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  Careful inspection established that the drive container was only held in place by several large steel bolts screwed into the steel floor. Moon had no tools with him, so he just seized the bolt heads with his powerful fingers and unscrewed them manually. The last bolt was the most reluctant, and in the end he just ripped it out, stripping the thread as he did. He tossed the bolt to one side, leaned over the drive container, and tried to lift one end. It didn't budge an inch. Moon tried a firmer grip around the middle, and that was when it all went horribly wrong.

  The drive was impossibly heavy, much heavier than its size suggested. It was like trying to pick up a mountain. Moon braced himself, and called on all his Maze-given strength. His back creaked, and his arms felt as though they were being pulled out of their reinforced sockets. The container shifted slowly, ponderously. Moon strained against the impossible weight, sweat running down his impassive face. The drive began to rise from the floor, and the energies surrounding it went mad. They flared up, brilliant and blinding, and Moon flinched back despite himself. His foot slipped on the smooth metal floor, and for a split second he lost his balance. And that was all it took. The drive container rolled toward Moon with all the inevitability of an avalanche, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The container slammed against him, knocked him off his feet, and then rolled up his legs, pinning him in place. Moon's mouth stretched wide at the pain. It felt like the whole world was resting on his legs. He beat at the steel container with his fists, but couldn't budge it. He was trapped. Moon let out a howl of sheer frustration.

  He clamped down on his emotions, and was once again the cold logical Hadenman. He had to think of a way out of this. There was always a way, if you thought hard enough. The container was too heavy for him to move with his hands alone; perhaps leverage would help. Owen had once said Give me a big enough lever, and I'll beat the bloody problem into submission. Moon looked around him for a suitable lever, but there was nothing in reach, and he couldn't move an inch. He'd already lost all feeling in his legs, and he thought he could hear the muffled sounds of his leg bones cracking under the unbearable pressure. There had to be a way…

  He heard sounds to one side, and looked round to see Sister Marion making her way carefully through the passage he'd made earlier. She stopped to pull free part of her robe that had caught on a sharp edge, and Moon called out to her urgently.

  "Don't come any closer, Sister! Turn around and go back. There's nothing you can do. It's not safe for anything human in here!"

  "I heard you cry out," said Sister Marion calmly, moving forward again. "Thought you might have got yourself into some trouble."

  "I'm trapped here. The stardrive is much heavier than it appears. I am a Maze-adapted Hadenman, and even I am unable to move it."

  Sister Marion stopped and considered this. "Should we send for the Deathstalker?"

  "I don't think I could survive the time it would take," said Moon. "The drive's energies are even more dangerous than we expected."

  "Then you really do need my help," said the Sister, moving forward again to join him. She took off her tall hat in the confined space and placed it carefully to one side before leaning over to study the drive casing, and how it was holding Moon in place. She was careful not to touch anything. "Hmmm," she said finally. "Maybe we could work up some kind of hoist, or winch, and lift the thing off you."

  "I fear it's too heavy for anything you could construct," said Moon. "I believe most of its mass may be extradimensional in nature. Please, Sister. You must leave this ship immediately. There are forces here that will kill you."

  "I can't leave you like this," said Sister Marion flatly. "Besides, I've got an idea. I brought some explosives with me, just in case. They're all shaped charges. If I set them on the underside of the casing, they should blow it right off you. Don't know what the blast will do to your legs, but I've seen you Maze people heal impossible damage. You want to try it?"

  Moon considered the matter coldly. He was fairly sure he would survive the blast in some form, and he didn't have any other ideas. He just hoped Owen appreciated what it cost to get him his drive. "Go ahead," he said finally. "But be sure to allow sufficient time for you to reach a safe distance."

  "Teach your grandmother to suck eggs," said Sister Marion, which baffled Moon somewhat. He took the explosive charges from her as she dug them out of her voluminous pockets, and together they applied the charges to the underside of the drive container, setting the timers for a five-minute delay. Sister Marion took to shaking her head, as though bothered by something, and her concentration slipped more than once. Finally she stopped and leaned on the drive casing, one hand at her forehead.

