Deathstalker Return (26 page)

“Damn right,” said Brett, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from a particularly statuesque redhead as Jesamine elbowed him in the ribs. “They have fruits here the taste of which you wouldn’t believe. Grapes that make wine to die for, and any furniture made from Lachrymae Christi lumber can pretty much command its own price. Goods from this planet are always in short supply. The colonists see to that, right, Hellen? Treat them mean, keep them keen, and the price never goes down. Scientists have been trying to synthesize your products in their labs for centuries, to no result—though there are those who say the esper drug came from here originally, distilled from the nerve fibers of the Red Brain itself.”

“You had to spoil the mood, didn’t you?” said Jesamine. “Nasty little man. Here we are, walking through paradise, and all you can think of is drugs.”

“Another reason we’re not too keen on outsiders,” said Hellen. “There are always those unwilling to leave good enough alone. Certain business interests are always trying to set up shop here, legally or illegally. They want to introduce mechanization, to increase productivity. They want to set up labs to turn our produce into drugs. They’d strip mine this world to feed the greed of their customers, if they could. They hear we have no weapons, no army, and they think we’re defenseless. Fools. The jungle is our weapon, and the only defense we need. The Red Brain watches over us. And Tobias Moon, of course.”

“What is the relationship between the Red Brain and Tobias Moon?” said Lewis, carefully casual. He’d been trying to turn the conversation that way for some time, without seeming too eager. He needed to know just what he’d be dealing with, when the time finally came to confront Tobias Moon.

“They exist in perfect symbiosis,” Hellen said easily. “Just as we do, with our cities. The Red Brain takes the long view, the wide view, while Moon remains focused on the everyday needs and problems of those who live and work here. If you like, the Red Brain is our god, and Tobias Moon his prophet.”

“No,” said Jesamine. “I don’t think I like that idea at all.”

Hellen laughed. “It’s just a way of thinking about it. Don’t worry; our god doesn’t require sacrifices. Unless it’s been a really bad harvest. Joke! Try . . . thinking of the Red Brain as a great computer, and Moon its programmer. Does that help?”

“Just a little,” said Lewis.

Rose and Brett hung back so they could talk quietly together. Lewis and Jesamine were clearly charmed by the manifold delights of Mission City, and that worried Brett. In his experience, the prettiest face was always a disguise for the greatest danger, and the knife in the back always came when you were least expecting it. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that they were walking blithely into some carefully concealed trap. He murmured as much to Rose, and she nodded.

“Ugly place. Overgrown with weeds. This is no way for people to live. No action, no challenges. Bunch of damned tree-huggers.” Rose sniffed loudly. “Living in harmony with the natural world, my arse. The natural world will bite your arse off, given half a chance. You have to tame it, regulate it, stamp it underfoot. The jungle’s more honest than this place. Real nature is kill or be killed, red in tooth and claw. Always has been. The Deathstalker had better smarten up and keep his eyes open, or we could all end up as fertilizer for their mighty God Plant.”

“Thanks a whole bunch,” Brett said gloomily. “Now I feel even worse, if that’s possible.” He peered unhappily about him. “This isn’t my kind of place either. Nothing worth stealing, no one to con . . . there are supposed to be roots and weeds here that Dr. Happy and his breed would pay serious money for, but I couldn’t pick them out of all this mess to save my life. And how can you bribe information out of people who already think they’re living in paradise, the fools? God, I’d kill for a drink. This place is far too healthy for the likes of me. I want to go home.”

“If this does turn out to be a trap,” Rose said dreamily, “I’ll bet this city would burn up real good . . .”

“I do hope you realize just how rare it is for Tobias Moon to agree to meet with you,” Hellen Adair was saying to Lewis. “In fact, I don’t think he’s seen any offworlder in person for almost a hundred and fifty years. After the legends began circulating, we got a lot of tourists here. Moon had been made into a hero and a myth, without his permission, and we had pilgrims turning up here by the shipload, all determined to worship at Moon’s feet and pester him for wisdom. So he withdrew into the embrace of the Red Brain and vanished from sight. Only a very few people know his location these days, and he rarely speaks even to them. To speak with Moon in person is the highest privilege you can aspire to, in this world. And then you turn up, and nothing will do but that Moon has to speak to you immediately. Lot of people had their noses put out of joint over that. But you’re a Deathstalker, and that name carries a lot of currency here. Owen made all this possible. He came here when we were all lepers, outcast and despised by the rest of Humanity. He walked among us, and taught us how to be strong and proud again. He fought alongside us against the Hadenmen and the Grendels, and worked miracles in our defense.”

