Deathstalker Return

  Michel du Bois, member for Virimonde, watched Tel Markham thinking, and thought cold, dark, brutal thoughts of his own. He'd never given a damn for any cause or faction, though he'd supported enough of them in his time. He sided with whoever seemed most powerful, and intrigued secretly with those who promised to become powerful, but working always and only to the advantage of his home-world. Virimonde was the only love he'd ever had, and the only one he'd ever wanted. He would defend Virimonde to the last—with his life, and with the lives of as many poor damned fools as necessary.

  Du Bois remembered sitting in his poky little office before the Session began, watching astonished and outraged as his viewscreen brought him news that transmutation engines had been silently, secretly, and utterly illegally moved into orbit around Virimonde. Finn Durandal was using the Transmutation Board to make his feelings plain. Either Virimonde agreed to his demands to disown the outlawed Lewis and the whole Deathstalker Clan, and agreed to follow the Durandal's wishes in all things, or… for the first time since their conception, the engines would be used on a populated world, as weapons of war. Just like the Darkvoid Device of old. Virimonde had planetary defenses, of course, some of them very old and very secret, and quite extraordinarily powerful, but nothing that could hope to withstand the mighty transmutation engines. So it fell, once again, for Michel du Bois to protect his homeworld. And he could do that only by finding allies here on Logres—in or out of Parliament. And Finn was a fool if he thought he was the only game in town.

  Du Bois was especially disappointed in Stuart Lennox, Virimonde's latest Paragon. Du Bois had brought him here to Logres to be his right hand, but instead the young fool spent all his time following Finn Durandal around like a lovesick puppy, and was no use at all. Du Bois supposed he could discredit Lennox easily enough, and bring in another Paragon… but the blunt truth was, there was no one ready. No one suitable. No one he could trust to put Virimonde's needs first. So, as always, it all came down to him to do the necessary, distasteful, practical things to protect his world. Du Bois smiled slightly. He was quite looking forward to it.

  Ruth Li, member for Golden Mountain, replaced Meerah Puri on the floor of the House. A tense, quivering little bundle of spite and malice, she knew it was her against the House, and she liked it that way. Enemies helped keep her convictions pure and focused. She pulled herself up to her full five foot one, pulled her buckskins around her like armor, and launched into her speech in support of the persecuted espers, and against the ongoing intimidation of aliens by Pure Humanity. Ruth Li's ancestors had survived the harsh conditions and appallingly vicious wildlife on Golden Mountain only by being tougher and more vicious than it was, and by using technology supplied them by nearby alien worlds. Ruth Li and her people had never forgotten. They were always on the side of the underdog, whether the underdog wanted it or not, and they never backed down from a fight. Ruth Li would speak her mind, and defy the fanatics in and outside the House, and to hell with the consequences.

  She'd barely begun to speak when a voice from the back of the House screamed Esper-loving traitor! and an energy beam punched right through Ruth Li's chest and out her back, throwing her dead body to the floor of the House. For a while there was utter bedlam in the House, as some MPs rose to their feet and shouted in shock and protest, while others hid behind their benches. The assassin turned out to be one of the House's own security guards, a Pure Humanity fanatic, and was quickly overpowered and hustled away by his fellow guards, but Ruth Li was still dead. Douglas arranged for her body to be carried out with full honors, and there was a minute of respectful silence as she left the House for the last time.

  Gilad Xiang, member for Zenith, was the next to take the floor. He abandoned his intended middle-of-the-road speech, and launched into a rambling but clearly anti-alien and pro-Neuman speech. He could see which way the wind was blowing. The trick was to survive today, so he'd still be around to plan for tomorrow. Finn Durandal wouldn't last. Fanatics always fell, usually brought down by other fanatics. Just like Ruth Li. The Durandal would decline and fall, and be replaced by some other charismatic face, and people like Gilad Xiang would still be there, getting the real work done. He kept talking till he was sure he'd made the right impression, and then he sat down. He didn't think he'd be speaking in the House again anytime soon. Perhaps he would go back to Zenith for a while, and wait for the madness to pass. He'd been promising himself a vacation.

