Deathstalker Return (25 page)

Lewis drew his sword and set about the slow progress of cutting a trail through the uncooperative mass of vegetation before him. It was hard work and slow going. His sword jarred painfully against the heavier branches, and vines clung stickily to his blade until he jerked it free. He pressed on, his arm rising and falling mechanically, while sweat dripped from his face. The others stuck close behind him, while the jungle slowly closed the trail behind them.

The air was thick and heavy with so many scents it was like an overwhelming perfume that raised strange atavistic feelings. It was as though they belonged in the jungle, and always had. Like coming home . . . There was more oxygen in the air than they were used to, and it left them all feeling heady and a little giddy. The rain slowed to a steady pitter-patter. The overhead canopy of interlocking tree branches was much thicker than it had been, this close to the human settlements, due to the intervention of the Red Brain. But even so, Lewis and his companions were soon soaked through, as much from sweat as rain, as they plowed through the humid air of the uncooperative jungle. Only the reptiloid Saturday wasn’t physically discomforted, the rain running easily off his scaly hide. Of them all, he should have been the most at home, but the semisentient jungle disturbed him greatly, and his great wedge head swung constantly back and forth, alert for any attack. On his world, the plants were the only things that didn’t try to kill you. He chewed on a few things experimentally, but usually just spat it out again. Evolution had not designed Saturday to be a vegetarian.

Rose didn’t approve of the jungle at all, and said so loudly. Rose was a city person, born and bred, and had no use at all for the great outdoors. She liked roads and transport and climate control, and all the other niceties of the human condition.
Weather is what poor people have,
she said sniffily. Also, killing plants did nothing for her. It seemed somehow beneath her.

Brett was miserable, but then he always was. At least no one was shooting at him here. Yet.

Lewis slogged along at the front of the group, opening a path through the stubborn jungle with his sword and occasionally the razor-sharp edges of his force shield. It was slow, hard work, and even his hardened muscles grew weary in time. After one particularly long break for Lewis to get his breath back, Saturday volunteered to take over. He slammed through the crimson vegetation, using his size and bulk and weight to force open a trail, but all too soon became tangled and trapped in a seething mass of creepers and vines, and had to be cut free. The reptiloid returned to the back of the group for some serious sulking. Rose took over cutting trail, and chopped and hacked her way through the jungle like a machine from hell. But even she grew tired eventually. She wouldn’t admit it, of course, and in the end Brett had to drag her almost bodily to a halt to rest. He patted her comfortingly on her leather-clad shoulder, at arm’s length, while she got her breathing back under control, her cold glare daring anyone to say anything.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Brett said. “Watch this.”

Brett scowled, concentrating on the slowly stirring vegetation before him, and then hit it with a focused blast of his esp compulsion. The scarlet and pink foliage shook and shuddered under the impact of his mind, and then slowly retreated back out of the way, so that a narrow trail opened up before the group as if by magic. Brett crowed loudly, and did a little celebratory dance. But his sense of triumph was short lived; something reached out of the dark, secret heart of the jungle and touched his exposed mind. Brett froze where he was as a vast alien presence slowly turned its attention upon him. It was like a huge eye, studying him coldly. And he was so very, very small. Brett hadn’t been so scared since he’d glimpsed the esper oversoul, back on Logres. This was worse. At least the oversoul had a human nature. The Red Brain was different, utterly inhuman. It was just too big, too much for him to bear, and he slammed down all his mental shields, concealing his thoughts and his presence behind as many layers of barriers as he could fashion.

Only a few seconds had passed. No one else had noticed anything. Lewis was still studying the newly opened trail. Rose was looking at Brett thoughtfully, but that was nothing new.

“All right, Brett,” said Lewis. “I am officially impressed. How the hell did you do that?”

Brett looked at the trail ahead. It was still holding its shape, even though he wasn’t holding it open anymore. Presumably the Red Brain had decided to let things stand. He realized Lewis was waiting for an answer, and spoke absently, still too shaken to even think of lying.

“It’s part of the esp I gained from taking Finn’s damned esper drug. I can make things obey me.”

