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Beowulf, how you've changed!» He looked me over, visibly shocked, blocking me in the booth.
I shied back, wimp intimidated by a street thug, a bit offended and a bit afraid. «Sorry, man, I didn't mean to nudge you.»
He stepped forward and took my hand in both of his, despite lack of encouragement, and pumped it and hung on. He bellowed over the crowd noise. «Ander Smittarasheed. We made two travelogue vids together. Beowulf, all I can say is you must have a hell of a tale to tell.»
He had no doubts: he knew me. I said, «Hide. Hell of a tale to hide, Ander.»
«Not anymore.»
I shouted, «Yeah. Right. Are you with anyone?»
«No, on my own.»
«Come watch the game with me. I think there's an empty seat next to mine.» There'd better be.
He was still staring. Whatever he'd known, whatever had brought him here, he hadn't expected what he was seeing.
I hugged that thought to me. He was seeing me for the first time in twelve years. I dared to hope that Ander hadn't prepared for this meeting. There was no backup. Just him.
As we passed the booths, his hand closed on my upper arm. He might not think it likely that I'd dive into a transfer booth and vanish, but he wasn't risking it. He shouted, «Why a phone booth to use a pocket phone?»
And I showed myself astonished at his stupidity and bellowed, «Noise!»
Then the crowd roar drowned out any hope of conversation, we moved onto the slidebridge, and I had a few moments to think.
* * *
There's only one spaceport on We Made It, and the ships don't land every day. Some of us kids used to watch them take off and land. I'm the only one who became a pilot.
What I noticed about the tourists was muscle.
I wasn't undermuscled for a local. Some of the tourists hailed from worlds no more massive than mine, but we got Jinxians and flatlanders, too. They walked like they expected us to shy away from their moving mass. We tall, narrow, fragile crashlander men and women did as they expected, and resented it a little.
Nakamura Lines ran their ships at one Earth gravity. I had to train hard just to walk around on my own ship. Thus trained, I was a superbly muscled athlete by We Made It standards. It was still true that too many passengers looked at my albino pallor and tall, skeletal frame and saw a sickly ghoul.
I'd gotten used to that. Maybe it had left me touchy.
Visceral memory had come flooding back when Ander's hand closed on my arm like a predator's jaws. I hadn't known Ander well. I'd seen him twice in fourteen years, for periods of intense activity of a few weeks each. Now I needed a story to tell to Ander Smittarasheed; but what I remembered best was that I'd disliked him on sight.
* * *
Sharrol's seat was empty. Ander settled into it. «You really like these water wars? What guild do you favor?»
«No, Ander, it's not like that. You've seen my homeworld. There's only one ocean on We Made It, and it's all one storm. Nobody swims.»
«So what are we doing here?»
I had come here following a woman's whim, but Ander shouldn't know that. «I don't care who wins. I just get a kick out of watching how good they are.»
But I'd listened to enough of Sharrol's prattling. Water war derived from a game the kzinti played on the continent, on land. In both forms the game is local to Fafnir. No offworld tourist would know of it. I need only open my mouth and let Sharrol speak.
«They all swim like dolphins, don't they? But the dolphins can't grab the prey, they can only push the other players around, except that the Structure Team dolphin has hands. It's an option. But the rig is slowing her down; can you tell? Do you know anything about strategy? They're down to seven teams, looks like — «I saw that he was only waiting for me to stop talking. «Ander, what are you doing on Fafnir?»
«Looking for you.»
«Yeah, I always thought so. You're with the United Nations police.» I need not pretend to like it.
Ander frowned. «Not … exactly. I'm not an ARM. I'm with Sigmund Ausfaller, and Sigmund is an ARM, but he has his own agenda. By which I mean to say I'm not here to bring you back, Beowulf.»
«That's good. I don't want to go back.» I didn't have my story yet, but it would not include wanting to return to Earth. «Why, then?»
«Can you tell me what happened to Feather Filip?»
«It's long and ugly.»
«No problem. I'll take you to dinner.»
«Thanks.» It might help me, now or later, if Ander thought I was short of money. Better yet — «There's an item of great value involved, Ander. One I can't touch myself. That, and Feather, and the way I look: they're all linked.»
«Yes. Good,» he said absently. «And, though he never said so to me, Sigmund may have wanted you to know that if you outsmarted the ARM, you did not outsmart Sigmund.»
«I expect he did. Anything else?»
«Oh, yes. I got into this because we were talking about Pierson's puppeteers. Sigmund and I decided that you, Beowulf Shaeffer, know as much about these aliens as any ARM.»
«Hah. Were you sober?»
«And then we worked out where you must be. No, not sober then, but we talked the next morning and didn't change our minds. Beowulf, how did you first learn of the puppeteers?»
«School and the holo cube. We watched a lot of travelogues when we were kids. And we hung around the spaceport, so I knew they make the General Products ships.»
«And your first contact?»
«We wrote that up together. Oh, tanj, Ander! You're recording, aren't you?»
He said, «Yes,» giving me an instant to object, daring me. Who was he recording for? Who was involved in hunting Beowulf Shaeffer? If it was Sigmund Ausfaller … I'd never outguessed Sigmund yet.
Ander said, «We'll pay you a consultant's fee. Ten per hour, Beowulf. Will you accept?»
«How many hours do you need?» It was generous, but my yes would be a verbal contract. I'd be his prisoner.
He waved it off. «Until midnight. Then we can renegotiate. I need the recording for Sigmund.»
Ouch. «Until midnight,» I said, «present time being ten to noon local.»
«Your first contact with Pierson's puppeteers?»
Fifteen years flying passengers between the worlds. Then Nakamura Lines collapsed, and I was on the street … on We Made It, because the bankruptcy courts allowed us transport home. Two years later I was ready to accept an offer from anyone. Anyone …
NEUTRON STAR
The Skydiver dropped out of hyperspace an even million miles above the neutron star. I needed a minute to place myself against the stellar background and another to find the distortion Sonya Laskin had mentioned before she died. It was to my left, an area the apparent size of the Earth's moon. I swung the ship around to face it.