The Starry Rift Read online

  The Blat-beep turns out to be two signals.

  One is a loud out-of-fuel call from an unknown ship.

  The other is FedBase 900, almost beyond useful commo range out here. Raven tunes down the O.O.F. to catch the whispery voice.

  “It’s all yours, Blackbird says FedBase through the space jazz. “If they’re not an ell-dee, tell ’em we can’t make it under thirty days. Good pickings!”

  “Right. Thanks.” Raven signs off, wondering what “pickings” they expect from an out-of-fuel call. Somebody really has a loud ship, though.

  When Raven figures the distance to the calling ship, he sees it isn’t worth going back into cold-sleep for. Good. He can use some time checking where to refuel Blackbird after he’s filled up the dry ship’s tanks.

  Too bad he hasn’t also a wreck to work on and restore, as he often does. “Raven’s Wrecks” are well known and sought after.

  The nearest fuel depot turns out to be on one of those new colony planets; it’s now called Cambria. There’s a scrawled notation that FedBase 900 lost contact with Cambria about a hundred days ago. That could mean anything or nothing. Colonists are notoriously poor on commo equipment maintenance.

  On the other hand, last sleep Raven has three times been awakened by vanishers, which could mean that a nest of Black Worlders or trash-heads left over from the great Rare Asteroid Rush, or lords knew what, are operating in his sector. They won’t have meddled with the fuel dump, though, Raven decides; the Federation’s explosive tamper-proofing is widely respected.

  But colonies are innocent and vulnerable, and overly preoccupied with planting and irrigating and drainage and climate and domesticating local fauna—until somebody lands and surprises them. Human renegades can also be bad news for a sleeping man in a ship, but Raven’s special alarm programs protect him there. He has twice had the pleasure of grappling, sealing, and delivering to FedBase a shipload of pirates out to take him.

  Thinking of this, he grins and throws back his shock of dark hair and turns up the gees for a few warm-up exercises to subdue the rich diet he ate at his birthday celebration on FedBase 900. He isn’t stiff from cold-sleep—cold-sleep doesn’t make you stiff, or anything else. In fact, absolutely nothing goes on, biologically speaking, in that chest in which he’s spent, now, close to seven decades. You don’t age. You don’t ever rest—if you go down tired, you wake up tired, too, which is why Raven always has a nap before he goes under.

  He catches his toes under the chest to do some sit-ups, thinking, Seventy Standard years. And thirty more awake; it was his hundredth birthday, by the little Terra-Timer on the corner of his panel—one of Humanity’s last links with the planet that bore it—that he was celebrating at FedBase 900. And yet he’s a young man, with the bounce and the bones and the unwrinkled hide of a man of thirty. Living years, that is.

  He knows this disconcerts some people. Back at FedBase, where he is something of an historical celebrity, he was aware of an occasional curious, troubled look. This usually happened when he forgot and spoke of the Last War as if it had ended the day before yesterday, which, to him, it had. And after that there are the blank years in his mind, which represent the stretch in Compassionate Rehab they’d put him through.

  Rehab had been the Federation’s answer to war memories too traumatic to live with. Raven appreciates this. He’s careful not to try any deep remembering; he gave away the medal somebody awarded him for the gods knew what. And he’s always been very wary about mixing with people or places that give him strange cold little pricklings of déjà vu.

  Hence he took up his excellent trade of salvage and rescue, out here in the high and hairy, where the northern edge of Federation space frays into the Rift and the times and distances between jobs are very great. The Patrol is delighted to have him here; Raven and his tough little high-thrust, versatile grappler tug are known as a pair that can be relied on to cope with all things copable, and some that aren’t. The1 credits he accrues go usually into newer, fancier hard- and software for Blackbird.And out here he is in no danger—particularly now —of running into anything that will undo Rehab’s work.

  Business had fallen off after the great Rare Rock Rush, as expected. But Sector 900 still attracts enough misjumpers and O.O.F.s and would-be explorers in busted colony ships, and active idiots who can manage to hit the only other ship or rock in a cubic light-year, to keep Raven nicely supplied with excess credits.

  A good life, Raven thinks, snapping back his exerciser grips, a very good life. And a great birthday party, too. He’s made a lot of new friends; they may be gray-haired when he sees them next, but he’s used to that. In fact he likes everything, just as it is, for him.

