“What about it?”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“No,” said Owen. “Perhaps I don’t. But I’m tired of being the hero for everyone else, for strangers I never met. The Empire can survive without me for a while. Do it good to stand on its own feet for once. Sometimes ... you have to follow your heart, and to hell with the consequences. That’s what being human is all about.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Moon. “It is a very difficult thing, being human. Sometimes.”
He went off to organize some way of transporting the drive to the landing pad. Luckily both were outside the Mission proper. Owen watched his friend go, and wouldn’t let himself consider whether he was being selfish. He’d never asked for anything before, for himself. And he’d lost and given up so much, to become the hero and warrior he never wanted to be; he was damned if he’d lose Hazel too.
He heard heavy footsteps behind him, and turned to find ex-Captain Rottsteiner bearing down on him, looking even more upset than before, if that was possible. Owen met him with a steady gaze, and Rottsteiner slowed to a halt at what he hoped was a safe distance.
“You can’t just leave me here, Deathstalker! Not with these ... people!”
“Watch me,” said Owen, entirely unmoved. “And by the way, Moab’s Washpot is a bloody silly name for a ship, so I’m renaming it Sunstrider III. I’d break a bottle of champagne over the hull to christen it, if we had any, but we don’t. And if we did, I wouldn’t waste good booze in such a fashion. And we can’t use the local stuff, because it would eat holes in the hull.”
“You can’t just leave me here!” shrieked Rottsteiner, seizing his chance as Owen paused for breath.
“Why not?” said Owen calmly. “Give me one good reason. Hell, give me one bad reason. Mother Beatrice can always use another pair of hands, so you’ll have plenty to occupy your time. Do you good to be genuinely useful for a change. Look on it as character building. Or not. See if I care. Now go away and stop bothering me, before I think of something amusing and horribly violent to do to you.”
Ex-Captain Rottsteiner went away, very quietly. Owen made his last rounds of the Mission, saying his good-byes and making sure the projects he’d started would continue without him. He was polite and even gracious, but the lepers could tell his attention was elsewhere. They understood. They knew he was just filling in time till his new ship was ready. It took Moon less than an hour to install the new stardrive, but to Owen it seemed like days. He smiled widely for the first time in two weeks when the Hadenman finally reappeared.
“Yes, it’s done,” said Moon heavily. “Yes, it will function perfectly, and no, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take off whenever you feel like it. Have I missed anything?”
“I don’t think so,” said Owen. “Thanks, Moon. Try not to feel bad about me. I have to do this.”
“I know you do.” Moon hesitated. “I could come with you. Hazel is my friend.”
“You’re needed here,” said Owen firmly. “We can’t all go running out on our responsibilities. The people here need you to teach them how to link up with the Red Brain. And besides; what I’m doing has nothing to do with law, and everything with vengeance. I don’t want you involved in the things I may have to do.”
“Watch yourself, Owen,” said Moon. “You’re not the inhuman you used to be.”
“Yeah,” said Owen. “But they don’t know that.”
He put out a hand for Moon to shake, and then the Hadenman surprised Owen by sweeping him forward into a hug. It was clumsy, as though Moon understood the theory rather more than the practice, but it was well meant, and Owen hugged him back for a long moment. They finally stepped back, and looked each other in the eye. Neither of then wanted to say good-bye, so in the end they just nodded to each other, as though Owen were just stepping out for a while, and then they turned and walked off to follow their respective destinies.
They never saw each other again, except in dreams.
Hazel d‘Ark lay on her back, strapped down on a moving trolley as it trundled along endless stone corridors. The trolley ran fairly smoothly, but it was constantly being jerked this way and that as she was transported down one narrow passage after another. She felt deathly tired, and her body seemed weighed down by far more than the half dozen leather straps holding her in place. Her thoughts were slow and drifting, and it seemed to her that they had been for some time now. Headfirst, strapped down, the trolley carried her on into the gloom, and it was hard for her to care where or why.
