Deathstalker Legacy (29 page)

“You know, Finn, I really should be getting home,” Brett said hopefully. “I’m sure I left a light on somewhere . . .”

“Stand up, Brett.”

“You did say I could help myself to a drink,” Brett protested, rising slowly and very unwillingly to his feet. There was a look in Finn’s eyes that he didn’t like at all. “You heard him say I could have a drink, didn’t you, Rose?”

“Shut up, Brett. You stand up too, Rose,” said Finn.

The Wild Rose was up and on her feet in one casual lithe movement. Anywhen else Brett might have applauded. Her crimson leathers squeaked softly, pulling tight across her impressive chest. Brett tried hard not to look at her breasts. Finn advanced on him, and Brett automatically looked around for the nearest exit. The Durandal clearly had something in mind, and Brett just knew that when he found out what it was, he wasn’t going to like it at all. Finn nodded casually to Rose.

“Hold Brett securely, Rose, but don’t hurt him.”

Brett’s hand was already diving for the dagger up his sleeve when Rose’s arm swept around him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides, and crushing the breath from his lungs. He struggled anyway, kicking back at her legs, and even jerking his head back at where Rose’s face should have been, but she held him as easily as a child, her arms like steel bars. Finn advanced unhurriedly on Brett, and something in Finn’s smile put a whole new chill in Brett’s heart. Finn stopped right in front of Brett and regarded him solemnly for a moment, like a scientist with an interesting new lab rat. Brett made a small whimpering sound.

“Relax, Brett,” Finn said easily. “I’m not going to kill you. I wouldn’t do that; not while you can still be useful to me. And there’s the problem, you see. I really think I’ve had the best of you, when it comes to rooting out useful contacts for me in the Rookery. I’ve got everyone I need now. Which means your usefulness is unfortunately at an end. But I can’t just let you go. You’d talk. Your kind always talks, eventually. So if I’m to keep you with me, I have to make some other use for you. And that’s where the esper drug comes in. I can see all sorts of uses for my own personal telepath. And as you quite rightly pointed out, I’m not stupid enough to take the drug myself. So; open wide, swallow properly, and afterwards you can have a nice sweetie.”

“You’re crazy!” said Brett, his voice little more than a whisper. “I’m not taking that stuff!”

“You don’t have to worry; I’ve tested it. The dose is one hundred percent pure.”

“It kills people! Or drives them crazy!”

“Well, yes, there is that possibility. But if you don’t take it, I will quite definitely have Rose kill you, right here and now.”

He reached out suddenly and grabbed Brett by the right ear, twisting it cruelly. Brett’s mouth opened automatically at the pain, and Finn fed him the contents of the test tube in his other hand. He then held Brett’s mouth closed until he had to swallow, and nodded to Rose to release him. She let go immediately and stepped back, and she and Finn watched interestedly as Brett sank to his knees, coughing and spluttering, his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. His face was already deathly pale, with beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. His whole body began to shake and shudder, as though a great engine had been switched on inside him. His eyes clenched shut, and he let out a great groan, a sound far too loud for such a small man.

For Brett, it was as though someone had turned up the volume level all over the world. Voices crashed in on him from all sides, as though the whole city was shouting at him at once. Flashes of vision came and went, glimpses of people and places cutting in and out impossibly fast. Thoughts slammed back and forth inside his head, and only some of them were his. Sound and vision became hopelessly intertangled, more and more rushing in until he thought his skull would explode from trying to contain them all. He’d fallen over onto his side, though he didn’t know it, and curled into a fetal ball. His eyes were very wide, full of all the spectacle of the world, and his head was full of sound and fury, drowning out his own small thoughts. Esp had let all the world in at once, and he had no defenses against it.

In the end, it was the stomach cramps that saved him. The nagging familiar pains were still sharp enough to penetrate even the frenzy raging inside his head, and it was the one thing he could cling to, the one thing he knew was his, and his alone. He concentrated on the pain, hugging it jealously to him, using it as kernel he could rebuild himself around, slowly pushing out everything that wasn’t him. One by one he forced the voices back outside his head, where they belonged, and slowly built new mental lids to close over his staring eyes. Until finally he came back to himself, a man alone again, shuddering and sweating and gasping for breath, lying limp as a discarded rag on Finn’s harsh gray carpet.

