Deathstalker Destiny (27 page)

He paused again, and this time the crowd answered him with a roar of defiance. The harsh, angry sound filled the great chamber, loud and overpowering. Fists were shaken, and empty hands twitched unhappily at sides where swords and guns would normally have hung. No weapons had been allowed in the House, this time. It wasn’t that the crowd didn’t believe what Robert had told them, or that they didn’t appreciate the importance of what had been discovered. They just couldn’t accept an esper scan as the answer. Everyone has something they can’t bear to have known, even to their closest and most-loved ones. The crowd stirred this way and that, its anger building, but for the moment they remained quelled by the many guns trained on them from all sides. Finally two men pushed their way to the front of the crowd, and glared up at the Campbell. Roj Peyton, Merchant Prince, was a large square-built man with a history of cunning deals and hard bargaining. At his side stood the acerbic social columnist Dee Langford, purveyor of unsuspected truths and assassin of reputations, whose pieces everyone read, if only to be sure they weren’t in them.

“Where the hell do you get off, ordering us brought to Parliament like this?” snapped Peyton. “Under armed guards and implied threats! Who gave you authority over us?”

“You did,” said Constance Wolfe, stepping forward to stand beside Robert Campbell. Her voice was cold and dangerous. “You chose us to be the new monarchs of the Empire because you trusted us. Trust us now to do what is necessary for the good of Humanity. After this is over, power will return to the Members of Parliament. Or at least, the remaining MPs.” She looked around her for challenges, but the crowd was quiet again, desperate for more information. Constance continued. “Who else could the uncoverers of this plot turn to, but Robert and I? Particularly when it became clear that Parliament itself had been infiltrated by our enemies? The innocent have nothing to fear. The espers have assured me that only the lightest of mental touches are necessary to determine if your thoughts are human or otherwise.”

“We only have your word for that,” said Langford smoothly. “The esper underground could do much to increase its status and influence, if it had access to our thoughts. We cannot put ourselves into the hands of potential blackmailers. What you ask is unacceptable, and we refuse.”

“Too late,” said Constance. “We had all of Parliament’s esp-blockers removed before you got here. The elves have been scanning you ever since you arrived, and have been determining who our real enemies are even while you’ve been talking. The guards have been given their targets on a shielded comm channel. Death to the Enemies of Humanity!”

And on that prearranged signal, sharpshooters among the guards in the galleries opened fire on their individual targets. Soft-nosed bullets took out the dragon’s teeth, cutting down the merely human bodies with merciless accuracy. Energy blasts from disrupters punched holes through the concealed metal chests of Furies posing as men. There was mass panic as the guards opened fire, and inevitably innocents were hurt or killed as they moved into the line of fire, or the targets grabbed them for use as shields. Battle espers among the elves worked to separate the guilty from the innocent, but as the crowd surged this way and that, screaming and jostling, it was hard for anyone to work out what was going on. Some tried to rush the locked doors, but there were guards waiting for that, and they grimly cut down anyone trying to leave the killing ground.

Roj Peyton grabbed Dee Langford and used him as a human shield as he charged toward Robert and Constance. Langford cried out as bullets slammed into him, over and over, his body jerking and shuddering under the impact, but Peyton’s more than human strength held him in place, soaking up punishment even after he was dead. An energy beam hit Peyton’s head a glancing blow, ripping away half the human face to reveal the metal skull of a Fury below. He’d almost reached the unflinching Robert Campbell when Kit SummerIsle stepped forward and casually shot out one of the Fury’s knees. He crashed to the dais, losing his grip on his dead shield, and Ruby Journey shot him through the back, destroying the Fury’s link with his Shub masters.

