Starrigger

'No, thanks, Corey,' I told him. Brucie had made no move. 'I'll stand. What's on your mind?'

'Why, nothing.' Surprised innocence. He was good at it, but he overplayed it a bit. Was he nervous? 'Nothing at all. Just enjoying a good meal in a good restaurant ? a little disappointed when you and your lady friend didn't join us, that's all. You really should observe more of the social amenities, Jake. Oh, I realize your diamond-in-the- rough sort of charm goes a long way, especially with women, but when you see a friend across the room when you're dining out ? well…' He was gracious in dismissing the matter. 'But I don't take offense easily. You're probably in a hurry, right? Behind schedule?'

'I don't like looking at vomit when I eat, that's all.'

It didn't ruffle him. He grinned through the rather indelicate hiatus in the conversation, then said, implacably, 'You have a certain directness of expression that I admire, Jake, but that remark was a bit too blunt. Don't you think? But… then, I should know better than to try and stroke you.'

'Was that what you were doing?'

'Oh, twitting you a little, I'll be honest. But I really do want to talk, Jake. I think we should, finally.'

'Why, whatever about?' It was my turn to be catty.

'Shoes and ships, Jacob.' He waved to the far reaches of the universe. 'Things. Things in general.'

'Uh huh. But out of the totality of existence, there must be something specific.'

'Absolutely right.' The constant smile turned extraordinarily benevolent. 'Sure you won't sit, Jake?'

'Forget it.'

'Fine.' He lit a small, thin cigarette wrapped in paper of bright pink, blew smoke toward me. The aroma was sweet, perfumelike. 'What say we merge our respective outfits? That's right. Don't drop your jaw too low, Jake, the busboys will use it as a dustpan. Starriggers Guild and Transcolonial Association of Truck Owner-Operators. Together. Hyphenate 'em, or come up with a new name, I don't care. Why continue the war any longer? It's unprofitable, destructively competitive… and frankly, I'm rather tired of it.' The smile was gone, replaced by Honest Concern. 'A marriage is what I'm proposing.' 'Why, Corey. This is so sudden.' His face split again. 'You know, you're not as rough around the edges as you let on, Jacob. Whenever we get together, I kind of enjoy the repartee. The parry, the riposte, the barbs lovingly honed?' He blinked. 'But I'm serious.'

I stood there, debating whether I should just spit and walk away, or go through the motions with him. I couldn't figure out why he was doing this.

'Excuse me, Misterrr Jake,' the Reticulan trilled through his mandibles. 'I wonderrr if I could inquirrre as to the identity of the female perrrson with whom you are associating?' 'What's it to you, Ant Face?'

I find it difficult, if not impossible, to read an alien visage for emotions. Apparently the insult had had no effect, but I couldn't be sure. I had never before dealt with Rikkis. The mandibles kept clicking in and out in that unnerving sewing-machine motion. Reticulans don't really look like ants, don't even have bug-eyes ? you would swear that they wore glasses shaped like a set of zoom camera lenses, and you'd be right, except that they can't take them off ? but Rikkis do appear insectoid at first glance, being exoskeletal.

Who knows? Maybe all Reticulans aren't bad. To be fair, it doesn't help that their appearance happens to resonate with images of chitinous horror that scrabble around in the basement of our racial unconscious. The question, however, was: Why was Wilkes presenting me, if indeed he was, with this… being? To threaten me? Did he actually think I'd be scared? Give in? Why now, after all this time?

'Now, now,' Wilkes said gently. 'We don't want an interplanetary incident. I'm sure Twrrrll's question was all in innocence. Did you recognize her, Twrrril?'

'Prrrecisely. I did not mean to imply an interest in the female perrrson. If I have brrroken some… taboo, is this correct? If I have violated some taboo by inquirrring, I am verrry sorrry.'

Did everyone know the waif but me?

The alien knew exactly what he was doing.

'Okay, okay,' I said testily. 'About this merger?'