Brett Random; telepath.

“You bastards,” he said thickly, tiredly. “You bloody, bloody bastards.”

“Welcome back, Brett,” Finn said happily. “I was almost sure you would survive. Somehow I just knew someone with your survival instincts would find a way to pull through. So what are you; telepath, precog, polter? Or is it too early to tell yet? No matter. Oh Brett, we’re going to have such fun, working out what you can do to help me with your new abilities. You’ll thank me, when you’ve had time to think about it. Rose; help Brett up and into a chair. Yes, I know he’s rather sweaty and unpleasant at the moment, but we all have to make sacrifices for the cause. Besides; it’s not that different from his usual state, really.”

Rose leaned over Brett and took him by the shoulder with one hand, and then both of them froze where they were as their minds slammed together, triggered by the proximity, each of them transfixed in the glaring light of a naked soul. For a moment that had something of forever in it, their thoughts and personalities meshed and mingled, held in the iron grip of Brett’s newfound talent. For Brett it was like looking into the sun, blinded by the overwhelming glare of a remorseless, single-minded will, but beyond that he could sense something else; a need like an endless hunger, a despairing need for something Rose couldn’t even name. In anyone else, it would have been a need for love, friendship, companions; but such concepts were alien to Rose. She only knew . . . that she needed.

For Rose, it was like watching a flower unfold, showing new and endless possibilities. She’d never known that the world could be so large, that people could have such potential. Much of what she saw in Brett’s mind was alien and confusing to her, like discovering new colors in the rainbow. Brett could feel her digging through his thoughts, trying to make sense of what she found there, and was frightened by a will so much more focused and icy cold than his own. He concentrated, clumsily manipulating his new abilities, and finally closed a mental door between them. And as suddenly as that they fell back into their own heads, two separate souls again. It had lasted only a moment, but in that endless time many things had changed, forever. Brett looked up at Rose, and she looked curiously down at him.

“That was . . . different,” she said finally. “I never felt anything like that before. For a while there, you were as real to me as I was.”

“Telepathy!” Finn said happily, clapping his hands together. “What did it feel like?”

“Shut up,” said Rose, not looking around, and Finn did. Rose was still staring into Brett’s eyes, as though trying to reestablish the connection between them. “There’s so much inside you, Brett. Your mind . . . it’s so busy, so cluttered, with thoughts and . . . things. Feelings . . .”

“And you’re so alone,” said Brett. “How can you stand to be so alone?”

“I thought everyone was like that,” said Rose. “I didn’t know . . . I had no idea . . . I’m going to have to think about this.”

She hauled him roughly but efficiently to his feet, and dropped him into his chair again. Her face was cold as ever, her mouth as cruel, but Brett thought there was something new in her eyes. He looked away. He couldn’t cope with anything but his own problems for the moment. He tugged a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the cold sweat from his face. His hands were still shaking. Rose sat down in her chair again, her gaze calm but far away. Finn studied them both, with a sardonic raised eyebrow.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the two of you were bonding. You have no idea how much the very idea revolts me.”

 

Lewis Deathstalker stood on the edge of the main landing pad of Logres’s biggest starport, and pulled his heavy cloak about him. There was a cold wind blowing. Normally, no one except essential staff was allowed out onto the pads, but Lewis had never let such petty technicalities stop him before when he was a Paragon, and certainly not now that he was the Champion. Back in the main terminal a few officious little jobsworths had tried to argue the point with him, only to go all uncertain and tongue-tied when Lewis gave them his best thoughtful stare. He was very proud of that stare. He’d put a lot of thought and effort into getting it just right, so that it suggested all kinds of imminent violence and unpleasantness, if not actual mayhem, and generally appalling possibilities. In the past, some villains had actually dropped their weapons and begged to be arrested, rather than have Lewis look at them in that particular thoughtful way.

