The circling speed of the mud was increasing all the time, a whirlpool now of mud and grasses and loose vegetation a good twenty feet in diameter, churning remorselessly in a widdershins motion, pulling in everything around it like a slow, determined meat grinder. Owen tried to see how the others were doing, but the mud held him firmly, creeping up his stomach toward his chest. He held his arms above him, but there was nothing to cling onto. A great sucking sinkhole appeared in the center of the whirlpool, pulling everyone toward it. Owen could hear the others shouting, but they didn't seem to be making any sense. His constant struggle to stay upright and keep his face out of the mud was tiring him out, and getting him nowhere. His heart pounded frantically, and panic threatened to overwhelm his thoughts. Drowning in mud was supposed to be a really bad way to go.
He could almost feel the thick, soft weight of it forcing its way down his throat as he sucked for air that never came…
Owen took a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. He had to work through his options, think of a way out of this, or he was a dead man. He craned his neck and saw Hazel fighting the mud with all her strength. The mud was already over her chest. Moon had stopped struggling, his face calm. Owen couldn't see Bonnie or Midnight. He hoped they hadn't already been swallowed up. The point was, none of them could help him. He was going to have to do it himself. The mud was getting colder all the time, sucking up his body heat. His teeth had begun to chatter. He was being carried inevitably closer to the sinkhole, the churning mud and grasses moving faster and faster. Owen didn't know where the mud ended up after it had been through the sucking hole, but he didn't think he'd enjoy finding out firsthand.
He tried to summon his Maze powers, but he couldn't calm his mind enough to call them up. He tried to reach out to the surrounding foliage, looking for something to grab onto, but it was all well out of reach. Think, think. If he couldn't go to the foliage, maybe he could bring it to him… He still had his disrupter in his hand, held up out of the mud to protect it. He aimed carefully and shot a nearby tree dead square at the bottom of its wide trunk.
The energy beam punched straight through the trunk, and the tree toppled slowly forward across the whirlpool, the splintered remains of its lower trunk and heavy roots holding it in place. The surging mud brought Owen sweeping around and slammed him hard against the black trunk. The impact knocked the breath out of him, but he clung to the trunk with both hands, and it held him in place, even against the steady pull and pressure of the mud. The others also hit the trunk as they came around, and clung to it and each other. After that it was only a matter of strength and determination to drag themselves along the tree trunk and onto firmer land. They crawled a safe distance away and then collapsed on their backs, letting the rain slowly wash the mud off them. They lay there for some time, getting their breath back, until finally Owen forced himself back onto his feet. He beat away some more of the mud from his legs and waist, and glared at the slowing whirlpool.
"That was no accident," he said flatly. "We were herded here. The jungle wanted to be rid of us. On some level it must be aware, capable of cooperating against anything it sees as a threat."
Hazel sat up slowly. "So how are we going to get to Saint Bea's Mission if the whole damned jungle's determined to stop us?"
"We just have to be more determined than it is," said Owen. He consulted Oz to make sure he'd got the direction right, and then blasted an opening in the foliage with his disrupter. He waited till the crimson vegetation had closed together again, and then borrowed Hazel's disrupter and blasted it open again. "From now on we take it in turns to keep blasting a trail, using our guns in sequence as they recharge, backing it up with explosives as necessary, until the jungle learns to respect us and allows us to go where we want to go."
In the end, it was as simple as that. The jungle eventually got fed up with being incinerated, and went back to opening up a path in the direction the party wanted to go in. The scarlet and purple vegetation shook angrily around them for a while, but made no further moves to threaten them. Owen continued on point, weapons at the ready, carefully checking the way ahead for booby-traps. The rain kept falling, and they were all shuddering from the cold. Any normal human would have been in serious trouble by now, sliding into shock as their core body temperature slowly lowered, but all five of the party had been through the Maze. And Moon was a Hadenman.
