Deathstalker Coda (59 page)
Authors: Simon R. Green
She rose up into the air, hovering above the throne on unseen wings, and suddenly she was shining brightly as the sun. Her presence joined with the presence of many other minds to beat on the air of the court. Even Douglas and Finn flinched away from her. The uber-espers howled and shrieked in inhuman voices as Diana Vertue became a conduit for all the power of the mass-mind of the oversoul, and Diana laughed again.
“The oversoul has come back! The city of New Hope traveled here with the Fleet from Mistworld, unseen and unsuspected. Only I knew. A secret weapon, to be preserved and kept ready for just this moment. You uber-espers are all that’s left of a particularly shameful episode of our past, and we will finally be rid of you!”
The uber-espers tried to flee, teleporting out of the court, but Diana Vertue held them where they were. And the oversoul struck at the uber-espers through Diana, who was still sometimes Jenny Psycho. The terrible destructive force beat upon the monstrous minds of the uber-espers, driving them together to support their mental shield. Douglas and Finn were forced back, unable to bear even the side effects of the psychic assault taking place before them. They huddled together, hands clapped uselessly to their heads, the only human souls left on an inhuman battlefield. The oversoul kept up the pressure, beating at the uber-espers’ shield with brutal strength, determined to wipe out the menace of the mad minds, once and for all. Diana Vertue grinned like a death’s head as the attack focused through her enlarged mind. This was what she had come back for. An old vengeance for an old crime.
The uber-espers huddled together as their mental shield shuddered and cracked, failing under the onslaught of the oversoul and Diana Vertue, and then . . . something utterly unexpected happened. The dusty gray figure of the Gray Train collapsed, losing its human shape to become a gray cloud that swept over Blue Hellfire, surrounded and sank into her, darkening the color of her corpse-pale skin. Icy flames leapt up around her. The Shatter Freak lurched forward, almost against his will, his body parts appearing and disappearing at dizzying speed, until he too fell into Blue Hellfire like a rock into a pool, absorbed and swallowed up in a moment. Screaming Silence lunged forward, grunting like a hog at the trough, and her great fleshy body wrapped itself around Blue Hellfire. The flames blazed brightly, radiating an impossible cold as the two figures melted together to become one. A dark silhouette of a human figure, like a hole in the world. And finally the two withered homunculi of the Spider Harps just snapped out of existence, like a popped soap bubble. Only one figure now remained, bathed in icy flames like a clay shape being recast in a kiln. And when it was all over, and the cold fires had died away, there stood just a single figure, a short blond woman who shone like the sun. Diana looked at her blankly as the oversoul’s attack cut off.
“Who the hell are you? Where did the uber-espers go?”
“Back inside me, where they belong,” said the new woman, in a flat, measured voice. She rolled her head around and flexed her shoulders, as though it had been a long time since she’d been in a body. “I should thank you, Diana Vertue, and the oversoul. The pressure of your attack brought about what I’ve been unable to achieve for hundreds of years. You put me back together again.”
“The uber-espers—all of them—they were just parts of you?” said Diana.
“I went through the Madness Maze, a long, long time ago, and it split me apart into five separate subpersonalities, because that was the only way I could cope with what I found there. Greetings to you, King Douglas and Emperor Finn. I am Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker. I am finally back, and all the worlds that are shall tremble before me.”
“This is not good,” said Finn.
“You think?” said Douglas.
The sheer force of Alicia’s presence seemed to fill the court, pressing against the far walls and shuddering in the floor. It pushed Diana’s presence aside effortlessly, and both Douglas and Finn had to fight an urge to kneel and bow their heads. They felt as though they didn’t belong in the court, like vermin in the gaze of a living goddess. The oversoul was silent in Diana’s head, struck dumb by this turn of events. Even their best precogs hadn’t sensed this coming. The entire mass-mind of the oversoul looked upon the restored, incandescent mind of Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker, and was afraid. She smiled slowly upon Diana.
“We have met before. When you manifested the Mater Mundi, all those years ago, that was part of me. I was spread far and wide by the Maze, torn apart into grotesque subpersonalities, crude representatives of my various needs and functions, but I always had an agenda.”
“Who . . . were you?” said Douglas, fighting to get the words out. “How did you become . . . the uber-espers?”
