Starfishers Triology - Shadowline Part 36

Dee ignored him. "He'd destroy the whole universe to get you and the Storms. He's been a raving madman since you killed Rhafu."

"All right, d.a.m.n it. I'll keep you in my closet if I have to. Just tell me how to get rid of those bombs."

"Your word?"

"What do you want? Me to cut my wrist and write it in blood? You're getting too good a deal now, and you know it."

"They're radio-controlled. My driver has the trigger."

"How long before he pushes the b.u.t.ton?"

"He won't. He doesn't know he has it. I screwed up. I was too sure I'd find Gneaus here."

"Ah." Ca.s.sius chuckled evilly. "Fooled you."

"You promised."

"Ca.s.sius," Mouse said, "here's a little something to brighten your day. Helga's surrendered Festung Todesangst."

"What?" Michael demanded.

"That's the word from Naval Intelligence."

"For G.o.d's sake, why?" Dee demanded. "I don't believe it. She would have blown her scuttles..."

"I don't know why," Mouse said. "The report came from the Corps, filtered through Intelligence. They didn't explain. They just said it was a standoff, with Helga threatening to blow the scuttles and the Marines hanging on but not pus.h.i.+ng her so hard she'd really do it. Maybe she got wind of what happened at Twilight and decided it wasn't worth it anymore. She suddenly just gave up."

Michael frowned and shook his head. "What the h.e.l.l's the matter with her?" he muttered to himself. "The spoiled, self-centered twit. Just because she got what she wanted. We needed..."

Ca.s.sius was frowning, too. "It's got to be a trick. She put the bombs on timer or something. Dees are always up to tricks."

"Ca.s.sius, they got Benjamin and Homer out. They look like they'll be all right. We'll be able to resurrect them."

"Uhm? Good. Maybe. If she didn't have them programmed, or something. What kind of deal did she make? It can't be anything good for us."

Michael turned on Mouse. The Dee cunning took control of his face. He shook with antic.i.p.ation, sure his daughter would have made a worthy trade.

Mouse smiled at him. "Nothing. No deal. Just plain surrender. Like she didn't have anything to live for anymore, so she quit."

"But?..." Ca.s.sius started to ask.

Mouse glanced at Michael, who seemed appalled. "They killed her, Ca.s.sius. Beckhart himself shut her support systems down."

"Dead?" Dee asked in an incredibly tiny voice. "My little girl? All my children? You've killed all my babies?" Mouse sat up as a mad light caught fire in his uncle's eyes. "You murderers. My wife. My children..."

"They all got a clean death," Mouse snapped. "Which was d.a.m.ned well better than they deserved. They brought it on themselves."

Ca.s.sius took a step toward Dee, staring into his eyes.

He spoke slowly, twisting the knife. "He's right. They should have died a thousand deaths each, in fire. And even then they wouldn't have hurt enough to suit me."

Pollyanna screamed. "Mouse!"

Dee plunged forward.

Ca.s.sius was not expecting it. He suffered from the lifelong misconception that a coward could not act in circ.u.mstances where he did not hold the upper hand.

Michael Dee was a coward, but not incapable of acting.

Ca.s.sius's instant of delay cost him his life.

Dee knocked the pistol from his hand, caught it in the air, fired one lucky, nose-destroying shot before Mouse slammed into him from the side and sent the weapon skittering across the cabin. Ca.s.sius fell disjointedly, slowly, like an empire, almost in pieces, as if different parts of his body were being acted upon by varying gravities. His mechanical voice box made skritching, clacking noises, but no sound that could be interpreted as anger or a cry of agony. He piled up in a heap, twitching, voice box still making those strange noises.

Mouse and Dee thrashed about on the deck, the youth cursing incoherently and weeping while he tried to strangle his uncle.

At first Dee fought in pure panic. He scratched, kicked, bit. Then reason set in. He broke the stranglehold, writhed away, unleashed a kick that hit Mouse over the heart.

Mouse got onto hands and knees. He put all his strength into attaining his feet. The deck rushed toward him instead.

Dee poised for a killing kick to his throat.

"No."

He turned slowly.

Pollyanna held the weapon that had killed Ca.s.sius. Her hands shook. The weapon's muzzle waggled uncertainly, but threatened.

"Pollyanna, dear, put it down. I won't hurt you. I don't want to. Promise. This's between them and me. You're not part of it."

He used his silkiest voice. And he may have meant what he said. He had no real reason to harm her. Not then.

"Stand still," she said as he started toward her, hand reaching for the weapon. She was terrified. This was the moment for which she had been living. This was the instant for which she had put herself through a personal h.e.l.l. "I am am part of it. I owe you, August Plainfield." part of it. I owe you, August Plainfield."

Dee's whole face seemed to pucker with consternation.

"You don't even remember, do you? You b.l.o.o.d.y, cold-hearted snake. You don't even remember the name you used when you murdered my father."

"What on earth are you talking about, child? I've never murdered anyone."

"Liar! You d.a.m.ned liar. I saw you, Mr. August Plainfield of Stimpson-Hrabosky News. I was there. You gave him drugs and made him tell you about the Shadowline, and then you murdered him."

