"I haven't decided yet," said Finn. "That's why I came all this way, to see them in person. But, they could be weapons we can use against the Terror. Or other enemies."
"Like Donal Corcoran," said Dr. Happy, unexpectedly. "He'd make an excellent weapon."
"Mouth is open, Doctor, should be shut," said Finn.
And then they rounded a final corner, and there the twelve were, imprisoned behind shimmering fields of energy. Ramirez started to say something, but Finn gestured imperiously for him to be silent. He walked slowly forwards, alone. He had no intention of sharing this moment with anyone. He walked slowly down the aisle, peering into each cell, drinking in the terrible miracles the Maze had wrought in their merely mortal flesh. They were everything he had hoped for, and worse.
Twelve men and women, kept alive and suffering and crazy for two hundred years. Not eating or drinking, because they had risen above such human needs. He looked at them, and some of them looked back. They were glorious and awful, magnificent and appalling; sick dreams given shape and form and thrust unwillingly into the waking world. Finn decided he didn't feel disturbed. He felt… invigorated. He slowly retraced his steps, stopped in front of the first cell, and gestured for the others to come forward and join him.
"I have to thank you, Dr. Ramirez," he said calmly. "In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. A truly unique experience. I could watch them for hours, and never grow tired. Tell me, have they always been like this? Have they changed at all, in, two hundred years?"
"Not according to the files left by my predecessors," said Ramirez. He preferred to look at Finn rather than what was in the cell. "This is how they emerged from the Madness Maze. Each one entirely singular, and horribly self-sufficient. Apart from one, they haven't slept at all in two centuries. No normal mind could survive under such conditions. But then, these creatures aren't in any way normal."
He turned and looked, almost unwillingly, into the first cell, and the others followed his gaze.
The cell contained two survivors. A man and a woman, joined together into one body. A large horribly white creature, with four arms and four legs, and one oversized head with too many eyes, it crawled slowly round its featureless enclosure like a giant insect. The single mouth spoke a language that made no sense, and all the eyes moved in different directions.
"Not much of a weapon, is it?" said Ramirez. "Sometimes it walks on the walls and the ceiling, and sometimes it sings a song that makes any listener's ears bleed, but that's about it."
"Ah, well," said Finn. "Early days yet."
In the next cell, the occupant had been turned inside out, all down one side. It sat very still in the middle of its cell, and didn't respond to any movements outside the force screen. The exposed organs were crimson and purple, pulsing with blood, wet and shiny. The single lung expanded and contracted smoothly. Sharp bone horns stuck out of the exposed gray matters of the brain. Where the genitals should have been there was only a twitching red mass. Tears ran steadily down the normal half of the face.
"Is it in pain?" asked Finn.
Ramirez shrugged. "It doesn't respond to questions. Either way, we have no way of reaching past the force screen to help. According to my files, it hasn't moved an inch in two hundred years. God alone knows what it's thinking."
"Why would the Maze do something like that?" said Finn. "What purpose could it serve?"
"I told you," said Ramirez. "The Maze is alien."
In the next cell, a man ran back and forth impossibly quickly, his movements almost a blur. He pounded on the walls with his fists, which continually broke and bled and constantly healed. His mouth was stretched in an endless silent scream, his eyes utterly mad.
"He can hear the whole Empire thinking," said Ramirez. "But he can't shut any of it out, even for a moment. He doesn't even know who he is anymore, his identity crushed under the weight of so many others."
Finn looked at Dr. Happy. "Could you help him?"
"I could have a lot of fun trying," said the good doctor.
The next cell held a man who'd torn his own eyes out. Blood streamed endlessly down his jerking cheeks from the empty red sockets. But his wounded head turned unerringly to follow Finn as he approached the cell's force screen. When Finn stopped and looked in, the blind man came forward to face him.
"I have to keep tearing them out," he said hoarsely. "Because they keep growing back. I see things. Terrible things. I see other planes, other dimensions, and other realities. I see the awful things that live there, twisting and turning, and the awful things they want to do, if they could only find their way here. I have seen the answers to Humanity's oldest questions, and secrets we were never meant to know… and I can't stop seeing! I tear my eyes out, and I can still see!"
Finn backed away despite himself, and the man in the cell laughed hysterically. The laughter followed them down the aisle to the next cell.
In this cell, the occupant was constantly changing. It stood very still, a blur of movement from one moment to the next as it became a woman became a man became a child became someone else. Short and tall, fat and thin, every race and color of Humanity, everyone and everything, forever changing.
"We don't know whether any of those are real people," said Ramirez. "Whether they're copies of people from other worlds, or alternate time track versions of the original person, such as the blessed Hazel d'Ark is supposed to have produced, or whether these people are just generated from the original's imagination. None of them have ever stayed around long enough to be questioned. And before you ask, recording devices don't operate through the force screen. None of our instruments will. We have no way of running tests on any of the survivors. I'm not sure whether that's for their protection or ours."
"Don't be defeatist, Doctor," said Finn. "One idea has already occurred to me. But let us press on, press on."
