Deathstalker (57 page)

“So that’s the Last Standing of your ancestor, Owen,” said Hazel. “I’m impressed. How the hell did he manage to build something like that on a planet like this?”

“It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting,” Owen admitted. “He must have had help of some kind.”

“Right,” said Random. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the boundaries of this clearing are extremely distinct. Which suggests it was probably cut using energy weapons. Still doesn’t explain where he found all that stone, though.”

“Must have a quarry somewhere,” said Owen.

“Then who worked in it?”

They stared at the castle in silence for a while.

“The force shield’s another complication I wasn’t expecting,” said Owen. “The only way to lower a shield like that is from the inside, and we’ve no guarantee there’s any living soul left in there. Since the shield’s still up, I think we can safely assume there’s some degree of automation. Computers running things on a low priority basis.”

“Must have an amazing power source in there,” said Hazel, “to be still running things after all these years.”

“Unless somebody else got here first,” said Ruby.

They all considered that.

“The beasts of the jungle acted like they’d encountered energy weapons before,” said Moon. “And they stopped bothering us the closer we got to the castle and the clearing. If the Empire got here first …”

“Then we’re in real trouble,” said Random.

“Nothing could beat my ship here,” said Owen.

“Only one way to find out,” said Ruby, and she stepped out into the clearing, gun in one hand, sword in the other. Two bright glows appeared in windows on either side of the great door. Hazel threw herself at Ruby and knocked her to the ground, and two disrupter beams flashed through the air where she’d been standing and incinerated the trees behind her. They burned fiercely for a moment, and then the flames
died down and flickered out. The charred wood smoked gently.

“Tough trees,” said Moon.

“Like everything else on this planet,” said Owen. “You girls all right?”

“We are not girls,” said Hazel.

“That’s for sure,” said Random.

Hazel dragged Ruby back into the shelter of the trees and helped her to her feet. Ruby didn’t even nod her thanks, her cold eyes fixed on the castle. The two glows on either side of the door were still there. Ruby raised her gun and then lowered it again.

“Top of the line force shield,” said Owen. “Lets energy beams out without having to drop the field first. Must use a hell of a lot of power to cover something that large. Certainly we haven’t got any weapon that’ll bother it.”

“I think we can safely assume that whoever’s in there, they’re not feeling friendly,” said Hazel, brushing grass and insects from her clothes.

“I don’t know,” said Random. “Those had the feel of warning shots. A computerized defense system would have tracked you no matter how fast you moved and kept on firing till it was sure its target had been eliminated.”

“So what do we do next?” said Hazel. “Apart from suicide tactics.” She glared at Ruby, who was still ignoring her.

“Communicate,” said Moon. “People or machines, they might respond to contact.”

“It might also give them something to aim their guns at,” said Hazel.

“She has a point,” said Random.

“We can’t just stand around here,” said Owen. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve nowhere else to go, except the castle. Either we find a way in, or we live in the jungle. Which doesn’t exactly appeal to me. I’m going to go out there unarmed and talk to them. If those are my ancestor’s computers, they might react to me. I am a Deathstalker, after all.”

“You go right ahead,” said Hazel. “Personally, I’m going to find something large to hide behind.”

Owen smiled and couldn’t help noticing she didn’t make a move as he stepped cautiously out into the clearing. He put away his gun and his sword, and held up his hands to show they were empty. He cleared his throat carefully. He didn’t want to be misunderstood.

“I am Owen, first of Clan Deathstalker. I come to you in need and danger and call upon you for sanctuary. I bear my Family’s ring.”

He held the hand forward, so that the castle sensors could get a clear look at it. Sweat was running down his face again, and it wasn’t from the blazing heat of the open clearing. A light appeared in another window, and he had to fight not to flinch. And then all the lights went out, and the force shield snapped off just in front of the door, leaving a clear tunnel open in the shield. Owen blinked and looked back at the others.

“I think that’s an invitation. Let’s move it, before they change their minds. And people, put away your weapons.”

The rest of the party emerged cautiously from the edge of the jungle and took in the break in the force shield as they reluctantly sheathed their weapons.