Dee went pale. "The little girl at the hospital."

"Yes. The little girl. And now it's your turn."

Dee attacked, diving first to one side, then bearing in.

Had he remained where he was, waiting, Pollyanna might never have pulled the trigger. In the crux, when it came time to take a life in cold blood, she was not as ready as she had thought.

Dee's sudden movement panicked her. She shot wildly, repeatedly. Her first bolt hit the control console. The second pierced Dee's leg. He pitched past her with a shriek of pain and despair. She fired again, wounding him again. Then again. And again.

Groggily, not even quite sure where he was, feeling like someone had tied an anvil to his chest, Mouse again forced himself up off the deck. He shook his head sharply, to clear the water from his eyes and get them into focus.

He saw Pollyanna pounding Dee's ragged, almost unrecognizable corpse with the b.u.t.t of the spent weapon while babbling incoherencies about Frog. He dragged himself over, took the weapon away, folded her up in his arms and held her head against his chest.

"It's over now, Polly," he murmured. "It's over. It's all over. He's dead now. They're all dead but us." She cried for almost an hour, the hysteria-sobs gradually becoming the great, deep, soul-wrenching grief-sobs, and those eventually diminis.h.i.+ng to sniffles, and finally, to nothing but the occasional whimper of an injured animal.

"You just stay here," he whispered when she finished. "I've got work to do. Then we can go away." He rose, went to the comm panel, found a frequency which worked, and resumed command of the Legion.

Fifty-Nine: 3032 AD

In the deep black gulf great engines throbbed. A s.h.i.+p more vast than many planet-bound cities began to move. Her commander ordered maximum tolerable acceleration. She had fallen months behind her sisters.

Clouds of smaller vessels gathered to her. They had finished their part in the Shadowline War. There were no more debts to pay.

The Starfisher decision-makers were saddened because the results had not been more positive. But history, like everything else, is seldom fair. The balance had been rectified, and that was enough.

The great s.h.i.+p fled ever farther into the deep.

Sixty: 3052 AD

Who am I? What am I?

I am the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of the Shadowline. That jagged rift of sun-broiled stone was my third parent. Understand what happened there and you understand me. Stir that hard, infertile soil and you expose the roots of my hatreds.

The Shadowline and four men. Gneaus Julius Storm. Thaddeus Immanuel Walters. Michael Dee. Norbon w'Deeth. Stand me trial for what I am and you had better indict them too.

And that, my friend, is fact.

-Masato Igaras.h.i.+ Storm

Epilogue

HANGED MAN

The Hanged Man represents sacrifice or ordeal. Afterward, though, he may feel his card is really The Fool.

Epilogue: 3052 AD

"That's it?" McClennon asked. Captain McClennon now. Mids.h.i.+pmen Storm and McClennon crewed the winning sunjammer in that long-ago Regatta.

Captain Masato Storm, Confederation Navy (Intelligence), replied, "You asked about the Shadowline and why I hate Sangaree. I told you." The ghosts of earlier days haunted his eyes as he studied the night sky thirty degrees off galactic center. There, in a few thousand years, if anyone were around to see from this vantage point, a bright new star would bloom.

McClennon freshened his drink. "Want to finish this game before Jupp gets here?" He moved to the chess table. Their game had been deadlocked for hours.

"I suppose." Mouse kept staring at the sky. "I can't believe it, I know it happened, but I still can't believe it."

Seldom had McClennon seen Mouse so disconnected. "Ca.s.sius and Dee dying might look like the end of it to you. Because they were the last princ.i.p.als. But you weren't really talking about the Legion. Or the Shadowline War. You were explaining the survivors. Especially Mouse."

"Maybe. You're right. Okay. We had to round up Michael's men and defuse those bombs and get our people out of the Shadowline. We did it, with the help from Darkside Landing and The City of Night...Wait a minute. What do you mean, explaining the survivors?"

"Seemed to me you were really explaining Masato Storm."

Mouse's gaze s.h.i.+fted to a section of sky where a new war raged. Humankind and its allies were locked in a ferocious struggle with a nasty enemy.

"You know, my uncle really blew it. He could've gotten away if he'd kept his cool."

"How so?"

"He always had that one more trick up his sleeve. The last one surprised everybody. We never had a hint till we found out we had to storm Edgeward."

"What do you mean?" McClennon asked, just trying to keep Mouse talking. He had worked for the commission investigating the Shadowline war. He knew most of the answers. But his friend needed herding out of the depth-less mora.s.s of depression.

"That trick of Michael's. He had some minority board members in his pocket. They pulled a coup. It wasn't hard to change their minds, but Michael could've changed his face and disappeared in the confusion."

"Then the commission descended on you."

"Like vultures. Lucky for me, my father, Ca.s.sius, and Richard had heavy drag in Luna Command. They didn't hurt us too bad. The holding corporation is still in business."

"What about the girl?"

"Polly? She went back to the Modelmog. Found out she couldn't stand the Shakespeare thing anymore. Changed her name again and went into holodrama. You'd recognize her if you saw her. She's completely different now. Getting something you want bad does that, I guess."

"And the Sangaree? Deeth?"