Deathstalker Return

  Backstage at the House of Parliament, in one of the many small rooms where all the real work of government was done, Anne Barclay and the clone James were working on the text for his next big speech. The esper condemnation speech had gone down really well, and Finn wanted to be sure he had a good follow-up ready to go. James had no strong feelings about espers one way or another; he just said what he was told to say, but still he felt a certain relief that they wouldn't be around to threaten him anymore. Any esper who got close enough might have unmasked him and revealed who and what he really was. He didn't hate them or even necessarily want them dead; he just wanted them out of his life. James wasn't actually shallow, just inexperienced, but the result was the same. He could see things as important only when they affected him personally.

  His next big speech would be a clarion call for the House to remove the aliens' votes, and restrict all alien movement within the Empire "for the duration of the emergency." Most of the aliens had already withdrawn their representatives from the House anyway, but the measure would make Pure Humanity happy, and Finn needed another scapegoat to focus popular resentment on, now the espers were gone. Besides, with the Terror coming, Humanity couldn't afford to have potential enemies at its back. Better that all the alien species be subdued and controlled, and this speech would be an important step in that direction. Again, James didn't care. He was just following orders.

  Anne soon had the speech whipped into shape, and sat back from the table. She stretched her new body luxuriously, and smiled just a little exasperatedly at James. "You know, this would go a lot faster if you could contribute something, now and again. Help me tailor the words more to your particular speech rhythms, for example. Even change the words to fit your own style. You are allowed to have opinions. You don't have to be just a mouthpiece for Finn's words."

  "Really?" said James. "I thought that was exactly what I was created for. Finn's already made it very clear, on several painful occasions, that he doesn't want me to think for myself. I'm just a puppet, something for Finn to speak through in public. So on the whole, I feel most secure when I don't have to think about what I'm saying— when I can just play the part, and not have to worry about who I really am. Or what I might think, given the chance. I am not James. The more I read up on my progenitor, the more clear it becomes that he wouldn't have put up with this shit for a moment. He was always his own man, and proud of it. But if I'm not James, who am I? Who am I when the lights go out and there's no one there but me?"

  His voice was rising now, growing more agitated. "Give me a speech to deliver, and I'm fine. Ask me to strike a pose, flash the smile, act the King-in-waiting, and I can do that. Easy. No problem. But even now, when it's just me speaking to you, the words sound more like James Campbell than the few poor personal thoughts that drift through my mind. It's easier to act James than be myself—whoever that might be. Is there any me, anymore?"

  By now he'd almost reduced himself to hysterical tears. Anne comforted him as she always did, by taking him in her arms and rocking him gently back and forth, and he clung to her like a child. But this time, when she was ready to let go, he held on. They looked at each other, their faces very close, and then James kissed her impulsively on the mouth. Anne was honestly surprised. She still had trouble remembering that she was beautiful now, and that a man could be attracted to her. And anyway, James was off-limits. Finn had made that very clear. Anne kissed James back, and put her arms around him again, and let the passion rise within her. Why not? she thought fiercely. James never knew the old me. As jar as he knows, I've always been beautiful. And it's time I had something for myself. Something that doesn't come from Finn.

  James was actually shy with her, and Anne had to lead him on. Encourage him, coax him, teach him. It was a new role for her, and one she enjoyed. She locked the door, and had him lie down on his back on the floor, and then she straddled him, and they made fierce, almost brutal love. And James's open adoration allowed Anne to be the kind of woman she'd always wanted to be, aggressive and wanton. It was good, so very good. And it wasn't as if she was doing anything wrong. No one was getting hurt. She was building his confidence, as he built hers. Two orphaned souls who had no one but each other.

  But Anne was still very inexperienced in some ways. Afterwards, as they lay in each other's arms, thinking their private thoughts, if Anne had taken the trouble to look directly into James's eyes, she might have seen something. Something to make her wonder how genuine James's motives really were. Whether perhaps he was clever enough, and cold enough, to use her to break him away from Finn's control…

  But she didn't look. And neither did he.

  Elsewhere, in a room of no importance, the Shadow Court was in session. No comforting holo of the Empress Lionstone this time, no clever recreation of her savage court. Most of their old meeting places had been discovered and overrun, and many of their supporters had been lured away by the more promising causes of Pure Humanity and the Church Militant. Only a few still kept to the old faith, and the return of the Families. The Shadow Court still had money and influence, and a handful of dedicated souls still ready to kill or die for the cause, but the movement had become just a shadow of its previous self.

  Nine men and women—carefully anonymous in enveloping black cloaks, faces hidden behind artfully embellished black masks of silk and metal and leather—were all that remained of the ruling elite. And they came together around a bare table, in a bare room, to argue about money. The Shadow Court's most successful attempt to reestablish interest in the old Families had been the creation of that most popular vid soap, The Quality. It had become amazingly successful, bringing in profits so great that not even vid company accountants had been able to hide them all. The elite of the Shadow Court were now all incredibly, embarrassingly rich. And some of them were determined to stay that way.

