Deathstalker Coda (21 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Deathstalker Coda
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“Why are you here, Owen?” Glory insisted. “What do you want?”
“I followed my friend Hazel. Her trail led me here.”
“
Hazel?
” said Dominic. “That
thing
was human once?”
Glory snorted loudly, her dark eyes harsh, her mouth grim. “Your
friend
may have begun as human, but what arrived here was more like a terrible force of nature. It appeared out of nowhere, manifesting in high orbit amid a shower of tachyons, indicating that it was a time traveler. It had no physical form or dimensions, just a vast horrid presence stamped directly onto reality by an effort of will. It was huge and powerful, and as merciless as any devil. It descended upon Heartworld, sweeping aside all our defenses, and raged across our world, spreading death and devastation. It tore open the earth and raged through the cities, and none of our weapons even touched it. We called it the Mad Mind, after a legend from the first days of Empire.”
(
So,
thought Owen.
Now I know where I’m going next.
)
“Eventually,” said Dominic, “with half our world reduced to blood and ruins, the Mad Mind disappeared, as suddenly as it had arrived. And ever since we have been waiting for another such monster to fall upon us out of time.”
“And here you are,” said Glory. “In our power, to answer for the crimes of your . . . friend.”
“Can we really do that?” said Dominic, not even trying to hide his uncertainty. “I mean, look at the fellow. He bears no resemblance to the Mad Mind, in form or in nature. We cannot expect one individual to answer for the crimes of another. That would be . . . inhuman.”
“It is the Emperor’s will!”
“Is it? Perhaps if he met Owen, he would feel differently.”
Owen let them argue for a while, but it quickly became clear they weren’t going to resolve anything anytime soon, so he butted in again. “Why is there so much starship traffic around Heartworld? Is there some emergency? Perhaps something I could help with?”
“No,” said Dominic. “Lots of people are leaving Heartworld, for the outer colonies. To follow their own belief systems, or to escape the much predicted decline and fall of the Empire. Rats, deserting a sinking ship. Humanity has become . . . sundered, divided. We have all become too different from each other. Everyone must have the very latest technology implants, chemical enhancements, genetic restructuring. There are all kinds of subspecies now; nothing is forbidden and experimentation is running wild. We know everything about how to alter the body, and not nearly enough about how such changes affect the soul. The Humanity. We have a dozen different sexes now, group minds, human/animal combinations. Memes are fashions, and minds swap bodies at will, wearing different forms like suits.”
“You’re such a sweet old-fashioned thing, Dom,” said Glory, smiling for the first time. “It’s not all bad. Body change has enabled us to explore the universe. We walk upon worlds we could never have experienced before, because terraforming would have destroyed their true nature. We breathe poison, stand erect under the heaviest gravities, swim through gas worlds.”
“That’s not why they change their bodies on Heartworld,” Dominic said stubbornly. “Change is all the rage these days, for the thrill, for the kick, for the experience. We are all so desperate for new experiences. When nothing is forbidden, where do you go for cheap thrills and the sick little joys of sin? Everything is possible now, and that is why the Empire is falling apart. There are too many factions, subgroups, heretical beliefs . . . No consensus is ever possible. That’s why Parliament became a joke; because there are just too many positions, beliefs, philosophies. The only real authority comes from the Emperor, damn his immortal soul, and his Praetorian Guard. More and more they usurp prerogatives that belong to the Investigators and the Defenders. Society is fragmenting, and the center cannot hold. Humanity is divided by its own freedoms and appetites. Already many of the border worlds have rejected Heartworld authority, and fallen back into barbarism.”
Glory looked sharply at Owen. “Is this your doing? Are you affecting Dom in some way, with your future powers? He doesn’t normally talk so much, or so freely.”
“It’s true,” said Dominic. “I don’t.”
“Nothing to do with me,” said Owen. “I think . . . you’ve both been waiting for someone you could talk to. Someone who’d listen. Perhaps I can help, now that I’m here. In my own time, I led a rebellion that brought about a Golden Age. Or so everyone keeps telling me . . .”