  "Lights," she said thickly. "There are lights in my head. And a sound…"

  "The ship's energies are affecting you," said Moon. "Give me the last of the charges, and you get out of here. Quickly. While you still can."

  Sister Marion shook her head angrily, and her eyes snapped back into focus. "Almost finished. Just a few more… Oh hell. The timers. Something's happened to the timers!"

  Moon realized what had happened and threw up his arms to protect his face, as all the charges went off at once, their timers corrupted by the drive's energies. The combined blast lifted the drive off Moon's legs and slammed him back against the wall behind him. He could feel things tear and break within him. The explosion picked up Sister Marion and threw her all the way back down the metal passage and out of the ship, like a rag doll in a hurricane. She didn't even have time to cry out. The drive slowly began to roll back toward Moon. His lower half was completely numb and useless, but he used his arms to pull himself along the floor and out of the way. He kept going, dragging himself slowly along the metal passage, leaving a thick trail of blood behind his shattered legs. Internal sensors were bombarding him with damage reports, but since none of them were immediately vital, he ignored them as he ignored the pain, concentrating only on getting outside, so he could see what had happened to Sister Marion.

  Outside the ship, the lepers were gathered around a tattered bloody object. Moon crawled out of the rent in the outer hull, and dropped to the clearing floor. Two of the lepers came over to him, and he asked them to bring him to whatever was left of Sister Marion. She was still alive, but it only took one look for Moon to know she wouldn't last long. Her broken arms and legs were barely attached to her body, and she was breathing harshly, every inhalation an effort. Moon had the two lepers set him down beside her. She rolled her eyes to look at him. For the first time since he'd known her, she looked small and fragile and very human.

  "I'm sorry. Sister," said Moon. "I'm so sorry."

  "Don't feel guilty, my son. I was dying anyway. Better this way than what I had waiting for me."

  "Lie still. I'll send the others for help."

  "I'd be dead long before they got back. You're supposed to have been there, Tobias. What's it like; being dead?"

  "Restful."

  "Bugger," said Sister Marion. "I'll hate it." She stopped breathing, and as simply as that it was all over. No last death rattles or convulsions, no dramatics. Just one brave soul going to meet her Maker, probably to ask him some pointed questions. Moon was surprised to find himself crying, the tears mixing with the rain running down his face. He finally understood what tears were for, and damned the knowledge. He reached out and closed the sister's staring eyes.

  The lepers built a stretcher for Moon out of the loose vegetation. He could feel the healing process beginning within him, but he had no way of knowing how long it would take, or how much of his body could be repaired. Rather than think about that, he considered the problem of transporting the stardrive, and finally came up with an answer. He linked with the Red Brain again, and together they used the slow implacable strength of the surrounding jungle to reach inside the crippled ship and drag the drive out inch by inch. The explosion hadn't even scratched the container. Vegetation spun a thick cocoon around the drive container, and began slowly transporting it back to the M
ission, passing the burden on from one mass of plants to the next. The lepers took it in turns to carry Moon's stretcher. They left Sister Marion's body where it lay.

  Back in the Mission infirmary, Mother Superior Beatrice had her hands full of something disgusting. Saint Bea was dissecting one of the dead Grendels. Owen watched from a respectful distance, and did his best to keep his dinner down where it belonged. He'd never thought of himself as squeamish before, but there was something especially repulsive about the multicolored shapes crammed inside the Grendel's scarlet silicon armor. The damned thing had been dead two weeks now, and bits of its insides were still twitching. In fact, when Saint Bea had first opened the alien up with a carefully angled disrupter beam, Owen had half expected a length of putrid green innards to leap up out of the gap and strangle her. Instead, the thing just lay where it was and smelled revolting. Owen hoped that whatever it was he'd had for dinner, it didn't taste as bad coming up as it had going down.

  "Here," said Saint Bea, offering Owen something far too blue and slippery for its own good. "Hold this for a moment, would you?"

  "Not even for one second," said Owen firmly. "The good Lord put our insides inside for very good reasons."