“That is not possible,” said Random. “You can’t just lower part of a force shield like that. The field would collapse.”

“Impossible or not, it’s there,” said Hazel. “May I suggest we use it before it disappears and leaves us stranded here?”

“Of course,” said Owen. “After you.”

“It’s your Family and your castle,” Hazel said firmly. “After you.”

Owen smiled briefly and walked out into the clearing. He could feel the presence of the force field on either side of him, so close he could have reached out his arms and touched it. Little runs of static moved in his clothes and sparked in his hair. He took a deep breath and kept walking. He could hear the others moving close behind him, but he didn’t turn to look. It might make him appear nervous, and he had a feeling this would be a bad time to appear to be weak. The castle grew bigger the closer he got to it, until it was looming over him like a mountain. The sheer scale of the place, and the massive size of the stone blocks, made his head ache. He couldn’t imagine the army of people and technology it must have taken to build the Last Standing, starting from scratch on a new planet. There were still no lights at any of the windows, no sign of life. He still had the feeling he was being watched. He finally came to a halt before the only door and stared at it thoughtfully: ten feet tall, six feet wide, solid wood studded with some kind of crimson metal, like drops of blood. A disrupter would probably tear
right through it, but it looked like it would stop anything else. The others crowded in around him.

“What do we do now?” said Ruby.

“Knock,” said Random. “Very politely.”

“We may have to,” said Owen. “There’s no handle, or any sensor I can see.”

“Probably doesn’t get many visitors out here,” said Random.

“I don’t want to worry anyone,” said Hazel quietly, “but the force field has reestablished itself behind us. We’re trapped.”

“For someone who didn’t want to worry us, I’d say you’ve managed very well,” said Owen.

“I could break the door down,” said Moon in his grating inhuman voice.

“Thanks for the thought, but no,” said Owen. “The last thing we want to do right now is make a bad impression. Those energy guns are probably still trained on us, and I don’t want whoever’s behind them feeling nervous. If you want to be useful, Moon, try talking to the castle. If there are computers inside the Standing, you might be able to communicate with them.”

Moon nodded and frowned slightly, concentrating. In that moment, much of the humanity went out of the Hadenman’s face, dominated by the blazing golden eyes, and Owen fought down a sudden impulse to shiver. Moon’s face cleared, and he looked at Owen. “Nothing. If there are any computers in there, either they’re not listening or they’re not talking.”

“Show your ring to the sensors again,” said Hazel. “That got a response last time.”

Owen lifted his hand and showed it a little selfconsciously to the windows above the door. No light showed, and he’d started to lower his hand again when suddenly he was somewhere else. There was no warning, or sense of transition; one moment he was standing before the door and the next he was in a great hall, presumably inside the Standing. It stretched away before him, incredibly long and wide, and completely deserted. An army could have drilled in the hall, or a full Clan gathering could have danced in it, but there was no sign of any life save for the lights shining overhead. There was no fire in the great marble fireplace, but the floor had been recently waxed and polished,
and there was no trace of dust anywhere. The others were suddenly in the hall with him, looking almost as confused as he felt.

“What the hell just happened?” said Hazel, one hand dropping to the gun at her side.

“Transfer portal,” said Owen. “I’ve heard about them, but never expected to encounter a working one. They were created centuries ago; instant teleportation between two places to save the aristocracy the bother of actually having to travel from one place to another. They never caught on because of the massive amounts of power involved, and because they were a security nightmare. Then espers came in and replaced them. No power sources required, and a damn sight cheaper to run. The Empire’s always had a fondness for slave labor over machinery. This place must have a hell of a power source hidden away somewhere, if it can still operate a transfer portal after all this time.”

“Nine hundred and forty years,” said Random. “Whoever built this Standing built it to last.”

“I’ve just had a really nasty thought,” Hazel said quietly. “If this place is being run by computers; could it have been taken over by the AIs from Shub? They’re supposed to have all kinds of technology that we don’t.”