Suddenly there were people moving around her, passing silently back and forth without looking at her. They were all tall willowy albinos with glaring bloodred eyes, wearing long robes of bright swirling colors, and their long bony faces were covered with vicious ritual scars, in wild jagged patterns. The patterns were different on every face, stylized as a clown’s makeup. The trolley slowed for a moment so two of the ghostly figures could talk over her helpless body. Their voices were harsh whispers, full of pain and rage and hunger, of endless unsated appetites, like the dusty breaths of ancient mummies. It slowly came to Hazel that she knew these people. They were the Blood Runners, an old, old culture, a separate branch of Humanity, isolated by its own wishes in the forbidden Obeah Systems. It was said they had a hand in every dirty and illegal trade in the Empire, and no one was strong enough to deny them their filthy tithe. It was further said, in quiet furtive whispers, that they traded in these things only to fund their never-ending experiments into suffering and death and immortality. To the Blood Runners, Humanity was nothing more than so many lab animals; specimens to be tested and destroyed and discarded as necessary.
No one raised any objections, even in the highest circles of Empire. No one dared. And Hazel d‘Ark had fallen into their hands. Fear moved through her like a slow poison, spurring her awake. Her thoughts began to clear, for the first time in what seemed like a long time. She remembered the Mission on Lachrymae Christi. Remembered Owen trying desperately to warn her, and then a shimmering silver energy screen closing in around her. The Blood Runners had snatched her away from Owen, and there’d been nothing either of them could do to prevent it. When the Blood Runners finally lowered the energy field, she fought them fiercely; but they did something to her, to her body and her mind, and for a long time now she had drifted in dark and uneasy dreams. She had some vague recollection of great white faces looming over her, saying she was no use to them without her powers. They would wait, till she was restored, and then begin their investigations. She tried to remember what these powers might be, or how she might use them against her captors, but thinking was still so hard. Sleep tugged at the corners of her mind, and it took all she had to fight it off.
The trolley took a sharp right turn into yet another stone corridor. Hazel had no idea how long she’d been moving, or where she might be going. She was afraid, but it was a vague, unfocused fear as yet. She made herself concentrate on her surroundings, focusing on them to help focus her mind. The ceiling above her was solid gray stone, pitted and darkened by untold ages. The walls on either side of her were built from massive blocks of the same gray stone, fitted neatly together without trace of mortar. Human arms projected from the walls, here and there, as though thrust through from the other side. They held up glazing torches in dull clay holders. The flames flickered constantly, as though troubled by subtle disturbances in the air. The arms never moved, and the fingers that curled around the clay holders were still as death.
It was cold in the corridor, and the air had an old, dusty smell. The only sounds were the quiet squeakings of the trolley wheels, and the occasional muttering of voices. Hazel tried to move against the straps holding her down, but they were too tight. She was helpless, and alone, and in the hands of her enemies.
The trolley finally lurched to a halt in a wide stone chamber. Without moving her head, she tried to take in as much of her new surroundings as possible. The walls and the low ceiling of the chamber had been constructed from the same gray stone, un
relieved by any adornments save the living torch holders. And then she caught her breath sharply as she saw a severed human head standing on a dull pewter pedestal. It was still alive, and aware. The skin had a normal hue, but the top half of the head and skull had been removed, sawed cleanly away above the eyebrows, so that the upper brain tissues were exposed, pale and glistening in the torchlight. Delicate metal filaments protruded from the naked tissues, with sparks of light coming and going at their tips. The mouth trembled slightly, as though always on the edge of speaking, and the eyes were sharp and clear and suffering and horribly sane.
“Don’t mind him,” said a dry, dusty voice behind her. “That’s just my oracle. A repository of information and deduction. Far superior to your computers.”
Hazel let her head roll slowly to one side, pretending to be weaker than she was. A Blood Runner was standing at her side, a vicious white specter in gaudy robes. And yet there was something familiar about the face, or perhaps rather the scars on the face ... Hazel suddenly remembered where she’d seen this Blood Runner before, and a cold hand gripped her heart like a fist.
“Scour ...”
“That’s right, Hazel d‘Ark. I came for you once before, in the old Standing of the Deathstalker, but you eluded me.”