And very soon, it was all over. Most of the dragon’s teeth fell in the first few seconds, taken out by the sharpshooters. The Furies took longer, and did a lot of damage in the crowd, but eventually they all fell under concentrated disrupter fire. Panic slowly died away, as it became clear the shooting had stopped, and was replaced by a numbed calm and acceptance. Guards moved among them, separating the condemned dead from the cleared living. There were a lot of bodies. Among them Members of Parliament, movers and shakers of industry, and some leaders of the clone and esper undergrounds. Robert had suspected that last, which was why he’d brought in elves to do his scanning for him. Their mass gestalt precluded traitors. A great many of the Families had lost members too, unsuspecting men and women who’d entered the Matrix as humans and came out as dragon’s teeth. There were people weeping on all sides, and many were stumbling aimlessly around, blank-faced with shock. Everyone there had lost someone, or knew someone who had. Later, there would be recriminations, refusals to believe, and threats of revenge over the innocent fallen, but for now it was mostly just grief that moved through the crowd, over friends and family murdered long ago by Shub so that their bodies could serve as traitors.

And just when everyone thought the worst was over, a viewscreen formed in midair, showing General Beckett. He’d used his considerable authority to force contact, even past the current level of security. He glared out of the screen, standing on the bridge of his ship, the flagship of the Imperial Fleet. Beside him stood Half A Man, browbeaten and bullied into joining the Fleet whether he wanted to or not. The House quickly grew quiet again, as everyone gave Beckett their full attention. They knew he wouldn’t have interrupted unless this was vitally important. He and Half a Man had been placed in personal charge of the largest single section of the Fleet left, and sent out to face Shub’s fleet. But they shouldn’t have made contact with the Shub vessels for days yet.

“About time,” said Beckett. “Forget your damned security, this is urgent.”

“What is it, General?” said Robert tiredly. “We’re in the middle of a delicate situation right now ...”

“To hell with your situation! The Recreated are here! They’re only a week or so out from Golgotha! We might be able to slow them down some, but God knows for how long. Send every ship you’ve got to join us. Half the Fleet’s already gone! If you can, try and make a temporary deal with Shub and the Hadenmen; the Recreated are their enemy too. Send more ships! The front line in the war is right here, right now!”

“What about you, Half A Man?” said Robert sharply. “You’re supposed to be our expert on the Recreated. What do you suggest?”

Half A Man seemed distracted, as though trying to listen to two voices at once. “I don’t understand any of this. I should know what to do, but when I look for it in my mind, it isn’t there. Most of my mind ... isn’t there. Memories are missing, and my thoughts slam up against walls I didn’t even know were there. I don’t think I’m who I thought I was.” He looked out of the screen. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I think I’m just the smile on the face of the tiger.”

And then he screamed, horribly, as the energy half of his body ate the human half, consuming the flesh inch by inch until the screams finally stopped because there wasn’t enough left of the lung to support them. The single eye stared mutely out of the half face until it too was gone, and then there was only a spitting and crackling energy shape left on the bridge of the Fleet’s flagship. Its shape was nothing like a man. General Beckett drew his disrupter and shot the thing at point-blank range, but it had no effect. As he stood there, helpless, a voice was heard, on the bridge and in Parliament; a deafening, awful sound, that had nothing human in it.

The energy shape thrust its glowing hand into General Beckett’s chest and ripped out his heart. And even as Beckett’s body slumped to the bloodied deck, the energy shape turned to the control panels and hit the Emergency Destruct, blowing up the flagship. The viewscreen went black, and for a long moment it was very quiet in Parliament ...

They might have got over the shock, and started making some kind of decisions, but the worst wasn’t over yet. There was a frenzied pounding on the closed and locked main doors, from the other side. Heads slowly turned to look, and Robert gestured to the nearest guards to unlock the doors. They did so, and Toby Shreck came storming in with Flynn at his heels.

“We know who the carrier is for the nano plague!” he shouted immediately. “The name was in Gutman’s files! It’s Daniel Wolfe!”

And Daniel Wolfe, who had escaped detection by the espers because he honestly didn’t know he was a traitor, screamed the howl of the damned as his memories came crashing back, and he remembered his trip to Shub, and what they had down to him there. He remembered his trips to all the other planets Shub had infected, and all the people he’d touched and unknowingly condemned to death. And even as he screamed his sanity away, deeply buried Shub programming took over and sent him running for the open doors, throwing people out of his way. Guards opened fire with bullets and energy blasts, but none of them stopped him, the nanotech within him repairing all his wounds instantly. In a moment he was gone, and only the vestige of his despairing screams remained, echoing around the silent Parliament.

