Deathstalker Coda Page 10

  "Right now, that's enough," said Douglas.

  The meeting place turned out to be an abandoned, boarded-up swimming baths, in a grimy, especially rundown area of the Rookery. The chipped and stained walls were covered with sprawling alien graffiti, in a dozen different pictographs. Douglas could read a few of them, and was sure Finn's mother had never done any such thing. Nina was sheltering in the recessed doorway, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Her pink mohawk drooped damply to one side.

  "About time you got here, darlings. This place gives me the creeps, and it's not exactly a salubrious neighborhood. The only reason it isn't crawling with muggers is because something's been eating them, and I don't know what the smell is but I just know it's going to takes ages to get it out of my clothes. And watch where you tread, because things go eek if you don't, and I really hope they're only rats. Nikki Sixteen brought me here, and then couldn't leave fast enough, which tells you all you need to know about this area. Do we really need to be here, Douglas, sweetie?"

  "Yes." Douglas studied the door behind her. The swimming baths had been in a good location once, back when there had still been prosperous places to live in the Rookery. Back then, the baths had been the center of what passed for polite society. And while the building as a whole might be crumbling and the windows boarded over, the main door was a single great slab of veined marble, held shut by heavy lengths of steel chain, with massive padlocks. The padlocks hung open—showing they were expected, if not necessarily welcome—but clearly the aliens took their security very seriously. Douglas gestured for Nina to stand aside, and she stepped reluctantly out into the rain. Stuart moved quickly forward to block Douglas's way.

  "I go first, Douglas. Always. Now you're the leader of the rebellion, I'm a lot more expendable than you are."

  "No one's expendable, Stuart," said Douglas. "That's what the rebellion's all about."

  "I still get to stand between you and all danger, Your Majesty. So hold your ground here, while I open the door and then throw Tel in to check for traps and ambushes."

  "I don't find that at all funny," said Tel. "Does anybody find that funny?"

  "I think it's a bloody good idea," said Nina. "I never trusted you, even when you were just a politician. You've got shifty eyes."

  Stuart pushed the door slowly inwards, and the hanging chains rattled loudly. A cloud of stinking steam wafted out that had them all wincing and pulling faces. The steam curled slowly around them, moist and heavy and unpleasantly warm. It was rank with unfamiliar elements that brought tears to the eye and a nasty taste in the back of the mouth. Stuart braced himself, and stepped forward into the gloom beyond the door. There was an uncomfortably long pause, and then he reappeared again.

  "No one around. The lighting gets better as you go further in, but the steam's everywhere. I'd say it was all clear, but it manifestly isn't. We're being watched, I can feel it. The air smells like the Devil's armpit, but it seems breathable enough. There are freshly daubed signs on the walls to point the way. It's not too late to call this off, Douglas. These aliens have no cause to like or trust humans anymore. Especially not a King who in the end couldn't protect them."

  "That's not fair!" said Nina.

  "Yes, it is," said Douglas. "I was their King too. It was my job to protect them."

  Nina scowled unhappily, and looked back at Stuart. "Nikki said there'd be someone in there waiting to meet us."

  Stuart shrugged. "No sign of anyone. Or anything. Do we go in, Douglas?"

  "Of course," said Douglas. "We need them."

  He allowed Stuart to lead the way back in, but wouldn't let him draw a weapon. Diplomacy first, he said. Funerals after, Nina muttered as she and Tel brought up the rear. The door slammed itself shut behind them, which surprised nobody. The tiled walls ran with moisture, the original patterns and designs mostly worn away. The ceiling dripped constantly, but was still a relief after the driving rain. The tiled floor was covered over with a thin gray slush that might or might not have had a purpose, but made the footing distinctly treacherous. The steam billowed more thickly around them the farther in they went, and left a distinct chemical taste on the back of the tongue. Freshly painted arrows, in what might have been alien blood, pointed the way.