“You’re dead! Owen killed you! I saw you die!”
“Blood Runners don’t stay dead,” said Scour, his face and voice calm and unmoved. “We’ve moved beyond that. We’ve lived for centuries, and death has no power over us anymore. We’re an old culture, Hazel; older than your Empire. It’s been a long time since we saw anything new. Anything like you ... dear Hazel. We’re going to learn so much from you.”
Hazel glared at him. “I don’t have a damned thing to say to you, Blood Runner. I don’t care what kind of a deal my old Captain made with you people when I served on the Shard, I don’t owe you anything!”
Scour shrugged easily. His voice remained a bare whisper, untroubled by the naked hate in Hazel’s voice and eyes. “Everyone talks eventually. Let me show you the previous occupant of this chamber. He was so sure of himself when he first came here; so delightfully full of defiance, just like you. Swore, he’d die before he broke. But we wouldn’t allow him that option.”
Scour took hold of the end of the trolley with his large white hands. The fingers were long and slender, like a surgeon’s or an artist’s. The trolley spun sharply around, briefly disturbing Hazel’s stomach, and when it stopped, Hazel was facing the other end of the chamber. Scour moved unhurriedly around to stand beside her, and then gently lifted her head so that she could see. And there, pinned to the gray stone wall by great brass staples in his hands and arms, hung what remained of a man. His face was untouched, dominated by wild staring eyes. But beneath that he’d been gutted from chin to groin, cut open in a perfectly straight line, the skin pulled back and pinned to the wall in wide pink flaps. His internal organs were gone. Instead, lengths of transparent tubing plunged into the great crimson cavity where his guts had been. Some of them twined between and around his exposed ribs like obscene ivy, feeding him slow-moving liquids, and draining off others. They pulsed slowly, and the man’s whole body shook gently in time to that ghastly rhythm. His genitals were gone, the gap plugged with a simple metal plate. Blood had run down his dangling legs from the terrible wounds, long ago, and had never been cleaned off.
“He was so very brave,” said Scour. “But bravery isn’t enough, here. All that matters now is how useful you can be to us. And this specimen’s use is at an end.”
He let Hazel’s head fall back onto the trolley with a painful thud, and strolled over to the hanging man. Hazel forced her head up again just in time to see Scour grab a handful of the transparent tubing and rip it out. The man’s whole body convulsed, and a long shuddering wail issued from the man’s throat. Fluids ran from the ends of the tubing, and pooled on the floor. The scream broke off abruptly as blood and something else gushed from the man’s mouth, and then the life went out of his eyes, and his head fell forward. The arms and legs still twitched, but he was obviously dead. Scour let the tubing drop carelessly to the floor.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” said Hazel, quietly pleased that her voice still sounded calm and steady.
“No,” said Scour, walking unhurriedly back to stand over her again. “It’s supposed to scare you. Fear is your friend here. It will help you make the inevitable transition from living legend to laboratory specimen. Defiance means only pain. Stubbornness means only unnecessary suffering. You will break, eventually. Everyone does. Better to get it over with quickly, while most of your sanity remains. Ah, Hazel; the things we shall learn from you, as we become intimate with your flesh and blood and bone, your every depth of body and mind.”
“Tell you what,” said Hazel, thinking Anything to buy time, time for my powers to return, “Let’s make it an exchange. You tell me all about yourself, about the Blood Runners, and I’ll tell you all about me. The things I can do, that you don’t know about. A trade; and no one needs to get hurt.”
Scour looked down at her for a long moment. “It’s been a very long time since I could speak of our origins with anyone who could hope to understand and appreciate them. After all, dear Hazel, you’re no more human than we are, anymore. Listen, and learn, as I tell you the true and terrible history of the Blood Runners.”
A headless human body strode into the chamber, carrying a simple wooden chair before it. The skin between the shoulders was perfectly smooth, as though the well muscled body had never had a neck or a head, nor ever felt a need for them. It came to a halt beside the trolley, and set the chair down gently. Scour sat on it, arranging his robes comfortably. The headless body turned and left. It didn’t seem to need a head to see where it was going.