  "The good Lord didn't have anything to do with creating this," said Mother Beatrice, dropping the blue bits into a nearby bucket, where they made plaintive sucking noises. "There's nothing natural about the Grendels. They were gengineered."

  Owen leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. "Are you sure?"

  "As sure as I can be with the limited tech at my command. I've studied the interiors of a dozen partially destroyed Grendels, and this dissection just confirms what I suspected. The signs are all the same. They've got multiple redundancies in all systems, a frighteningly efficient mass/energy ratio basis, and organs from at least half a dozen different and unconnected species, held together with bioengineered linking materials. This creature didn't evolve; it was designed. And if I'm reading my instruments correctly, this thing started out as one species, and was then transformed at a later stage into what you see now."

  Owen frowned, running through what he remembered of the planet Grendel, and the infamous Vaults of the Sleepers. "No wonder we never found any trace of the planet's original inhabitants. They must have all made themselves over into Sleepers, and then sealed their Vaults behind them. Waiting… for some enemy to come and find them." Owen looked at Saint Bea. "What could be so dangerous, so frightening, that a whole sentient species would turn themselves into mindless killing machines?"

  "Can't be the Hadenmen or Shub," said Saint Bea, rooting around in the Grendel's innards with both hands. "The Vaults predated their appearance by centuries. And the insect aliens wouldn't have lasted five seconds against the Grendels. So who does that leave?"

  "The Recreated?" said Owen.

  "Whoever or whatever they are." Saint Bea straightened up, withdrawing her dripping hands with a loud sucking noise. She wiped her hands on a cloth, and then dropped that into the bucket with the innards. "I always thought the Grendels were too bad to be true. This… makes a mockery of God's creation. They destroyed their own moral sense, their ability to choose between good and evil, purely in the name of survival."

  "Maybe they had no choice," said Owen. "Maybe they did it to protect whatever species came after them; sacrificing themselves for the greater good. Don't judge them too harshly, Mother Beatrice. We don't know what kind or depth of evil they had to face. Hard times make for hard choices."

  Saint Bea snorted. "Things have come to a pretty pass, if you're lecturing me on tolerance."

  Owen smiled despite himself. "Well, thanks for inviting me to your little show and tell, Mother Beatrice. It has been truly revolting. Let's not do this again sometime."

  Saint Bea shrugged. "Brought you out of yourself a bit, didn't it?"

  "Very nearly literally. I think on the whole I'd rather be miserable."

  The door behind them crashed open, and a leper lurched in, concealed as always inside the gray cloak and pulled-forward hood. But this figure was barely five feet tall, and moved like some inner gyroscope had been jarred irretrievably from its proper mount. A hand with only three fingers left and slate gray skin emerged from inside the gray cloak and saluted Owen, before quickly disappearing back inside again. The leper hawked and spat, and something juicy hurtled out of the hood and splashed on the infirmary floor. When the figure began speaking, its voice was a curious mixture of accents and timbres.

  "Lord Owen the Great, there is message for you at comm center. Most urgent and imperative, and critical too. Word is, I is to bring you to center immediately, for details and shouting at. You come now, or I is turning you into small hoppity thing. Why you still standing there?"

  Owen blinked a few times, and then looked at Saint Bea, who nodded calmly at the small belligerent figure. "Thank you, Vaughn. Straight to the point, as always. Go with him or her, Owen. I think you're going to want to hear this message."

  The figure inside the cloak sneezed moistly, and made gurgling noises, swaying impatiently all the while.

  "Him or her?" said Owen.

  "Vaughn has never volunteered that information," said Saint Bea. "And so far, no one has ever felt sufficiently motivated to investigate further. Now, off you go to the comm center, both of you. Hop like bunnies!"

  "I does not hop!" said Vaughn haughtily. "I has my dignity to consider, not to mention missing toes. Move it, Deathstalker, or I show you where I got warts."

  "Lead on," said Owen. "I'll be right behind you. Well, maybe not right behind you, but I'll be able to see you from where I am."