“What?” said Alicia. “You mean the oversoul never told you about the mad old aunt they kept in the attic? I am the beginning of the esper movement. They all have their root in me. I was one of the group of scientists who first discovered the Madness Maze, in a cavern deep inside Haden, centuries and centuries ago. I was an esper, one of the very first. I found others, bound them to my will, and forced them to go through the Maze with me. My intention was to produce a mighty esper gestalt, with me in total control, but . . . the Maze wasn’t what I thought it was. It tried to change me, remake me . . . and I couldn’t have that. I fought it, but the effort broke me. Tore me apart into the uber-espers and the driving force in the mass unconscious of the other espers, who became the esper underground. Later, they called me the Mater Mundi, Mother of All Souls. Even scattered and separated I was a force in the history of mankind. Now I’m back, and steeped in my true power again.
“I like this new mass gestalt you call the oversoul. So brightly shining, so very tasty. Why, I could just eat it all up.”
Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker withdrew her controlling presence from the thrall armies, to gather all her power in one place for one purpose, and all across the Parade of the Endless, no longer possessed men and women and children fell limply to the ground and lay still. Eyes open, still breathing, but utterly empty. Alicia would reoccupy them later, after she’d finished with more pressing business. Fighting stopped in the city, as exhausted and bloody men and women slowly lowered their weapons and looked uncertainly about them. A great cheer went up, that the war was over and they had survived. They didn’t know about Alicia. The various fighting groups came together as they headed for the heart of the city, and the Imperial Palace. The acclaimed greatest hero of the fighting, Gil Akotai, led the way.
Above the Imperial Palace, the vast floating city of New Hope manifested, its glass and silver towers shining like an impossibly huge snowflake. The people below cheered out again to see it, but the espers didn’t notice. They fought to focus every bit of power they had through Diana Vertue. It was a terrible thing to come face-to-face with their progenitor, after all these years. They had found at last their founder and creator, only to discover she was a mad god that wished only to devour her children. But the oversoul still had a few tricks up its sleeve. A few hints from the precogs. The oversoul sent down Crow Jane and the Ecstatic called Joy, to join the others in the court.
Standing alone before the last throne, Alicia didn’t actually look like much. Just a small, short, blond woman in an old-fashioned spacer’s uniform, the only mark of strangeness about her the huge dark eyes that dominated her small pale face. The kind of woman you’d pass every day and never give a second look. But even though she’d turned off her glow, her presence was still stamped upon the court, like a boot crashing into a face. She dominated the whole court by her very existence.
Behind her, a man and a woman entered the court, striding along side by side. Alessandra Duquesne, last of the Psycho Sluts, and John Silence, last of the old legends. She had dropped down out of the sky and snatched him up from the thick of the fighting. She carried him towards the palace, and
Because we’re needed
was all she had to say. Silence went along with it. He was used to sudden changes in direction in his life. At first, Alessandra had been a little confused, thinking there was someone else with Silence, but she pushed the thought aside to concentrate on getting to the palace as fast as possible.
Why are you crying?
Silence had asked, and she told him about having to kill her oldest friend. Silence had nodded, understanding.
Rebellions always kill your friends first,
he said, remembering Alexander Storm, and others.
Because we’re needed
was all she had to say. Silence went along with it. He was used to sudden changes in direction in his life. At first, Alessandra had been a little confused, thinking there was someone else with Silence, but she pushed the thought aside to concentrate on getting to the palace as fast as possible.
Why are you crying?
Silence had asked, and she told him about having to kill her oldest friend. Silence had nodded, understanding.
Rebellions always kill your friends first,
he said, remembering Alexander Storm, and others.
Silence and Alessandra circled carefully around Alicia, giving her plenty of room. They could feel the power radiating from her. They joined Douglas and Finn and Diana before the throne. They’d heard Alicia tell her strange history as they approached the court. They told the King and Emperor of the collapse of the thrall armies, and Douglas nodded, relieved there was at least one problem that he didn’t have to be worried about for the moment. He nodded to Silence.
“I understand you’re really the legendary Captain John Silence. Why did you masquerade as Samuel Chevron for all those years? Did my father know?”
“No,” said Silence. “No one knew. That was the point. I felt it best to conceal my true nature.”
“Lot of that going around at the moment,” said Douglas.
And then Crow Jane materialized in court right next to them, along with Joy, and they all jumped. Crow Jane wore her battered leather jacket, with a bandolier of throwing stars across her bosom. Her sharp face looked even paler than usual, showing off her jet-black hair and lips and heavy eye makeup. Joy, whose brain had been surgically altered so that he lived in a constant state of orgasm, smiled brightly on one and all, an average, almost anonymous-looking man in a simple white tunic. Crow Jane nodded briskly to Diana.
