Glen Cook - Starfishers 3 - Stars End

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2024-12-04 0 0 725.39KB 190 页 5.9玖币
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STARS’ END
by Glen Cook
Book 3 of
The Starfishers
Star's End
Author: Glen Cook
First time published: August 1982, Warner Books
Synopsis
The Fortress On The Edge Of The Galaxy...
was called Star's End, a planet built for death -- but by whom? It lay on the
outermost arm of the Milky Way, silent, cloaked in mystery, self-contained and
controlled -- tantalizingly close to the harvesting Starfishers.
If they could gain control of that arsenal, the Starfishers need never fear the
Confederation's navy nor the forces of the human-like Sangaree.
But intelligent life everywhere now needs the might of Star's End -- and the
know-how of agents Storm and BenRabi. For in the midst of the Sangaree wars, a
far more sinister enemy approaches from the depths of the galaxy, in hordes as
large as a solar system.
And its mission is only to kill...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STARS’ END
by Glen Cook
Book 3 of
The Starfishers
Table of Contents
Book One
THE HIGH SEINERS
One: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Two: 3049 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Three: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Four: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Five: 3049 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Six: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Seven: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Eight: 3049 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Nine: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Ten: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
Eleven: Christmas 3049 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Book Two
THE BROKEN WINGS
Twelve: 3050 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Thirteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Fourteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Fifteen: 3050 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Sixteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Seventeen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Eighteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Nineteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Twenty: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Book Three
STARS’ END
Twenty-one: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Twenty-two: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Twenty-three: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Twenty-four: 3051 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Twenty-five: 3050-3052 AD
The Main Sequence
Book One
THE HIGH SEINERS
One: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
The death cry of an exploding sun illuminated a starfleet the
likes of which few men had ever seen. There were six great
starships in the convoy. The smallest was forty kilometers long.
No drive glow enveloped those ships. No ion wake marked their
passing. They were drifting. But they met the flash front of the
nova with an inherent velocity approaching three tenths the
velocity of light.
Each of those starships looked like a mobile created by a
sculptor, looked like someone had visited a planetary junkyard,
had welded scraps together, and then had flung the results at the
farthest star. Those ships were all angles, tubes and planes, globes,
cubes, and what appeared to be silver sails. Whole forests of
antennae bristled on the humped mountains of their backs.
Random chunks of debris accompanied the ships, thrown out
from jagged wounds in their flanks. Wisps of atmosphere leaked
from those great rents, twinkling in the nova light. Smaller ships,
like blowflies, fluttered around the rawest injuries.
There had been a battle. A battle at Stars’ End. Its fury and
magnitude would have beggared the imagination of men who
hadn’t ever been out among the stars.
These limping, crippled starships were the survivors.
The great lens of the Milky Way sprawled before the starships,
cold and silver and bright. Their noses were aimed toward its
heart. Like a dying man crossing a desert, the starfleet was
dragging itself toward healthier climes.
A patch on the smallest ship began to glow, throwing color back
into the ocean of night. It was not a happy color. It was the dull,
dark red of venous blood, the red of senescent suns. It brightened,
became more intense.
The other ships drifted away. Fate had overtaken their little
sister. She was about to lose control of her fusion plant. They did
not want to be too close to the explosion. The smaller blowfly-
vessels flitted away, carrying evacuees.
For a moment the smaller starship yielded a light which rivalled
that of the nearby nova. Fragments as big as pyramids hurtled
outward, adding to the clutter traveling with the fleet. The
remainder of the ship began tumbling slowly, now little more than
a disemboweled corpse. The little ships darted in again, swarmed
around the remains. Signals leapt across the ether. Any survivors?
Anyone at all? There was no answer from the wreck. But the little
ships went in anyway.
Moyshe benRabi slapped the withdrawal switch beneath his left
hand.
Agony smashed into his head. A demon slapped a pair of
icehooks into his temples and yanked. He screamed. “Clara! Shot!”
He did not feel the needle bite his arm. Its prick was too tiny a
pain. He knew it had happened only because blessed relief hit him
seconds later.
Hans pulled his helmet. The youngster’s face was drawn. Clara
patted sweat from his face with a towel. “Bad, Moyshe?” she asked.
“The worst. I can’t reach him anymore. He’s out there without
protection . . . And we just lost Jariel. They couldn’t contain the
anti-matter leak. The Service Ships went back . . . I don’t think
they’ll find anybody to evacuate.”
Hans asked, “Drink, Moyshe?” The youth’s voice was tremulous.
He had had a sister on Jariel.
“Something. Please. I must have sweated a couple of liters. They
get through to Gruber yet?”
Clara shrugged. “I haven’t heard.” She was a plump,
grandmotherly, graying woman with rosy cheeks. Her appearance
reflected her personality. She was a book which could be read by
its cover. BenRabi was in love with her, in a filial way.
“We’ve got to have help. We can’t hide in this nova storm
forever. The particle wave is on its way. It’ll shred our screens.”
“Payne says we’re going out. Soon as Jariel is evacuated. The
sharks will have to take their chances.”
“Oh, damn.”