The occupant of the next cell was fast asleep, curled up into a fetal ball, floating some two feet above the floor. Behind his closed eyelids, his eyes moved constantly.
"He's been sleeping and dreaming for two hundred years," said Ramirez. "What can his dreams be like, after so long away from reality? We don't know if he'll ever wake up, or what he might be able to do when he does. Perhaps he's dreaming himself sane."
The next cell contained a homicidal psychopath of such relentless ferocity that even Finn was impressed. The Maze survivor raged back and forth across his cell, murdering an endless number of people who seemed to appear out of nowhere just to die, and then vanish again. The killer's face was purple with rage as he battered people to death with his bare hands, or strangled them, or tore them limb from limb.
"Again, we don't know whether the other people are real or not," said Ramirez. "But he's been killing them nonstop, in increasingly nasty and inventive ways, for two hundred years. If the cell force screens ever do go down, the very first thing we're going to do is shoot that bloodthirsty bastard with every gun we've got."
"Oh, I don't know," said Finn. "He has possibilities."
"Going to throw him at the Terror, are you?" said Ramirez. "Oh, yes, he'll be a lot of use against something that eats planets!"
Finn looked at Ramirez. "Now, now, Doctor," he murmured. "Who knows what other… abilities any of these people might have, outside their cells? Even the blessed Owen didn't become a living god immediately; he had to grow into his powers over time."
In the next cell, a woman sat cross-legged, smiling at nothing. Her eyes were fixed on something far away.
"She's been smiling nonstop for two centuries," said Ramirez heavily. "Never been known to speak or move, but one thing every scientist who's seen her agrees on, is that… that's a really disturbing smile. Like she knows something nobody else knows."
"Oh, I've seen a lot of that," said Dr. Happy. "Trust me, it doesn't mean anything."
The next occupant all but filled his cell; a huge dark fleshy mass that pressed against the walls and floor and ceiling, but held back from touching the force screen. I
t had no discernable human details, just a great mass, slowly moving.
"Apparently he looked perfectly normal when he went into the cell," said Ramirez. "But he's been growing steadily for two hundred years. Hopefully he'll stop once he's completely filled all the space available."
"And if he doesn't?" said Finn.
Ramirez shrugged. "That's up to the Maze."
In the next cell, a woman slowly faded in and out of reality, disappearing and returning, silently screaming for help. She reached out her hands to the people outside her cell, begging for them to do something.
"She can see us, but she can't hear us," said Ramirez. "We don't know where she goes to, or how she comes back. Or how to keep her here. Whatever powers she hoped to find in the Maze, I can't believe this was it."
Finn found the occupant of the final cell the most disturbing, mostly because the occupant looked exactly like Finn Durandal. The two Finns stared at each other in silence for a while. The double was exact, down to the tiniest details of face, stance, and clothing. He smiled amiably back at Finn.
"Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?" he said calmly. "I become anyone who looks at me. Anyone at all. And not just the exterior; I am you, inside and out. I know everything you know, including all the things no one else is supposed to know."
The original Finn raised an elegant eyebrow. "A telepath, I take it?"
"Perhaps," said his double. "Or perhaps nothing so crude. I am you, in every way that matters. If you were to die, I could step into your life and take it over, and no one would be able to tell the difference.
"I doubt that," said Finn. "It's a matter of style, you see."
"I know everything you're afraid of, Finn. And you're afraid of so many things, deep down, aren't you? Come on, you can admit it to yourself. Admit that you're afraid that you're not strong enough and smart enough to do all the things that have to be done. Admit that you worry constantly about being found out. Admit that you're scared you have no heart…"
"I'm not afraid of that," Finn said calmly. "I glory in it."
He turned his back on the double, and walked back up the aisle. The others followed him out of the aisle and back round the corner into the steel corridor, leaving the cells and their occupants behind. Finn then stopped and stood still, and thought silently for a long time, and none of the others cared to interrupt him.
"They're all secure," he said finally, as much to himself as anyone. "We don't have to worry about any of them escaping. The Maze knows what it's doing."
"Just as well," said Ramirez. "If any of them weren't crazy to begin with, they sure as hell are now, after all they've endured. But there are security cameras covering the aisle and this corridor twenty-four hours a day, just in case. Not that we have any way of stopping them if they do get out; it's just to give the rest of us a good running start to get safely offplanet."
Finn looked at the Shub robot. "You have no ideas on how to penetrate the force screens?"
"Not at present," said the robot. "Though I feel I should point out that even if we could develop such an ability, I very much doubt we would be able to control or contain the twelve survivors afterwards. They represent a level of power beyond anything we have encountered, apart from Owen and his people."
Finn was still frowning thoughtfully. "But you do have teleport capability. Could you perhaps teleport items in or out of the cells?"
"We are considering the possibility," said the robot.
"You never said anything about that to me!" said Dr. Ramirez.
"You never asked," said the robot.