  They splashed carefully along a series of narrow corridors, following the signs and keeping a wary watch on all sides. Stuart insisted on keeping a few yards ahead of the others, so taut now that he was practically vibrating with tension. Douglas made a point of appearing carefree and relaxed. Nina and Tel huddled together for comfort, both clearly wishing they were somewhere else. They began to hear sounds up ahead. Slow, heavy impacts of something large moving ponderously through the corridors. Groans and hootings and strange clicking clacking noises. Splashing sounds, the gurgling of running water, and the steady rush of thick liquids moving through concealed pipes. The steam was getting thicker. And finally they came to what used to be the main swimming area.

  The pool was huge, and full of chemically treated waters, in which swam the larger aliens. In its heyday, it would have taken a thousand human bathers to fill the pool, but now it held barely a hundred large and languorous forms. The steam and the water hid most of their details, for which the humans were frankly grateful. The aliens were large bluish-gray shapes, bulbous and undulating, with long barbed tentacles and rows of great staring eyes. They could never have appeared at Parliament, except as holos. Other aliens shared the waters, drifting slowly here and there and rising up to study their visitors. There were scales and carapaces and slick furs, limbs and tails and protuberances that made no sense at all. Down at the bottom of the pool floated great flowering masses with exaggerated sense organs and trailing roots.

  All the aliens who could tolerate Logres's gravity only if their weight was to some extent supported by the water were in the pool. More species stood watching on the marble floor around the pool—some humanoid, some reptiloid, some fungal, all of them glistening wetly from the steam. And a few shapes so frankly nightmarish even Douglas couldn't stand to look at them for long. Some held edged weapons, some carried energy guns along with a sprinkling of devices that Douglas couldn't even recognize. For a long time, the humans and the aliens just stood and looked at each other.

  "I have never felt so unwelcome in my life," whispered Nina. "And I've been around."

  "You are our guests," said a roughly humanoid shape moving forward through the steam to stand before them. It was covered in overlapping silver scales, like a body armor—even the elongated head. Crimson eyes burned balefully behind the silver helm. "I am Toch'Kra, of the Maggara. I speak for the community. Which one of you is King Douglas?"

  "That would be me," said Douglas, pushing Stuart gently but firmly to one side. "Nice place you have here. Very… moist. Ingenious use of the pool, to help with gravity."

  "The steam helps too," said Toch'Kra. "We pump it full of the elements necessary for our survival. We cannot speak of what it will do to your lungs."

  "It's all right," said Nina. "We're not staying."

  "I was once King," said Douglas. "But Finn stole my throne. Now I am a hunted fugitive like you."

  "Not quite like us, human King. You can at least leave this place, and walk the city. We are trapped here. Once, many of us made up the various alien embassy staffs. We were proud to come here, to Logres, to be part of the great adventure of Empire. We believed we had immunity and protection. Instead, we were hunted down like animals, and those unlucky enough to be caught were butchered, and then eaten or displayed as trophies."

  "I'm sure he'd like to do the same to me, if he could," said Douglas. "We have a common enemy. I'm here to suggest an alliance against him."

  One of the great shapes lurched half up out of the water, made deep hooting noises, and then fell back again. Water surged up over the side of the pool and soaked the legs of the humans. They stood their ground. They knew they couldn't afford to appear weak. Toch'Kra nodded to the shape.

  "He says, what use can we be? Man
y of us are dying, from lack of food and proper trace elements. From your oppressive gravity. From the accumulating effects of a hostile environment. And some are simply withering, so far from home or hope or sanity. Most of the support tech designed to maintain us here had to be abandoned when we fled our embassies. Why have you come to us, human King? You have your own people to fight your battles. Most of us couldn't survive outside these walls."

  "I'm here because you are my people too, and I won't abandon you," said Douglas. "This is your rebellion as much as ours. Finn must be brought down, and the old order returned, and for that I'm going to need all the help I can get. Nina. Nina…"

  "Oh! Yes!" Nina tore her gaze away from the long crooked shape moving slowly across the ceiling, leaving a shiny trail behind it, and concentrated on Toch'Kra. "I'm setting up a rogue news channel and communications site. I'm pretty sure we could punch brief messages through to your home planets. Could they send reinforcements, or other help?"

