Starfishers Volume 2: Starfishers (18 page)

It’s a pity we can’t work something like that for the Sangaree
, Perchevski thought.

But there had been no hatred in the Toke War. It had been an almost clinically unemotional contest for supremacy in the star ranges of the Palisarian Directorate.

The Ulantonid were less bellicose than the Toke. Their war with Confederation had been unemotional too. Another blood-flavored wrestling match for supremacy.

These looked like a Catholic group headed for Rome, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.

“Shuttle Bravo Tango Romeo Three One is now ready for boarding for passengers making a Lake Constance descent. Passengers for Corporation Zone will please assemble at Shuttle Bay Nine.”

“I’d like to meet her,” said a stranger near Perchevski.

“Who’s that?”

“The woman who does the announcing. She can put her shoes under my bed anytime.”

“Oh. The voice.” It had been a soothing, mellow, yet suggestive voice. Similar voices did the announcing in every terminal Perchevski had ever visited.

The tourists and business people boarded first. Luna Command made a habit of doing little things that avoided irritating civilians. The individual Serviceman was supposed to remain unobtrusive.

Only one check on Luna Command’s power existed. The operating appropriation voted by a popularly elected senate.

The Toke Marines stood aside for Perchevski, who had come in his Commander’s uniform.

It was a long, lazy twelve-hour orbit to Lake Constance and Geneva. Perchevski read, slept, and pondered the story he had recently begun. He tried not to think about the world below.

The holonets could not begin to portray the squalid reality that was Old Earth beyond the embattled walls of Corporation Zone.

The shuttle dropped into the lake. A tug guided it into a berth. Perchevski followed the civilians into the air of his native world. He had come home. After eight years.

Geneva had not changed. Switzerland remained unspoiled. Its wealth and beauty seemed to give the lie to all the horror stories about Old Earth.

It was a mask. Offworld billions cosmeticized the Zone, and Corporation police forces maintained its sanctity at gunpoint. The perimeters were in a continuous state of siege.

There were times when Luna Command had to send down Marines to back the Corporation defense forces. The excuse was protection of Confederation’s Senate and offices, which were scattered between Geneva, Zurich, and the south shore of the Bodensee.

Once there had been a social theory claiming that the wealth coming into the Zone from the Corporations headquartered there would eventually spread across the planet. A positive balance of trade would be created. And the positive example of life in the Zone would act as a counter-infection to the social diseases of the rest of the planet. Change would radiate from Switzerland like ripples in a pond.

The theory had been stillborn, as so many social engineering schemes are.

No one here gives a damn
, Perchevski reflected as he entered his hotel room. All that kept Earth going was trillions in interplanetary welfare. Maybe the whole thing should be allowed to collapse, then something could be done for the survivors.

The motherworld’s people still played their games of nationalism and warfare. They loved their Joshua Jas. And they flatly refused to do anything for themselves while Confederation could be shamed into paying support.

The too often told tale of welfarism was repeating itself. As always, provision of means for improvement had become an overpowering disincentive to action.

Perchevski spent his first day at home doing one of the guided tours of the wonders of Corporation Zone. With his group were a few native youngsters who had been awarded the tour as contest prizes.

They surprised him. They were reasonably well-behaved, moderately clean, and not too badly dressed. A cut above the average run, and not unlike kids elsewhere. The Security guard was not called upon to practice his trade.

The tour group lunched in the restaurant at the Nureyev Technical Industries chalet atop the Matterhorn.

“Excuse me, Commander.”

Perchevski looked up from his sausage and kraut, startled. A girl of sixteen, a tall, attractive blonde, stood opposite him. He was eating alone. His uniform had put off everyone but two Toke Marines, who were still trying to explain their need to a cook who was appalled at the idea of permitting raw meat out of his kitchen. He suspected the Marines wanted to stay near him for a feeling of added security. The Toke were a strongly hierarchical people, and among them warriors were the most respected of castes.

“Yes?”

“May I sit here?”

“Of course.” He was stunned. She was one of the prize winners. Most Old Earthers so hated the Services that even the best intentioned could not remain polite.

