Tyrant's Stars: Parts Three and Four (33 page)

Even realizing it was a duplicate, Seurat couldn’t help but speak respectfully to anyone wearing Valcua’s face.

The man—Valcua Two for lack of a better name—raised his right hand in a rather nonchalant gesture. In it he held an iron rod.

“Stand back, Sue,” Seurat said, reaching out one mighty arm to grab her by the collar and pull her back.

The rod the other man had swung had vanished into thin air. Down at Sue’s feet, a thick, curving line had been drawn.

Valcua Two drew back his right arm with a strange look on his face. His rod reappeared.

Seurat stepped forward. Not only did the right hand that gripped his club quake, but the rest of his body did as well. It was like the palsy of a dying man. That he’d made it this far was a miracle.

Any attacks from outside the ring would vanish, while those from within it would have the desired effect. That was Seurat’s special ability.

The second Seurat tried to thrust his club, the man with Valcua’s face brought his iron rod down. Seurat’s right shoulder made a strange sound. Sue saw that the man’s rod had gone halfway through it.

The weapon hadn’t vanished.

Suddenly the right half of Seurat’s body disappeared. Staggering, the giant turned to face Sue. His boulder of a face was etched with a look of great sadness, as if begging her forgiveness.

“I’m so sorry.”

And then he collapsed inside his own ring, sending a rumble through the ground.

As Sue clung to the enormous figure, Valcua Two looked down at her with a vacant expression. There wasn’t a trace of pride in the power he’d wielded, or contempt for his foe, or even pity for the dying. Still looking down at Sue, he stood unmoving for a few seconds, and then suddenly he reversed his grip on the iron rod— wrapping his left hand around it too—and raised it straight up in the air.

The man made a smooth stride forward. Even though he entered the ring, he didn’t disappear. If he brought the rod straight down, it would take Sue right through the nape of the neck.

Valcua Two didn’t take aim. He swung his weapon artlessly.

At that moment, a second miracle occurred. With impeccable timing, Sue slipped to the right. The rod pierced her left shoulder. A heartbeat later Sue realized what had happened, and a scream escaped from her mouth. Her left shoulder and arm had vanished.

Something like fine, gray dust clouded the air for a second. The iron rod was pulled back out.

A second upset awaited her. With no emotion showing on his face, Valcua Two brought his rod down. It stopped halfway. His left side had a sword sticking out of it.

Valcua Two spun around. The blade had slashed into him at an angle, and he left it there as he turned and saw D behind him.

“Valcua?”

Although the hoarse voice spoke in a surprised tone, the young man was expressionless, with looks so good they’d shake a stone.

“No, it ain’t him. I don’t know his name, but he’s got spunk.”

They were dealing with someone who had Valcua’s face. It would have been hard not to comment on it.

D removed his sword. Valcua Two’s hand grabbed hold of it. The blade sliced through the man’s fingers, but they didn’t fall off. His wounds closed instantaneously. The first blow hadn’t been a thrust, but rather a horizontal slash that had started at the right side of the base of his neck.

“Your sword ain’t working,” the hoarse voice said.

Valcua Two’s eyes looked vacantly in its direction. A silvery flash zipped through the middle of his neck, then immediately faded. His head should’ve gone flying—but it remained right where it belonged. The palm of his right hand rested against the top of his head. The instant D’s blade had passed through him, Valcua Two had held his head down with lightning speed.

As the man squared off against that Hunter of heavenly beauty, behind him Sue groaned, “D ..

“D,” Valcua Two said, his expression changing as he spoke the name.

“I’ll be!” the hoarse voice exclaimed with admiration.

The man who now stared at D was another D.

A glint of black raced out, and a silvery flash met it. The instant the iron rod and the sword came together with a dull thud, the rod was chopped in two. At the same time, D was sent flying backward.

“D,” murmured the man who wore D’s face. He stroked his features. His fingertips seemed to quake more from curiosity than from fear.

“D ..he murmured once again, and he started walking into the ring Seurat had made. His body disappeared, and then reappeared on the opposite side of the ring.

“D,” he mumbled as he climbed down the plateau, and D climbed back up immediately. The Hunter halted, his upper body trembled, and then he spat up blood. Valcua Two—or rather, the man who now wore D’s face—had been so powerful that he’d ruptured the real D’s internal organs.

“Sue comes first,” the left hand reminded D as his eyes turned to the man crossing the trench.

Bending down, D put his left hand against Sue’s left shoulder.

“The surface of the wound has calcified. The problem now is shock. Her nervous system’s all out of whack.”

“Can you do anything for her?”

“Yeah, some first aid. The rest will depend on that facility over yonder.”

D shifted his gaze from Sue’s face. About a hundred yards to the left of the machines, he could see a lozenge-shaped building resembling a shooting star that had struck the earth. It had to measure well over one hundred yards by five hundred yards.

