Starfishers Volume 1: Shadowline by Glen Cook

you could have known that you’d find anything out there.”
    What does make a man throw himself into something for which there is neither a reasonable nor rational justification? Frog had done a lot of thinking during his ran. Not once, even remotely, had he been able to make his motives add up. Most of the time he had told himself that he was doing it for Moira, but there had been times whan he had suspected that he was doing it for Frog, to salve a scarred ego by showing humanity it was wrong about his being a clown. Yet that had not taken into account the probability of failure, which would have done nothing but underscore his foolishness.
    Why, then? A badfinger for Blake? Because he had had some crazy, deep-down conviction that he would find something? No. Not one of those reasons was good enough in itself.
    All that time alone and still he had not figured himself out.
    Thr man who hides from himself hides best of all.
    “What did you find?”
    Frog strove to focus on Plainfield. And realized that his earlier assessments were incorrect. The man was neither vulture, fox, nor wolf. He was a snake. Cold-blooded, emotionless, deadly. Predatory, and unacquainted with mercy. Nor was he owned. This news business was cover. He was a dagger in his own hand.
    Plainfield moved toward him. A slap hypo appeared in his palm. Frog struggled weakly. The hypo hit his arm.
    Wrong again , he thought. He’s worse than a snake. He’s a human .
    “What did you find?”
    Frog knew he would not make it this time. This man, this thing that called itself August Plainfield and pretended to be a newsman, was going to strip him of his victory, then kill him. Even God in heaven could not stop him from talking once the drug took hold, and then what value would he have alive?
    Frog talked. And talked. And, as he knew he must, he died. But before he did, and while he was still sufficiently in possession of his senses to understand, another man entered the dark door before him.
    Smythe burst into the room, alerted by his monitors. Moira trailed him as if attached by a short chain. The doctor charged Plainfield, opening his mouth to shout.
    A small, silent palm weapon ruined Smythe’s heart before any sound left his lips. Moira, as if on a puppeteer’s strings, jerked back out of the room. Plainfield cursed but did not pursue her.
    A sadness overwhelmed Frog, both for himself and for Smythe.
    On Blackworld, as on all but a few worlds, the dead never saw resurrection. Even the Blakes remained dead when they died. Resurrection was too expensive, too difficult, and too complex in social implication. And why bother? Human numbers made life a cheap commodity.
    Plainfield finished with Frog, then disappeared. The murders went on record as unsolved. Corporation police hunted the newsman, but no trace turned up.
    They wanted him for theft. They wanted him for destruction of municipal and Corporate property. They wanted him for suborning municipal and Corporate employees. They wanted him for a list of crimes. But most of all they wanted him because of Frog and Smythe.
    Blake had a long, long memory.
    Stimpson-Hrabosky News denied ever having heard of Plainfield. How, then, Blake’s cops demanded, had the man reached Blackworld in a Stimpson-Hrabosky charter? How, if he was an unknown, had he managed to get himself elected pool man?
    Stimpson-Hrabosky responded with almost contemptuous silence.
    Their reticence was itself informative. Plainfield obviously carried a lot of weight outside.
    In the furor of pursuit the killer’s motives became obscured. Only a handful of men knew about Frog’s claim and will, and they were the men Plainfield had bribed. They were on trial and no one was listening to them. They were sent into exile, which meant that they were given outsuits and put out of the city locks to survive as best they could.
    Blake reasserted its contention that it never left a debt outstanding, though it might take a generation to repay.
    Frog’s