Ghostworld (Deathstalker Prelude) (15 page)

“Elaine,” said Silence. “You never met her, Sean. You would have liked her. She was bright and funny and very lovely. She died in an attack-ship ambush, out by the Horsehead Nebula. They never found the body, but we held a funeral for her anyway. I miss her, Sean. I miss her so much.”

The door handle rattled. Silence looked at the closed door, and then at Diana. Carrion clutched his arm tightly.

“John, Diana—don’t do this. The more real you allow your past to become, the more power it has over you. You’re in control now, but it won’t last. Everything that ever made an impression on you, for good or bad, is in here with you. For the moment, all the things that frightened and hurt you are safely locked away behind closed doors, but once you lose control, the doors will start opening. And then, it won’t be Elaine rattling the door and wanting to come in. John, talk to her, dammit. Convince her. You said yourself that Elaine’s been dead for five years. What do you think is out there? At best, you’re faced with an eternity of child’s games and charades. At worst, you’re facing an eternity with a woman you know is dead.”

Silence looked at the door again then back at Diana. She smiled at him serenely.

“Diana, we can’t stay here. You have to come with me now.”

“No. We’re going to be together again. For ever and ever and ever.”

“Diana …”

“Something happened,” said Diana. “I don’t remember what, and I don’t want to. I’d rather die than remember.”

“No!” said Silence. “Diana, please. Listen to me. We need you. I need you. I’ve been alone so long. … I’ve got to go. Please, don’t leave me alone again.”

She looked at him steadily. No sound came from beyond the door. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath. Diana reached out and took Silence by the hand.

“Look after me,” she said softly. “Keep me safe. Promise.”

“I promise,” said Silence, forcing the words past a lump in his throat. “I’ll never let anything hurt you again.” He took her in his arms, and she hugged him tightly, her face buried in his chest. Silence looked at Carrion, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Get us out of here, Sean.”

A new light filled the room, bright and blinding, washing away all details in its glow, and then it faded away and they were back in the corridor on Level Three. Back in another labyrinth, with a different Minotaur, held together by newly discovered love. Carrion hoped it would be enough.

“All right,” said Silence. “This is the plan. It’s very simple. Simple plans are always the best, because that way there are less things to go wrong. Diana, you’re going to use your esp to contact the alien. The thing itself, the beast in the shell; whatever it was that first came here from the crashed ship. You’re going to act as bait, to draw the alien out from wherever it’s hidden itself. It’ll come to you, because it perceives you as a threat. Your esp makes you especially dangerous, and it knows that. You don’t have anything to worry about; Investigator Frost will be with you. She’ll keep both of you alive, and the alien distracted, while Carrion and I track down the heart of the system it’s built here. There has to be a centre, a place that holds everything together. Destroy that and the alien will be isolated and much more vulnerable to attack.

“Carrion will use his psionic invisibility to keep the alien from knowing what’s happening till it’s too late; once we’ve broken the connection between the alien andthe Base, Frost should have no trouble in dealing with it. But Diana, you must understand that once we’ve started this, we have to finish it. You can’t disappear behind your psionic invisibility, and hide; you’re the bait. You have to hold its attention while Carrion and I destroy the heart. You’ll be in no real danger. Frost will protect you.”

“Damn right,” said the Investigator. “Never met an alien I didn’t kill.”

Diana nodded jerkily. “I understand, Captain. Let’s do it.”

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift up and out. The Base roared around her in a thousand voices, some human, some not. The human components of the alien system were still alive, though their minds or what was left of them now followed alien paths. Diana concentrated on blocking out the babbling voices one by one, searching for the dominating alien presence at the centre of its web, It found her first, blazing in her thoughts, but she held her ground and kept the alien firmly at the edges of her mind. She felt its interest in her grow as she continued to hold it at bay, and its thoughts crawled across her shields like worms across her face. Its probes grew stronger and more threatening, but Diana had been trained to withstand far worse.