“Just a servant,” said Scour casually. “Our will moves them, and nothing else. Think of them as meat machines. Our tech has taken a different turn; our wonders derive from the endless capacities of the human body and mind, not the cold metals and crystals of your limited tech. Now; where shall I begin? With the Summerstone, perhaps? No; further back than that. You need to appreciate how old we are. How unspeakably ancient.
“Before the Empire was, we were. Before Humanity spread itself across the many worlds, we were already old. Separate, even then, though only human, following our own hidden ways. When Humanity went to the stars, we found a world for ourselves. Centuries passed, as we remade ourselves in our desired image. Not like the Hadenmen, with their limiting reliance on tech, but through genetic engineering and body sculpting. Where Humanity dared not go, we went gladly, ignoring all restraints. We dreamed the impossible, and made it real in flesh and blood and bone.
“We became long-lived, vastly improved hermaphrodites. Man and woman, in one flesh. All the pleasures, aptitudes, and resources of both sexes, in one powerful body. We lost the ability to make children, but we wanted to live forever in our own flesh, not our offspring’s. I was alive then, as all who lived then are alive now. Not in this body, admittedly. Our identities live on in the mindpool; passing from one body to another down the long centuries. As one body wears out, I leave it to die, transfer my consciousness into the mindpool, and then download myself back into the new body I had prepared previously. That’s why we wear the ritual scars on our faces; they identify the inhabitant of the body. Flesh is finite, but we go on forever.”
“What ... what happens to the minds and souls of the new bodies you create?” said Hazel, to prove she was paying attention.
Scour shrugged. “We drive them out. Newborn souls are no match for minds that have endured for centuries.”
“That’s how you survived Owen’s attack,” said Hazel. “You just moved on into another body.”
“Of course. We are always prepared. The extent of his power surprised us, so we decided to wait and watch till you had temporarily exhausted your powers, and then pressed our claim to you again. You belong to us, Hazel d‘Ark, and we will have our pound of flesh, and more besides. Don
’t wait for Owen to come and rescue you. No one can come to where we are without our permission. The Obeah Systems are more a state of mind than a state of matter.”
“Power source,” said Hazel. “You must have some kind of power source. To fuel your ... science, maintain the mindpool. The Summerstone?”
“Very good, Hazel. You’re almost fully awake now. Yes, the Summerstone. It helped make us what we are today. It maintains our existence, defends us from our enemies, ensures our survival. All our power, to create and destroy, has its heart there. Would you like to see it?”
He gestured with one hand, and a great slab of stone was suddenly standing at the foot of the trolley. Hazel lifted her head to see it better. A great conical shape of solid stone, gray and pitted, it was roughly eight feet in diameter, and its tip touched the ceiling of the chamber. It looked like it weighed tons, and Hazel was vaguely surprised the floor didn’t crack under its weight. It looked ... solid, dense; realer than real. And strangely, hauntingly, familiar.
“Do you recognize it?” said Scour, studying her face closely.
“No. Where did you find it?”
“The same place you did; on a planet once known as Haden, and before that, the Wolffing World. What you’re looking at was once part of the Madness Maze. We stole it, and brought it here.”
He gestured, the stone disappeared. Hazel let her head drop back onto the trolley, her thoughts churning. “That piece of rock was once part of the Madness Maze? But ...”
“Yes, yes, I know. You saw a high-tech structure. But the Maze’s appearance is largely dictated by the minds of those who discover it. You expected to see an alien artifact, so that’s what you saw. We think in older terms, so we saw a ring of standing stones. A Henge. It took us a long time to understand what it was, and what it could do, and in the end we were driven from that world before we could pierce its heart, as you did. But we took one stone with us, and it has sustained us ever since. Perhaps now you begin to understand why we are so eager to learn the secrets of your flesh and of your mind, to understand what marvelous changes the Maze has wrought in you. The Maze is gone. Destroyed. You are all that remains of its glory and its mystery. We will know your secrets. We deserve them. You are what we were meant to be!”