  His mass-proximity indicator chimes: the calling ship is in scope range.

  The “pickings” joke is clear at once: she is a whopping private luxury yacht, bearing among her golden scroll-work the name Mira II.Raven checks her over visually with care. No sign of anything amiss, save that she’s dead in space. Some power left—lights show inside. He then tries out his most recent extravagance, a Janes’ program, and finds that the owner of Mira II is one Myr-and-Ser Pavel bar Palladine. Looks, sounds, smells rich.

  He’s all but on her now, using impellor power, and he makes one slow pass around her gold-tinted ports. There’s an orange-clad man apparently asleep in the pilot’s couch, and a girl’s figure in copilot. Back in the lounge area he can glimpse two or three dim forms in the armchairs.

  The girl has seen him; she waves languidly.

  Raven spots Mira’s mag grapplers; shortly he has his extension tunnel lapped over their main air lock and is suited up.

  By the lock is more gold-work, containing a speaker grille.

  “All green! Open up!” he calls. “Your fuel is here.”

  No reply, no audible action.

  He calls again with no result. What’s wrong with them?

  Then he sees, of all things, an obvious arrival holocam, also in gold. It looks as if these characters spend most of their time ship-hopping in social marinas. What are they doing out here?

  He punches the holocam with his gloved hand and says formally. “Mira Two? Salvage and Rescue Officer Raven here, come to fill up your fuel.”

  Still no action.

  He yells a couple of times less formally. Then he ungloves and whips down his stethoscope, a gadget indispensable for exploring wrecks; the earpieces are incorporated in his helmet. Taking care not to touch Mira’s icy shell with bare skin, he locates two—no, three—voices. They’re droning on in unmistakable loud monotones. Not a conversation.

  Uh, oh. Talkers.

  He puts the steth back up his sleeve, considering. The Talkers’ chairs are right by the port, drowning out any noise he can raise. And they sound high as space.

  Raven has never tried Talkee, or Taraka-Talaka, to give it its right name; solo Spacers take extreme care of their heads. He knows only that Talkee is supposed to make words—any words—indescribably enchanting, sexy, mystic. A few Talkee users just sit and listen to their inner voices. But most of them talk —an unstoppable flow of gibberish, with no attention to anything else. And they talk loudly, because Talkee makes you slightly deaf, among other things. Drive you mad to be around one.

  Well, the girl looked reasonably alert, and the commo has to be right by her.

  Raven ducks back into Blackbird.His receiver was tuned down to cut out Mira’s, help call, still blasting away. He turns up the gain, making a face.

  “Mira! Mira Two! Your fuel is here, I’ve been banging on your port. Cut off that godlost signal and open up. This is Officer Raven, Salvage and Rescue.”

  In a minim the signal stops. The speaker gives a soft, female sound between a sigh and a giggle. Then Raven sees Mira’s port slide silently aside, revealing a mirrored air lock carpeted in cream, with a big gold monogram. Raven glances at his own boots and reluctantly gives them a swipe.

  He steps into their lock; the port closes behind him, to the usual accompaniment o
f a whuckin ears and stomach due to gravity change. Their air is quick; in a minim the inner port slides open and Raven is assaulted by the Talkers’ loud drones. Mira is gee’d light, and the spacious lounge is almost unlit, letting the starfields blaze in. A gorgeous hydroponics display of plants lights one side. Dreamy—except for the hoarse, braying voices coming from the huge lounge chairs. Raven makes out the figures of two trim, well-dressed older men, who are Talking, and one much younger, plump—no, frankly fat—a man clad in some sort of embroidered robes, who is staring druggishly into space. None of them appears to notice his entry.

  Raven throws back his helmet, getting a breath of deliciously fresh, springlike air, and step-floats forward toward the pilots’ area. As he passes beyond the lounge, he brushes through what feels almost like a palpable, cobweb curtain where nothing is—and the noise behind cuts off abruptly. A privacy shield; he hadn’t known they were in civilian hands yet. It’s a fine relief.

