"Sharks coming again."
Once more Danion's weaponry scarred the long night. Moyshe wondered what some alien would think if he happened on its unconcealable mark, a thousand years from now, a thousand light-years away.
Both sides had used retrospective observation techniques during the Ulantonid War. A battle's outcome might be fixed, but it could be studied over and over from every possible angle.
The second assault was more furious than the first. BenRabi stopped trying to think. He had to give his whole attention over to following the situation.
More sharks dropped hyper, drawn by no known means. The rage took them, too. They attacked everything, including wounded brethren floundering around the battle region.
This was the root of Chub's fear. That more and more sharks would be drawn till they simply overwhelmed everything.
It was the future foreseen by both starfish and Starfishers. The terror that herd after herd and harvestship after harvestship would be consumed was the force that had driven the maverick commander of this fleet to hazard the defenses of Stars' End.
The arrivals slowed to a trickle. Chub thought, "We going to win again, Moyshe man-friend. See the pattern? The glorious pattern. They waste their might devouring their own injured."
BenRabi searched his kaleidoscopic mind-link universe. He saw nothing but chaos. This, he reflected, is the sort of thing Czyzewski was thinking about when he wrote The Old God. So much of Czyzewski's poetry seemed reflective of recent events. Had the man been prescient?
No. He was far gone on stardust when he did the cycle including The Old God. The drug killed him less than a month after he finished the poem. The images were just the flaming madness of the drug burning through.
"Don't you get tired of being right?" he asked when the first sharks fled.
"Never, Moyshe man-friend. But learned long ago to wait till event is certain, predestined, to make observation. Error is painful. The scorn of Old Ones is like the fire of a thousand stars."
"I know the feeling." For some reason the face of Admiral Beckhart, his one-time commander, drifted through his universe. Here on the galactic rim, fighting for his life against creatures he had not suspected existed two years earlier, his previous career seemed as remote as that of another man. Of another incarnation, or something he had read about.
The assault collapsed once the first few well-fed sharks fled.
The starfish had suffered far less than their inedible guardians. Not one dragon was missing from the golden herd defended by the harvestships. But another ship had been injured severely.
A traitorous thought stole across Moyshe's mind on mouse-soft feet.
Chub was less indignant than he expected.
On a strictly pragmatic level, the starfish agreed that getting out of the interstellar rivers would be the best way to conserve Starfisher ships and lives.
"They'll never go, Chub. The harvestfleets are their nations. Their homelands. They're proud, stubborn people. They'll keep fighting and hoping."
"I know, Moyshe man-friend. It saddens the herd. And makes the Old Ones proud that they forged their alliance so well. But why do you say ‘they?' "
"We, then. Part of the time... Most of the time I'm an outsider here. They do things differently than what I learned... "
"Sometimes you miss your old life, Moyshe man-friend."
"Sometimes. Not often, and not much, though. I'd better tend to business." He had to focus his attention to force his physical voice to croak, "Gun Control, Mindlink. The sharks are going. They've given up. You can secure when the last leaves firing range."
"You sure, Linker? Don't look like it in the display tank."
"I'm sure. Let me know when I can stop realtiming. This is my second link in eight hours."
"Right. Will do." The man on the far end seemed impressed.
Clara's voice broke in. "Are you all right, Moyshe? The strain getting heavy? We can bring you out."
"I'm okay. For a while. I remember what I am. Just be ready to hit me with that needle."
At Stars' End Danion had lost half her native, trained mindtechs because they had stayed in link too long, or had been mindburned by sharks breaking through the defensive fire screen. The best guess was that the former had become lost in the special interior universe of the linker. Dozens occupied a special hospital ward where doctors and nurses had to handle them like newly born babies.
Their bodies lived on. Their minds, it was hoped, might sometime be retrieved.
In all the history of the High Seiners no lost linker ever had been recalled.
The Starfishers were living on hopes these days. Stars' End had been one, for weapons capable of shattering shark tides.
BenRabi did not understand how the Seiners had hoped to accomplish what generations of madmen, fools, and geniuses had failed to do. Stars' End was a fortress unvanquishable.
It was a whole world, Earth-sized, that was a fortress. Or planetary battleship. Or whatever. It could be approached by nothing. The technologies of its defenses were beyond the imaginations of any of the races aware of its existence. Its builders had long since vanished into the abyss of time.
Generations of men had lusted after the weapons of Stars' End. Thousands had died trying to obtain them. And the fortress world remained inviolate.
Why had the Seiners been convinced that they would have better luck?
"You were right, Linker. Computer says they're pulling out. Going to let you off realtime now. We can handle it from here without."
"Thank you, Gun Control."
The sense of drain stopped abruptly. BenRabi's universe reeled. Chub reached in and steadied him. "Time to break, Moyshe man-friend. You losing sense of reality and orientation in space-time."
"I'm not lost yet, Chub."
"You all say so. No more you can do here, man-friend."
The crackle of reality beginning to fall into shards rose from benRabi's hindbrain. It pushed a wave of terror before it. Chub did nothing to soothe him.
"Clara! The needle. I'm coming out."
He slapped the switch beneath his left hand.
They were waiting for him. The agony persisted for only a few seconds.
That was bad enough. He screamed and screamed. It got worse every time.
Four: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
They put him into Hospital Block this time. He was under sedation for three days.
Two people were at his bedside when the doctor came to bring him out. The thin, pale, blue-eyed woman with the nervous hands was Amy. The little oriental with the presence of an iceberg was benRabi's friend Mouse.
Amy would sit for a minute, picking at her jumpsuit, shifting this way and that. She would cross and uncross her legs, then would rise and pace around for a minute before sitting again. She did not speak to Mouse. Most of the time she deliberately tried to distance Storm from herself and Moyshe. It was almost as if she saw Mouse as a competitor for benRabi's affection.
The men had shared missions under fire. Sometimes they did not like one another much. Their backgrounds were day and night. Centuries of prejudice had erected walls between them. Yet an indestructible bond had been forged and hammered on the anvils of shared peril. They had guarded one another's backs and saved one another's lives too often to let go.
Mouse waited without moving, with the patience of a samurai.
He was a dedicated Archaicist. He had just encountered his own ancient heritage and, in imagination, was trying the samurai role for size. The code and conduct suited the warrior within him.
But it did nothing for the libertine. And Mouse was a classic of that genre, at least with the opposite sex.
Masato Igarashi Storm did nothing by half measures.
The doctor coughed softly.
"Will he be all right?" Amy demanded. "He'll come out okay? I know what you told me, but... "
Mouse's facial muscles moved slightly. His wan expression spoke volumes about his disgust at her display.