Free Starfishers Volume 3: Stars End by Glen Cook Page B

him. The rearmost cameras were inside the asteroid. The tugs were guiding the cork back toward the entrance.
    “What? Oh. I’d better go say good-bye to Chub.”
    He reached Contact almost as quickly as he had the day of the last battle. “Clara. Where’s Hans?”
    “He’s off. We don’t have anything going.”
    “I want to go in. They’re telling me I’m going to be transferred.”
    “You can’t. We’re closed down, Moyshe. They’ll be cutting power in a minute. Heck, the herd should be out of range by now.”
    “Clara, I probably won’t ever get another chance.”
    “Ah, Moyshe. It’s silly. But all right. Get on the couch.” She prepared his scalp and the hairnet device in seconds. The helmet devoured his head almost before he could catch his breath.
    He shifted to TSD, then onward.
    The colors of the nebula were incredible. It was a dreary place to the eye, completely dark unless illuminated artificially. In this internal universe Moyshe could reach out and touch all the specks of it, the clouds of luminescent dust, the glowing asteroids majestically circling the nebula’s center in their million-year orbits. He could even sense the protostar down in the nebula’s heart, lying patiently in its time-womb, gathering the sustenance it would need to blaze for eons.
    “Chub!” his mind shouted into the color storm. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”
    For a time he thought there would be no answer. The herd lay far off the bounds of the nebula, beyond the pain threshold of its diminutive gravitation.
    Then, “Moyshe man-friend? What is happening?”
    The link was tenuous. He could barely discern the starfish’s thoughts. He could not locate the creature with his inner sight.
    “I came to say good-bye, Chub. They say I’m not going to be a mindtech anymore. You were right. They want me to go back to being what I was.”
    “Ah. I am saddened, Moyshe man-friend. I am saddened because you are sad. We have been good friends. I am pleased that you thought it important to let me know. So many linkers just disappear. Perhaps this last time we can break through those barriers, Moyshe man-friend.”
    But those corners of benRabi’s mind would not yield.
    “Moyshe.” Clara’s voice seemed to come from kilometers away. “They’re going to shut the power off. You’ve got to come out.”
    “Farewell, Moyshe man-friend.” BenRabi could feel the sadness in the starfish.
    “Go softly, golden dragon,” he whispered. “My heart flies with you down the long dark journey.”
    Chub’s sadness welled up. Moyshe could not stand it. He pounded the switch beneath his left hand.
    There was very little pain. He had not been under long. “I don’t need it, Clara.” He pushed the needle away.
    “Moyshe. You’re crying.”
    “No.”
    “But . . . ”
    “No. Just leave me alone.”
    “All right.”
    He heard the hurt in her voice. He struggled off of the couch, pulled her to him. “I’m sorry. Clara, I haven’t known you very long. But you’ve been a good friend. I’ll miss you. And Hans, too. Tell him to behave.”
    “I see that he does. He’s my grandson.”
    “Oh. I didn’t know.” What had he heard about Hans’s sister? Or was it mother? She had been lost with Jariel. Clara had never let on.
    “There’re a lot of things you don’t know, Moyshe benRabi. About people. Because you never get around to asking.”
    “Clara . . . Clara, come visit. Will you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Promise? Amy would love to meet you.”
    “I promise. Now get out of here before somebody calls the boss and wants to know what the hell’s going on up here.”
    “Thanks, Clara. Thanks a lot. For everything.”
    His return trip was less precipitous. He was not eager to get home. Amy was bound to be waiting with some unimaginative new approach to the subject of marriage.
     
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Seven: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
    “What’s the occasion?” benRabi asked. He had come home to find Amy clad only in a negligee.