Deathstalker Legacy (44 page)

“I’ll go with Brett to see the ELFs,” said Rose, and Brett and Finn both looked at her sharply, more than a little startled.

“Now why would you want to do that, Rose?” said Finn. He sounded genuinely interested.

“Because I need the exercise. Because I’m interested.” Rose’s voice was calm, uninvolved. “I never got to test myself against the ELFs when they came to the Arena. I would like to see an ELF, close up.”

“You’re very valuable to me, Rose,” said Finn. “I don’t think I want to risk you on a mission like this. Besides, you were caught on that camera too, fighting the Deathstalker.”

“I’m going,” said Rose. She stood up, and stared at Finn with her mad, bad, and dangerous eyes, and even he had to look away.

“Just how am I supposed to make contact with the ELFs anyway?” said Brett, to break the awkward silence. “Put an ad in the Logres
Times,
perhaps?
Utter lunatic seeks similar?
”

“I have an address,” said Finn. “Well actually, it’s more of a location. A meeting place. It’s all arranged. Dr. Happy was only too pleased to act as go-between. For a consideration. It seems the good doctor deals with and for absolutely everybody.”

“But . . . why would the ELFs agree to talk to you?” said Brett. “After what you did in the Arena? No one’s ever killed that many ELFs in one place before. They probably lull themselves to sleep at night coming up with new and horrible ways to torture you to death. What could you possibly offer them that could get you off that hook? This has to be a trap, Finn.”

“Quite possibly,” said Finn. “That’s why you’re going, instead of me. Just the sight of me in the flesh would probably drive them over the edge, before they had a chance to consider what I’m offering. But I’m sure they’ll listen to you, Brett, you fast-talking devil. Your new esper abilities should protect you from possession. And Rose . . . Well, I hate to think what would become of any poor ELF stupid enough to venture inside her head.
Here Be Tygers . . .
Make them listen, Brett. I have so much to offer . . . and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or at least my ally. Now off you go. Do try and make it back in time for tea; we’re having toasted crumpets.”

“Hold it, hold it,” said Brett. “You haven’t told me yet just what it is I’m supposed to offer the ELFs that’s guaranteed to win their support.”

So Finn told him. And Brett’s stomach started hurting all over again.

 

Brett’s new face and look wasn’t all that different from before, but the subtle changes he made added up to a sufficiently striking impression that he felt reasonably confident about going out in public. His hair was now butter yellow, his eyes were a pale blue, and some carefully applied makeup accentuated the hollows of his face, giving him a gaunt, hungry look. Lifts in his shoes made him taller, and padding at the shoulders changed his body image. All of which added up to a whole new look. It took Brett about ten minutes, in a private room. When he walked back into the main room with his new look, Finn actually applauded, and Rose nodded respectfully.

No one, in the Rookery or out of it, had seen all of Brett’s faces and identities. It was safer that way. When you worked the confidence game for a living, you never knew when you might upset someone with real power and influence. Someone sufficiently humiliated that they would only settle for revenge of the bloodiest kind. Someone who could afford to put up a really tempting reward. That was when it could come in handy, to be able to disappear so completely that neither friend nor foe could find you. Brett had faces and aliases he hadn’t even used yet.

Of course, it had to be said, when you were walking down a street with Rose Constantine at your side, not many people were going to be looking at you. Brett had persuaded her to cover her familiar leathers with a long and voluminous black robe, and hidden her infamous face behind a sparkling silver holo mask, but she was still seven feet tall and walked like a predator in a world of prey. She might not look like the Wild Rose anymore, but she still turned quite a few heads. Brett would have felt less conspicuous walking along with a Grendel.

“I like your new look,” said Rose. “It’s pretty.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” said Brett, in his new, higher and slightly breathy voice. “This face is just for this outing. Once the ELFs have seen it, I’m scrapping it forever. I don’t want them to have any means of tracking me down.”

