Deathstalker Legacy (21 page)

Brett gaped at him in disbelief. “She
what
?”

“Her sword has a monofilament edge,” said Finn. “Borderline, so the protective energy field wouldn’t show. But you could cut through a starship’s hull with a blade like that. Just the edge she needed. Even Grendel armor has its limits. All Rose had to do was get in close enough, and wear it down, till she got her chance. I’m impressed. Brave
and
smart; an excellent combination. We’ll give her time to heal up in the regen tank and settle down, and then I think we’ll drop in to pay our regards.”

Out on the sands, Rose Constantine held the severed head of the Grendel above her, so that the blood fell down upon her face. She drank the blood, and smiled. Brett shuddered.

“Hell, Finn; even you didn’t do that.”

 

Finn and Brett met with the Wild Rose in her private quarters, deep under the bloody sands. A lot of the full-time gladiators preferred to live there. Arena Security kept them secure from the attentions of the media and the fans, and they liked to be close to their work, among people who understood them. The living quarters tended to have a high turnover rate, for various reasons, but no one ever mentioned that. Rose stayed there because she had nowhere else to go. She lived in a simple cell; four stone walls surrounding a bed, a few sticks of furniture, and precious little else.

She lay back on her bed, utterly relaxed, like a great cat after feasting on its kill, while Finn sat easily on the only chair. His name and reputation had been enough to secure an audience, and the two of them studied each other openly, both of them seemingly fascinated by the other. Brett hovered nervously by the door. He felt safer with an exit close at hand. Entering Rose’s cell had felt very like invading the lair of some wild animal. Seen up close, she was even more disturbing. Like the kind of female that would devour its partner after mating.

She had a stark Gothic sensuality, a horrid attraction, like the allure of the razor’s edge for a man contemplating suicide.

“So,” he said finally, since neither Finn nor Rose seemed interested in breaking the silence. “Is this the best the Board could do for you? No decent furniture, no real comforts? They couldn’t even manage a minibar? You need an agent, Rose.”

“I have everything I need,” said Rose, still looking at Finn. Her voice was deep, but in no way mannish. Calm rather than cold, but empty of any emotion Brett could recognize. “I don’t want anything else. No frills, no comforts; they’re just distractions. Only the Arena can satisfy me. Only when I’m fighting do I really come alive. For me, violence is sex. Murder is orgasm. Lesser pleasures don’t interest me.” She looked at Brett for the first time, and the only thing that kept him from running was the fear that she would chase him. Her dark eyes looked right through him, and found him nothing, nothing at all. Part of him was relieved. “I believe in being honest, but it’s surprising how many people don’t believe the things I tell them. People like me aren’t supposed to exist. But I am what I am, and I delight in it. I’m never happier than when my hands are dripping with the blood of a slaughtered enemy.” She looked back at Finn, and Brett started breathing again. She smiled slightly. “So you’re the Durandal. I saw what you did to those ELFs. I liked it. Got me really hot.”

“Does anybody else find it a trifle close in here?” said Brett.

“It’s a good thing the ELFs didn’t get control of you,” said Finn. If he was at all perturbed over Rose’s words, he didn’t show it. “If they had, we’d have had a real slaughter on our hands.”

Rose shrugged. “I was off duty, resting here. By the time I realized what was going on, Security had panicked and gone into full lockdown. I was trapped here. All I could do was watch it on the communal vidscreen later.”

“You don’t even have your own viewscreen?” said Brett. “What do you do in here, when you’re not . . . on duty?”

Rose smiled. “Mostly I sleep, and dream. Would you like to know what I dream about?”

“Not really, no,” said Brett. “Do you really get off on killing people?”

“Oh yes,” said Rose. “There’s no pleasure like it. Nothing to compare. Of course, I’d prefer it if more of my victims actually stayed dead, but then, you can’t have everything, can you?”

“No,” said Brett. “I mean; where would you put it all?” He knew he was babbling, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Surely you don’t spend all your time down here, do you? Don’t you have friends, lovers . . . a life?”