Her confidence increased as she realized the alien wasn’t really that strong in itself; its true strength lay in the shell it had built around itself, in its domination of the living components of its web. Diana shut out every other voice, concentrating on the alien, showing it her strength. Its thoughts seethed at the edges of her mind, dark and complex and utterly inhuman. Try as she might, its thought processes made no sense at all. Diana concentrated on projecting a single message.
If you want me, you’re going to have to come and get me yourself. Your web can’t see me, and if you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you. And I’ll destroy you
. The alien broke contact sharply, and Diana dropped back into her head and opened her eyes. The others lookedat her questioningly, and she nodded firmly, trying hard to look professional and in command of the situation.

“It knows where I am. You’d better get moving, Captain. It’ll be here soon.”

Silence smiled and nodded. “Just give me a direction, Diana.”

Diana projected the map overlay the AI had given them of Level Three, and indicated their position and that of the centre of the web. Silence and Carrion acknowledged the information, and Diana broke contact. Silence waited patiently while Diana familiarized herself with the new lamp the Investigator had found, and then he and Carrion set off down the corridor, their lamp bobbing along above them like an oversized will-o’-the-wisp. Diana and Frost stood together a moment, awkward in each other’s company, and then the Investigator sat down on the floor, drew her sword, and laid it across her knees.

“Might as well make ourselves comfortable, while we wait for the alien to put in an appearance. I take it your esp will give us plenty of warning?”

“Of course, Investigator.” Diana hesitated, and then sat down beside Frost. It didn’t feel particularly comfortable, but it was good to get off her feet for a while. “So what do we do now, Investigator? Just wait?”

“Pretty much. Nothing we can do till the alien gets here. Relax. Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”

“What do you suppose it’ll look like?” Diana asked hesitantly. “I’ve never seen an alien. In the flesh, as it were.”

“Could be anything,” said Frost easily. “None of this fits in with anything I’ve ever seen before. Probably really ugly. Most of them are, to our eyes. Don’t let it worry you. As soon as it shows up, I’ll blow a hole through it with my disrupter, and then you can help me cut it up into bite-sized pieces. No problem.”

“How can you be so calm, so confident?” Diana asked. “This creature slaughtered every living thing in the Base, and then tore their corpses apart to fashion them into a living computer network. This isn’t some rogue animal we’re dealing with; it’s a powerful, sophisticated entity, and it’s heading right for us.”

“I’m an Investigator,” said Frost. “I’m trained to deal with situations like this. Are you scared, Diana?”

“Yes,” said the esper. “Yes, I am.”

“That’s good. Being scared will give you an edge. It gets the adrenalin pumping, and sharpens your reflexes.”

“Are you scared?”

“I suppose so, in my way. Investigators don’t really have emotions, just pale echoes of what we remember as emotions. Our training sees to that.”

Diana nodded. “Training. The usual Empire euphemism for mind control. They started my training when I was six years old. When to use my power, and when not to. Who to use it for. And right from the beginning it was made clear to us that if we didn’t learn thoroughly or quickly enough, we’d be killed. The Empire won’t tolerate rogue or uncontrollable espers. Six years old is a hell of a time to be made aware of your own mortality. But it does give you a strong sense of perspective. In the end, all that really matters is following orders.

“They experimented for a time with mind-control implants, but they couldn’t develop one that didn’t interfere with esper functions, so they settled for good old-fashioned psychological conditioning. I’ve been trained about as thoroughly as anyone can be, without an actual lobotomy.”

There was a pause as they sat quietly together, not looking at each other.

“My training started at about the same age,” said Frost slowly. “In learning to outthink alien minds, we give up a lot of what it means to be human. Things like emotions, conscience, companionship. Our training produces warriors, perfect killing machines to serve the glory of the Empire. I don’t feel much of anything anymore except when I’m fighting. I’ve had lovers, but I never loved any of them. I have no friends, no family, nothing but the job. Still, if nothing else, it is an extremely interesting job.”

“Is that all you have?” said Diana. “Just the job and the killing?”

Frost shrugged. “It’s enough. You can’t expect too much out of life, esper. You should know that.”

Diana smiled briefly. “You know, we’re more alike than I thought. You deal in death and I deal with life, but really we’re two sides of the same coin. We both had our childhoods taken away from us, and had our lives shaped into something those children could never have understood. And we’ll both probably die serving the people who destroyed our lives in the first place.”

