"That's not bad, is it?" She used the voice of the professional mother this time. His cunning, frightened mind made it that of the woman of his youth. He remembered how she had comforted him when he had been afraid.
"When you're ready, depress your right switch another click, then release it. To withdraw you have to pull up on your left switch."
His hand seemed to act on its own. Down went the switch.
The dreams he had been having returned space swimming, the galaxy wrong in color, Stars' End strangely misty yet bright. Things moved around him. He remembered the situation tank. This was like being bodiless at the heart of the display. The service ships were glimmering needles, the harvestships glowing tangles of wire. The sharks were reddish torpedoes in the direction of the galaxy. Far away, the starfish looked like golden Chinese dragons. They were drifting toward him.
Moyshe's fear faded as though a hand had erased it from the blackboard of his mind. Only an all-encompassing wonder remained.
Gently, warm, friendly as a loving mother, a voice trickled into his mind. "I do it. Starfish, Chub." There was a wind-chimes tinkle of something like laughter. "Watch. I show me."
A small dragon rose from the approaching herd, did a ponderous forward roll. Shortly, "Oh, my! Old Ones don't like. Dangerous. This no time for fun. But we winning, new man-friend. Sharks afraid, confused. Too many man-ship. Running now, some. Many destroyed. Big feast for scavenger things."
The creature's joy was infectious, and Moyshe supposed he had cause—if the sharks were indeed abandoning herd and harvestfleet.
Funny. His conscious mind was not questioning, just accepting.
His fear remained, down deep, but the night creature held it at bay, infecting him with its own excitement. When did the power thing start? he wondered. It had already, the starfish told him. He did not feel anything other than this creature Chub exploring the ways of his mind like a kid on holiday exploring a resort hotel.
"Shark battle won, mind battle won," the starfish said after a while, when Moyshe finally had himself under control. "But another fight coming, Moyshe man-friend. Bad one, maybe."
"What?" And he realized, for the first time, that he really was talking with his mind.
"Ships-that-kill, evil ones, return."
"Sangaree. How do you know?"
"No way to show, tell. Is. They come, hyper now. Your people prepare."
BenRabi did not want to be out here during combat. He felt exposed, easy prey. Panic began to well up.
The starfish's control did not slacken. He soon forgot the danger, became engrossed in the wonders around him, the rippling movements of retreating sharks, the ponderous approach of dragons, the maneuvers of the shimmering service ships as their weary crews prepared for another battle. The galaxy hung over everything like a ragged tear in the night, vast in its extension. How much more magnificent would it be if it could be seen without the interference of the dust that obscured the packed suns at its core? Nearby, Stars' End waited, a quiet but furious god of war as yet unconcerned with the goings-on around it. Moyshe hoped no one aroused its wrath.
"Coming now," his dragon told him. Spots appeared against the galaxy as Sangaree raidships dropped hyper. Down in his backbrain, behind his ears, Moyshe felt a gentle tickle. "More power," Chub told him.
The raidships radiated from their drop zone in lines, like the tentacles of a squid. They soon formed a bowl with its open side facing the harvestfleet. It was an obvious preliminary to englobement.
The distant, decimated shark packs milled uncertainly. They withdrew a little farther. They were not yet wholly defeated.
A ball of light flared among the Sangaree. A lucky mine had scored. But it made little difference. The power and numbers remained theirs.
Only a handful of service ships remained combat-worthy. Even the halest of the harvestships had lost some main power and drive capacity to shark attack. Minddrive and auxiliary power were insufficient for high-stress combat maneuvering.
BenRabi sensed something changing. He cast about, finally saw the great silver sails that had been taken in before the earlier fighting spreading between Danion's arms and spars. The ship looked so ragged, so injured, so vulnerable... A blizzard of debris drifted about her, held by her minuscule natural gravity.
The Sangaree maneuvered closer but held off attacking.
"Trying to talk First Man-friend into surrender," Chub to benRabi. "Creatures of ships-that-kill want herd without fight."
"Payne won't give up," he thought back.
"Is true, Moyshe man-friend."
The starfish drifted closer. They were almost upon the Sangaree. They meant to join the battle this time, though cautiously. Their enemies still watched from afar, looking for another chance to savage fleet and herd.
"Fight soon, Moyshe man-friend."
The slow, stately dance of enmity ended. The negotiations had broken down. The Sangaree struck fast and hard, firing on the service ships to show their determination. The service ships dodged. Suddenly, there were missiles everywhere, streaking around like hurrying wasps. Beam fire from the harvestships wove gorgeous patterns of death.
And Moyshe became depressed. He had done his Navy fleet time. He could see the untippable balance written in the patterns. There was no hope of victory.
Chub chuckled into his consciousness. "You see only part of pattern, Moyshe man-friend."
In the far distance a starfish crept close to a raidship. The vessel's weapons could destroy the dragon in an instant—but the ship stopped attacking. It simply drifted, a lifeless machine.
"We do mind thing," Moyshe heard. "Like Stars' End, with much power. We stop ships-that-kill like human eyeblink, so fast, if no guns, no drive field to fear."
A second raidship fell silent, then a third and a fourth. Moyshe felt less pessimistic. The raidships would be locked into an overcommand directed by a master computer aboard the raidmaster's vessel. That master computer would be burning up its superconductors trying to adjust fire fields to accommodate the losses. If it became the least hesitant, the least unsure of its options...
A too-cautious starfish burped a ball of gut-fire. The micro-sun rolled through space sedately, devoured another raidship.
"Bad, Moyshe man-friend. Old Ones angry. Will give away unsuspected attack."
The Sangaree hemisphere closed steadily. Its diameter rapidly dwindled. The harvestships threw everything they had, fire heavier than anything benRabi had ever witnessed, yet were barely able to neutralize the incoming. Offensive capacity seemed to have been lost.
The starfish mindburned another raidship, and proved Chub and the Old Ones right. The fireball had given them away. Moyshe felt the deep sadness of his dragon as one of the herd perished beneath Sangaree guns.
The starfish threw a barrage of fireballs before beating a hasty retreat. Sangaree missiles broke up most of them.
The globe closed around the harvestfleet. It tightened like a squeezing fist. A desperate ship's commander, piloting a three-quarters dead service ship, knocked a small hole in the globe by ramming a raidship and blowing his drives.
"They'll know they were in a fight," Moyshe thought. There was no response from Chub.
The Sangaree stepped up the attack. Their ships began piling up toward Stars' End. Moyshe suddenly intuited their strategy. "They're going to push us into the sharks!"
Again there was no response from his dragon, unless it were that wind-chime tinkle he caught on the extreme edge of his sensitivity.
The Sangaree seemed to have managed some equipment adjustments during their absence. They appeared to have no trouble detecting the sharks now. And, since detecting the starfish attack, they were having no trouble keeping the dragons at bay.