've got short legs." She crossed gazes with Max. The metallic scrang of ladies' rapiers meeting momentarily tortured the air. Then Max smiled and introduced herself. She and Tanni got past the rocky part in minutes.
Beckhart checked his watch. "Damn it, they're late. I'm going to have somebody's... "
The harried nurse stepped in. She carried a portable remote comm. "Call for you, Captain McClennon."
"Let me have that," the Admiral said. He seized the comm. "Jones? You find her? Got her on the line? All right. Thomas, your mother." He handed the comm to McClennon and returned to his game.
McClennon did not know what to do or say. He and his mother were estranged. She was Old Earther born and bred, and they had battled fiercely ever since his enlistment. Their last meeting, just before the Seiner mission, had ended bitterly.
"Mother?"
"Tommy? Is it really you?"
"Yes."
"I thought you'd been killed. When they came to the apartment... God. They say you were mixed up in this war business that's got the whole world turned upside down. The spikes are everywhere. They're grabbing people off the streets."