“The oversoul sent us. No one seems too sure why, but our precogs were unanimous that Joy needs to be here. Don’t ask me what good he’s going to do, unless he intends on smiling Alicia to death.”
“I am here,” Joy said politely, “because this is where I’m supposed to be. And how often can you say that with any surety? Hello, Alicia!” And then he wandered off to look at some walls.
“I feel so much safer,” Finn said to Douglas. “Don’t you?”
John Silence nodded uncomfortably to his daughter Diana. They moved a little aside, so that they could talk privately. They knew they should have been concentrating on Alicia, but it seemed like they had all the time in the world, to say all the things that needed to be said.
“Been a long time, Father,” said Diana. “Since we last met in person. A hundred and eighteen years.”
“I’ve been busy,” said Silence.
“You never were much of a father,” said Diana, without heat. “Always ready to sacrifice your own daughter to the greater good. First on Unseeli, back when we were both still only human, and then . . .”
“I did what I thought was necessary,” said Silence, meeting his daughter’s angry gaze with old, tired eyes.
“You betrayed me to the uber-espers! You led me into an ambush, and then abandoned me! I should have known better than to trust you.”
“I thought . . . I believed your growing power made you too dangerous, too disruptive; a threat to the Golden Age we were trying to build for everybody.”
“Did you know the oversoul would pick up my mind, after my body was destroyed by the uber-espers?”
“No. But I hoped.”
Diana frowned, and looked at Silence’s side. “I sort of sense someone with you. Investigator Frost?”
“Can you see her too?”
“No. There’s no one there,” said Diana. “Oh, Father, won’t you ever let her go?”
While they were talking, Alicia sidled into Silence’s mind, just for the fun of it. It wasn’t difficult, for all his two trips through the Madness Maze. Silence had always suppressed his greater powers. Perhaps because he was afraid of becoming like his daughter. Alicia needed a distraction. If she could dominate and possess his weaker mind, she could seize control of all his Maze powers, and use them to kill Diana. She found the image of Investigator Frost in Silence’s mind, and giggled like a girl as she slipped into it, like a maggot wriggling into an apple.
Frost turned suddenly and looked at Silence with cold eyes. “She’s just an ungrateful bitch, John. She never appreciated all the things you did for her. Kill her.”
“What?” Silence said loudly, and everyone looked at him.
“Kill her. It’s necessary; just like before. And afterwards, kill the runaway King and the traitor Emperor. They’re not worthy. You should be in charge. You’re the only one left who is worthy to lead Humanity. Do it. Do what you always wanted to do, John.”
Silence looked at her. “You’re not Frost. The Investigator would never say that. You’re . . . her. Alicia. I can feel you, creeping about inside my head.”
“
Do it!
” Alicia shrieked, pushing all her considerable presence into Silence’s mind. He cried out, shrieking piteously in pain and shock and horror, falling to his knees. His arms trembled, his fingers twitching with someone else’s intentions. He could feel Alicia pushing him further and further into the back of his head. The court fell away, as though at the end of a rapidly diminishing tunnel. She slithered through his thoughts like an inexorable impulse, and he knew he wasn’t strong enough to hold her off. But he’d always been his own man. So while his hand was still mostly his own, he pulled his disrupter from its holster, set it clumsily against his heart, and shot himself. One last act of duty, and of honor. Alicia fled laughing from his guttering mind as he slumped towards the floor. With the last of his vision, Silence saw Diana moving towards him to catch him, and knew she wouldn’t get there in time. He hit the floor of the court hard, and never felt it. All the lights went out.
Do it!
” Alicia shrieked, pushing all her considerable presence into Silence’s mind. He cried out, shrieking piteously in pain and shock and horror, falling to his knees. His arms trembled, his fingers twitching with someone else’s intentions. He could feel Alicia pushing him further and further into the back of his head. The court fell away, as though at the end of a rapidly diminishing tunnel. She slithered through his thoughts like an inexorable impulse, and he knew he wasn’t strong enough to hold her off. But he’d always been his own man. So while his hand was still mostly his own, he pulled his disrupter from its holster, set it clumsily against his heart, and shot himself. One last act of duty, and of honor. Alicia fled laughing from his guttering mind as he slumped towards the floor. With the last of his vision, Silence saw Diana moving towards him to catch him, and knew she wouldn’t get there in time. He hit the floor of the court hard, and never felt it. All the lights went out.
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