“You know, I could have got there in time. And my augmented muscles were far better suited to supporting such a weight.”
“But you didn’t get there. Besides, I like to feel useful.”
“How are your hands and arms?”
Owen carefully didn’t look at them. “They hurt like hell, but they’re already healing. Part of the boost’s benefits.”
“You can’t keep pretending you’re still superhuman, Owen. Boost can only do so much. And you know what the aftereffects do to you.”
“I can’t just stand by, Tobias. I never could.”
“Even if it kills you?”
“Don’t you have some work to do, Moon?”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Go away, Tobias. Please.”
The Hadenman nodded once, rose smoothly to his feet, and walked unhurriedly away. Owen sighed, slowly. No one must know how far he’d fallen, from what he was. He couldn’t have coped with pity, on top of everything else. And Owen Deathstalker had made a great many enemies in his time. He couldn’t afford word to get out that he was ... vulnerable.
“Moon’s right, you know,” said Oz.
“And you can shut up too.”
“Watch your temper. And your language. Saint Bea’s coming over.”
Owen raised his aching head, and his heart sank just a little more as he saw Mother Superior Beatrice bearing down on him, her simple nun’s robes flapping about her like a ship under full sail. Saint Bea meant well, she always did, but he was in no mood for a lecture, however compassionate. He started to get up, but Mother Beatrice waved him back with an imperious gesture, and Owen’s muscles obeyed before he realized what he was doing. Saint Bea had that effect on people. She gathered up her robes and sat down beside him, and then surprised Owen by not immediately tearing into him. Instead, she sat quietly beside him for a while, looking at nothing in particular, humming something vague and wistful half under her breath. Owen found himself relaxing a little, in spite of himself.
“You know,” she said finally, “you really do look like shit, Deathstalker. I spend my days nursing the sick and the dying, and I know shit when I see it. Your weight’s way down, and your face shows more bone than anything else. And your eyes are so deep set they look like piss holes in the snow. I’m worried about you, Owen. There are dying men here who look better than you.”
Owen smiled slightly. “Don’t hold back, Bea. Tell me what you really think.”
Mother Beatrice shook her head slowly. “You’re like a child, Owen; you know that? You don’t hear a damned thing you don’t want to. Still, you did look really impressive just then. Thanks for being the hero, one more time. Now why not take a few hours off? Get some rest.”
“I can’t rest,” said Owen.
“Do you sleep, at all?”
“Sometimes. I have bad dreams.”
“I could give you something to make you sleep.”
“I have bad dreams.”
Mother Beatrice changed tack. “I have some good news for you, at last. The comm center just reported contact with an Imperial courier ship on its way here. They commandeered our Church supply ship, just to get to you. Somebody out there still believes in you. Try and hold yourself together till they arrive. I don’t want this Mission to be remembered as the place where the great Owen Deathstalker moped himself to death.”
Owen smiled briefly. “I promise. I’ve been waiting for a ship.”
“Hazel may already be dead,” Mother Beatrice said quietly. “You have to consider the possibility, Owen.”
“No I don’t.”
“Even if you find where the Blood Runners took her, there may be nothing left for you to do.”
“There’s always revenge,” said Owen.
Something in his voice made Saint Bea shiver despite herself. She nodded briefly, got to her feet with a grunt, and walked away. There were some things even a saint had no answers for. Owen watched her go, and behind his composed features his mind was churning. A courier ship meant a message from Parliament. They must need him for something urgent. Something too difficult or too dangerous for anyone else. But once he was on a ship, and safely offplanet, he was heading straight for the Obeah Systems, and to hell with whatever Parliament wanted. His mental abilities were gone, including his link with Hazel, but he still knew where to go to find the Obeah Systems. Once before, he’d reached out across uncountable space, to mentally locate and kill the Blood Runner called Scour, and he still remembered where his mind had gone. He only had to concentrate and he could feel the path to the Blood Runner homeworld stretching away before him, calling him on. All he needed was a ship. If Hazel was still alive, he would rescue her, and he would make the Blood Runners pay in blood and fire for taking her. And if she was dead ...