  After Xiang sat down, it all went quiet. No one else seemed to have anything to say. Most were studying Finn Durandal, but he seemed content to sit and smile and watch. Finally Rowan Boswell, member for Heracles IV, got to his feet and slowly made his way down to the floor of the House. He looked really rough. Either he hadn't been sleeping enough recently, or he'd been having bad dreams. Given his position, probably both. He looked about him at his fellow MPs, too tired and defeated even to be bitter.

  "The Terror is coming," he said flatly. "And my world is the next in its path. My government has bankrupted the planet's economy for generations to come, to purchase state-of-the-art defenses, and still it isn't enough. We need more money to pay for all the things we've ordered, or they won't be delivered. So I came here to ask… hell, to beg and plead for a loan. But when I approached the appropriate House committee, they turned me down flat. It seems they don't believe my world will still be around, to pay back the debt afterwards. So, is that true? Has this House already written off Heracles Four?"

  No one wanted to answer him. Most wouldn't even meet his eyes. King Douglas could only look on compassionately. Finally, all eyes went to Finn Durandal. He stepped down onto the floor to face Boswell, tall and resplendent in his black leather armor.

  "The House has already sent you every weapon and defense we can afford. If you want to waste your money on untried and probably unreliable alien technology, that's your business. This House is under no obligation to support you in such foolishness. We are of course prepared to provide you with observers, so that if your world should fall, others can profit from your mistakes. And before you ask: no, planetary evacuation is not an option. We don't have enough ships."

  "So that's it," said Rowan Boswell. "The Empire has abandoned us. Then, to hell with the Empire, and to hell with you, Durandal. This is all your fault! If you hadn't driven away the espers, they might have helped us. If you hadn't pissed off the aliens, they might have helped us for free! But no, you and your precious Neuman allies had to be better than anyone else, and now Humanity stands alone against the Terror. Heracles Four stands alone. Well, you'd better pray the Terror kills us all; because if any of us survive, we're coming back for your head, Durandal."

  He stalked out of the House, his head held high. Some MPs clapped, but not very loudly.

  The session continued without him. James turned up and made another splendid speech, and the aliens had their votes taken away from them. Most MPs stood up to cheer and applaud. And then, in the alien section, the Chanticleer stood up to speak. It was a large exo-skeletal creature, twelve feet tall and yellow as a banana, with great compound eyes and a long curling proboscis. It spoke through a tech translator hanging from one foreclaw.

  "Douglas, Speaker, King. Help us. Promises were made, when we entered the Empire. Are promises now worthless? And if you consume us, to fill the gaping hole in your spirit, how soon before you turn on yourselves?"

  "I'm sorry," said Douglas, and he really was. "There's nothing I can do for you."

  "Well, there's certainly something I can do," said Finn. He gestured to his waiting security guards. "Arrest all the aliens present in this House, and escort them to a secure place. They can be hostages for their species' continued good behavior."

  Armed security men ushered the few alien representatives out of the House. None of them made any trouble. Again, many MPs cheered and applauded loudly. Finn watched Douglas carefully, but he did nothing. Finn smiled. If the aliens were dumb enough to show up at the House in person, he was certainly dumb enough to take adv
antage of it. He wondered fleetingly how the exoskeletal Chanticleer would taste, boiled…

  One of the Swart Alfair suddenly appeared on the floor of the House, large as life and twice as nasty. It might have been a holo image or the real thing. Certainly its usual sulphurous smell seemed real enough. Tall, bat-winged, deep crimson, surrounded by thick blue clouds of boiling ectoplasm, the alien glared contemptuously about the House. Finn's security people came rushing forward, and the Swart Alfair sneered at them.

  "The Terror is almost upon you, little humans! Your feeble sciences will not protect you. Only the mighty secrets of Mog Mor can save you from the hunger of the Terror. They can still be yours, for the price we demanded. You have no more time to prevaricate. Say yes or say no, but say it now. If you refuse us, we turn our backs on you. Mog Mor will go its own way. Speak now."

  The House looked to Douglas, who looked to Finn. The Durandal faced the Swart Alfair calmly.

  "Any price would be too high. Humanity will not be beholden to aliens. We will defend ourselves."