“Things,” Lewis said. “Not . . . people?”

“Oh, no!” Brett said quickly, all his self-preservation instincts kicking in. “Heaven forfend, Sir Deathstalker! What do you think I am, some kind of ELF? I do have principles, you know. Not as many as other people, perhaps, but . . .”

Lewis gave him a hard look, and then turned away and set off along the new trail.

It kept opening up before them, and the going became much easier. But still the ground was uneven and treacherous, and the trail swerved and weaved around the huge dark-boled trees. They slogged on, and time passed slowly, and still there was no sign of Mission City. The relentless
drip drip drip
of rain did nothing to improve anyone’s temper, and no one was talking to anyone anymore because it always led to arguments, and they didn’t have the energy. Jesamine could feel the others shooting her the occasional speculative glance, clearly waiting for her to start whining again about being a star, and how she shouldn’t have to put up with conditions like this. So she gritted her teeth and toughed it out, keeping grimly silent just to spite them. Her back ached, her legs were trembling from the strain, her shoes were ruined, and her feet weren’t talking to her, but she was damned if she’d give the others the satisfaction of hearing her complain. Even Lewis, who would of course be very understanding . . .

Jesamine was getting tougher, and she was stronger than she’d thought. She took pride in keeping up the pace with the rest of them, and started to remember how proudly self-reliant she’d always been when she was younger and just starting out on her career—when she’d had to fight her way on and off stage, and face down sleazy managers afterwards to get the wages owed her. It occurred to Jesamine that she preferred this new tough her to the old pampered her, though she was damned if she’d admit that to anyone, even Lewis.

For all their struggle through the crimson jungle, the group couldn’t help but be impressed by it. The jungle was just so . . . big, and old, and overpoweringly alien. With the gloom of the overhead canopy, and the sudden shafts of light breaking through like spotlights in the bloodred ambience, it was like walking through some vast, living cathedral. Lewis found the words of the AIs of Shub running through his mind like a mantra:
All that lives is holy . . .
Everywhere he looked he saw miracles of evolution, sophisticated refinements of shape and purpose that had no place in the world of ordinary plants. Everything was moving, driven on by slow intent. Some of the larger growths lurched back and forth under their own volition, on unguessable errands for unknowable reasons. Here and there lush flowers had developed mouths, and chittered softly in languages beyond human understanding, unless they were the kind of words people heard softly spoken in dreams and could never remember on waking. Some flowers had learned to sing, in strange and subtle harmonies; and this was sometimes horrid and sometimes pleasant, but mostly disturbing. Jesamine tried to sing along, but couldn’t follow the alien patterns and subtle shifts in tone. Her voice clashed and shattered against such alien sounds.

Finally they came to Mission City. The jungle fell suddenly away, as if they’d stepped out of one room and into another, and the city lay sprawled out before them in its massive clearing. Lewis and his companions just stood there for a while at the edge of the jungle, taking in the city they had traveled so long and so hard to reach. Mission City was no human construction, no dead thing of steel and glass and concrete; this was a Lachrymae Christi city, a vast bioengineered entity, grown not made, designed by the minds of men but manufactured to order from the raw materials of the scarlet jungle by the guiding intelligence of the Red Brain. It was a living thing, holding humans within, like a mother cradling her children in her caring arms.

Huge hollowed trees, vast as skyscrapers, soared up into the overcast sky, their interiors a wooden honeycomb of living space. Warm organic lights glowed from the hundreds of windows in the dark bark of the towering trees. Delicate corridors of woven vines connected all levels, hanging between the trees like so much crimson webbing, the connective tissues of a living city. Lower dwellings had been formed from hulking gourds or vast hollowed fruits or leafy constructs in blazing shades of pink. And everywhere there were flowers, and great rose petal constructs, and tremendous organic shapes blazing with warm, friendly lights. It was a city, and it was alive. They could feel the warmth of it and hear its breathing. And men and women went about their lives in it as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Lewis put away his sword and started forwards, and the others followed him. None of them had anything to say; in an Empire whose Golden Age was full of wonders, this was still something very new and marvelous. People saw them coming, and disappeared unhurriedly into the nearest dwelling. There was something not quite right about them, but Lewis couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He came to a halt at the edge of the city, and looked about him for some clues as to what to do next.