He would set the whole damned Obeah Systems afire, to blaze forever in the dark as Hazel’s funeral pyre.
Outside the Mission, the scarlet and crimson jungle flourished. Black-barked trees rose up from a sea of constantly moving vegetation, all of it blushing various shades of red, from shining purples to disturbingly organic pinks. The jungle on Lachrymae Christi was more than usually alive, and varyingly sentient, and spent most of its time warring on itself (except in the rutting season), but all the barbs and thorns drew back as Tobias Moon walked among them. He was their one true beloved and friend, the only one in the Mission who could make mental contact with the single great consciousness of the whole planet’s ecosystem: the Red Brain. Which would have been enough to make practically anyone somewhat big-headed; but Moon was a Hadenman, and a survivor of the Madness Maze, and so he took it in his stride. If he thought about it at all, he thought of himself as a gardener, on a somewhat larger than usual scale.
At the moment, he was overseeing the felling of trees, to provide much needed lumber for the Mission repairs. The Red Brain had given the human community permission to take what was needed, and did what it could to make the job easier by pulling back the more dangerous and obstructive vegetation in the area. Moon oversaw as much of the felling as possible, just in case of misunderstandings, but so far everything was going smoothly. He consulted with the Red Brain, gave the orders on where the trees were to be taken from, and Sister Marion stalked stiff-leggedly back and forth, making sure his instructions were followed to the letter. No one argued with Sister Marion. A Sister of Glory, a warrior nun, and a complete bloody psychopath, her stick-thin figure was seemingly everywhere at once. Striding about in her long black dress of tatters and emerald evening gloves, she made a formidable figure, and she knew it. Her face was hidden under stark white makeup, with rouged cheeks and emerald lips, and she topped it all off with a tall black witch’s hat, complete with fiapping purple streamers. Let a leper shirk his work, or try to sneak off for a quiet sit-down and a crafty smoke, and within seconds Sister Marion’s harsh voice would be blaring right in his ear, driving him back to work with terrible oaths and blasphemies. Somehow they sounded so much more convincing when they came from a nun.
Felling the tall wide trees took a lot of time and hard work, made even more miserable by the constant falling rain, but the great dark trees still went crashing to the ground with slow regularity. No one knew if the Grendels or the Hadenmen might come again, but everyone knew they’d all feel much more secure when the Mission was whole again. So the lepers toiled in the pouring rain, day after day, and the trees came crashing down. The red-leafed branches were laboriously cut away, and then the surrounding vegetation would move in to pick up and transport the massively heavy tree trunks to where they were needed. The Red Brain was almost pathetically eager to be of use to its new friends. It had been alone for so very long, until Moon established contact with it.
Owen made his way through the scarlet and crimson jungle to join Moon. He looked intent and thoughtful and didn’t seem to even notice the pouring rain. The lepers nodded and bowed as he passed, and turned to watch him go. There was new strength and purpose in him, and they could sense i
t. So could Moon. He fixed Owen with his faintly glowing golden eyes and raised a single eyebrow.
“I take it a ship of some sort is on its way?”
“Got it in one, Tobias. Be here early tomorrow. I need you to do something for me.”
“If I can. What did you have in mind?”
“Go back through the jungle to where we first crash-landed, find the wreck of the Sunstrider II, remove the stardrive, and bring it back here.”
Moon lowered his eyebrow, and thought about this. “You have a use for a disconnected stardrive?”
“Oh yes. The Sunstrider II was fitted with the new alien-derived stardrive. Whatever ship I put that drive into will be one of the fastest ships in the Empire. And I’m going to need that edge, to get to Hazel in time. Do it for me, Tobias. I need this.”
“When do you want me to start out?”
“Right now would be good.”
Moon considered the matter. All work had stopped as the lepers listened to see what he would say. Moon finally shrugged. He hadn’t quite got the gesture right yet, but it was recognizable. “The tree felling is pretty much finished. My people can finish up on their own. Very well; I’ll put together a small party, and go get you your stardrive, Owen. But please understand; when you leave here, you go alone. I share your concern for Hazel, but I cannot abandon the people here. I am their only link with the Red Brain, at present. I have ... responsibilities here.”