“Does Moon ever talk about Owen?” said Lewis.

“No.” Hellen frowned for the first time. “He never talks about those days. Perhaps he will, to you. We don’t know why he’s so keen to talk to you, or what he has to say. When you’ve finished your conversation, whatever turns it may take, I suggest you get back to your ship and get the hell off this world. A lot of people are going to be really upset about being excluded from this meeting. You may be a Deathstalker, but you’re clearly no Owen, and as for your companions . . .”

There was a vicious rasp of steel as Rose drew her sword. “What about us?”

“Rose, put that sword away!” Lewis’s voice cracked like a whip, but Rose didn’t react as she advanced on Hellen.

“I’ve had enough of this snotty cow,” Rose said casually. “So up herself just because she lives in a cabbage patch. Treating us like shit, like we’re only here on sufferance. We’re here to talk to Moon, bitch, and you don’t get a say in the matter.”

“I’d put that sword away, if I were you,” said Hellen Adair. She hadn’t budged an inch, and she met Rose’s cold gaze squarely.

“Or what?” said Rose. “You’ll bash me over the head with a flower?”

“Something like that,” said Hellen.

Bloodred vines snapped out of the surroundings like living whips, and wrapped themselves around Rose in a moment. They tightened painfully, cutting into Rose’s flesh through her leathers, but she never made a sound. She tried to struggle, and more vines lashed out to envelop her. Brett’s hand went to the gun at his side, but Jesamine was quickly there beside him, her hand on top of his, holding it firmly in place. Saturday looked to Lewis, who shook his head quickly.

“Please release our friend,” Lewis said to Hellen. “She may be crazy, but she means well. Mostly. Either way, she’s with me, and I vouch for her behavior.”

“This is our world,” Hellen said calmly to Rose. “It harbors and protects us. It is alive and aware, because the Red Brain is in every part of it. And Moon is always listening. Now, are you going to behave, or shall I have the city thread a barbed vine up your arse, through your guts, and out your eye?”

“She’ll behave,” said Lewis. “I guarantee it. On my honor as a Deathstalker.”

“She’s not worth it,” said Hellen. “She’ll betray you in the end. Her kind always does.”

“She is my friend, sworn to my cause,” said Lewis. “Now release her. Unless you want to take me on as well.”

Hellen looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then nodded abruptly. The vines slowly loosened and unwrapped themselves from around Rose. Brett helped her pull free, and everyone watched to see what she would do. She put her sword away and nodded to Lewis, as calm and cold as always.

“Thank you, Deathstalker. She would have killed me, you know, just to make a point. She has her own agenda here. Don’t trust her.”

“Everyone has their own agenda,” said Lewis.

 

 

Hellen brought them to the heart of the city—St. Beatrice’s Mission, or what was left of it. The original rough buildings had been carefully maintained down the years as a shrine to the memory of the blessed St. Beatrice, the simple nun who came to tend the dying lepers of Lachrymae Christi, just because she thought it was the right thing to do. Lewis and his companions were astonished. They had no idea the original mission still existed; no one in the Empire did. It was a place of legend, of mystery, of awe. Hellen left them at the gates to the courtyard and said she’d be back for them later, after they’d seen what Moon wanted them to see. For a long time, none of them moved. It seemed a small and shabby place, compared to its mythic status in the story of Owen Deathstalker and St. Beatrice, but just being there took their breath away. To be where legends had been carved out of history, to walk where heroes walked . . .

Lewis moved slowly forwards across the packed-earth courtyard, and the others followed him. They were all affected to some degree, even Saturday. The place fairly radiated weight and significance. Vital matters had been decided here, where a small group of people had beaten off overwhelming inhuman odds. Stretching away before them were two rows of wooden stakes, forming a long path, and on every spike was impaled the severed head of a Grendel. There were hundreds of the ugly things, shining scarlet heart-shaped heads that had no human element in them. Grendels were living killing machines, bastard children of the Madness Maze, long and long ago. Deadly, implacable, unstoppable. Except here. Jesamine pressed in close beside Lewis, holding his hand almost painfully tight.

