Read Online Starfishers Volume 3: Stars End by Glen Cook - Free Book Online Page B

advantage? He knew more than she about almost everything and she seemed to take it as a personal affront.
    “I imagine because it’s a good place to lay an ambush. That’s why Carolingian came here during the war.”
    Her smile shrank. “Yeah. And because it’s close to the obvious space lanes. Moyshe, there’ve been battles here for ages. Probably for millions of years. Or even billions. Except for the wrecks from the Ulantonid war, which I didn’t even count, none of the ships here were built by any race we’ve ever met. They were all extinct before man ever left Old Earth. Or at least they were gone from this part of the galaxy. They all pre-date any of the races we have encountered.”
    “Ask the starfish about them.”
    “We did. We’re not stupid. But they don’t have much to tell. They don’t pay any more attention to hard matter races than we do to bacteria. Less, really, because we’re curious and they aren’t. We’re pretty sure one bunch of ships, though, belonged to a race that moved the ancestors of the Sangaree from Earth to wherever it is their homeworld is.”
    “Ah? Don’t let Mouse know about that. He’ll drive you crazy trying to get to them.”
    Only in this century had geneticists surrendered to the popular notion that Human and Sangaree sprang from the same root stock. The man in the street would not believe in a parallel evolution so similar that it could produce a being indistinguishable from himself. Scientists had demurred, citing no evidence on Old Earth for extraterrestrial intervention . . . 
    Then the abandoned alien base beneath the moon’s dark side had been discovered. Some major rethinking had been necessary. Then had come confirmation of reports that the human female could, occasionally, be impregnated by the Sangaree male.
    The most famous—or infamous—of Sangaree agents, Michael Dee, had been half human.
    “Mouse will be protected from himself.”
    BenRabi studied her. She wore an oddly ferocious expression.
    “Amy, I’ve been here almost fourteen months and you’re still springing surprises on me. When are you going to run out?” He stared into the hollow asteroid and awaited her response.
    “Moyshe, what happened to the people who built Stars’ End?”
    “We’ll probably never know. Unless somebody cracks its defenses.”
    “We’ll do that. We’re going back. That was a rhetorical question.”
    “Wait a sec. Back? To Stars’ End? After what happened? You’re out of your minds. You’re all raving lunatics.”
    She laughed. “Moyshe, they left their ships behind when they disappeared. Right here. God knows how many of them there are. Three Sky occupies a cubic light-year. We haven’t explored a tenth of it. They had their yards and secret places too. Most of the ships we find were theirs. They were the people who transported the Sangaree, we think. We have explorers who don’t do anything but hunt for their hideouts. Every one we find is one we don’t have to build for ourselves.”
    He spoke to the engulfing maw in the viewscreen. “She’s serious.”
    “Absolutely, darling. Absolutely. Oh, we’re not really sure that it was the same race that did all three things. But the computers go with the probability. See, these are mostly good ships, Moyshe. They aren’t derelicts. Some of them still have a little emergency power left. They try to scare us off with mind noises the way Stars’ End does. And they have parts missing. Somebody took off all their weapons. I wish we had a whole army of xeno-archaeologists and anthropologists. It’s really interesting. I always go see what they’re working on whenever we come in. The scientists don’t go very fast. They’re mostly ones we captured, so they aren’t real enthusiastic about helping us out. They train some of our people as aides, sometimes. Old folks and birth defect types who can’t do much else.”
    “That don’t make sense. People don’t abandon good ships, Amy. Where did they