  When he reaches the observers’ bench behind the pilots’ seats, the man he saw asleep is just waking, stretching long, orange-ruffled arms. Raven sees only thick, silvery-gray hair until the man turns to face him, revealing a hawk-sharp countenance with hooded eyes. The effect is of impatience, imperious vigor as yet unweakened by some considerable age.

  The girl has turned to watch his approach. Raven can see only a small, pale face under a great cloud of silver-gilt hair. But something about her bothers him immediately. He keeps his eyes strictly off her, addresses himself to the man.

  “Myr—ah, Myr-and-Ser bar Palladine?”

  “Yes?” The voice is weary, and clearly used to command.

  Somehow Raven doesn’t see any point in demanding proof that he is Mira II’slegal owner, or is bar Palladine. Part of his mind reproaches him; it would be easy enough for a gang of Black Worlders to take over Mira, drug the occupants, and act out this part, to get fuel. Too farfetched, he tells his mind—and in his experience the Black Worlds don’t produce types like these. Still, a little caution wouldn’t be amiss.

  “I’m Salvage and Rescue Officer Raven. I understand you’re out of fuel.”

  The girl’s glittering head nods vigorously; bar Palladine gives a faintly scornful grunt.

  “Now, before I fill you up, if you so decide”—bar Palladine’s eyebrows flicker in surprise—“there’s a couple of matters to straighten out. First, the possibility of a leak or a pump malfunction. May I ask, did it seem reasonable to you when you ran out, or were you at all surprised by the rate of use?”

  Bar Palladine actually seems to give this his attention.

  “Reasonable. We refueled last at Base One oh five.”

  Raven whistles. “And jumped all the way out here? It’s none of my business, but may I inquire why you didn’t use the beacon routes?”

  A flash of anger on the hawk face, quickly abandoned. “That is none of your business. But... things have changed... more than I estimated, since my time.”

  “Pavel knew a shortcut,” the girl says in that seductive, breathy whisper. Not a giggle, no way. Raven can no longer wonder about imposters.

  “As you say, very reasonable,” Raven agrees. “Now, if I may just exchange places with the young lady, so I can check out a few functions? This is regulation, by the way; out here they frown on our risking the waste of a milliliter of fuel.”

  “Go ahead, honey.”

  The girl rises. But Raven, reluctantly watching her, senses discrepancy; her movement isn’t a girl’s quick jump-up, it shows a woman’s flowing grace. And in the bright pilot light he sees something else—a faint white line—no, several white hairlines, running from her chin up into her hair and down across one shoulder. Almost imperceptible. The scars of some dire accident, he guesses; no cosmetic surgery he knows of. She settles on the bench behind him, a very delicate fragrance wafting to his unwilling nose.

  “Do you want me to call off what I’m testing?” he asks bar Palladme.

  “No. Just get on with it. I’ve made myself late.”

  Behind him the girl gives a disappointed murmur. It comes to Raven, as he sends a reverse bypass around the main fuel pump, that perhaps she also is a pilot; or learning to be one.

  He runs carefully down his checklist. Mira is well equipped, including refinements that permit him to blow air through possible leaky hoses and a reverse pouch for flushing the pumps. But she isn’t a new ship.

  “Would I be guessing wrong to say that this is one of the first long trips you’ve made in quite a while?”

  “Right.” Despite the older man’s disclaimer, he’s following the procedure closely. The technicalities seem to have soothed him.

  “I did some... space work toward the end of the Last War,” he says in a low voice. Raven restrains himself from turning to look at him; this man has to be a lot older than he’d guessed. A lot.

  “Did you serve out in these sectors?” Raven is waiting for the pressure indicator to show movement.

  “Nearby. It so happened that I and my friends back there”—his mouth twists wryly—“my two friends, ail experienced the Goulart System. You’ve heard of it?”

  “Seen it. Unbelievable.”

  They are referring to one of the marvels of Federation space; a stupendous tight-orbit dance of multicolored suns that has unexplained subjective effects on the Human psyche.

  “Well, in an incautious moment I volunteered to fly us all out for one last, nostalgic look. Glad I did. It—it lived up to memory. Few things do, young man.”

  Mira’spressure readouts hold unchanging; good. Raven is smiling to himself at that “young man,” but sobers—after all, bar Palladine had lived all or most of those years, while Raven slept.