CHAPTER THREE

Captain John Silence sat slumped in his command chair on the bridge of the
Dauntless,
studying the enigmatic image of the planet Zero Zero on the main viewscreen, and felt very much like throwing something heavy and sharp-edged at the screen. The
Dauntless
had been heading toward the Rim, and then the Darkvoid, until a last-minute course change from Parliament had brought them here; to the one planet in the Empire possibly more dangerous than the endless night of the Darkvoid. Zero Zero; the planet no one comes home from. Under strict Quarantine for centuries, ever since the nanotech got loose. There could be anything down there. Anything at all. Parliament hoped there was a cure for the nano plague, and had sent Silence and his crew to look for it. No one asked what they thought about it. Silence sniffed sourly, and dug into his bowl with his chopsticks. He didn’t normally eat on the bridge—it encouraged sloppiness and divided attention—but he couldn’t risk leaving the bridge now they were actually here. The planet looked quite pretty from orbit, like a pastel-colored rose with hidden poisonous thorns. Silence chewed manfully at his reconstituted meal, and tried hard not to think what it was reconstituted from. It was better than protein cubes, but only just.

Zero Zero, a planet so dangerous even Shub stayed well clear of it. The place where Empire science had been allowed to run mad, meddling with the wellsprings of creation itself. But Silence and his crew had a reputation for dealing with impossibly dangerous situations and surviving, and when all was said and done they were still considered expendable, so here they were. There should have been another starcruiser here, standing guard to enforce the Quarantine, but with ships at a premium it had long ago been called away to fight in the war. Current thinking was that anyone stupid enough to land on Zero Zero deserved every extremely unpleasant thing that happened to them. Silence had already decided not to risk any more than the smallest practical landing party. Too bad he had to be one of them.

“Captain! Picking up signs of two unidentified craft in high orbit,” said his new comm officer, Morag Tal. She was tall and blond, sharp and intelligent and eager to please. She also seemed impossibly young, but then a lot of his crew seemed that way to Silence. Possibly because most of the old familiar faces had died on one impossible mission or another, or been posted to where their experience could be better used. And since there were no experienced replacements anymore ... Silence realized his thoughts were drifting, and made himself pay attention as the comm officer put the new images up on the viewscreen. “A golden Hadenman vessel, and a Shub ship, Captain,” said Tal, unnecessarily. “Low-level shields hid them until we were practically on top of them. No hostile reactions as yet.”

“Run full sensor scans,” said Silence. “And you can try raising them on the comm, though I doubt they’ll talk to us. I’m mostly interested in why they haven’t already opened fire on us.”

“Shall I put the ship on Full Alert?”

“Not yet. If they were going to cause trouble, they’d have done it by now. Shub and the Hadenmen ... Any signs they’ve been fighting each other?”

“Sensor scans complete, Captain.” Morag Tal frowned at the information scrolling down the screen before her. “No signs of any external damage. Energy levels are very low; probably running on automatic systems only. No power to their weapon systems ... and no life signs. None at all. Neither ship responding to comm inquiries. It seems likely both ships are deserted.”

Silence raised an eyebrow, and put his meal to one side. “Interesting. If they haven’t been fighting, what could have happened that was so bad they had to abandon ship for the dubious safety of Zero Zero?”

“Insufficient evidence as yet, Captain.”

“That was a rhetorical question, Tal. All right; if there are Hadenmen down there, and Shub agents, the sooner we get dirtside the better. Comm officer; locate Investigator Carrion, and have him report to the briefing lounge.”

“Aye, sir.” The comm officer’s voice was carefully calm and neutral. No one on the
Dauntless
crew had any time for the traitor and outlaw Carrion, even if he had been officially Pardoned, but no one was dumb enough to show it openly. Silence tended to have very sharp and unpleasant ways of dealing with any discourtesies to his old friend. It was surprising how many toilets there were that always needed cleaning on a ship the size of the
Dauntless.
Especially when you were only issued with a toothbrush.