Deathstalker Return (65 page)

Douglas Campbell—once a Paragon, once a King—now sat alone in a bare stone cell in Traitor’s Hall, weighed down with so many chains he could hardly move. Douglas had fully expected to be drugged like his father, to keep him quiet, but it seemed Finn wanted Douglas to be able to savor the depths to which he had fallen. Douglas had done a lot of thinking, in the peace and quiet of his cell, but very little of it had been about his present circumstances. Douglas was making plans for the future. Plans for blood and slaughter and Finn’s head on a stake.

Several locks opened, and the door to his cell swung slowly open. Douglas turned his head, about the only part of him he could move, and there were Finn and Anne in the doorway, looking in at him.

“Hello, Douglas,” said Finn. “No, please, don’t get up. It’s only me. And Anne, of course. You know, you really do look a mess, Douglas. Those clothes must smell pretty ripe by now, what with all the bloodstains from you and James and your father. We’ll have to get you some nice new clothes, when it’s time for your trial.”

“Why bother with a trial?” said Douglas. “You know you’ll have to kill me, to stop me.”

“Oh, there has to be a trial! The forms must be observed. Everyone’s looking forward to it. The people need to see justice being done. So, you’ll have your day in court, and then you’ll be executed. No point in hanging about, is there?”

“I’m going to kill you, Finn.” Douglas’s voice was flat and cold and utterly sure. “I will beat you to death with my bare hands, for my father’s death, for the desecration of my brother’s grave, and for what you’ve done to the Empire.”

Finn shrugged. “I never liked William. He never liked me. I could tell. And digging up an old body is the least of the many sins I’ve committed. Would it interest you to know how and why I brought about your destruction, and the corruption of your Empire? It’s really very instructive. What surprised me was how easy it was. There were people lining up to piss all over your precious Golden Age. All they needed was a focus, and I’ve always found it easy to be everything to everyone. But it all started with you, Douglas. In a way, you could say that everything that’s happened is really all your fault.

“You should have made me Champion at your Coronation. I deserved it. I earned it. If I’d been Champion, I would have served you faithfully all my days, protected you from every harm until my dying breath. I would have made you a legend. But no; you had to choose that weakling Lewis, because of his bloody name. And because you always liked him better than me. Well, guess what, Douglas? You wouldn’t give me what was mine by right, so I’ve taken everything you had and made it mine. Who’s the better man now, eh, Douglas?”

Douglas looked at Anne. “What happened to you, Anne? I could understand Finn going to the bad, but you? Your betrayal makes no sense at all to me.”

“You never knew me,” said Anne. “You never really cared about me. Any of you. I was just boring reliable old Anne, there to be used. I’ve made you all pay for that.”

Finn smiled, and slipped his arm through hers. “We were made for each other.” He paused then, frowning in concentration as a message came through over his comm implant. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, Douglas. I would have preferred to spend more time rubbing your nose in how stupid you’ve been, but duty calls. You know how it is.”

“I do,” said Douglas. “I’m surprised that you do.”

Finn bowed once, mockingly, and reached for the cell door. “Sleep tight, Douglas. Don’t let the bed bugs bite too much.”

“Tell me one thing,” said Douglas, and Finn paused at the door. “Tell me this, Finn: were we ever really friends? Are all my memories a lie?”

“I don’t know,” said Finn. “It all seems such a long time ago now. Does it really matter?”

“No,” said Douglas.

 

 

Finn dropped Anne off at the House, ignoring her demands for explanations, and then made his way very quickly to the main starport. He trusted Anne with most things, but this was different. A starship had just come in from the planet Haden, apparently carrying every human scientist who’d been sent there to study the Madness Maze. It seemed Shub had used its robots to throw them all offplanet. This had come as news to Finn. There hadn’t been any advance warning. Not even a hint of trouble between Shub and the human scientists. And now the
Hunter
had landed, and the port master was going crazy. He’d quarantined the ship on the landing pad, and wouldn’t let anyone else near it. Finn kept pressing the port master for details, but the man refused to even discuss the matter over an open channel.
You have to see this for yourself,
he kept saying.