Glory shook her head shortly. “No. We have our orders, our responsibilities. You will be held here, while we inquire for further instructions. After the devastations of the Mad Mind, we cannot take chances with any visitors from your future.”
“But he doesn’t belong here,” Dominic said stubbornly. “Not with these . . . transgressors.”
“Who have you got here?” said Owen. “What could still be a crime, with the freedoms you have now?”
“As ingenuity expands possibilities, crime flourishes,” said Glory. “The House of Correction holds body-swap terrorists, personality cancers, talent thieves, cult leaders who spread enforcement memes to gather new followers. Gender terrorists, who try to create new sexes by experimenting on unwilling victims.”
“And Ansel deLangford,” said Dominic. “Our latest arrival. Head of the Thrillkill Cult. He encouraged his many followers to consider murder as a work of art. The more complex, the more grotesque, and the more extreme, the better. His followers vied to present him with ever greater atrocities, but he was always the worst of them all. He specialized in murders whose foul and awful nature destroyed the minds and souls of the victims’ friends and families. The Thrillkill Cult wiped out whole subspecies and cultures, in the name of their perverted art, before we finally shut them down. Psychopathic kick killers, dancing and singing through the chaos of a falling Empire. But he is ours now, at last, and we will squeeze every last piece of information out of him, so that every last vestige of his cult will die with him.”
“You’re never this chatty when it’s just me,” said Glory. She looked at Owen. “Any questions?”
“Yes,” said Owen. “Why are you covered in pink metal?”
And that was when all the alarms in the world went off at once. Sirens and bells and a hell of a lot of flashing lights. While Owen was trying to look in every direction at once, Glory and Dominic looked quickly at the wall screens and then hurried over to the main console. The views on the monitor screens had stopped their shifting to concentrate on a series of cell doors sliding ponderously open, one after another, and wild shouting people spilling out into steel corridors. The alarms shut off, so the speakers could carry shouts and screams and raw harsh cries for vengeance. All the prisoners were loose, and already searching for weapons and a way out. Except for one man, who stood calmly before a security camera, smiling and entirely relaxed. He looked almost ordinary, until you got to the eyes. Owen shuddered as he looked at the man looking out of the monitor screen. He’d seen eyes like that before. Cold, mad, killer’s eyes.
It didn’t seem such a long time since he’d killed Kit SummerIsle, also known as Kid Death.
“DeLangford,” Dominic said grimly. “Somehow, he’s got into the computers. He’s triggered all the overrides, using codes he shouldn’t even have known existed. There’s nothing we can do.”
“He wanted to be brought here,” said Glory. “He didn’t set the others loose out of altruism. He’s planning something. Something awful.”
“Call out the guards,” said Owen. “How many do you have stationed here?”
Glory and Dominic looked at him. “There are no guards,” said Dominic. “Just the computers. Usually, that’s all that’s needed. After all, this is the moon. Where could anyone go if they did escape? But deLangford isn’t interested in escaping. He wants to make some art here. Murder art. But he waited for something to bring us back here. Because he wanted an audience.”
“You mean, he let the other prisoners out so they could watch as he killed you?” said Owen.
“No,” said Glory. “He thinks bigger than that. He’s going to make the prisoners die, for his entertainment. That’s what he does. And we get to watch while he does it.”
“Except we can’t allow that,” said Dominic.
“Why not?” said Owen. “You said yourself they were the worst of the worst.”
Dominic stared at him, openly shocked. “They are here to be cured, and given new lives! Not to be punished, executed! That would be . . . inhuman. We only ever kill when we have to.”
“We may have to,” said Glory, her ruby hands moving swiftly over the control panels. “DeLangford’s shut down all the nonlethal security measures. There’s no way he could have hacked into these computers without help. He must have brought something up with him. He was supposed to have been thoroughly searched before he got here, inside and out, but his cult has people everywhere. The computers aren’t going to repair themselves in time, Dom. We’re going to have to stop this ourselves.”