Along the way, as much to distract himself as anything, Owen brought Bonnie and Midnight up to date on the background of Saint Bea and her Mission. When the rebels had finally won the war on Technos III and put an end to the fighting. Mother Superior Beatrice hadn't felt she was needed there anymore. So she returned to Golgotha, and set about rebuilding the established Church by throwing out all the political and corrupt elements. Turning the quasi-military organization of the Church of Christ the Warrior into the pacifistic Church of Christ the Redeemer wasn't easy, but it helped that the Saint of Technos III had a huge popular following, not least due to Toby Shreck's docu footage of her working in the slaughterhouse field hospital of Technos III as a nurse, and that the majority of the Church wanted change. Most of those who would have objected either had died in the rebellion or were on trial for crimes against Humanity.
But after achieving this miracle. Mother Beatrice found herself declared a Saint on all sides, especially by the media, and this upset her greatly. So as soon as the new Church was up and running, she renounced her leadership and went to Lachrymae Christi to minister to the lepers, who needed her more than anyone else—and perhaps because it was possibly the only place the media wouldn't follow her.
Before her involvement, lepers had just been dumped where their ship landed, and left to live or die as best they could. Supply ships were infrequent. Saint Bea changed all that. She used her influence and contacts to get food and tech and medicines dropped on a regular basis, and built her Mission into a spiritual and communications center for the whole leper population. And all went well. Until the Hadenmen came. Augmented serpents in paradise.
"Damned if I'd call this place paradise," said Hazel. "Why did she contact you, Owen, and not me? Or Jack and Ruby?"
"Apparently Jack and Ruby are off on a mission of their own somewhere. And she probably thought I'd be more… approachable."
"More of a soft touch, certainly."
Owen grinned and shrugged. "My life's been tough enough without having God mad at me."
"I never really thought of you as religious," said Hazel. "You've broken enough commandments in your time."
"I'm what the Empire made me," said Owen. "I was raised to believe in the Families first, the Iron Throne second, and God when I had time. But of them all, only my faith in God remains. I like to think that Someone out there watches and cares." He looked at Hazel. "How about you?"
"I believe in hard cash and a loaded gun," Hazel said briskly, and Bonnie and Midnight nodded more or less in unison. Hazel would have left it at that, but she could see Owen wanted more. "I live my life by my own rules, and I've always had problems with authority figures. If there is anything after this life, I'll deal with it when I get there. As for Saint Bea, all right, she's done a lot of good in her time, but so have we. She saved lives in her hospital, and we saved whole worlds by killing the right people. In the end, which of us made the most difference?"
"Saint Bea is a real hero," Owen said firmly. "She was a volunteer. An aristo who gave up everything to minister to the needy. We were all dragged into the rebellion, kicking and screaming all the way. So when she asked for my help, I couldn't say no. And how does God reward me? Crashes my ship and strands me on a leper colony. Thanks a whole bunch, Big Guy."
Hazel looked back at Bonnie and Midnight. "Didn't you have anyone like Saint Bea on your worlds?"
"Nah," said Bonnie. "The Church fell apart after the rebellion. Nothing's really replaced it. We live for the day, and let eternity take care of itself."
Midnight sniffed dismissively. "In my Empire, the Church found a new role a
fter the rebellion. Everyone is a member of the Church of Christ the Warrior now, but it is a Mystical Order rather than a religion. Everyone is raised to be a warrior from childhood on. The people will never be weak again. We have no room for Saints, for the weak or the meek—for those who don't have the faith to fight for what's right."
"I can see you and the Mother Superior are going to have a lot to talk about," said Owen, and Hazel nodded solemnly. "Where do you stand on all this, Moon?"
"The Hadenmen believe in the Church of the Genetic Crusade. The perfectability of man. Man becomes God eventually. I'm no longer sure what I personally believe. So much has changed since I went through the Maze. I touched something there, something much greater than myself, but whether that was the Maze or something the Maze put me in touch with… And afterward I died, and was brought back to life again. My thoughts, my memories, my… self, should have been lost forever, but here I am. I have no memories of being dead. Owen, you said I spoke to you even after I was killed by the Grendel."
