Book 2 - Starfishers Read Online Free PDF

seemed to be too
ordered and mundane to produce the chaotic, nonobjective symbolism
of a McGuhan or Potty Welkin. His maliciously intentional
obscurantisms refused to remain obscure. That could have been
because he knew what he wanted to say.
    Maybe he should do the story as straight narrative, Moyshe
thought. He could strive for what the Archaicist reviewers called
“a refreshingly anachronistic flavor.” It might then
survive the Archaicist marketplace, where the unsophisticated arts
of the past still had appeal.
    Jkadabar Station is six months long and two years wide, fifteen
minutes high and a quarter of nine forever; there are songs in its
skies and trumpets in its walls. The Roads have neared their
ends . . . 
    Was he wrong? Was he alone in his feeling that all people were
exiles in time? No matter. What could he do about it? Not a damned
thing. That was the passion that should drive the story. Raging
impotence.
    People began moving excitedly. The volume of conversation picked
up. BenRabi dragged himself back to reality. He muttered,
“Shuttle must be ready.”
    Yes. His companions had begun filing onto the field already.
These Seiners were frugal. They had not bothered to lease an
attached landing bay.
    The air outside was cool and on the move. A raindrop touched his
cheek, trickled like a tear. A ragged guerilla band of clouds
hurried over, firing off a few scattered water-bullets that made
little mud balls in the dust lying thick on the tarmac. An omen?
Rainy weather at Blake City was almost a nevertime thing. Water was
too scarce in this part of Carson’s.
    He laughed nervously. Omens! What was the matter with him?
“Into the shuttle, caveman,” he mumbled.
    The ship had been an antique when his grandfather was wetting
diapers. It was no commercial lighter, and never had been.
Broomstick, from Century One, it was a go-powered coffin with no
comforts from strictly-for-gun-power days. He saw nothing but stark
functionalism and metal painted black or grey. It appeared to be
Navy surplus, probably from the Ulantonid War.
    The part of him that was still line officer noted that she was
well maintained. Not a spot of dirt or corrosion showed anywhere.
The ship had that used but kept-up look sometimes seen in rare
antiques. These Seiners were lovingly careful of their
equipment.
    The passenger compartment was the antithesis of luxury. BenRabi
had to suspend disbelief to credit it as suitable for human use.
Yet the converted cargo bay did have ranks of new acceleration
couches, and soothing music came from hidden speakers. It was old
stuff, quiet, perhaps something by Brahms. It put a comforting
gloss over the unsteady whine of the idling drives.
    They would lift blind, he saw. Weedlike clumps of color-coded
wiring hung where view-screens had been removed. They were taking
no chances.
    This seemed to be taking security a bit far. What the hell could
the screens show if the Seiners kept them switched off? For that
matter, what could they betray if turned on? He knew where
he was. He knew where he was going, at least for the short run.
    Was it some subtle psychological trick? A maneuver to accustom
them to flying blind?
    He dithered over a choice of couches.
    The knot behind his ear, containing the non-dispersible parts of
the instel-tracer, seized him with iron, spiked fingers. He had
been switched on by the Bureau.
    Why now? he wondered, staggering with the pain. They were
supposed to wait till the lighter made orbit.
    The thin, pale girl who had done the form reductions rushed
toward him. “Are you sick?”
    Her expression was one of genuine concern. He was more shaken by
that than by this Bureau treachery. He had lived under the gun for
years now. He was unaccustomed to strangers caring.
    Her concern was not the bland, commercially dispensed pablum of
a professional hostess, either. She wanted to help.
    I want
fired across his mind.
    “Yes. A migraine attack. And my medicine is
packed.”
    She steadied him.