“You’re right,” said Owen. “That is a nasty thought. If you have any more like that, feel free to keep them to yourself. Things are tricky enough as it is without us getting paranoid. We’re a long way from Shub, and the last I heard, the Enemies of Humanity were safely tucked away behind an Imperial blockade. Let’s all please concentrate on the matter at hand.”

“You got us in here, Deathstalker,” said Ruby. “What say you lead us to this ancestor of yours? I’ve got a few questions I wouldn’t mind putting to him.”

“All right,” said Owen, trying hard to sound confident. “Follow me.”

He strode off down the great hall, the echoes of his footsteps sounding loud and flat in the silence. The others moved quickly after him, not wanting to be left behind, trying very hard to look casual and unimpressed. Owen allowed his hand to rest quietly near his gun. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to find at his ancestor’s legendary Last Standing, but this wasn’t it. This immense castle wasn’t the last refuge of a desperate man, driven and harried to a
planet light-years from civilization. This was a power base, designed for survival against overwhelming odds; a place to strike back from. But he never had. He had all this power at his command, but instead he chose to hide himself away in stasis, waiting for an awakening that never came. Owen frowned. Presumably the Empire had been just as overwhelming an enemy then as it was now, but Owen had a strong feeling he didn’t have anything like the whole story. He strode on, trying to look confident and unthreatening at the same time. He didn’t want to appear a threat. He was pretty damn sure the Standing had just as many security measures inside as it did outside.

He reached the other end of the hall without incident, stepped through the open door and found himself somewhere else, completely unconnected to the hall. He’d just passed through another transfer portal. It didn’t take Owen and the rest of his party long to discover two important things about the portals. One, every door in the castle was a portal leading somewhere unexpected, and two, you couldn’t go back through the door to wherever you’d just come from. And so the party jumped blindly from room to room, passing ever deeper into the depths of the Last Standing. Owen kept himself oriented with his internal compass, but he had no way of knowing exactly where in the castle he was at any given time. Or how to get out of it. All the rooms were perfectly clean and brightly lit, but with nothing to show they had ever been lived in. Owen became increasingly convinced that they were being watched at all times, but couldn’t spot anything that might have been a sensor. Whoever was controlling the portals apparently had some destination in mind, but where and why remained a mystery.

Owen kept walking and tried very hard to be patient. He had a strong suspicion that even if he had felt like being awkward, it wouldn’t have made any difference. He was in someone else’s hands now, for better or worse. He tried to keep his hand near his gun without being too obvious about it. They passed through room after room, all of them devoid of interest or personality. No fixtures or fittings, no comforts of any kind. Owen became increasingly convinced that no one had ever lived in the castle.

Until finally they came to what Owen immediately thought of as a trophy room. Unlike the other rooms, this one was of a more comfortable size, though its contents
were anything but comforting. A large glass case took up the center of the room, some ten feet square. And in that case, like trophies on display, stood three men in outdated battle armor. They were so still that Owen first thought they were models of some kind, but when he moved forward and pressed his nose against the glass, he quickly became convinced they were real. Their poses were stiff, their faces were blank, and there were bloody holes in their armor.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Hazel said finally. “I thought at first they were in stasis, but there’s no trace of any equipment.”

“They’re preserved in some way,” said Random. “I’d kill for a closer look at them.”

“No problem,” said Moon, and smashed one of the glass sides with his fist.

Owen whirled around, gun in hand, every muscle tensed for an attack that never came. He slowly relaxed and turned back to the Hadenman.

“Moon, if I wanted a heart attack, I’d play Russian roulette with a fully-charged disrupter. Don’t do anything else without checking with me first. You could have set off some kind of security system.”

“We need information,” said Moon, entirely unfazed by the anger in Owen’s voice. He stepped through the wreckage of the glass wall, splinters crunching under his boots, and studied the figures closely. Random moved in quickly after him, followed by Hazel and Ruby. Owen decided he wasn’t doing any good just standing outside on his own, shook his head resignedly and entered the glass case himself. Up close, the three figures looked even more disturbing. Moon prodded one with his finger, and it rocked gently on its feet.