  "You will die," said the Swart Alfair, and it disappeared. Faint blue wisps of ectoplasm still curled on the air. The alien had been gone only a few moments when Anne Barclay came rushing into the House, shouting to be heard over the babbling MPs.

  "Turn on the House viewscreen! We're being hailed from Haden. They're under attack!"

  Douglas activated the great viewscreen, and it appeared floating above the floor of the House, showing huge ships firing on the planet Haden. They were alien vessels, vast labyrinthine ships of coiling organic shapes. Their energy beams pounded down from orbit, shattering for the moment against Haden's shields. But more and more of the alien ships were dropping out of hyperspace all the time, to join the attack.

  "It's Mog Mor," said Anne. "They're making a preemptive strike against Haden, to gain control of the Madness Maze."

  "There are supposed to be two starcruisers quarantining Haden," said Douglas. "Where are they?"

  "Ambushed. One's already gone," said Anne. "The Swart Alfair blew it apart. The other one's retired, hurt. It can send us these messages, but it can't intervene."

  Douglas looked at Finn. "Will the planet's shields hold?"

  Finn frowned. "If Mog Mor is as powerful as it claims…"

  "Well?"

  "Then it's just as well I allowed Shub access to the Maze."

  Even as he spoke, a single huge ship the size of a moon appeared out of hyperspace. A Shub ship, bristling with armaments. Some of the Mog Mor ships moved to attack, and Shub blew them to pieces. Fragments of hull glowed briefly as they burned up, falling through Haden's atmosphere, and then they were gone. Mog Mor broke off its attack, and the remaining Swart Alfair ships disappeared back into hyperspace. The House went mad, everyone cheering and applauding and stamping their feet. The viewscreen shut down. The blue steel robot representing Shub stood up in the empty alien section.

  "The Swart Alfair ships have returned to Mog Mor, where they have now disappeared behind a defense shield of an unfamiliar nature. We are no longer able to detect the planet's presence. Having failed to acquire control of the Madness Maze, it seems they have chosen to retire from the game. We will, of course, continue to monitor the planet's last known position, in case more of their ships reappear."

  There was a general murmur of Good riddance to bad rubbish in the House. Tel Markham considered his fellow MPs thoughtfully. We don't need the Terror to destroy the Empire, he thought tiredly. We're doing a perfectly good job on our own.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PREDATORS AND VICTIMS

  "No guns? What, you mean there's no guns at all on this ship? We're heading for one of the most dangerous planets in the Empire, knee deep in the kind of monsters that would give Grendels the screaming habdabs, and you're only now getting around to telling us that this ship has no weapons!"

  "Calm down, Brett," said Lewis Deathstalker. "You're hyperventilating, and your face is going that funny purple color again."

  "I don't care! I am not landing on a planet where sudden death and appalling slaughter is what they do to relax after lunch, without some seriously nasty firepower to back me up! Get out of the way, Deathstalker, and let me have a go at those computers. This is a smuggler's ship, remember? There's got to be some weapons systems here somewhere…"

  Lewis allowed Brett to shoulder him out of the way, and moved back to watch the highly experienced con man work his particular magic upon the bridge computers. It never ceased to amaze and amuse Lewis how suddenly brave and assertive Brett Random could become when it became clear it was his neck on the line too. Brett hunched forward in the pilot's seat and attacked the comm systems keyboard as though trying to bully answers out of it. Jesamine Flowers came over to join Lewis, and they exchanged a smile.

  "For once, I have to agree with the scumbag," said Jesamine. "He may have no ethics and even less manners, and he did drink the last of my perfume in the hope it might be alcohol based, but when it comes to matters of self-preservation, Brett is the undisputed champion. If Shandrakor really is as dangerous as it's supposed to be…"

  "Oh, it is," said Lewis. "Trust me on this. My family still tells tales around the old fireplace in the great hall, about Owen's battles in the monster-infested jungles of Shandrakor."

  "Monsters," said Rose Constantine in her deep sepulchral voice, from the far corner where she lurked. "I would like to kill some monsters. It's been a while since I had a real challenge."