  " The Quality works fine as it is," said a slender woman in a domino mask. "I see no reason to change anything."

  "And I say we've lost track of what The Quality was meant to be," snapped another woman, in a black mask liberally spotted with sequins. She fanned herself angrily with a paper fan decorated with erotic images. "The Quality was designed from the beginning to be propaganda; a way of spreading our message to the masses. It was always intended to be a means to an end, never an end in itself."

  "But it's become the most successful soap in vid history," purred an unfeasibly fat man in an antigrav chair. "And you propose to spoil everything by forcing more politics into the scripts, making them much more overt, and risk losing our target audience. For the first time in generations, we are all as rich as our Families used to be. I won't have you rocking the boat in the name of ideological purity."

  " The Quality spreads our message well enough as it is," said a man in a full face mask. "Because of it, the Families are more fashionable than ever. What's wrong with that?"

  "Fashionable?" snapped the woman with the fan. "Fashions change, fads come and go; we're supposed to be in this for the long run! Who cares whether the Families are popular—we're supposed to be feared and respected.'"

  "The rich are feared and respected. That's good enough for me."

  "You've become corrupted by wealth," said a woman with a mask shaped like a bird of prey. "The vid show is a cult thing, nothing more, and the masses will drop it fast enough, once they find something else to obsess over. We have to push our message as strongly as we can now, while we still have an audience watching!"

  "Easy for you to give up the money," growled a man in a black gold mask. "Not all of us were born rich. We earned this money. It's ours."

  And so the argument went on, while Tel Markham, member for Madraguda, watched wearily from behind his black leather mask. He could see both sides of the question, but in the end he'd always known that power was more important than money. If you had enough power, people would give you money. It didn't always work the other way round. Power was why he'd joined the Shadow Court, along with several other secret organizations.
Angry voices rose around him, but he couldn't seem to summon up the passion or the interest to get involved in the argument himself. Truth be told, he was getting bored with the Shadow Court. They did less and less, and squabbled more and more. They were all talk, and he got enough of that at Parliament.

  And then the door, which was supposed to be locked and bolted, crashed suddenly open, and what seemed like a small army of armed men rushed into the room, shouting to the shocked and startled Shadow Court to stay where they were, and not move, and keep both their hands in sight at all times. The soldiers quickly surrounded the nine men and women, covering them with energy weapons as they stared frantically around, eyes wide behind their masks. And that was when Finn Durandal strolled casually into the room.

  "Hi!" he said cheerfully. "Good to be here, in this… actually rather squalid little room. Please, don't anyone get up. Or I'll have you shot. Now, some of you aren't as surprised as the others, because you invited me here. Oh, yes, a few of you decided they were more interested in being rich than anything else, and contacted me, telling me where this little meeting would take place. The idea being that I would arrest those of you who cared more about politics, and leave the rest of you to get on with being very rich. Well, bad luck, people. I've come for all of you. There are far too many factions in the Empire these days, and frankly, I don't need the distraction. So I'm shutting down the Shadow Court. Show trials, character assassination, followed by very public executions. You know, the sort of thing your aristocratic forebears were always so very fond of in Lionstone's time. And with the head gone, what's left of the body will soon wither and die. Feel free to speak up and object, and I'll feel free to have you shot as an example to the others."

  "How typical," said the woman with the fan. "The Families betrayed by their own kind. It seems we have learned nothing from history after all. But I trust we can at least show solidarity one last time. We can't afford to be arrested and identified. Our Families would be made to suffer. Better to go out with dignity, in one last act of defiance. We can still serve the cause as martyrs. Agreed?"

  And around the table eyes met and heads nodded, and hands went to transmutation bombs under their cloaks. There was a series of sharp, limited explosions, and soon there was pink protoplasmic slime splashed across the table, and dripping thickly from the chairs. Finn sighed and shook his head.

  "Fanatics. At least it saves the expense of trials. What matters is that they're all dead. Except… for you, sir."

  Tel Markham, the last surviving member of the Shadow Court hierarchy, removed his black leather mask and bowed courteously to Finn. The Durandal raised a single eyebrow in surprise, and nodded back. Tel smiled easily. "I am no fanatic, Sir Champion. For me, it was always about me—what I was going to get out of it. I hope I can convince you that a show trial might not be the best thing in my case?"

  "Go on," said Finn. "Give it a try."

  Tel spoke smoothly, doing his best to appear calm and at ease despite his being covered with a whole bunch of energy guns. "I am a member of Parliament, Sir Durandal. And a member of Pure Humanity. And brother to Angelo Bellini, the Angel of Madraguda and current head of the Church Militant. That's a whole lot of people I could persuade to be more supportive of you. Plus, I know things, and I know people, all of which could be very useful to you."

  "Not bad," said Finn, after a moment. "I don't actually need you, or any of the things you offer, but you speak well, and I've missed having someone around to boast to, since Brett and Rose ran out on me, the wimps. You look like you're made of sterner stuff. So I think I'll adopt you. Assuming…"

  "Yes?" said Tel Markham.