Is she a prostitute? he wondered.

Whatever her pitch, she needed time. She was so nervous she could not eat.

She suddenly blurted, “You’re Old Earth, aren’t you? I mean originally.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“The way you look at things. Outworlders look at things different. Like they’re afraid they’ll catch something, or something.”

Perchevski glanced at the other prize winners. Disgust marked their faces. “Your friends don’t . . . ”

“They’re not my friends. I never saw any of them before yesterday. How did you get out?” Words tumbled out of her all strung together, so fast he could hardly follow them.

“Out?”

“Of this. This place. This world.”

“I took the Academy exams. They accepted me.”

“They didn’t stop you?”

“Who?”

“Your friends. The people you knew. I tried three times. Somebody always found out and kept me from going. Last time three men stopped me outside the center and said they’d kill me if I went in.”

“So there’s still hope,” Perchevski murmured. He knew what she wanted now.

“Sir?”

“I mean, as long as there’s somebody like you left, Old Earth isn’t dead. You’ve made my trip worthwhile.”

“Get me out. Can you get me out? Anything is better than this. I’ll do anything. Anything you want.”

She meant it. Her desperate promise was so obvious it hurt.

He remembered his own desperation at an even younger age. When you chose the unpopular path you had to cleave to it with fanatical determination. He was moved. Deeply.

“I entered every contest there ever was just so I could get this far. I knew they wouldn’t keep me from coming here, and I thought maybe I could find somebody . . . ”

“But you were too scared to do anything when you got here.”

“They were all outworlders.”

“You leave Earth, you won’t meet anyone else. I’ve only run into two or three Earthmen in twenty years.” He eyed the group with which the girl had been traveling. The youths seemed to have caught the drift of her appeal. They did not like it.

“I know. I’d get used to it.”

“Are you sure? . . . ”

Three young men drifted to the table. “This slut don’t belong here, Spike.”

Perchevski smiled gently. “You just made fuck-up number one, stud. Don’t get smoked.”

That startled them. One snarled, “You’ll shit in your hand and carry it to China, Spike.”

“May I be of assistance, Commander?”

The Toke Marine dwarfed the three youths. Adam’s apples bobbed.

“I don’t think so, Fire Cord. I’d say the Banner is secure. The young men have said their piece. They were just leaving.”

The Toke Major glared down. At two and a quarter meters and one hundred thirty kilos he was a runt for a Star Warrior. His aide, though, was the kind they put on recruiting pamphlets meant for circulation through the Caste Lodges. He stood quietly behind his officer, filled with that still, dread equanimity that made the Star Warriors unnerving to even the most hardened human Servicemen.

“’Go you silently, Children of the Night,’” Perchevski quoted from an old song used as a battle anthem by half the youth gangs on the planet. “You, especially, talking head.”

The slang had not changed much. Unlike the Outworlds, Old Earth had become locked into static patterns.

The youths understood. There had been a time when he had been one of them.

They left, strutting with false bravura. Perchevski thought he caught a glint of envy in the spokesman’s eye.

“Thank you, Fire Cord.” The Security man, busy talking shit to a restaurant girl, had missed the encounter.

“We share the Banner, Commander. We will be near.”

“Fire Cord?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t call them on their own ground.”

“This is my third visit, Commander.”

“Then you know.” He turned to the girl again, who seemed petrified. The two huge, leathery-skinned Marines moved to the nearest empty table.

The girl finally blurted, “Why did you come back?”

“I don’t know. To remind myself? Looking for something I left behind? Roots? I’m not sure. I wanted to see my mother. It’s been eight years.”

“Oh.” She sounded envious. “I couldn’t find out who my parents were. I never met anybody who did know. Not my age, anyway.”

He smiled. “Do you have a name? After that scene, you’d better stay close to me or the Marines. Well have to call you something besides Hey Girl.”

“Greta. Helsung. From Hamburg. Are they real Star Warriors?”

He laughed softly. “Don’t let them hear you ask a question like that, Greta from Hamburg. They’re as real as the stink in the sink. I’m Commander Perchevski. If you don’t change your mind, I’ll take you to see somebody when we get back to Geneva.”