  "I have offered to spar with you," said the reptiloid Saturday.

  Rose sniffed. "It's not the same if you're not allowed to kill your opponent."

  "Well…" Saturday said diffidently.

  "No," said Lewis, very firmly. "We don't have a regeneration tank, and we're a small enough group as it is. When this is all over, you two can tear each other into tiny pieces with my blessing. I might even sell tickets. But for now, everybody plays nice, or I'll start putting tranquilizers in the protein cubes again."

  "Found it!" Brett said triumphantly, beating a swift paradiddle on the edge of the comm panels with both hands. "Bow down and worship, ye lesser beings! I could have done this for a living, except I had more ambition—and a complete disinclination to work for anyone but myself. I knew the Hereward's main menu was far too squeaky clean to be true. Running alien porn is still a death sentence on some worlds, so there just had to be a hidden menu, and here it is! Oh, just look at all these goodies… We have extrapowerful force shields, illegally powerful stealth options, a really hair trigger self-destruct system that I think we should all stay well clear of, and twelve—count them, twelve—disrupter cannon, complete with computerized tracking systems! Damn… you could take on a starcruiser with firepower like this. All of a sudden, I feel really safe. Let's get down to the surface and kick sand in some monster's face."

  "Ah," said Lewis. "So we have your permission to land now, do we? How very kind. Now get your arse out of my pilot's seat."

  Brett quickly made way for Lewis, who settled into the pilot's chair and glowered at the comm panels before him.

  "Oz, why didn't you tell me about the hidden menu?"

  "Sorry, Lewis," said the ship's AI. "The original captain set things up so the hidden menu could be accessed only via the correct code words. I wasn't even able to mention it until now. You're really very talented with computers, Brett Random."

  The con man leaned casually against the port bulkhead and preened ostentatiously. "I have magic fingers. There isn't a computer going that I can't tickle into giving up its secrets. I could make the AIs of Shub giggle and blush like schoolgirls."

  "Boasting is very unattractive," observed Jesamine.

  "Hey, stick to what you're best at, that's what I always say." Brett glanced at the long curve of the planet Shandrakor on the bridge viewscreen. "You know, Deathstalker, we are getting awfully close to the planet. Are you positive there's no quarantine here? No starcruisers on patrol, no orbiting minefields?"

  "For the tenth time, Brett
, we're all alone up here," said Lewis. "This ship's sensors could hear a mouse fart from high orbit. And I can tell you for a fact that there's never been any official quarantine around Shandrakor, for the simple reason that this planet doesn't have a single damned thing that anyone wants. Or at least, nothing worth the trouble of fighting the jungle, the climate, the monsters and all the other kinds of sudden death from unexpected directions that this planet specializes in. Someone did try running safari parties here, for really jaded big-game hunters, but the company went bust after no one came back from their first ten expeditions. There was a joke going around that the only thing that did come back was a note from the monsters, saying Send more hunters."

  "I'm starting not to feel safe anymore," Brett said warningly.

  "But the old Deathstalker Standing definitely is here?" said Saturday. "The great castle of your ancestors?"

  "Oh, yes," said Lewis. "This is where Jenny Psycho crash-landed it, after it was pretty much blown apart in the last great battle against Shub and the Recreated. The exact coordinates of where it went down were officially suppressed, but my family secretly preserved them as part of our heritage. I can take us right there."

  Brett sniffed loudly. "I still say it takes some swallowing. A stone castle with its own stardrive—I mean, how likely is that?"

  "The original Standing dates from the days of the First Empire," said Lewis. "They did things differently then, with knowledge and tech we can only dream of."

  "You know, I hate to agree with Brett, on principle," said Jesamine. "But it does seem awfully strange to me that there's absolutely no Imperial presence here. Not even a spy satellite. I mean, Finn must know about the Standing. Surely he'd have expected us to turn up here at some point?"

  "You would think so, wouldn't you?" said Lewis. "Maybe he's got problems at home, by now. We can't be the only people opposing him. Can we?"

  "I'm afraid I'm still completely cut off from the Empire," said Oz. "I have to run silent, to maintain full stealth capabilities. I have no information on what is happening elsewhere."