Finn found the ship easily enough. The
Hunter
was standing alone on a pad, as far away from the other ships as possible. Armed guards were spread around the perimeter of the landing pad. Finn accepted their officer’s salute, and looked the ship over. From a distance, it seemed normal enough. Standard passenger job, built for comfort rather than speed. No obvious signs of damage. Finn looked at the officer.

“Report. What’s all the fuss about? What have you been told?”

“Not much, Your Majesty. We can’t contact the ship’s captain, or any of the crew. The ship’s AI seems to be in a state of shock. The control tower had to bring the ship down by remote control, or it would have slammed right into the pads. Whatever’s happened on board the
Hunter,
no one’s talking. And since it came from Haden . . .”

“Understood. Hold your people where they are. No one’s to get anywhere near this ship until I’ve cleared it. I’m going inside now, to take a look. Oh, don’t look so shocked, man; I was a Paragon and a Champion long before I was a King.”

“At least take some of my men with you, Your Majesty!”

“
No one
gets anywhere near this ship until I’ve cleared it. And no one talks about anything they see or hear, or I’ll have their heads. I’m going in. You make sure I’m not interrupted.”

Finn strode calmly towards the starship. The air seemed very cold, and there wasn’t a breath of wind on the pads. The great steel hull of the
Hunter
loomed over him as he stopped before the main airlock. Finn pursed his lips, and considered the matter. If for whatever reason Shub had returned to their old ways, he wouldn’t put it past the AIs to have left some clever and very nasty booby trap inside the airlock, to take the unwary by surprise. Finn used his skeleton key to open the airlock, and then stood carefully to one side as the door cycled slowly open.

The smell hit him first: all kinds of filth, mixed together and polluting the thick air seeping out of the lock. Shit, piss, vomit. Blood. Something really bad had happened inside the
Hunter
on her trip back from Haden. Finn drew his gun and waited patiently, but nothing happened. He stepped sharply round the open door and stared into the airlock, gun at the ready. It was empty. Finn stepped inside, and opened the inner door. Again, there were no surprises, but the smell was immediately much worse. Finn moved cautiously into the main corridor of the ship.

The lighting had been dialed down to an eerie yellow glow. There were finger paintings on the steel walls; childish and obscene, and all the more disturbing because they’d been drawn in blood. Someone had written
helpmehelpmehelpme
all down the length of one wall. It had taken a lot of blood. Finn peered about him into the gloom. There was no sign of anyone. He listened carefully. He thought he could hear something, but it was a long way off. He headed for the bridge.

The main command door was open. It should have been sealed in flight, for security reasons, but instead it was standing just a little ajar. Finn pushed it open with one hand, gun at the ready. The bridge turned out to be deserted, apart from a severed head placed on the pilot’s seat. The eyes had been gouged out, but someone had drawn another eye on the forehead, in blood. Finn tried to get the ship’s AI to talk to him, but it wouldn’t respond. Finn left the bridge, and headed for the stern, and the passenger section.

He checked each door and compartment carefully as he went. He found more disturbing signs, but no trace of any of the scientists. Until halfway down the main corridor, he found his path blocked by a clumsy barricade of furniture, jammed together so tightly Finn couldn’t budge any of it. Steel chair legs stuck out like spikes, a defense against . . . what? There was a gap in the middle of the barricade. There were definite sounds coming from the other side of the barricade. Low, awful, eerie sounds. Finn leaned forwards, very cautiously, and peered through the gap.

On the other side of the improvised barricade, all the human scientists from Haden—some forty-odd men and women—were packed together in the narrow corridor. Some were dead. Some had clearly been attacked. Some had been at least partly eaten. There was blood all over the floor, and other things too. On the bulkhead walls, the scientists had scrawled horrid signs and images. The surviving scientists were in one big pile, crawling slowly over each other, like insects in a nest. Their faces, and their eyes, were quite mad. Some were crying, some were speaking in tongues, and some were making a noise very like laughter.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” said a familiar voice behind Finn.