'There, you see? Paranoia. Jake. Paranoia. It kills us all in the end. We think ourselves into an early grave. Worry, tear ? the etiological root of all disease.' Two beats, then again. 'About this merger.' 'What would it hurt to consider it? Think it over. Stubborn as you are, you've finally got to admit to yourself that the Guild is on borrowed time. More and more drivers are coming back over to us.'

A lie. Everyone with a notion to break and run had done so long before. But he was right in the sense that there were damn few of us left.

'They've added up the pros and cons, come to final tally,' Wilkes went on. 'TATOO'S better for them all around. A dozen new signatories to the Revised Basic Contract this month, with more to come. Oh, sure, the terms of the Guild's Basic are a little better, in some areas. I'll grant you that. But it doesn't mean very much when you can count the Guild's signatories on six fingers.'

'Five,' I corrected him. 'Combined Hydran Industries reneged and went over to you last week.'

Wilkes rested his case with a casual motion of the hand. 'Need I say more?'

I certainly had no need to say more. I was watching the faces of the three stooges, looking for clues. The one who had come for me looked antsy, darting eyes around the room. From that I got the hint that something could be up. It still seemed unlikely.

Wilkes had been waiting for me to respond, gave it up and said, 'Oh, come on, Jake. The Guild is nothing more than a shell, if it was ever anything more. Can't you see? It's served its purpose. You've shown me the reservoir of discontent among the membership, and we're responding, believe me. Have you read the Revised Basic? I mean, have you really sat down and gone over it, clause by clause?'

'I don't have much time for light reading, I'm afraid.'

A point scored, an acknowledgment via an upward curl of one end of his mouth. 'You really should,' he said quietly.

'What's in it for me?' I asked, sailing with the wind just for the hell of it.

It genuinely surprised him. 'Well,' he said with an expansive shrug, 'uh… Interlocal Business Agent? For life? Name the salary.' It was a hasty improvisation, and he waited for my reaction. 'Hell, Jake, I don't know What do you want?'

'For you to bloody well leave us alone. It's that simple.'

I erased that with a swipe of my hand. 'Pardon me, it's not that simple anymore. You're going to answer for Marty DiFlippo, Wilkes. If I have to scrape myself off the side of a cylinder and come back to do it, I will. But I will make you answer for her. And for the others.' Conversations lulled at nearby tables.

'Okay, Jake. Okay.' His voice was colorless, small. I backstepped twice, but stopped. 'One more thing. If the

Guild is doomed anyway, why are you so hot to mate with us?' I wanted an answer. 'Why, Corey?'

'Because it annoys me.' I suspect it was his first ingenuous remark of the whole exchange. Amused by the novelty, he continued, 'Your recent attempts at retaliation annoy me, too.'

'What?' This was news.

'You're denying it? Don't insult my intelligence, Jake. I've had loads lifted, rigs sabotaged, deals queered. Nothing major, you understand. But it irks me.'

I had heard about the recent increase in hijackings and the like. I attributed it to free-lance skywaymen, as did the media. We had no muscle to bring to bear on him. The injustice of the charge seared the back of my throat.

'Jake, you're a strange man,' Wilkes went on, resuming his usual inflected, lyrical style. 'There's a kind of… a certain Heisenbergian uncertainty about you. An elusiveness. Hard to pin you down. We've been having trouble keeping track of your movements recently. I get a report that you're somewhere, then get another that says you were somewhere else entirely at the very same time. A slippery electron, Jake. Difficult to determine both its position and momentum at once. One or the other, but not both. And the stories.'

'Stories?' 'The strange tales I've been nearing about you. Fascinating, if they're true. Especially the one about the?'

'Look, Corey,' I said, cutting him off, 'it's been nice. Really nice. But I'd like to go salvage a meal. Thanks for the offer.'

And at my back I heard, 'You'll never get out of Mach City, Jake.'

I stopped, turned, and delivered an obscenity.

He laughed. 'In fact, what makes you think I couldn't take you out right now?'