Finn turned to Dr. Happy. "I'm leaving you here, Doctor. Learn everything that can be learned about the twelve survivors, and then let your mind run wild along its usual appalling paths. Let it run free. I will see to it that you have a completely free hand here, so no experiment should be considered too controversial, too expensive or too dangerous. Think the unthinkable! But, you are forbidden to use any of the scientific staff here as subjects for whatever drugs you develop, on pain of me getting really upset with you. If you reach a stage where you need subjects, I'll supply them. And Doctor, if Shub does find a way to gain access to the twelve through teleportation, feel free to do any damned thing you like to them. As long as it doesn't involve any risk of their escaping."
Dr. Happy nodded, beaming widely. Finn turned to Dr. Ramirez. "I can see the objections rising to your lips, Doctor, but they will do you no good. Parliament has given me complete control over this whole establishment. Mainly because no one else wants it. If you even try to impede the good doctor in any way, I'll let him have you as a subject. Concentrate on your own work, and all will be well. I shall expect regular reports and updates on everything that happens here. I need to know why these twelve survived, when so many others died. In the meantime, Haden is now officially under full quarantine. I'll have two starcruisers posted here to ensure you're protected from outside influences. And if any investigative journalists should manage to sneak their way in here, you have my permission to shoot them on sight."
He turned to the blue steel robot of Shub. "Teleportation has to be the key. Work on ways to get things into those cells, and indeed, into the bodies of the twelve. But be very careful about taking anything out. I don't want to risk losing any of our subjects."
"We shall cherish them," said the robot. "All that lives is holy."
"So I'm told," said Finn.
"What if we can't learn anything useful from the twelve?" said Dr. Ramirez, just a little sulkily. "After all, my predecessors have been studying them for two hundred years, to little effect." ,
Finn considered the question, and then smiled. "The answer would seem to be obvious. I'll just have to send more people through the Madness Maze, until it produces some survivors you can work with."
Ramirez looked at him, aghast. "But… you'd lose thousands of people! Maybe hundreds of thousands!"
"There's never any shortage of fools," said Finn Durandal.
Some time later, in the House of Parliament on Logres, King Douglas sat in his throne as Speaker, and watched with a dull helpless anger as the members voted to dismantle the regulatory committee he'd set up to monitor the increasingly powerful Transmutation Board. Douglas couldn't honestly say he was surprised. It was just the latest in a series of moves that proved Parliament was now dominated, if not actually controlled, by outside interests these days. Searching for something, anything, to shore up their ebbing power and influence, the members were desperate for support, and many were almost openly for sale. Or at least, for rent. Douglas had tried to contribute something to the debate, but the outcome was a foregone conclusion, and everyone there knew it. Besides, as Speaker and as King, Douglas's position was not what it had once been. He was no longer the respected new force on the throne; he had been betrayed, and sidelined, and made irrelevant by the changing new order. Still, everyone remained very polite to him. Because he had been a Paragon, and was still a Campbell, and you never knew…
Douglas sat stiffly on his throne, overlooking the House as the members argued loudly over the next proposal, a bill to license and control all espers in the Empire, and especially on Logres. Douglas would have smiled at that, if he'd been in a smiling mood. This was the mice voting to bell the cat. But with public feelings against espers running so hot and high, Parliament had to do something, or at least be seen to be doing something. So: a bill that didn't have a hope in hell of being enforced, but would look good on the news channels. Douglas sighed heavily. There had to be some members left in the House with guts enough to stand against the tide, and others who might yet be influenced by just the right words; but he had no idea who they might be anymore. He hadn't realized how dependant he'd become on Anne to brief him, to do all the research and guide him through the treacherous undercurrents of modern politics. Shed known everything, about ideas and trends and people; but now she was gone, and working with the enemy. Douglas was doing his best to catch up on the ground he'd lost during his seclusio
n, but it was hard going. Particularly when hardly anyone would agree to talk to him anymore, even on the most private and secure of lines. In politics, there was always the fear that defeat might be catching.
Anne worked with Finn now. In fact, since his return from Haden, the two were rarely seen in public apart. Neither of them had much time for Parliament these days, though. The Durandal rarely showed his face in the House, even though he was Imperial Champion, and officially still Douglas's bodyguard. And Anne only ever made her presence known from the shadows. Perhaps because the House was now such a tamed beast, it was beneath their notice. Douglas pushed the thought aside. He had to concentrate on those matters he could still influence. He made himself listen to the current speaker on the floor of the House. Joseph Wallace, head of the Transmutation Board, was politely thanking the House for its expressed support, and not quite gloating over his future plans, now he didn't have Douglas's regulatory committee to hold him back.
Wallace was tall and well-set, with a blandly handsome face set off by golden tracings that followed the lines of his face. They gleamed very prettily, but Douglas thought it made the man look as though someone had painted graffiti on his face while he was asleep. Still, Wallace had good posture and a trained voice, and a commanding presence, in an obvious sort of way.
"I thank this House for the confidence it has placed in me," he said gravely. "In turn, I commit the Transmutation Board to even greater endeavors. More useless planets shall be transformed, from lifeless worlds to the building blocks of matter. Dross shall become gold; more goods, more food, more weapons for Humanity, in the hour of its greatest need!"