  "Lot of people say that," said Vaughn.

  When they finally reached the comm center, there was a message waiting for Owen from the captain of the approaching courier ship. Apparently he had a most urgent communication for the Deathstalker, from Parliament. The ship would be landing in a few hours, and Owen was instructed to be there on the landing pad, waiting for him. Perhaps wisely, the captain had refused all further communication. Owen seethed at the imperious nature of the command, but made himself concentrate on the possibility of finally getting off Lachrymae Christi. He badgered the comm center staff for details on the ship and its crew, but all they had was the captain's name, Joy In The Lord Rottsteiner, and the name of the ship, Moab's Washpot.

  Owen gave the comm officer a hard look. "Moab's Washpot? What the hell kind of name is that for a starship?"

  "Is old Church name," said Vaughn, getting the comm officer off the hook. He or she was still hanging around the comm center, despite increasingly unsubtle suggestions that she or he must be needed somewhere else. "Captain sound like hard-core old Church too. Top-grade fanatic and major pain in ass for all other sentients, and any other living thing not get out of way fast enough. Thinks hangings are too lenient, and approves of floggings. Twice a week, around at his place."

  "I know the kind," said Owen. "I thought Saint Bea had rooted most of his kind out of her reformed Church. And what's he doing, carrying messages from Parliament, in a Church ship?"

  "Why you asking me?" demanded Vaughn, looking up from inspecting the contents of a trash basket. "I look like mind reader? I not esper! Spit on esper, and other things too! I is Imperial wizard, third dan, seven subpersonalities, no waiting; unpleasant curses of an appalling nature a specialty. Run big-time protection racket, until dripping rot set in, and they send me here, to this dog's bum of a world. I know secrets of universe, and those before this one. Bend over and I'll cure your warts."

  "I don't have any warts," said Owen.

  "You want some?"

  It was a long two and a half hours until Moab's Washpot finally fought its way through the weather and touched down on the planet's sole landing pad, just to one side of the Mission. Owen had tried everything up to and including open threats to get rid of Vaughn, but he or she was still there at Owen's side as he stood waiting on the pad in the rain for the ship's captain to make an appearance. During his long wait, Owen had
made inquiries about the diminutive figure, and discovered that Vaughn had originally been a major league esper, until he or she had an epiphany in one of the back rooms of the House of Joy, and declared him- or herself a sorcerer. Basically, Vaughn had whatever powers she or he thought he or she had, because no one could convince Vaughn otherwise. Owen suggested the leprosy might have unhinged him, but apparently Vaughn had always been weird.

  Owen decided he didn't want to think about that, and concentrated on the ship as it stood steaming in the pattering rain. It wasn't much of a craft; barely the size of his late lamented Sunstrider II. Probably only had a nominal captain, and a few crew to do the scut work. Fast mover, though. Parliament wouldn't have bothered commandeering a slow ship, not for a direct message. Owen smiled grimly. The message would have to be pretty damned important to divert one of Parliament's couriers from his war duties, and Owen had a strong feeling he didn't want to hear it. He couldn't afford distractions now. All that mattered was getting off this planet, and going after Hazel.

  The ship's airlock finally cycled open, amid a long hiss of equalizing pressures, and Captain Joy In The Lord Rottsteiner stepped out onto the landing pad. He glared disdainfully about him into the rain, and then glared even more disdainfully at Owen. He was almost seven feet tall, supernaturally thin, and looked like he'd sway on his feet in even the mildest of breezes. His long face was all bones and harsh planes, dominated by a beaked nose you could open cans with. His eyes were deep set and very dark, and his mouth was set in a grim line. He dressed all in drab black, unadorned save for the bright red sash that marked him as an official representative of Parliament. He looked Owen up and down and sniffed superciliously. Owen just knew they weren't going to get along.

  The Captain strode forward to stand before Owen. He held his nose up high, the better to look down it at Owen, and ignored Vaughn completely.

  "I bear Parliament's word," said Joy In The Lord Rottsteiner, in a harsh growly sort of voice. "I speak for Humanity."