The Last Starfighter (11 page)

“So much intelligence, so much effort and energy, wasted on the restoration of antique war machines. Taken together they have not the elegance or permanence of a single song cycle.” He let his stare drop back down to the waiting pilots and crews.

“What a tragedy. To think that we have come so far, achieved so much, at the expense of our own defense. Because while we still possess these machines and the talent to improve them, the ability to utilize them in battle has been bred out of the majority during the long peace.

“Hence the exhaustive hunts which have brought you together here. Just as these vessels are reminders of our violent adolescence, so are you and the abilities you still retain. You see, you all are also relics. Few are left who can use these ships. Peace breeds contentment, and contentment stifles the fighting reflexes and urges and what we might call the, uh, gift of doing battle.

“Among the billions of citizens of the League, grown contented and easygoing over the centuries, only a few are left who still possess this gift. Only a few. You few.” He let that sink in before adding, “The future of our civilization, of the League itself, rests on you. You, the most extreme throwbacks, the most primitive and yet skilled among us. It is a talent I have no desire to possess. I pity you for it. I envy you for it. I salute you for it.”

A muffled cheer rose from the assembled fighters. Many of them were outcasts, social misfits on Rylos and the other worlds. Now that which caused them to be shunned was to be their redemption. After this war they would be regarded as saviors; not to be liked, perhaps, but to be respected. All looked forward to the forthcoming conflict.

All, that is, save one, who kept his thoughts to himself and wished desperately that he were elsewhere.

Enduran waited patiently for the cheering and the shudderingly robust war cries to die down. He’d been told by the psychologists to expect something of the kind, but still, to see such naked expressions of violence among citizens of the well-behaved League was a shock.

A fortunate one, though. Without such citizens there would be no chance of turning back the Ko-Dan incursion. He studied the many different visages and expressions and marveled at the similarities. The urge to combat, to fight, to kill, had been drained from the general population by hundreds of years of peace. Yet a residue of the ancient feelings still remained. He felt terribly sorry for all of them.

“You alone,” he went on, hating what he was doing, hating the carefully calculated manipulation of primitive emotions but at the same time knowing how necessary it was, “stand between the rest of us and the dark terror of the Ko-Dan. You alone must do what the rest of us can no longer do. You alone must place yourselves between civilization and chaos, between aspiration and anarchy. You alone must resist, must fight, must destroy!” The speech clogged his throat and he could say no more.

He didn’t have to. The speech, carefully designed by the amunopsychs, had precisely the effect on the gunstar pilots they’d intended it to. There was a unity of feeling running through the assembly now that transcended such trivialities as racial type and world or origin. These pilots and navigators were defectives, on whom Enduran’s words had a powerful effect.

“Victory or death!” shouted one uniformed support officer. The chant was taken up by the others, including the pilots. The force of it shook Enduran. He’d been warned, and the tranquilizers they’d pumped into his system helped him to remain calm, but the feeling of raw violence that now overwhelmed the chamber was terribly unsettling to anyone who regarded himself as a civilized creature.

And he’d been chosen to deliver this presentation because he’d tested out emotionally more resilient than his colleagues. The fury of the fighter’s response to the speech would surely have caused poor Masurv of Cann’our, next in line to make the presentation, to faint on the dais.

They were on their feet now, circulating through the briefing room like a living storm, pilots and navs and technicians and engineers, all selected for defects in their emotional makeup. Defects which made them pariahs on their home worlds but heroes of the battle to come. They pounded each other enthusiastically with hands or tentacle tips, slapped backs or carpaces as they strove to bolster each other’s spirits. Fighting spirits, Enduran told himself. We have not progressed far enough.

Which was lucky for everyone else.

Alex was on his feet with everyone else, stumbling through the crowd and trying not to get trampled in the excitement. His course wasn’t planned and he was just trying to reach the far wall without tripping over any chairs or Bodati tentacles. In a few moments he found himself nearly in the clear, on the opposite side of the chamber.

Where a familiar figure was moving easily through the mob, its attention fixed on a handful of glittering crystalline shapes.

Alex started shoving his way through the remaining crowd, ignoring occasional outcries and not even caring if he offended some belligerent Bodati. The figure he was heading toward was joined by a uniformed alien. Together they headed for an open doorway.

“Centauri, Centauri, wait!”

His recruiter/kidnapper didn’t hear him. Or maybe he did and was hurrying out of the room. Alex was clear of the press of alien bodies then. Their cheers and whistles echoed in his ears as he plunged down a short hall and out into the main hangar.

It was filled with noisy equipment being operated by the usual assortment of strange creatures, some of whom were more outre in appearance than the machines they worked with. There was no sign of Centauri, though he thought he saw a half-familiar shape vanishing around a far corner.

He ran, waving and yelling, and not looking where he was going. Fortunately, the alien he ran into was no Bodati.

5

It was quite humanoid, though completely hairless. The rounded skull and the face with its deep-set yellowish eyes was covered by a thick orange-yellow crust that reminded Alex of desert ponds months after scorching heat had caused them to dry and crack. He was tall (the “he” another sexual presumption on Alex’s part which turned out to be correct) and, thankfully, devoid of tentacles.

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized. There was no sign of Centauri now, and no way of knowing which way he’d gone.

“This is a restricted area, off limits to . . .” The alien stopped in mid-sentence, examining Alex more closely as they both knelt to recover Alex’s clothes and the small handful of components the tall being had been carrying.

“I don’t recognize your species,” he said.

“Human.” Alex stared at a six-inch-long something that filled his hand. It looked like a cross between an oversized ballpoint pen and an electric toothbrush. He suspected it was neither, and handed it over.

“From Earth,” he added.

“Earth what?”