"You did," Owen said stubbornly. "I heard your voice, down in the caverns of the Wolfling World. You told me the right code sequence to open the Tomb of the Hadenmen. Without that… everything would have been different."
"Then I too have something to discuss with Mother Superior Beatrice," said Moon. "Even if it is only the exact nature of guilt. I shall be interested to hear her replies."
"Hold everything," said Bonnie. "Back up and go previous. I think I must have missed something along the way. Why the hell do the Hadenmen want this bloody planet anyway? I mean, there's no tech here, no mineral deposits, just plants with attitude and colonists who have to count their fingers after they've shaken hands. Why would the Hadenmen waste troops and resources here? Moon, does this world have any strategic importance to the Hadenmen?"
"Not that I am aware of," said Moon. "The colonists are not suitable material for being made over into Hadenmen, and the planet isn't suitable for a Base or a Nest. I can only assume there is something of a unique nature here that they desire, which is as yet unknown to us."
"Well, if we stumble across any of the invading army, try to leave one of them alive," said Owen. "I'll hold him down, and Hazel can ask him questions."
"I've got a question of my own, for Saint Bea," said Hazel. "Namely, what the hell just the five of us are supposed to do against a whole invading army, with no ship, weapons, or backup?"
"Maybe she's hoping for a miracle," said Owen.
In the end, it took them a day and a night and most of the next day of slow, hard slogging through the jungle and mud and rain to reach Saint Bea's Mission. They drank water from occasional standing pools. It tasted brackish, and gave them all a mild case of the runs, but at least they were able to keep it down. They'd been less lucky trying to discover which parts of the jungle it was safe to eat. Most of it came straight back up again, tasting twice as bad in the process. There was no real shelter from the rain, so they spent the night sitting miserably together around a tree, trying to sleep. By the time they reached the Mission, they were tired, cold, hungry, and very wet.
There was no warning. They just forced their way through yet another series of closely set trees, and found themselves looking out into a wide clearing, with the Mission set squarely in the middle. There was about twenty feet of open ground, and then a tall wooden wall marked the outer boundary of the Mission. The wall had been constructed of tightly packed black tree trunks, and looked reassuringly solid. The Mission itself was the size of a small village, with a long, slanting wooden roof covering everything within the walls. A single gate faced them, some twelve feet tall and ten wide, with a wooden watchtower on each side. Definitely a low-tech world, thought Owen. Hate to see what a disrupter cannon would do to that wall. Hate to think what their plumbing's like.
He stepped out into the clearing, and the watchtower sentries spotted him immediately and sounded the alarm. Owen led his party slowly across the open clearing. Armed men appeared on a catwalk inside the top of the outer wall. They were cloaked and hooded figures, some with energy weapons, most with bows and arrows. Owen didn't disparage the bows. An arrow could kill you just as dead as anything else if it hit the right spot. He murmured to the others to keep their hands conspicuously away from their weapons, and kept a careful eye on the watchtower sentries. One had what appeared to be a telescope trained on the newcomers. Hopefully, once he'd identified the approaching party as being human, and not Hadenmen, the armed figures on the wall would calm down a little, but Owen still kept himself ready. Tired as he was, he was pretty sure he could dodge an arrow. Hell, he could probably shoot the bowman's head off before he'd even finished pulling back his bowstring, but he thought he'd better not. Definitely not the best way to make a good first impression with Saint Bea. Mother Beatrice, he thought firmly. She hates being called Saint Bea. His party made it all the way to the front gate without anyone on either side developing a twitchy finger, and Owen looked up at the left-hand watchtower, blinking through the rain.
"Owen Deathstalker and party, here at the request of Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana. How about letting us in before we all drown out here?"
"Stay where you are," said a hoarse voice from the watch-tower. "We've sent a runner to the Mother Superior. She'll have to identify you."
"Don't be a pratt all your life, son," said another voice from the tower. "That's the Deathstalker, all right. Seen his face on a dozen holo documentaries before I came here. He's a hero of the rebellion. And that's Hazel d'Ark beside him."