  "No," said Toch'Kra. "The last reports our embassies received told of human ships quarantining our planets. No one allowed offworld. And there is the constant threat of the transmutation engines. We dare not move openly until Finn's power has been clearly broken. We have learned to be a practical, paranoid people through our contact with Humanity."

  "Don't blame us all for Finn's actions," said Stuart. "I don't think he is human, anymore. If he ever was."

  "Fight beside us," said Douglas. "Set an example for your peoples to follow. Take revenge for what has been done to you. After all, what have you got to lose? Whatever happens in the rebellion, it's got to be better than hiding out here and dying by inches."

  "True," said the alien. "Our life here is not so precious that we are keen to prolong it. But neither will we throw our lives away to no good purpose. We remember you,

  King Douglas. You swore to protect us. You failed. Why should we listen to you now?"

  "Back then, I couldn't even protect myself," said Douglas. "I was just a man on a throne, betrayed by people I had every reason to trust. Things are different now. I have a cause, and an army, and you can be a part of that. Revenge… can soothe many an old hurt."

  The alien studied him for a long moment with its unreadable silver face, and then it turned away to talk with the others, in the pool and out. The untranslated barks and squeals of alien speech filled the steamy air. Eventually Toch'Kra turned back to face the humans.

  "Even if we were willing to fight, what help could we be, when most of us couldn't survive in your environment?"

  Douglas nodded thoughtfully, but inside he was grinning broadly. He had them, even if they didn't know it yet. They'd stopped asking why, and moved on to how. "There is much you can do. There are many places you can go that humans cannot. Service tunnels, sewer access points, waste disposal outlets, and all the other places humans can't survive without heavy tech support. And there are people here in the Rookery who can build you whatever tech support you need, to move around freely. You supply the plans, they'll supply the tech. There are people here who can build anything, especially if it's illegal. So, what do you say? Are you with us?"

  "There are many species here," said Toch'Kra. "We do not all share the same goals, ways, or even the same concepts. Some of us are as alien to each other as we are to you. But we will discuss the matter. Many of us understand, or have learned, the need for revenge. I think, when the discussion is over… we will follow you, King Douglas."

  There wasn't really much left to say after that, so Douglas bowed courteously to Toch'Kra, and then to the pool, and led his people back out of the baths. Behind them rose the sound of loud debate, in a dozen inhuman languages. Nina shuddered briefly.

  "I swear, I will never eat seafood again."

  The great esper Diana Vertue, once known as Jenny Psycho, once dead but now alive again, strode through the streets of the Parade of the Endless as though she owned them, heading for the Rookery. She was broadcasting a powerful telepathic aversion meme, so that everyone else looked everywhere except at her. She passed a gaggle of Church Militant peacekeepers with malice in their eyes, bored and looking for trouble, and Diana was tempted to do something hilariously appalling to them, but decided reluctantly not to. She didn't want to attract attention. Not yet, anyway. The city wasn't how she remembered it at all, and she didn't care for the feel of the streets. There was an overlying pall of gloom, fear, pain, and repression, leaking from a million untutored minds, and yet there was more to it than that.

  Diana stopped by the Victory Gardens, to stand before the statues and graves of Jack Random and Ruby Journey. The statues didn't look much like the people she remembered, but she was used to that. The few representations she'd seen of herself had been nothing short of laughable. She'd never had that big a bust in her life. She sighed quietly, remembering. It had been a long time since she and Jack and Ruby had boarded the old Deathstalker Standing, the ancient stone castle that was also a starship, to go into one last desperate battle against the armies of Shub, and then the massed forces of the Recreated. And a long, long time since she'd found them lying together, stone-cold dead on the cold stone floor, side by side as they had been in life. Forensic evidence suggested they'd murdered each other, but Diana Vertue suppressed that. The people didn't need to know everything about their heroes.