“Just Earth. We like to keep things simple.”

I don’t believe I’m having this conversation
, he told himself.
I don’t believe a bit of it
.

“That’s a uniform.” The alien gestured with a thick-skinned hand at Alex’s bundle of clothing.

“Yeah.” Alex gathered it up. As he rearranged it in his arms, the alien caught sight of the insignia on the front. His manner changed abruptly.

“Pardon me,
Starfighter
. I am Navigator/Systems Operator Grig. At your service, sir.”

He performed an awkward salute which Alex found interesting to observe but impossible to duplicate. So he took the thick hand and shook it instead. Grig inspected his freed limb thoughtfully.

“Curious custom.”

“We like it.”

“Individualistic yet intimate, this personal physical contact. Never cared much for it myself, but everyone is entitled to his own mode of greeting, isn’t he?”

“If you say so, Grig.” Alex nodded toward the line of silent gunstars. “You fly those?”

“Me, fly? You mean as an attack pilot? Dear me, no. I am a Navigator and Systems Operator. I run the ship during combat, thus freeing the piloting Starfighters to do what they do best: fight.”

“Your job sounds tougher than the other.”

“Not in the least. I have only mechanical problems to deal with, instead of mental ones. You are named?”

“Sorry. I’m Alex Rogan.”

“Two names?”

“That’s our custom.”

“Naming does vary from system to system, culture to culture. I find the use of more than one name unnecessarily duplicitous, though there are those species who make use of a dozen names or more.”

“Hate to have to sign my name like that.” Alex studied his new acquaintance. Grig was more than polite; he was downright deferential. He also struck Alex as straightforward, honest and devoid of guile. Maybe this was his chance to get a straight answer or two to some questions.

“Listen, Grig, maybe you can help me out. See, I was playing this game back home, a videogame, and this guy comes along, only he’s no guy. He’s an alien, a non-human. I get into his car, only it’s no car, it’s a spaceship, and there’s been a biggggg mistake somewhere along the line.”

Grig stared back at him. “My friend, you sound very confused.”

“That’s the understatement of the century, Navigator.”

“You said there’d been a mistake. What kind of mistake?”

“I don’t belong here. I thought I’d won some kind of big prize or something for reaching a score of a million on the game. I thought maybe we were going to go to the downtown motel to discuss it. Then I thought maybe I’d have to go into L.A. or something to accept it. So I end up going a lot farther, and there’s no prize.” He indicated the pile of clothing. “I can’t put these on. You called me a Starfighter. I’m no Starfighter, just a kid.”

“Starfighter ability is not a function of age, Alex Rogan.”

“Just Alex.”

“Alex, then. It is a matter of a special combination of unusual talents courage, flexibility under stress, the ability to make rapid decisions while under great pressure, reflexology, mental acuity, determination and more. I am not qualified to enumerate all of them, much less to explain. But you were brought here to be a Starfighter, it would seem, and you have been issued the uniform.”

Alex shook his head violently. “Uh-uh. Not a chance. I’m not putting this on. I don’t belong here. I told you, it’s all been a big mistake.”

Now Grig appeared uncertain. “Am I to understand that you are actually declining the honor of becoming a Starfighter?”

“You got it.” Alex said it with a relieved sigh, pleased to at last have made his point to
someone
. “Besides, how can you call it an honor when the ambassador from the League refers to it as belonging to ‘primitives’?”

“Because a talent is rare does not make it less valuable, Alex. We have artists who utilize primitive techniques. That does not make their art less valid. There are concertiflows who design musical superstructures based on motifs thousands of years old. Their flows are no less effective for that.”

“Well, mine is,” Alex insisted stubbornly. “I don’t belong here.”

“Extraordinary. Unheard of. Not for your presence to be a mistake, but for you to decline the honor of becoming a Starfighter. Only a few have qualified. Primitive you may think it, but the honor remains significant. And you are actually turning it down.” He considered thoughtfully. “Wait a moment. Tell me again where you are from?”

“I said, from Earth, and we’re not at war with anyone except each other.”

“Earth, Earth,” Grig mumbled. “I am trying to recall. Perhaps in the vicinity of Quarlia.” He brightened. “Yes, I remember now. An insignificant place, well outside the usual trade or exploration routes.”

“We like it,” Alex said defensively.

“Most curious this is. If I am remembering my galographics correctly, Earth is not a formal member of the League.”

“As far as I know, we’re not even an informal member. Everybody on my planet thinks all of you are figments of their imaginations.”

“Typical reaction of those primitive races who believe themselves to be the center of existence. Nothing personal, Alex Rogan. Alex.”

“No offense taken,” Alex replied. “I agree with you, Grig. We’re not a real modest bunch. Now, don’t you agree with me that I don’t belong here? This isn’t my fight.”

“It’s all highly irregular. Earth isn’t due to be considered for League membership until its inhabitants mature to the next level.” He eyed Alex with sudden intensity. “Tell me, how were you recruited?”

“Through a game. A machine. Some kind of simulator.”

“No, no. I don’t mean how were you tested. Who actually brought you here?”

“A guy who calls himself Centauri. I thought that was funny because that’s the name of the star nearest our own sun, and . . .” He broke off, staring past the Navigator. “And there he goes now.” He waved. “Hey, Centauri!”

“Ah. Centauri.” Grig relaxed. Everything was falling into place.

“You know him?” Alex inquired as they started to where the subject in question was arguing with a Rylan officer.

“He is known to me personally as well as through his extensive reputation.” Grig’s tone was carefully neutral. “You are not the first to surfer from his manipulations. He is very clever and conceals his doubtful activities beneath a mantle of false simplicity. This matter will be resolved quickly, I assure you.”