Finn spun round, grabbed Dr. Happy by the front of his stained lab coat, and slammed him back against the nearest bulkhead wall. The good doctor cried out, and then shut up as Finn pressed the barrel of his gun against the doctor’s head.

“I experimented on them. It was a long trip back from Haden, and there was nothing else to do. I hadn’t been able to achieve anything useful with the twelve Maze survivors, and it seemed such a waste to come back without learning something.” He paused. “The Maze was fascinating. I’d go and look at it, for hours on end. It sang to me. And I started to think such amazing thoughts . . . So I doctored the
Hunter
’s water supply. Gave everyone a dose of my latest creation. Opened up their mind’s eye to a much larger universe. It’s not my fault if they couldn’t cope with what they found there. But don’t worry, Finn; I’ve been keeping very careful notes.”

Finn let go of the doctor’s coat. There was no point in getting mad at Dr. Happy; he honestly wouldn’t understand. Besides, it would be a waste to kill him while he could still be useful.

“Next time, ask me first,” said Finn. “I had a lot of questions for those scientists, about what happened on Haden, and now I’ll probably never know. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“As you wish. Though I shall be sorry to leave such intriguing subjects. I trust you’ll keep me up to date on all future developments?”

“Dr. Happy, if you don’t shut up right now, I’m going to sew your lips together. Leave the ship, now!”

Dr. Happy led the way out. Once they were both out on the landing pad, the air seemed so much clearer. Finn beckoned to the guard officer, who hurried over.

“Take your men inside,” said Finn. “And shoot anything that isn’t already dead. Then collect and burn all the bodies, just in case. And you’d better wear full biocontamination suits, at all times. I’d burn the ship too, but we’re short of vessels at the moment.”

“Can I at least have the ashes?” Dr. Happy said plaintively. Finn loked at him, and he shut up. The officer looked at Finn uncertainly.

“So what do I put this down as, Your Majesty? A terrorist incident?”

“If you like,” said Finn. “Pick someone who’s annoyed you recently, and put the blame on them. Use your initiative! And this person and I were never here. Understood?”

The officer bowed and hurried away, shouting orders to his men. Finn slapped Dr. Happy round the back of the head, just on general principle, and then escorted him off the landing pad.

“Tell me what happened on Haden, Dr. Happy—and I require details, now that you’re the only surviving witness. Why did Shub send you all away? Has there been some new breakthrough at the Madness Maze?”

“Not that I know of. And there was no warning at all, oh, my word, no!” Dr. Happy’s bony fingers fluttered uneasily over his sunken chest. “Just suddenly there were Shub robots everywhere. Far more than I had previously seen in the workings around the Maze. They overpowered and disarmed the security people with such speed and dexterity that there were only a few, mostly minor, injuries. And then they herded us all into one place, and marched us off to board the
Hunter.
The ship was powered up and waiting to go, and they’d already programmed the ship’s AI to take us straight to Logres, and not accept any other orders. We were helpless.”

“Weren’t you given any reason?” said Finn, frowning.

“No, they just said we couldn’t stay any longer. They were really quite polite, all things considered. Some people tried to fight the robots, but they had tanglefields and sleepgas, so . . .”

“Had the human scientists discovered anything new recently? No? Well, what about your experiments?”

“My access to the twelve survivors was strictly limited by Shub, who I can’t help feeling were unnecessarily cautious in their attitude, but I feel I can now say with some confidence that whatever changes the Madness Maze induces in people, it’s not chemical or biochemical in nature. None of my little concoctions had any effect on them. And some of the doses I gave them were so powerful they would have made a mountain jump up and dance.”

“You are now returning to the Rookery, Dr. Happy, where you will speak to no one of this. There will be more work for you later. Tell me, what do you know about something called . . . the Boost?”

 

 

Back at his apartment, Finn Durandal contacted the Shub embassy on Logres. He was put through immediately, with no delays. Almost as though they’d been waiting for his call. A featureless blue steel face stared out of the screen at Finn, its eyes glowing serenely.

“I take it the human scientists have all returned home safely?” said the robot.