“They’ll be heading for the unloading bay,” said Dominic. “It’s the only way off the moon. There isn’t a ship docked at the moment, but they don’t know that. We can bottle them up in the bay, incapacitate a few to calm down the rest, and then keep them sealed up until the computers are back on line.”
“Too simple,” said Glory. “DeLangford will have planned for that. He’s had plenty of time to think this through. His murders always have to be art.”
“But he doesn’t know about me,” said Owen. “He won’t have allowed for my presence. Let me help. Please. I want to help.”
Dominic and Glory looked at him, and then at each other. “We need him,” said Dominic. “And he seems rational enough.”
“Our orders . . .”
“Don’t cover a prison break! Saving lives comes first.”
“Of course they do, Defender.” Glory hit a control on her wrist, and the energy gyves around Owen’s wrists snapped off.
Owen smiled. He could have broken free at any time, but he wanted them to trust him. He studied the wall screens, showing shouting men running through the plain steel corridors. There were a lot of them, but they didn’t look like they’d be too much of a problem, unarmed. Except . . . all the prisoners seemed to have the same frenzied expression. He pointed this out, and Dominic nodded grimly.
“DeLangford’s infected them all with the Thrillkill meme,” said Glory. “They belong to him now. They live only to kill for him, for his art. We may have to kill them all anyway, because they’ll never surrender. They won’t be able to.”
She said a word that Owen didn’t understand, and the air around Glory Chojiro rippled suddenly, as she disappeared and a new form took her place. It was about a foot taller and a great deal broader, roughly humanoid in shape but composed entirely of bright gold armor. The solid bullet head had no features, only a series of protrusions that might have been sensors. A row of gun muzzles thrust out of the barrel chest, and razor-edged blades lined the arms and legs. And yet the gold armor was seamless, moving smoothly and easily. The metal shape was clearly alive. Owen looked at Dominic.
“What is that, please?”
“That’s Glory,” said Dominic. “She’s put on her enforcement body—organic metal with built-in weaponry. We all have many bodies these days, remember? I’ll put on a more appropriate body in a moment.”
“How many bodies do you both have?” said Owen, fascinated.
“I have twenty-seven. Glory has forty-three. Our work requires us to be flexible. We keep them in a subspace locker, and pop them on as necessary. You didn’t think I looked like this all the time, did you?”
And just like that, he became someone else too. Still basically human, still pale blue, Dominic now inhabited a more perfect, idealized form. Something about this new, calmly smiling face, and the subtle body language, made Owen want to listen to whatever this new Dominic had to say. He wanted to agree with Dominic, and do anything that might please him. Owen shook his head sharply. A lot of the body language was subliminal, working directly on the subconscious, but Owen could see it clearly, and shrugged it off. He glared at Dominic, who smiled easily.
“Congratulations,” he said, in a wonderfully warm and friendly voice. “Most people can’t even see what I’m doing, let alone shake it off so quickly. As a Defender of Humanity, I don’t like using weapons. I prefer more subtle methods. There’s always the chance I can break these people free of deLangford’s conditioning.”
“We’re going down to the unloading bay,” said Glory, in a harsh buzzing voice that reminded Owen irresistibly of a Hadenman. “We’ll take the lead. You stay behind us, and protect yourself. Don’t get in our way, and try and stay out of trouble.”
“You really don’t know me at all,” said Owen Deathstalker.
 
Glory and Dominic led the way through the gleaming steel corridors, Glory’s heavy metal tread sounding loudly on the quiet. There had already been so many twists and turns that Owen should have been hopelessly lost, but somehow he wasn’t. He could sense the shape and layout of the whole prison structure, and his position in it. After following Hazel back through time, this was simple.
“The prisoners are limited to just the one body,” said Glory. “And their only weapons will be what they can improvise.”

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