It was a bright sunny afternoon, despite the chill, with a pale blue sky and not a cloud anywhere. The main landing pad was huge, bigger than some city blocks, and the docked starcruisers rose up before Lewis like so many steel mountains, the tops of their shimmering steel hulls lost to sight in the glare of the sun.
The Hammer, The Highlander,
and
The Hector
were all in port, waiting for new crews or new equipment or just a little downtime between missions. There were dozens of other, smaller craft scattered across the pads stretching away before him, but Lewis only had eyes for the newly arrived
Highlander,
fresh in from Xanadu. Douglas’s long-promised replacement as Paragon for Logres had finally arrived; the famous, or perhaps more properly infamous, Emma Steel.

Even among the inflated reputations of the Paragons, Emma Steel had almost more reputation than one person could comfortably bear. She’d been born and raised on Mistworld, which explained a lot. Mistworld, once the only rebel planet in Lionstone’s Empire, was still a wild and woolly and largely uncivilized place, mostly because its inhabitants preferred it that way. They had no intention of going soft, just in case this whole Golden Age thing turned out to be nothing more than a passing fad. They kept themselves to themselves, discouraged tourists, tax collectors, and anyone else showing too much interest in their affairs. Emma was the first Paragon Mistworld had ever got around to producing, and she took her position and her responsibilties very seriously.

She was a tenacious tracker, specializing in pursuing the criminals who eluded everyone else. No one could hide from Emma Steel. They could change their names, their faces, and their whole damned bodies, purge their presence from every known computer, and jump from planet to planet in a freight ship, inside a packing crate marked MACHINE PARTS, and still Emma would sniff them out. She always brought her prey back, even if she had to do it in several small refrigerated containers.

It helped that she wasn’t impressed by anybody and was always ready to browbeat, intimidate, and if necessary slap around any poor fool who thought his position gave him the authority to get in her way. Emma worked from the position that everyone was guilty of something, and it was a sad fact that she was right more often than she was wrong. She was the only Paragon not to attend Douglas’s Coronation, because she’d been in the middle of a case, and Emma Steel didn’t break off from the chase for anyone or anything. With anyone else that would have been treason, but this was Emma Steel, so everyone just shrugged and made allowances. Everyone made allowances for Emma Steel. Even King Douglas. He understood it was nothing personal. It was just Emma being Emma.

Either way, news of her new position on Logres had finally caught up with her, and she made arrangements for her latest catch to be sent home in irons, and hitched a ride on the closest ship. She’d sent word she’d be arriving today. Lewis checked the watch face embedded in his wrist again, and shrugged. It was well known that while Emma had many sterling qualities, punctuality wasn’t one of them. Lewis sighed, folded his arms across his chest, and shifted his stance slightly. The black leather armor creaked loudly, and Lewis shook his head exasperatedly. Douglas’s personal tailors had had three goes at refitting the armor, and it still didn’t feel comfortable. Lewis had taken to wearing his old Paragon’s purple cloak over it, and that at least made him feel a little less conspicuous.

Anne had proved entirely unsympathetic when he raised the matter with her.
It’s important you look the part
, she kept saying.
That armor is designed to send a message. It’s a style statement. Trust me, you look every inch a Champion.
In return, Lewis has said something short and cutting, in which the words
prat
and
pimp
featured strongly, and Anne had thrown her coffee cup at him, and then giggled till she got hiccups.

A figure came striding suddenly out of the shadows under
The Highlander
’s hull, heading right for him, and Lewis straightened up to his full height. He wanted to make a good first impression. Of course he was the Champion, and she was just another Paragon, but still . . . this was Emma Steel. Voted scariest person in the Empire for the third year running. One magazine editor had offered a million credits for her to do a nude photo shoot. Emma sent the editor a severed head in a box. Lewis studied Emma openly as she strode quickly towards him, her long legs eating up the distance between them. The official holos on her tribute site didn’t do her justice. In person, Emma Steel radiated personality like a blast furnace.

She was tall and willowy and almost impossibly graceful in her every movement. Her skin was a dark coffee color, and she wore her flat black hair pulled back and tied in a tight bun on the back of her head. Striking rather than pretty, she was still utterly breathtaking. She carried her Paragon’s armor well, and her purple cloak flapped about her like the wings of a bird of prey. Her long-fingered hands never moved far from the sword and gun on her hips.