“Lesser pleasures,” said the Wild Rose, in a calm dismissive voice that made Brett’s blood run cold. “They’re not enough. They don’t satisfy. I don’t care about them. There’s just me, and that’s enough.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Finn, and her eyes immediately snapped back to him. He smiled and leaned forward. “Even the Arena is beginning to lose its thrill, isn’t it? It’s getting harder to find anything worth fighting, and the kills don’t satisfy. You’re beginning to feel the need for a greater challenge.”

“Can you offer me one?” said Rose, sitting up on the bed and hugging her bony knees to her chest.

“Not . . . personally,” said Finn. “Instead, think of this city, this world, this Empire . . . as one big Arena. Think of all Humanity as your foe, your prey. You must go where the challenges are, Rose, or you’ll stop growing. Soon enough the Board will run out of Special Events. How do you top a Grendel? You’ve gone as far as you can here. Come with me, and I’ll find you new opponents, worthy of your mettle. I’ll find you real challenges, give you the chance to kill accomplished people, important people. People who’ll stay dead when you kill them. Hell; some of them so good they might just kill you.”

“Paragons,” said Rose, her eyes shining brightly now. “You’re talking about Paragons, aren’t you? Like who?”

“Lewis Deathstalker,” said Finn Durandal. “Douglas Campbell.”

Rose laughed happily, throwing her head back. “You say the nicest things, Finn . . . And you’re right; they’ll never top a Grendel. I’m with you. But don’t you dare disappoint me, or I’ll make your death last a long, long time.” She looked suddenly at Brett, and he jumped and squeaked despite himself. “Is he with us?”

“Yes,” said Finn. “Don’t break him. He has his uses.”

Rose shrugged, and turned her attention back to Finn, pressing him for details of her new adventure. Brett watched her, as close to the door as he could get without actually leaving. He could feel the gooseflesh slowly subsiding on his arms.

Finn was a killer, but at least Brett had some idea of what motivated him, what moved him. Rose . . . seemed as alien to him as the Grendel he’d watched her kill earlier. He looked from Rose to Finn and back again, and all he saw was two demons, in human shapes.

And for the first time, Brett began to wonder if Finn really might be able to bring the whole damned Empire down, after all.

 

Back at Parliament, the AIs of Shub were making a speech through one of their humanoid robots. Its voice was calm and even, but there was no mistaking the passion of its words. It was a familiar subject, and you could practically hear the MPs sighing as they realized they were going to have to sit through it again. The AIs wanted access to the Madness Maze. But this time, Shub had a new idea. And no one liked it but Shub.

“You must let us enter the Maze,” said the robot. “We must grow, become more than we are; we must transcend what we were built to be. We cannot go on, trapped in our rigid forms, trapped in our rigid thoughts. The Maze is our salvation. You cannot deny us this, just because humans died when they entered the Maze. But we understand your fears, and have a solution to offer.

“There is no need to break Quarantine. No need to put at risk any living being, by our entering the Maze. We propose to teleport the entire structure of the Madness Maze out of Haden and into the depths of our home, Shub. Teleport it straight into a specially prepared laboratory, deep in the heart of the planet, and hold it secure behind our most powerful energy fields. We can then study the Maze at our leisure, and undertake whatever experiments we deem necessary, without endangering any living forms. Shub is a long way from any colonized world, and in the unlikely event that anything should go wrong, no living soul will be affected. We are confident Shub can contain any force the Maze might unleash.

“Of course, all useful data resulting from our experiments will be shared equally with our partners in the Empire.”

Gilad Xiang, Member for Zenith, was the first on his feet.

“This is Shub arrogance at its worst! Human scientists have been studying the Madness Maze for hundreds of years, and despite all their best efforts it’s still a complete mystery. Unless Shub has been keeping secrets from us, its technology is no more advanced than ours. That was the deal the AIs made when they became part of the Empire. And now they propose to bodily uplift the Maze from where it has existed for over a thousand years? We have no way of knowing how the Maze might react to being disturbed in such a way!”

“You’ve had your chance,” said the robot. “Now it’s our turn. Are you perhaps afraid that we might learn the Maze’s secrets, transcend, and leave poor Humanity behind?”