Frost shook her head. “No, esper, you don’t understand me at all. I like being what I am, what they made me. I’m strong and I’m fast, and there’s nothing and no one that can stand against me. I’m the most perfect fighting machine you’ll ever see. I’ve been responsible for the destruction of whole alien civilisations, and killed men and creatures with my bare hands. It’s only when I’m fighting and killing that I feel really alive. It’s like a drug you never grow tired of. You can’t know how it feels, esper—to know you’re the best. I’m the ultimate expression of the Empire, the personification of its strength and purpose. And all I had to give up to achieve it was a few weak emotions that would only have got in the way of my work.

“It’s different for you. You take no pride in being an esper. Probably give it up tomorrow, if you could. To be normal. I won’t give up what I am, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to take it away from me. You think too much, esper. It gets in the way. Life’s so much simpler without conscience or emotions to complicate things.”

Diana looked at her steadily. “Everything else has been taken away from me; I won’t give them up too. I’d rather die.”

“You may get your chance,” said Frost, looking down the corridor into the darkness. “Something’s coming.”

The Investigator rose to her feet in one graceful movement and stood listening, sword at the ready. Diana scrambled unelegantly to her feet and looked wildly about her. The alien couldn’t be here already. It couldn’t. Her esp would have picked it up long before this. Unless it too knew the art of psionic invisibility. In which case, things were about to get rather interesting.

Frost slapped the metal bracelet on her left wrist, and her force shield sprang into existence on that arm—a palely glowing rectangle of pure energy, humming loudly on the quiet. Diana raised her esp and reached out tentatively. The Base was silent, with none of the babbling voices she’d heard earlier. The alien had put up shields. Diana retreated quickly into her own mind, and set up her own wards. Theoretically, they should be able to stand off any psionic attack, up to and including a mindbomb, but she’d never tested her shields in actual conflict before. Hopefully, the alien didn’t know that. She glanced across at Frost, and was silently reassured by the Investigator’s obvious professionalism and competence. A thought struck her.

“Investigator, if the alien is coming, wouldn’t you be better off with your disrupter than your sword?”

“No,” said Frost calmly. “A sword’s more versatile. You can have the gun, if you want.”

“No thanks,” said Diana. “I don’t believe in them.”

“Suit yourself,” said Frost, a shrug clear in her voice. “Whatever’s out there, it’s close. I can feel it. I’m impressed. I didn’t think anything could get that close to me without my knowing.”

“Psionic invisibility,” said Diana. “No way you could have known.”

“That shouldn’t have made any difference,” said Frost. “I am an Investigator, after all. Are you picking up anything?”

“Not much. Something’s coming, and it’s not alone. I don’t think it’s the alien.” She looked unhappily at Frost. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think the alien’s here at all. It’s still hanging back. It’s sent something else in its place. Stand ready, Frost. They’re almost here.”

“Relax, esper.” The Investigator swept her sword casually back and forth before her, smiling easily. “Nothing’s going to get to you while I’m here. Though you could at least activate your force shield. There’s no point in making it easy for them. You’re here as bait, not a sacrifice.”

Diana blushed, and slapped her bracelet. The low hum of the force shield was very reassuring. She and the Investigator stood quietly together, listening. And then the soft patter of running feet came clearly to them out of the darkness, and Diana and Frost braced themselves as their enemy finally emerged into the light.

They’d been human once, before the alien absorbed them into its system. Now they were something else, roughly human in shape, but refashioned to meet the alien’s needs. They were crooked and malformed, with running flesh congealed on their frames like melted wax on a candle. Some had no skin, the red muscles shining wetly in the lamplight, their tendons twitching with every movement. Bunches of cilia waved from empty eye sockets, and mouths held needle teeth. Muscles bulged impossibly, beyond restraint or reason. The twisted faces were inhumanly blank, indifferent to thought or emotion. The alien had reworked them for its own reasons, and if there was any humanity left in them, it was buried deep, where it wouldn’t interfere.