“I won’t change it. Not after all the trouble I had . . . ”

He peered at her intently. This was too breathtaking, too real, too dream-come-true for her. She did not quite believe him. He could almost hear her thinking he would use her, then dump her.

The use temptation existed. She was fresh and beautiful.

“I mean it, Greta. And don’t be scared. You’re young enough to be my daughter.”

“I’m not a child. I’m old enough . . . ”

“I’m aware of that. I’m not young enough. Eat your knockwurst. The meat came all the way from Palisarius.”

“Oh, God! Really? I didn’t know what I was ordering. I just asked for something that I didn’t know what it was. Just for something different. They didn’t show any prices. It must be awful expensive.” She looked around guiltily.

“So don’t waste it.” Then, “Price doesn’t matter to most people who eat here. If they couldn’t afford it, they wouldn’t come. Go on. Enjoy yourself.”

Her tour expenses would be covered. Luna Command would pick up the tab. The Services sponsored the contests that gave Zone vacations as prizes. Some inspired social theorist had decided to fish for Old Earth’s Gretas, for the one-in-a-million children who had adventure in their genes and dreams in their hearts.

The program was as successful as the normal recruiting procedures. It gave interested youths a chance to escape peer pressure. Computers watched and cross-checked the contest entries. Undoubtedly, someone would have contacted Greta if she had not come to him.

He eyed her and thanked heaven that someone out there still cared.

He felt pretty good.

Greta remained nearby throughout the tour, milking him for every detail about outside. Her former companions were not pleased, but the Fire Cord was always too close for their nerve.

Terrorism was a popular Terran sport. Toke, though, refused to be terrorized. They bashed heads. Their reputation did not make them immune, but it did force the natives to respect them.

Perchevski took the girl to the Bureau’s front business office that evening. “A potential recruit,” he told the night desk man, who recognized him from a holo portrait that had preceded him down. “Greta Helsung, from Hamburg. Treat her right.”

“Of course, Commander. Miss? Will you take a seat? We can get the paperwork started.”

“It’s that easy?” she asked Perchevski.

The desk man replied, “You’ll be sleeping on the moon tomorrow night, Miss. Oh. Commander. You’re leaving?”

“I have an eleven-thirty to Montreal.”

Greta looked at him in silent appeal.

“Will you sponsor, Commander?”

He knew he shouldn’t. It meant accepting legal and quasi-parental responsibility. The Admiral would be furious . . . “Of course. Where do I print?” He offered his thumb.

“Here. Thank you.” Something buzzed. The desk man glanced to one side, read something from a screen Perchevski could not see. “Oh-oh.” He thumbed a print-lock. A drawer popped open. He handed Perchevski a ring.

“Why?” It was a call ring. It would let him know if the Bureau wanted him on the hurry up. It would give them a means of following his movements, too.

“Word from the head office. Ready, Miss Helsung?”

“Greta, I’ll see you in Academy.” He wrote a number on a scrap of paper. “Keep this. Call it when you get your barracks assignment.” He started to leave again.

“Commander?”

He turned. Soft young arms flung around his neck. Tears seeped through his uniform. “Thank you.”

“Greta,” he whispered, “don’t be scared. They’ll be good to you.”

They would. She would be treated like a princess till her studies began.

“Good-bye. Be good.”

Four of the tour youths caught him outside. He had to break one’s arm before they got the message. He was nearly late for his flight. He had to wait to shift to civilian clothing till after he had boarded the airbus.

North American Central Directorate showed his mother living at the same St. Louis Zone address. He went without calling first, afraid she might find some excuse for not seeing him. Though their intentions were friendly enough, their few visits had been tempestuous. She could never forgive him for “turning on his own kind.”

The passage down the last light canyon was like a journey home along an old route of despair.

The playgrounds of his childhood had not changed. Trash still heaped them. Kid gangs still roamed them. Crudely written, frequently misspelled obscenities obscured the unyielding plastic walls. Future archaeologists might someday go carefully through layer after layer of spray paint, reconstructing the aberrations of generations of uneducated minds.