  "Assuming that you, as sole surviving creator and producer of The Quality, agree to sign over all your interest in the show to me. I can use it to push my own propaganda—to influence and inflame popular opinion, as and when I find it necessary or amusing—and I can always use the money. I have so many people on the payroll these days. Really. You have no idea. Do you have any problem with giving me the show?"

  "Not in the least," said Tel, who knew a foregone conclusion when it was staring down the barrel of a disrupter aimed at him. At least Finn didn't know about his membership in the Hellfire Club. The tables might yet be turned someday, in all kinds of interesting ways.

  In the great House of Parliament, business went on as usual. Most of the MPs were present, mostly because they had nowhere else to be. The alien section was practically deserted. The clone representative was doing his best to look interested in the slow-moving debate. Shub watched it all through a single robot. And Douglas, King and Speaker to Parliament, sat slumped on his throne, thinking of something else. Business as usual in the House, in these last dog days of civilization.

  Meerah Puri, member for Malediction, took the floor. She held her head high and glared at Douglas, one hand gripping the throat of her sari so tightly that her knuckles showed white. She raised her voice, and had the satisfaction of seeing him wince slightly. Meerah Puri had no intention of being ignored by anyone. She had a speech to make on the people's rights, and the need for tolerance in the Empire, and everyone working together. She launched into it with all her skill and verve, and after a while the best she could say was at least the other members weren't jeering at her. It was a hot, close day, and perhaps they just didn't have the energy. A few heckled half-heartedly from the back benches, probably Neuman stooges trying to score points with their superiors. Douglas did nothing to stop them. Meerah plowed on with her speech, because… because someone had to say it. The House might not be what it once was, but there was still the chance it could be turned around, awakened to its responsibilities, by the right words, the right ideals. The House still mattered. Meerah Puri believed that, with all her heart and soul. She had to believe that, or her whole life meant nothing.

  (She remembered working doggedly with her limited staff, in their tiny official backstage office, rewriting and polishing her speech again and again, to make it as powerful as possible. She had to wake the sleeping conscience of the House… but she was tired, they were all tired, from struggling so hard against the current tides of public and private opinion. It was like all the world had gone mad. How could everything have gone so wrong, so quickly? It had been a Golden Age, and some would say it still was, but Meerah could see the tarnish.)

  She finished her speech with a clarion call to arms, to action, and looked about her expectantly, but the MPs just looked back at her. No one applauded, no one jeered. They just sat there and looked at her in silence. Some of Meerah's strength seemed to go out of her then, and she almost stumbled as she returned to her seat and sat down. It wasn't that they hadn't listened; they had, and didn't care. None of them gave a damn for the old values anymore, except for Ruth Li, and she was a fanatic. Even the Paragons were corrupt these days, if gossip was to be believed. Except for Emma Steel, of course, but when all was said and done, she was just a barbarian from Mistworld, and couldn't be expected to understand the importance of politics. Probably out there right now, arresting a mugger and thinking she was making a difference. And as for the King… it seemed that bitch Flowers had broken his spirit as well as his heart.

  Tel Markham, member for Madraguda, arrived late as always, murmuring apologies to everyone as he edged along the crowded benches to his seat. He settled himself comfortably, and put on his best listening face while he privately concentrated on his own business. He had a lot to think about. The rest of the House was watching him surreptitiously—because he'd not only arrived late, he'd arrived with Finn Durandal. And the Imperial Champion had smiled on Tel, and patted him on the shoulder. In public. So everyone else was now thinking furiously about what that meant… because to be in with Finn was the ambition of practically everyone in the House. The Durandal was where the power was these days, and everyone knew it. No one was really all that surprised at Tel's new friendship; he'd always been famous for landing on his feet, and he had, after all, intrigued with every member and every faction in t
he House, at one time or another—and often simultaneously.

  But Tel was thinking of Finn's last words to him as they walked through the corridors of the House together. Out of nowhere, it seemed, Finn had offered to make Tel the new head of the Church Militant, replacing his brother, Angelo Bellini. It seemed Finn saw the increasingly messianic Angel of Madraguda as both a burden and a distraction. All Tel had to do was say the word, and the Angel would have a regrettable but very fatal accident, and ascend to Heaven on wings of prayer. Tel had smiled and nodded, and said he'd have to think about it. Now here he was, thinking, and torn between ambition, self-preservation, and family ties. Finn's offer was both a reward and a test of his loyalty, he knew that. And Finn knew he knew.

  Poor Angelo, Tel thought calmly. You never could hold on to anything I decided I wanted, could you, little brother? The question is, do I want it? Politics is one thing, religion quite another. Tel wasn't particularly religious, any more than he was particularly political, but he could see how the Church Militant, properly handled, could be turned into a real power base, quite separate from the Durandal. He could become a mover and a shaker in the new order of things. And all he had to do was agree to the murder of a brother he'd never liked much anyway. It should have been a simple decision, and Tel was honestly surprised to discover that it wasn't. He'd always thought of himself as a practical man, but this would require a cold-bloodedness that was new, even to him. And besides, what would he tell Mother?