Starfishers Volume 3: Stars End by Glen Cook Page A

too.”
    “I didn’t guess. I had inside information.”
    “Whatever. That’s where Storm came up with the Sangaree data. Raidships hit the harvestfleet there. They came out on the short end. The point is, the Seiners were sure they could pull it off. The battering the Sangaree gave them is what kept them from trying.”
    “How soon will those boys be done de-briefing? I want to see them.”
    Silence hit that room like a cat jumping on a mouse. It stretched till it became an embarrassment.
    “Well?”
    “Uh . . . ”
    “Not one of your more endearing traits, Akido. I don’t need protecting. Out with it. Who got hurt? How bad was it?”
    “It’s not that. Sir, they didn’t come back.”
    “They’re dead? How did they? . . . ”
    “They’re alive. But they crossed over.”
    “They what?”
    “Remember, McClennon was programed for it.”
    “I know that. It was my idea. But he wasn’t supposed to make a career out of it. He didn’t de-program? What the hell was wrong with Storm? What’s his story? Why didn’t he bring Thomas out?”
    “We’re working on it, sir. Interrogating returnees. When we can lay hands on them. They scattered after they hit Carson’s, before we knew we had a problem. Near as we can tell, Storm stayed behind because he didn’t want to leave McClennon there alone. The programming must have broken down. McClennon asked to stay. They kept Storm from bringing him out.”
    “I see. That would be like Mouse. Don’t leave your wounded behind. He’s too much like his father. I knew Gneaus Storm. When you get to the bottom line, it was his sense of honor that got him killed. Well, I’ve got my honor too, even if it’s a little discolored around the edges. I don’t leave my wounded behind either. Akido, I want those boys brought out.”
    Jones snorted.
    “Charles? What’s biting your ass?”
    “I was just thinking that anybody who cared as much about his troops as you put on wouldn’t have thrown them back in the furnace before they’d cooled off from The Broken Wings. And you hit them with that one before they’d cooled off from . . . ”
    “Hey! Charlie, it’s my conscience. I’m the one who’s got to live with it.”
    “Storm could handle it. He didn’t get the deep Psych-briefings. But McClennon . . . You probably overloaded the poor bastard. He was goofy at his best times.”
    “That’s enough. Right now, right here, we finish crying about Storm and McClennon. That understood? We start figuring out how to get them back. And in our spare time we worry about the Four slash Six. And come bedtime, if you get tempted to waste time sleeping, start figuring how we’re going to get a hammerlock on the Starfishers before they get their hands on Stars’ End.”
    “Sir?” Namaguchi inquired.
    “One of you clowns told me they were sure they could get in. You know what happens if they do?”
    “Sir?”
    “We bend over and kiss our asses good-bye. Because we’re dead. We can hope, but we’ll still be in the line to the showers.”
    “I don’t follow your reasoning this time.”
    “You’re not looking at the whole picture, that’s why. The gestalt, if that’s the right word. Look. If they get those weapons before we do, they can tell us to go pound sand and make it stick. We won’t get control of ambergris production, meaning the Fleet will have to do without adequate instel communications, meaning its chances against those centerward things will go down to zit. They aren’t your candy-ass Ulantonids, planning to give us a fair shake after they whip us.”
    “On the other hand,” Namaguchi suggested, “if we get the Fishers under the gun in time, we’ll not only be able to equip the Fleet, we’ll have the potential of the Stars’ End weaponry. Assuming it’s adaptable.”
    “There,” Beckhart told the others. “You see why Akido is the Crown Prince around here. You take a stick and whack on him long enough and he actually starts thinking.