“It’s all right,” said Owen. “I understand. I’ve always understood duty.”
They smiled at each other, both understanding this might be the last time they were ever together. The lepers slowly got back to work, for once not driven by a tongue lashing from Sister Marion. Owen looked about for her, and finally discovered her sitting on a tree stump, staring tiredly down at the ground, her hands neatly together in her lap. Her shoulders were bowed as though by some great weight, and her head hung down as though it were too heavy for her neck muscles to support. Even the ribbons from her hat were hanging limply down.
“She doesn’t look too good,” said Owen.
“She’s dying,” said Moon. “She’s in the last stages of the disease, and her strength is leaking out of her day by day.”
“I didn’t know,” said Owen, honestly shocked. It was hard to think of the invincible warrior nun being beaten by anything less than a sword thrust or a disrupter bolt. He knew she was a leper, but he’d always vaguely thought she was too stubborn to give in to it. “How long has she been like this?”
“Some time now. Don’t feel bad for not noticing. You had your own problems. There was nothing you could have done, anyway. It’s just her time. Leprosy is a one hundred percent fatal disease. No one gets out alive. She insists on helping out here, making the most of what’s left of her life before she has to be confined to the infirmary for her last days. She’ll hate that. Just lying around, unable to interfere in everyone else’s life. I asked her if she’d made her peace with God, and she just laughed, and said We never quarreled. I think I’ll take her with me, when we go to get the Sunstrider II. One last adventure for her.”
“Why, Tobias,” said Owen. “I do believe you’re growing sentimental.”
“I’m working on it,” said the Hadenman.
The trip through the jungle to the crashed starship went much more easily than the original trip from the crash to the Mission. This time the crimson vegetation writhed back out of their way, forming a wide path for Moon and Sister Marion, and the half dozen lepers they’d brought along to fetch and carry as necessary. The rain was coming straight down and hard, soaking the lepers’ gray robes, and plastering Sister Marion’s purple streamers to the side of her hat. Moon wasn’t bothered at all by the constant lukewarm rain, but had enough sense by now to keep such comments to himself. He linked briefly with the Red Brain, and wide purple palm leaves stretched out over the trail to deflect some of the rain. The ground squelched underfoot, and collecting rainwater squelched inside everyone’s boots. Nobody had much to say. If the Deathstalker himself hadn’t asked for this expedition, even the presence of Moon and Sister Marion couldn’t have kept the lepers from rebelling and turning back, but the lepers would do anything for Owen.
Owen himself was back at the Mission. He wanted to be there on the landing pad the moment the courier ship touched down.
Sister Marion lurched suddenly as the muddy ground gave under her boots. Moon put out a helping hand, and then quickly withdrew it as the Sister glared at him, mopping at her face for the hundredth time with a tattered handkerchief from her tattered sleeve.
“Hate the jungle. Trees black as coal and plants the color of blood and organs. And it stinks too.”
“Rotting vegetation on the ground produces the mulch from which new life arises,” said Moon.
Sister Marion snorted. “Yeah. Even the prettiest rose has its roots in shit. I’ve always known that. Rain and stink and a jungle that looks like a living abattoir. No wonder we were sent here; no one else would have wanted this place.”
“We’re almost at the crash site,” said Moon. “Not much further now.”
“Did I ask?” snapped Sister Marion.
“I thought you might like to know. It’s in the clearing, right ahead.”
“Hate the rain,” growled the nun, looking at the ground. “Never liked rain.”
When they finally entered the clearing, everyone stopped just inside the boundary. After a certain amount of confused peering about, the lepers turned a hard look on Moon. The clearing was just like all the others they’d already slogged through, overrun with crimson and scarlet vegetation, with no sign anywhere of a crashed starship. Sister Marion turned ominously, slowly to Moon.
“If you’re about to announce that you’re lost, I may find it necessary to kick your augmented backside up around your ears till your insides rattle, for the good of your soul.”