“It looks like it’d make patients a nervous wreck, but anything that size has gotta have medical facilities.”

As the left hand had said, the vast complex was well equipped, containing an administrative center, living quarters, and medical facilities. D carried both Sue and Seurat, and when he came to the closed door, he merely had to press his left hand to the wall to get it to open. The facility’s systems for eliminating foreign objects or guarding against intruders were overridden by D’s blue pendant.

If people from the nearby villages could’ve seen the medical equipment, they probably would’ve wanted to work there, even if it meant serving as slave labor. The course of treatment selected for Sue and Seurat involved using nanomachines to reconstruct cells and skeletal structure. Medical devices that could operate on the scale of a ten-thousandth of a micron swiftly constructed artificial muscle and pseudobone in a manner akin to magic. Perhaps this was the alchemists’ dream brought to life—creating something from nothing.

“It looks like Sue can be saved, but the big guy is pretty far gone,” the Hunter’s left hand said without even seeing the medical data displayed on the screen. It was possible the hand could read it through D’s eyes. “That’s a genuine Noble beating he took. He may have been one of Valcua’s seven, but it looks like he was no match for a Noble after all. But it seems he was on pretty good terms with Sue. So what do we do?”

Her brain stimulated by something cold, Sue woke up.

D was standing beside her. She knew it was pointless to ask him questions as he put her in a magnetic hover chair and led her from her recovery room to the treatment center. Seurat lay on one of the operating tables.

“He won’t last another five minutes,” D told her softly. He made a gorgeous grim reaper.

Sue went over to the giant. The assassin had saved her. All the things she’d felt while on the road with him now came into sharp focus.

In Valcua’s service, Seurat had lived five thousand years. But that life was now nearly at an end.

She didn’t know what she should say. Remaining silent, she took the giant’s hand. Larger and softer than she expected, his hand was terribly cold.

“Sue ..

The girl thought it was just her imagination. But she was certain she heard his next words.

“Don’t. .. go . ..”

He might’ve been telling her not to go see the grand duke, or else pleading with her to stay by his side.

Pressing his cold hand against her cheek, Sue said, “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”

Neither of them said anything after that, and a little more than five minutes later Seurat breathed his last.

“The asteroid missile was ultimately a dud,” a voice reported. “What’s more, there was no appreciable damage at the target site. It’s as if the asteroid just disappeared along the way.”

“If anyone could do that, it’s the Ultimate Noble,” replied a different voice. It was a man with a big diamond ring on his index finger. “It looks like there’s nothing more we can do. Even the chief knows as much.”

“When our ancestors fought against the Nobility, their only weapon was the patience to wait for morning. It’s imperative that the human race never give up.” “Meaning?”

“If the asteroid missile failed, then use something that can’t be stopped. If striking from the sky won’t work, go through the ground.”

There was a long pause—a period in which their fears fermented.

“You don’t seriously intend to use
that,
do you? It could wipe out an entire continent! Why, have you even considered the collateral damage?”

“You think we didn’t take that into account when we went with the asteroid missile?”

“I know, but that’s—”

“There’s no point in debating this any further. What we need now is time to act.”

The decision was made. Regardless of the era, no matter what the situation, such decisions were always cold and calculated.

II

The D in silvery clothing headed further into the valley. Between cliffs of steel, a huge complex that seemed to be some sort of energy refinery appeared. Silence shrouded the grounds of the vast facility, and although nothing moved, the man could tell perfectly well that it was operational.

In a matter of minutes, the man stood in front of a building. The defensive systems that had let him come and go freely when he wore his
last
face now attacked him with all their might, but the devastator beams, gravity waves, and energy fields were all laid waste by one swipe of the iron rod the man carried. When the rod struck the wall of the building, the entire structure wavered like a heat shimmer and was then immediately wiped out of existence.

The man moved on to the next building.

“The Number Sixteen Energy Plant is being destroyed,” Kima reported.

Valcua opened his eyes. He lay on a sofa. Deep darkness filled his surroundings.

At present, it was daytime. The false darkness gained by simply turning off the lights was no guarantee that a Noble could act freely. Their actions were constrained solely to guard against their destruction by sunlight. By day, a Noble was stiff as a log, unable to move a muscle.

However, Valcua climbed off his bed, looked up in the air, and commanded, “Show me!”

A screen fifteen feet tall and thirty feet wide appeared on the ceiling, and on it was displayed the crumbling facility and the lord of destruction.

“Hmm. So, now he wears D’s face? Then I can see why he’d want to lay waste to my domain.”

“It appears his brain is under the control of D’s mind. If things continue like this, he might destroy every facility in your domain.” Valcua stretched long and hard. “Coming at midday makes this somewhat inopportune, doesn’t it, Kima?”

“I agree completely, milord,” Kima said, his voice tinged with laughter. On witnessing such awesome destruction, his master’s reaction was equally impressive.