“I suppose our home must seem impressive to outsiders,” said a warm, amused voice. “But you should see it in the spring. The whole place really comes alive then.”

They all looked round sharply, and there was a short, stocky woman smiling at them. Lewis hadn’t heard her coming. He made himself take his hand away from the gun at his side.

“You have a beautiful home,” he said. “I had no idea . . .”

“We don’t advertise. We don’t want to attract sightseers. It’s all very efficient, you know. The plant life is nourished by the carbon dioxide we breathe out and the wastes we deposit in it. We’re all part of one big symbiosis, really.”

“Do I take it you’re Hellen Adair?” said Lewis.

“Got it in one, Deathstalker. About time you got here. We’ve been expecting you for days.”

“Moon again?” said Jesamine, and Hellen grinned and nodded.

“He really can see the future, sometimes. Which raises all kinds of philosophical questions, which mostly we try not to think about, for the sake of a quiet life. So, that’s what a reptiloid is.”

“Lewis,”
Brett said urgently into Lewis’s ear.
“She’s naked!”

“Trust me, I noticed,” Lewis murmured back.

Hellen Adair was blond, pretty enough, with a good if slightly overmuscled figure, and had not a stitch of clothing on. Her skin was a glowing pink, of the shade Lewis usually associated only with gums, and her only adornment was a few flowering vines she’d wrapped around her waist. She smiled at them all.

“No one bothers with clothes here. Why should we? The city is tailored to our every need, and the rain and what little weather there is in our balanced ecosystem doesn’t bother us. In the old days, the colonists had to hide their bodies because of what leprosy had done to them. But the disease is long gone, and we are all in excellent condition, as you can see. With the Red Brain on our side, this is a perfect world for people to live in, so, we’re naked. I trust this isn’t going to be a problem?”

She was looking at Brett as she said that, and he quickly averted his eyes from her breasts.

“Don’t let him bother you,” said Jesamine. “Just hit him if he gets annoying. We do.”

“Come with me,” said Hellen Adair. “And stay close. We don’t normally allow outsiders into our city, and we wouldn’t now, if Moon hadn’t told me one of you was a Deathstalker. That is a worshiped name, here.”

“You know where Moon is?” said Lewis.

“You’ll get to see him, in time. For now, there is something here he wants you to see. Follow me.”

She led them through the living city, down leafy ways and through petaled corridors, across great open squares with blossoming displays. All the structures had rounded organic shapes, and fat pulpy flowers formed living mosaics. These were always changing, as the flowers opened and closed in subtly different positions, so that the images were never still. Lewis was particularly taken with a wide, beautiful face that slowly widened its smile and winked one eye as he passed. Perfumes hung heavy on the air, heady and stimulating, like taking in heaven with every breath. And everywhere now, the colonists strolled naked through their Eden, calm and unhurried and utterly indifferent to the strangers in their midst. Lewis and Jesamine did their best to keep their gazes to themselves. Brett tried, not particularly successfully. He was wishing he still had a camera in his eye. He could have sold this recording for a fortune. Several fortunes. Rose and Saturday didn’t care at all; human nudity meant nothing to them.

“I don’t see any . . . toil,” said Lewis. “What do people do here?”

“We have no need or wish for business, or machinery,” Hellen said easily. “Essentially, we’re all gardeners. We tend to the needs of the plants. We prune, we dig out weeds, we prevent overcrowding and we encourage propagation in some species and discourage it in others. We also keep a watchful eye on the more aggressive examples, and destroy any that threaten to develop their own form of sentience. One Red Brain is quite enough to cope with. In return for our services, the Red Brain allows us to fell trees, gather fruit, and harvest crops—all of which have a ready market waiting for them out in the Empire. There are many species here unknown and unparalleled on any other world.”