“No need to put yourself out,” said Moon. “This is the place. We cannot see the ship because the jungle has swallowed it.”
“Let’s just hope it hasn’t bloody digested it as well.” Sister Marion broke off suddenly. She started to raise a hand to her head, and then stopped herself deliberately. The gloved hand was clearly shaking, but no one commented.
“It’s going to take a while to retrieve the ship,” said Moon carefully. “Why don’t you find somewhere relatively dry and sit down for a while, Sister? You’re tired.”
“I’m dying, Hadenman. I’m always tired.” She shook her head slowly, and sat down carefully on a half-rotten tree trunk. Moon gestured at the other lepers, and they moved away to give him and the Sister a little privacy. The nun sighed quietly. “What is the world coming to when the only person I’ve got to talk to is a bloody Hadenman? Mother Beatrice is too busy, the Deathstalker’s got his own problems, and the other lepers ... are too afraid of me. So that just leaves you.”
“You can always talk to me,” said Moon. “All the information I have been programmed with is at your disposal.”
Sister Marion stared out into the clearing for a long time, the rain pattering loudly on and around her. “I know I shouldn’t be bitter,” she said finally. “But I can’t help it. So much left to do here, and I won’t be around to see things get done properly. Who’ll look after Bea when I’m gone, and stop her working herself to death?”
“I’ll be here,” said Moon. “I’ll watch over her. But you mustn’t give in, Sister. You’re a fighter. A Sister of Glory.”
“I’m a leper. And I’ve always known that’s a death sentence. I just thought ... I’d have more time. We’re all dying here, Moon. You mustn’t feel guilty that you can’t save us, the way you saved our Mission.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” said Moon. “That’s Owen’s job.”
They both managed a small smile at that.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” said Moon. “We fought off armies of Hadenmen and Grendels, but we can’t save you from a stupid disease.”
“Yeah, well, that’s life. Or ra
ther death. God sends us out, and he calls us home. Get on with it, Moon; find your damned ship. Be useful.”
Moon paused uncertainly. He wanted to comfort her, but didn’t really know how. Owen would have told him to follow his instincts, but Moon wasn’t sure he had any. So rather than say the wrong thing, he just nodded and turned away to survey the great open clearing before him. He knew exactly where the Sunstrider II had made its final violent landing. Moon remembered everything, and was never wrong. Unlike humans, he was unable to forget anything. Though sometimes he thought there were things he might choose not to remember if he could.
He put the thought aside for later contemplation, reached out with his Maze-enlarged mind, and made contact with the overconsciousness called the Red Brain. It was like plunging into a vast cool ocean, alive with endless points of light, a billion plants fused into a single mind larger than even Moon was comfortable dealing with. Once, he had been part of the Hadenmen massmind, but the Red Brain was larger and wilder and almost terrifyingly free, and only its glacially slow plant thoughts enabled Moon to deal with it without being swamped. Moon and the Red Brain moved together, linked but still separate, like a single whale singing its songs to a sentient sea. And when the Hadenman asked the Red Brain to return the Sunstrider II, it was happy to oblige.
Moon dropped back into his own body, and not for the first time was struck by how small and fragile it seemed. He had a feeling he was growing out of it, like a set of children’s clothes. He put that thought aside too, as the clearing before him began to shade and shudder. The ground rumbled under his feet, and the scarlet and crimson plants waved wildly. Moon calmly called the lepers back to join him and Sister Mario, and they wasted no time in obeying. The ground in the center of the clearing bulged suddenly upward, cracking raggedly apart. Plants were torn up by the roots and thrown aside, displaced by the upthrusting earth beneath, but they were only small parts of the massmind, and easily sacrificed. The earth growled and rumbled as something buried deep below was slowly forced to the surface again. Those plants in the clearing mobile enough did their best to get out of the way as the great rent in the earth bulged open, forced apart by the sudden rebirth of the Sunstrider II. It lurched to a halt, buoyed up by the thrusting earth and vegetation beneath it, and slowly settled into its new berth. The earth settled down, the plants came to rest again, and everything in the clearing grew still. Moon looked the crashed starship over critically. It looked like hell.