"That's Hazel d'Ark?" said the first voice. "Oh, bloody hell. Isn't it bad enough being a leper without having her here too?"
Owen looked at Hazel. "Your reputation is spreading."
"Good," she said. "Now tell them to get a move on, or I'll kick their gate in and make them eat the hinges."
"I heard that," said the second voice. "Please leave our gate alone. It's the only one we've got. Give us a minute to draw back the bolts, and we'll let you in. The Mother Superior will be here soon, and there'll be hot food and dry clothes for all of you."
"And a leash for Hazel d'Ark," said the first voice.
"I heard that!" said Hazel.
There was a pause. "Do you know who I am?" said the first voice.
"No."
"Then I think I'll keep it that way."
The gate creaked open while Hazel was still trying to come up with a suitably devastating reply, and all animosity was forgotten as Owen and his party hurried inside, glad to get out of the rain at last. The gate opened into a wide square or compound, already half full of cloaked and hooded figures, with more arriving all the time. They all had their hoods pulled well forward to hide their faces, making the crowd eerily alike and anonymous, like a convention of somewhat tattered gray ghosts. Owen stood dripping before them, listening to the very pleasant and reassuring sound of the rain drumming on the roof overhead. He looked slowly around him, trying to judge his reception, and then the crowd raised their voices in a ragged cheer. Owen let the cheering go on for a while. He rather felt he'd earned it. But finally he raised a hand to get their attention, and the cheer was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. All the hoods turned to face him, eerily expectant. Damn, thought Owen. They want a speech.
"It's good to be here at last," he said very seriously. "The good news is that the Empire got Mother Beatrice's call for help. The bad news is, we're all you're getting. The Empire's fighting a war for survival on a half dozen fronts at once, and we're all they can spare. But Hazel and I have been known to turn around even the most dire of situations, so as soon as we've had a word with Mother Beatrice, and brought ourselves up to speed—"
"I'm here," said a warm but still subtly commanding voice, and the crowd parted silently to allow the Mother Superior to pass, bowing their heads deeply as she went by. Mother Beatrice wore a simple nun's outfit, with a plain wimple, rather than the much more impressive robes her rank entitled her to. A simple silver crucifix hung around her neck, and a woo
den rosary hung from one hip like an undrawn gun. Her face was pale and drawn, with dark, steady eyes and a determined mouth. "Thank the good Lord you're here at last, sir Deathstalker. We've been expecting you for some time."
"There was mention of hot food and dry clothes…" Owen said.
"Of course," said Mother Beatrice. "Please follow me."
She led them through the crowd, who bowed again as Owen and his party passed, though nowhere near as deeply as they'd bowed to Saint Bea. The compound led on to a series of low buildings with narrow alleys running between them. In the center was a ramshackle wooden building the size of a barn, built like everything else from the local black trees. The interior rooms turned out to be surprisingly civilized, with all the usual amenities, if few luxuries. Owen and Moon stripped off their soaking wet clothes in one room, while the women were escorted to another. Thick, hot towels were provided, and Owen rubbed himself down briskly, standing as close to the open fire as he could get. Warmth moved slowly through him, and he stretched luxuriously, as self-centered as a cat. He hadn't known there could be such pleasure in just being dry and warm.
Moon went about his toilet with quiet thoroughness, with no obvious signs of enjoyment. The door opened just enough for an arm to throw in two sets of simple but functional clothing, all in gray, followed by the ubiquitous hooded cloaks, and then the arm withdrew and the door closed again. Owen sorted out a set for himself. The clothes seemed sturdy enough, but showed signs of much hard use and washing. More than one leper had these before me, Owen thought uncomfortably, and tried not to wonder how many might have died wearing them. He shrugged mentally and put them on. It wasn't as if he had a choice.
He glanced over at Moon, who was still toweling himself. Metal implants showed clearly all over his pale skin, but that wasn't what drew Owen's attention. "Uh, Moon…"