“What do the starfish say?” Hans asked, returning with a fruit
drink. He was putting on a brave face. He had been in the fleet
long enough to learn how to wait for good news or bad. They
would let him know about his sister.
BenRabi swung his feet to the deck. “Like I said. I couldn’t get
through. Too far.”
“Maybe somebody else did.”
“Somebody with more experience? I don’t think so.”
Hans was just nineteen, hardly out of creche. He had not yet
hardened to all the realities of the harvestfleet.
“Well just have to do it Payne’s way. Fight our way through.”
BenRabi began shuddering as his body reacted to the massive
dosage of anti-pain drug. Clara swept a blanket around his
shoulders. It did not lessen the chills.
They still did not know for certain that they had won the battle
of Stars’ End. They knew only that Payne’s Fleet had held the
battle space, had survived, and had begun making its way home.
They had not been attacked again, yet, but it was only a matter of
time till the struggle resumed.
“Look at me,” benRabi whispered. “I can’t stop shaking.”
“Go home,” Clara told him. “Get some sleep.”
“We might break through. They might need me to go on
minddrive. Just let me stretch my legs.” He picked at his arm
where the needle had broken his skin. The strain of the emergency
had begun to show on his flesh. He was getting tracks.
He collapsed when he tried to stand.
“Take him home, Hans,” Clara told the youth. “Lester. Help
Hans load Moyshe onto a scooter, will you?”
“What’s going on?” benRabi demanded as Hans halted the
flatbed electric truck outside his quarters. For a moment he did
not know where he was. “Why did you? . . . ”
“What happened?” a woman demanded. Worry strangled her
voice.
“He passed out,” Hans replied. “Just needs rest.”
“I told him . . . ”A thin, pale, nervous face outlined by the short
blonde hair entered Moyshe’s vision, peered down into his eyes.
“What’s the matter with you, Moyshe? You think you’re a
superman? Give me a hand with him, Hans. I’ll tie him in bed If I
have to.”
“Somebody’s got to . . . ” benRabi protested.
“You aren’t the only somebody on Danion. There’s nobody like a
new convert. I love him, but sometimes he drives me up the wall.”
“Take care of him, Amy.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got too much invested in this idiot.”
They dropped benRabi into his bed. It surrounded him with a
womblike comfort. He felt vaguely guilty. He shouldn’t be sleeping
while other mindtechs were still trying to make contact.
Amy sat on the edge of the bed. He was asleep long before she
finished cussing him out for not taking better care of himself.
She was still hovering around when, six hours later, the cabin
comm buzzed. She answered, “Amy Coleridge, Security.”
A grey-framed face appeared in the little screen. “Good
morning, Lieutenant. Is benRabi there?”
“Commander. Sir. Yes sir.” Her voice dropped an octave and
seemed to snap to attention. “He’s sleeping, sir. But I can wake
him if you really need him.”
“No. Don’t. I wanted to speak to you, Lieutenant. I’m on my way
down to see you.”
Two minutes later there was a knock on the cabin door. The
Commander must have been on the way when he’d called her.
“I’ve just read your report on benRabi.”
“You did? Why? It was just a routine report.”
The Commander brushed her question aside. “We may need
him for something more than Contact. Coleridge, I want to ask you
a question. I want a considered answer.”
“Sir?”
“Is your report honest? Did you let your feelings affect it?”
“No sir. Yes sir. I mean, it’s honest, sir.”
“You’re sure he’s become a Seiner without reservation?”
“He has a few. He grew up different. But he’s committed, sir.
Almost too much. That’s the way he is.”
“Will he stay committed? Under pressure? He’s changed
allegiances before.”
“Before? When, sir?”
“When he left Old Earth.”
“That’s not the same thing. Earth is part of Confederation. He
just joined the Navy.”
Danion’s commander reflected. “True. But, considering the way
Old Earthers look at these things, it indicates a flighty nature. All
right. Enough about benRabi. What about his cohort?”
Amy’s colorless eyebrows crinkled over her pale blue eyes.
“That’s more difficult, sir. Mouse is more complicated.”
“Are you sure you’re not projecting a lack of understanding? His
psych profiles make him look pretty simple. Almost black and
white. He seems to have hung his whole existence on his hatred for
the Sangaree.”
“Then why did he stay here? He could’ve gone back to
Confederation with the others. He can’t fight Sangaree out here.”
“I’ve been wondering. That’s why I asked.”
“I can’t tell you, sir. He’s all facade to me. All charm and
silliness. I can’t tell when he’s serious and when he’s joking. The
only feeling I get is that the man I’m seeing isn’t the real Masato
Storm.”
“Are you involved with him, too, Lieutenant?”
“Sir!”
“Answer me.”
“No, sir! I am not involved with Mr. Storm.”
“Makes you part of a vanishing breed, then. Seems he’s bedded
half the single women on Danion.”
“He attracts a certain kind of woman.”
“Oh?” The caller smiled. “But not you?”
She was a long time answering. “The temptation is there. He
has an animal magnetism. There’s curiosity about what everyone
else sees in him. But nothing is going to happen. I don’t like him
very much.”
Her answer seemed to satisfy the Commander.
“We’re entering a new era, Lieutenant. A time of changes. Our
isolationism is under attack. The sharks are wearing us down. The
Stars’ End idea was a debacle. We’re going to have to adjust. Either
that or bend over and kiss our tails good-bye. Those two might be
useful. They have unusual backgrounds. We don’t have a secret
service to speak of. They could build one. But that would mean
trusting them. And they weren’t born Starfishers.”
“A lot of us weren’t, somewhere along the line. My father . . . ”
“I know. We’re all refugees. Thank you, Lieutenant. Consider
this discussion exclusive. Don’t mention it to anybody. And if you
learn anything that might have a bearing on the matter, call my
office. I’ll have your name red-tagged to my personal recorder. I’ll
call you back.”
“Yes sir.”
The Commander left as quickly as he’d arrived. Amy sat and
stared into the shadows of the room.
摘要：

STARS’ENDbyGlenCookBook3ofTheStarfishersStar'sEndAuthor:GlenCookFirsttimepublished:August1982,WarnerBooksSynopsisTheFortressOnTheEdgeOfTheGalaxy...wascalledStar'sEnd,aplanetbuiltfordeath--butbywhom?ItlayontheoutermostarmoftheMilkyWay,silent,cloakedinmystery,self-containedandcontrolled--tantalizingly...

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