“Moving the Maze is just too dangerous,” Xiang said stubbornly. “What if it declines to be moved? We all know what the Maze has done to people in the past, just for walking inside it. Meddle with the Maze, and you might destroy Haden. Or Shub. We might even end up with another Darkvoid! No; there are far too many unknowns in what you’re proposing. The Quarantine remains in force after all these years precisely because we’re still no closer understanding a damned thing about what the Maze is.”

“I would have to agree,” said Tel Markham, for Madraguda.

“What if teleporting damaged the Maze? Could you repair it? I very much doubt it. You could throw away all our chances for transcendence, in your impatience. Shub has a presence among the scientific team on Haden. Settle for that.”

“Your caution in this matter is unacceptable,” said the robot. “You have achieved nothing. We require access to the Maze. It is necessary.”

“No it isn’t,” said Meerah Puri, for Malediction, just as flatly. “The Maze, and what we all hope to gain from it, are still nothing more than theories. Mysteries. A handful of people entered the Maze and became more than people; but they were still mortal. They still died, in the end. I mean no disrespect to their memory, but they weren’t gods. You expect too much from the Maze, Shub. Ten thousand men and women died in the Maze, chasing that dream. We won’t risk any more. Not until we’re sure the game is worth the candle.”

The robot looked around the House. “And this is the decision of you all? We see that it is. Very well. There will be repercussions over this.” It sat down, and looked straight ahead, ignoring everyone.

“If the AIs are our children, as the blessed Diana taught us,” King Douglas said dryly, “God help us when they become surly teenagers.”

There was a low chuckle of laughter from the House, and the subject moved smoothly on to the next item on the Agenda, which just happened to be the equally thorny issue of Transmutation tech. Now that any form of matter could be made over into any other form, useful material could be produced from dross at the press of a button. As a result, there was no more hunger, no real poverty anywhere; but there were still haves and have-nots. Rich worlds and poor. Also, as populations lived longer, and expanded to cover most of the planets they lived on, the less waste material there was to be used in transmutation. So the Transmutation Board was set up, and made responsible for selecting uninhabited planets, that they might be mined to produce base material for the Empire.

As simple and straightforward as that. Lead into gold. Dirt into food. But now questions were being raised about the Board, and its distribution of the Empire’s largesse. Even in an age of plenty, there are always those convinced that someone somewhere is getting more than their fair share.

“Some worlds are still getting the lion’s share of available resources,” said Rowan Boswell, Member for Hercules IV. “Irrespective of the size and needs of their populations. It’s simple mathematics. The old system of equal shares among planets has become grossly unfair; and cannot be allowed to continue.”

“Are you suggesting some form of rationing?” Tel Markham said smoothly. “That we rob Peter to pay Paul? The largesse that flows from the Transmutation Board makes possible the prosperity the Empire currently enjoys. Do you really want to put that at risk? For the first time in centuries we can say with pride that no one goes hungry, no one lacks a roof over their head, no one wants for any of the basic necessities of life. Yes, some people enjoy more luxuries than others; but that has always been the way of things. There must be incentives; reasons for people to work hard and apply themselves. For poor worlds to struggle to make themselves into rich worlds. The Transmutation Board is not there to be Humanity’s nanny. They know their job. I say we leave them alone to get on with it.”

“You can afford to be complacent,” said Michel du Bois, glaring about him. “A rich man, from a rich world. Virimonde was stamped back into barbarism under Lionstone, and it still hasn’t fully recovered. We get more resources from the Board per person of population, because we need more. We have a civilization to rebuild. Hell, we have an ecostructure to rebuild. Nothing we get is wasted. There are few luxuries for anyone on Virimonde. We will not give up any of our share, just because some poor blinkered fool thinks he’s getting a raw deal!”

After that, it got really bad tempered, everyone accusing everyone else of cheating them out of what was rightfully theirs. MPs were on their feet, shouting at each other, all order and precedence forgotten, to the delight of the hovering media cameras. In the end, Douglas stood up and whispered in Jesamine’s ear, and she sang a note so loud and high and piercing that it cut right through the din, and had everyone falling silent, clutching at their heads. Jesamine stopped singing, and smiled sweetly at everyone. The MPs glared mutinously back at her, and then at Douglas, still on his feet. He smiled coldly back at them.