“These creatures died over two hundred years ago,” she whispered. “Why haven’t the heads decayed?”

Lewis shrugged uneasily. “Maybe Grendels don’t decay. They were famous for being indestructible.”

“I killed one,” said Rose.

“Yes, but you cheated,” said Brett.

Rose sniffed. “I won, didn’t I?”

“You killed one,” Lewis said shortly. “Owen and Hazel killed dozens. Sometimes with their bare hands.”

“You’re right,” said Rose. “That is impressive.”

“I would have liked to meet a Grendel,” said Saturday, flexing his foreclaws wistfully.

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Lewis. “Trust me on this. They weren’t natural creatures. They were created to be unstoppable. They existed only to kill. Their armor could shrug off energy weapons. And Owen and Hazel went head to head with hundreds of them here, and won . . . Look at those heads . . .”

“They give me the creeps,” said Brett. “Like something out of a nightmare . . . How could Owen have defeated something like this . . .”

“Because he was a Deathstalker,” said Jesamine. “That’s why we have to find him. Because we need him now more than ever.”

They finally left the rows of Grendel heads behind them, and came to the old infirmary. It was just a wooden hut with open windows and a single doorway. Lewis led the way in, and the air was so thick with ghosts that he could hardly breathe it. He’d seen this place recreated in a hundred docudramas—Owen’s last redoubt in the fight against the invading Grendels. So many dramatic scenes had been reenacted here, between the most famous actors in the Empire, of Owen and Hazel and Beatrice . . . all of it legend, because no one was left to tell the truth of it. But in this indisputably real place, the walls were lined with data crystals and private viewscreens, promising to reveal the truth at last. And in the middle of the room, on a raised bier under a single gentle light, lay what looked very like a coffin. They all gathered slowly round it, and looked in, to see the well-preserved body of a woman in a nun’s clothing. For a long time, none of them said anything.

“That can’t be her, can it?” Jesamine said finally. “Not her. Not . . .”

“St. Beatrice,” said Lewis.

“It’s got to be some kind of model,” said Brett.

“Not according to this plaque,” said Lewis, studying a simple brass plate at the head of the coffin. “It’s her. Preserved here, all these years . . .”

“Now, that is seriously gross,” said Brett firmly. “And not a little creepy. Dead bodies on display? This is barbaric! Not to mention sick.”

“I wouldn’t disagree,” said Lewis. “But I don’t think it’s a viewpoint we should share with the good people of this city. This is obviously a sacred place for them.”

He looked at the body’s expressionless face, and tried to feel something, some of the awe he’d felt on entering the Mission, but the truth was, she could have been anybody. Whoever had preserved her body had done a good job, at the expense of taking all the personality out of her face. Lewis bowed his head respectfully anyway. The body seemed very small for a woman whose legend had become so huge. Every man, woman, and child in the Empire knew the story of the blessed St. Beatrice, who gave up wealth and standing to follow her faith; and now here she was, a waxy, shrunken display piece in a museum most people didn’t even know existed.

Eventually, they turned to the data crystals set out on shelves. They checked the titles, but most of it seemed to be dull history about how the colonists built their great biocities and created a paradise out of hell . . . but one crystal was labeled
Owen’s Defense of the Mission,
and everyone wanted to see that. Lewis plugged it into a display screen and they all stood and watched. It turned out to be a series of interviews with lepers who’d survived the defense, and what they saw. When it was over, Lewis and his companions looked at each other.

“Now, that really was bullshit,” said Brett, almost angrily. “Even the official legends never said . . .”

“It has to be exaggerated,” said Lewis. “Memories embellished, over the years.”

“I mean, no one could do things like that!” said Brett. “All right, the official version has Owen and Hazel as first-class warriors; death on two legs and unbeatable with a weapon in their hands. And there are the miracles they’re supposed to have performed, but, but . . . triggering earthquakes, just by frowning? Blowing Grendels apart just by looking at them? Shooting lightning bolts from their hands?
Owen bringing himself back from the dead?
”