  “I’m glad,” he says sincerely. “Now, everything shows green here. I believe we’re ready to fill you up. But first there’s a business aspect you must know about me.”

  All reflectiveness vanishes from the hawk face.

  “Everything I’ve done so far, including the trip over here, is reimbursed to me by the Federation. But I’m not Patrol, I’m what’s called an Assimilated Independent. The ‘Officer’ title is genuine. There’s a number of independents working the Frontier sections, some licensed, some not. You’re out in the cold, high empty here, Myr-and-Ser. The force is spread vacuum-thin. They get around to everything eventually, but it takes time. FedBase Nine hundred—that’s this sector—told me to tell you it’d be about thirty Standard days before they could get fuel out to you.”

  “So?” says bar Palladine icily; the girl murmurs disgustedly, “Thirty days!”

  “Two points. First, you have only my word for this, or for who I am. Here’s some ident. But I’d strongly advise—in fact, I insist, that you try your caller and verify my story. If you can’t reach them from here, I want your word that you’ll check on it when you get in closer. It’ll take me off the hook—if you report a contact like this and it doesn’t check out, they come for the imposter with a tractor beam. And it’ll keep you from looking a shade—well, naive. I could be filling you with H-two-O.”

  At that, the hooded eyes glint, and bar Palladine gestures the girl to the commo station. As he goes on, Raven can hear her low voice, apparently getting through the static.

  “Secondly, the Force can reach you much earlier if it’s a matter of life or death. They’ll gear up a c-jumper and get right out. But it has to be real; the last false claimer is still in the squadron brig... He cut his girl’s neck,” Raven adds aside to bar Palladine—but the girl hears and glances at him with those smoky eyes he doesn’t want to meet.

  “So—you can get filled up right now by me, if you’re willing to pay approximately double FedBase’s price. The taxpayer doesn’t support me. Mine is eighty per, delivered right now. Or you can wait for FedBase and get it at thirty-nine.”

  During this long speech, bar Palladine seems at first faintly amused, but as Raven plows doggedly on, a gleam of interest comes into the cold features and once or twice he blinks. Raven guesses the man, by o
ld habit, focuses on any business new to him and has by now probably figured Raven’s annual take, costs, and net worth.

  Now bar Palladine glances at the port, where Blackbird’sneedlenose can be seen in slight to-and-fro motion, the effect of vibration from Mira. “We’ll take yours, of course. But my ship has big tanks and I’ll need every bit of it to reach home. I certainly don’t propose to wait while you take that thing back for more to finish the job.”

  Raven grins. “That thing, as you call it, is a flying fuel depot, Myr-and-Ser. Everything hollow has fuel in it, pressurized. And it’s fresh from a top-off at Base. Going to make a great bonfire one day.”

  “Oh, no,” whispers the girl.

  “Tell you what: If I fail to top you off complete, everything you get is free. I’ll punch-print on that.”

  The older man waves that away. “Good enough. Just get at it.”

  “Right. I’m going for some tools. Now you two check over that confirmation, remembering that my ident couldbe stolen. So could Blackbird, too—over my dead body.”

  He goes jauntily aft to the port, wincing as the Talk hits him.

  “Analog, avatar, ambergris, avalanche, attribute, alcohol, arquebus,” rises from the lounge chair occupied by a thin bald man in a blue lounge suit, echoed by, “Mirth... earth... girth... dearth... worth...” from a chair whose occupant Raven can’t see. The robed fat man is still silent. He is much younger, certainly no Last War veteran. Bar Palladine hasn’t explained his presence. Curious.

  As Raven enters the lock, he catches a gleam of direct vision from the fat face, so brief he may have imagined it. The face is drug-vacant again as the port slides closed.

  Back in Blackbird, tying on his fueling belt loaded with gauges, wrenches, lubricants, pressure-funnels, he finds himself a trifle shaky. What in the hells is wrong with him? An ordinary fueling job, and a lucrative one?... But he knows what it is. That godlost girl. Surely she can’t be connected—

  Don’t think of it.

  But she draws his mind like a shining magnet, a magnet whose field is drifting cold wisps across his back and loins... a magnet luring him to a vortex where all direction, all reason, will be lost in a hurting chaos of past and present... Stop this!