Starfishers: the starfishers trilogy by Glen Cook

Author:Glen Cook
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy - Short Stories, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Short Story, Fiction - Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, General, Short stories
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 1982-08-15T07:00:00+00:00

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Twelve: 3047 AD

The Olden Days, The Mother World

Perchevski shuffled from foot to foot. He was too nervous to sit. He had not realized that going home would unleash so much emotion.

He glanced around the lounge. The lighter would be carrying a full load. Tourists and business people. The former were mostly Ulantonid and Toke. They huddled in racial clumps, intimidated by Old Earth’s xenophobic reputation, yet determined to explore the birth world of Man. The Toke nerved themselves with bold talk. Their every little quirk or gesture seemed to proclaim, “We are the Mel-Tan Star Warriors of the Marine Toke Legion. We are the Chosen of the Star Lords. The delinquents of a decadent world cannot frighten us.”

But they were scared.

No enemy could intimidate the Toke. The Toke War had proven that. Only the stroke of diplomatic genius that had made a place for them in Service, and a place for Toke in Confederation, as equals, had saved the Warrior Caste from extinction.

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.

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