Glen Cook - Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

Frog pictures on the walls. Frog things around the room. The ragged remnants of his hotsuit. A model of his crawler. Brightside charts which bore Frog's stamp, his openings of terra incognita. A diary in which Moira jotted what she felt were her most important thoughts, many of which orbited around her namesake, Edgeward's first woman tractor hog, The Girl Who Saw the Sun, a character saint of the same weird canon as Frog. Frog had claimed a relationship. Moira never had learned what it was. It was a mystery she was afraid to delve into. She had started in on the city records several times, and always stopped before she traced the link. She had a niggling little fear that she might find out her patron had had feet of clay.

She dithered. "At your earliest convenience," from Blake meant yesterday, and was that much more intimidating.

"Might as well get it over." She sighed, mussed her hair, and went.

Main offices for Blake Mining and Metals were in a huge old building at Edgeward's center, beneath the strongest part of the meteor screen shielding the dome. Years ago it had been City Hall and had housed city administrators' offices exclusively. Blake controlled that now. Edgeward was a company town. He might as well be in City Hall.

Moira arrived as the afternoon's programed rain began falling. A light breeze drove mist into her face. Scents on the air brought back vague images of herself running across a grassy, wild-flowered plain under a friendly yellow sun, playing with the other children on the breeding farm. It had been a gentle, realtime operation run by a paternalistic station master. The youngsters had not known they were property to be trained and sold. She would not have cared had she known. She had been happy.

She paused on the steps of City Hall and stared upward, trying to glimpse the star-speckled black enemy besieging the city. She saw nothing but sunlights and the piping from which the rain was falling. Edgeward worked hard to deny the night.

The rain fell harder. She hurried through an iris door that would become an airlock should the dome fall.

She entered a small, comfortable reception room. Its sole occupant was a thin, elderly gentleman who reminded her of a grown Frog. He had the leathery look of a lifelong tractor hog forced to retire from outservice. He made her nervous. Retired hogs sometimes became antsy and unpleasant.

This man had not. He glanced up and noticed her biting her lip in front of his desk. His whole face broke into smiles. He made it look as if he had been waiting years just for her.

"Miss Eight? Moira Eight? So glad you could come." He thrust a dark, wrinkled hand at her. She took it in a bit of a daze. It felt warm and soft. She relaxed a little. She judged people by the way they felt. Soft and warm meant nice and no harm planned. Cold, damp, hard, meant unpleasant intentions. She knew body temperatures were nearly the same in everyone, yet she depended on the difference in hands—and later, lips—and trusted that part of her unconscious which interpreted them.

It proved right most of the time.

"What... What's it about?" she asked.

"Don't know. I'm just the old man's legs. So you're Frog's little girl. All growed up. You should get out more. Pretty thing like you shouldn't hide herself." As he talked and she blushed, he guided her toward an elevator. "Mr. Blake is in the penthouse. We'll go straight up. He said to bring you right to him."

Moira bit her lip and tried for a brave face.

"Now then, no need to be scared. He's no ogre. We haven't let him devour a maiden in, oh, three or four years."

That's the way Frog used to baby me, she thought. There was something about Brightside that made tractor men more sensitive. Everybody thought Frog was a crusty old grouch—maybe even Frog thought he was—but that was just people who didn't know him.

Nobody bothered to get to know tractor hogs well. Their life expectancies were too short. It did not pay to get close to an enemy of the Demon Sun. Men like this one and Frog, who got old running the Thunder Mountains and Shadowline, were rare. Human beings simply could not indefinitely endure the rigid discipline and narrow attention/alertness it took to survive beyond the Edge of the World. Frog had broken down in the end, but he had been lucky. They had brought him out—to be murdered. Maybe this man had had his failure and been lucky too.

She began to grow angry. They had not done a thing about Frog's murder. Oh, they had exiled those people, but the murderer hadn't been caught. She planned to do it herself. She would be of age in less than a year. With Frog's bequest, and the credit from the sale of the salvageable parts of his rig after Blake had deducted recovery costs, she would buy passage offworld and find August Plainfield.

The obsession had been growing from the moment she had looked through that hospital door and realized what Plainfield had done. The practicalities did not intimidate her. She was still young enough to believe in magic and justice.

Her plan was her one rebellion against the dwarf's philosophy. Sour and grumbly as he had been, he would not have wanted her to hold a grudge so deeply it would shape her life.

"Here we are. Top of the tower. Be sure to ask if you can see the observation platform. Not many people get the chance. The view is worth it."

Moira's escort led her into an antechamber almost exactly reflecting her preconception of Blake's headquarters. It smelled of wealth. Such spendthrift use of space!

A domed city like Edgeward used every cubic centimeter to some critical purpose. Even open areas were part of a grand design intended to provide relief from the cramped limits of living quarters.

Here space existed without function beyond announcing the wealth and power of its occupant.

"He'll be in his private office, I believe," Moira's companion told her. "Follow me."

"There's so much room... "

"A big man with big responsibilities needs room to wrestle them."

"Thank you. Uh... I don't know your name."

"It's not important. Why?"

"Because you've been kind, I guess. And it is important. I like to know who's been nice so I can think nice things about them." She could not think of a better way to put it.

"Albin Korando, then."

"That's odd."

"For Blackworld, I suppose. My people didn't come here till after the war."

"No, I mean Frog used to talk about you. I was trying to remember your name just yesterday."

"I'll bet he told some stories," Korando said, and laughed softly. He wore a faraway look. Then he saddened. "Some stories, yes. We're here. And Miss?"

"Yes?"

"Don't be frightened. He's just a man. And a pretty good man at that. Very few of the street stories are true."

"All right." But as they paused before the door that would open on a man almost omnipotent, she became terrified of the sheer power she faced.

Korando pushed through. "Miss Eight is here, sir."

Timorously, Moira followed.

The man who swiveled a chair to greet her was not the fang-toothed cyclops she expected. Nor was he old. She guessed thirty-five. Maybe even younger. He had a slight frame which, nevertheless, had about it a suggestion of the restrained power of the professional fighter. His smile was broad and dazzling, revealing perfect teeth. For an instant she noticed nothing else.

"Forgive me for not rising," he said, offering a hand. With the other he gestured at legs that ended in stumps where he should have had knees. "An accident at the shade station in the Shadowline a few years ago. I haven't had time to grow new ones."

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"For what? I earned it. I should know better than to go crawling around under a rogue slave. I've got people who get paid for doing that sort of thing. Albin, bring the lady something. Something mixed, Moira? No, better not. Wouldn't do to have it get around that I'm getting young women drunk. Will coffee do?"