  She smiled briefly. She'd never thought she'd miss the blustering old rogue and the coldhearted bounty hunter, but they had both done amazing things in their time. People these days seemed… smaller, somehow. Less colorful. She concentrated, and a rain of rose petals fell silently upon the statues. And then she looked round sharply as her open mind seemed to catch an echo of an old familiar presence, a sense of power upon the air, not long ago at all.

  "Owen?" she said, wonderingly.

  But of course there was no reply. Owen Deathstalker had been dead and gone these past two hundred years, and the Empire was a lesser place because of it. She'd always admired the Deathstalker, with his honor and his courage and his dry, sardonic wit. She never told him that, of course. She didn't want him to get bigheaded. But after he was gone, she wished… she wished she could have just sat down with him, once, and talked. She liked to think they would have had a lot in common. She missed him; but then, so did everyone.

  She could still remember the powerful inhuman voice, coming from everywhere and nowhere, to tell them all that Owen Deathstalker was dead. Dead, like Jack and Ruby. Hardened soldiers, who'd taken everything Shub could throw at them and never once flinched, had stood around her crying their hearts out for the loss of the one man they'd all revered. The one who'd been the best of them all.

  He'd made the rebellion possible. He'd made winning possible. Even though he'd always known heroes died young and bloody and far from home.

  And yet… his presence seemed to permeate the Victory Gardens, even though he had no grave there. He had been here, and recently. She knew it like she knew her own name. She grinned briefly, her heart rising. She'd found a way back from the dead; maybe he had too. The Deathstalker had always been one for pulling a miracle out of the hat at the last possible moment. She left the Victory Gardens and headed for the Rookery again, and her heart and her step were a lot lighter. She felt better about the day, and her mission. She was going to hook up with Douglas Campbell and lead him back to greatness. He needed her. Even if he didn't know it yet.

  The overpowering pressure of the city's oppressed minds still hung about her like a dark cloud, but Diana Vertue was learning to see through it. Touched and transformed by the Mater Mundi, in her time she had been one of the most powerful esper minds living, and now that she was back her strength was rapidly returning. Strange lights glowed in her mind like paper lanterns with horrible faces. The ELFs, abroad in the long night of the soul. Elf had been a proud name in her time, a force for justice, and Diana hated these new ELFs all the more for making the name an obscenity. She could sense thralls everywhere, human minds suppressed and silently screaming, so the ELFs could run the
ir bodies from a distance. She'd expected that, but the sheer numbers staggered her. She was pretty sure the Emperor Finn didn't know there were this many thralls in his capital city. Maybe she should send him a note.

  It was clear she'd come back from the dead not a moment too soon. The ELFs were spreading their influence, and growing in power. The more people they could control and drain, the more powerful their minds became. Diana had to wonder if Finn knew that, as well. She increased the power of her mental shields, just in case. It wouldn't do to have the enemy know she was back, just yet.

  She paused by the window of a store and studied the display of vidscreens interestedly as the regular (approved by Finn) news channel was shouldered aside by a rogue news broadcast from the Rookery. Nina Malapert's beaming face replaced the meaningless smile of the regular newscaster, and her voice rang out clear and happy and entirely unworried, like a breath of fresh air in a slaughterhouse.

  "Hello again, sweeties! It's Nina Malapert back again, the voice and face of the coming rebellion! Guess what? King Douglas is back, and boy is he ever mad at Finn! Right now the true King is putting together an army that's going to drag that so-called Emperor off his stolen throne, and he wants you to know that things are going to start happening very soon now. Expect open displays of sedition, rebellion, and just plain crankiness all over Logres and especially in the Parade of the Endless. The rebellion is under way, that's official, and you heard it here first! And now, here's a whole bunch of news stories that Finn and his creatures don't want you to know about."