Rose looked at him from behind her shimmering mask. “They’re telepaths, Brett. They’ll recognize the shape of your mind, not your face.”

“Bugger. You’re quite right, of course. I’m new to all this esper shit. Always stayed well clear of them in the past. Esp is death to my line of business. Still, hopefully my new abilities will be enough to keep them out of my mind. Finn seemed to think so.”

“Finn would say whatever he felt he had to, to get you to go on this mission.”

Brett scowled at her. “You are allowed to lie to me, you know, to build up my confidence. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

“Are we nearly there yet?”

“Rose; you have been asking me that for the last half hour! I will tell you when we’re there! Now quiet down, and try to look inconspicuous. Try hard. The Zoo’s right round this corner.”

Finn Durandal had arranged for his agents to meet the ELFs’ agents somewhere under the Imperial Zoo. Brett felt a distinct thrill as he led Rose through the huge steel gates, with their proud legend,
We preserve.
He hadn’t been to the Zoo since one of his more amiable stepfathers had brought him here as a birthday treat, when he was just a kid. The gates seemed somewhat smaller and less impressive than he remembered, but then, that was childhood for you. Certainly the grounds of the Zoo seemed just as large.

The Imperial Zoo in the Parade of the Endless contained more strange, wondrous, and downright weird creatures in one place than anywhere else in the Empire. Including Parliament. Thousands of alien species had been brought in from all across the Empire, all of them guaranteed nonsentient, of course, most of them the last few surviving examples of their kind. All that was left, after the Investigator purges of past centuries, when just to be different was to be seen as a threat. The Zoo had extensive cloning and gengineering programs running, and species on the edge of extinction were being resurrected every day, but still and all it was a slow business. In the meantime, the Zoo kept its specimens alive and well cared for, and let the public in to look at them, to provide funding for future research.
We preserve,
said the Zoo, undoing the crimes of the past.

Guilt can be a powerful motivation.

Each specimen was kept in surroundings as close as possible to its home planet, reinforced by holo illusions where necessary and force shields rather than bars, for practical as well as aesthetic reasons. Some of the creatures didn’t even know they were in a Zoo. And there were tanglefields on call, powered by their own private generators, just in case. It was important for the visitors to feel safe; or they wouldn’t come and spend their money.

As always, the Zoo was packed with tourists, because it wasn’t a trip to the Parade of the Endless if you hadn’t seen the Imperial Zoo. Noisy families filled the paths between the enclosures, oohing and aahing at the creatures on display. What with aliens that floated on the air and swam through dark waters, or moved in a variety of disturbing ways through varying gravity fields, Brett and Rose were actually able to make their way through the Zoo without attracting much attention. They strolled along, taking their time, studying the displays and sharing a bag of peanuts, making small talk while Brett checked carefully to see that they weren’t being followed. Actually, Brett made the small talk. Rose didn’t have the knack. Brett tried holding hands with her, but it felt frankly unnatural, so he gave up. He would have liked to check out a few of the people nearest him with his esp, but surrounded by so many alien minds he didn’t dare lower his mental shields, for fear of being overwhelmed.

“Who do you think the ELFs will send to talk with us?” he said finally, confident no one was going to be able to overhear them in the midst of the general din from the crowds and the alien exhibits. “They wouldn’t put up one of their really heavy hitters; not for the likes of us. Would they?”

“Who knows why the ELFs do anything?” Rose said calmly. “I’d like to kill an ELF. One of the few things I haven’t killed yet.”

Brett winced. “Rose; promise me you’ll leave all the talking to me.”

“I can be diplomatic, when I have to be.”

“Rose; your idea of diplomacy is to shoot someone in the face rather than in the back.”

“Well, mostly, yes.”

“You’re going to get us both killed, I just know it.”

“Then you shouldn’t have made me leave my sword behind.”

“Trust me, Rose; a sword wouldn’t get you anywhere against an ELF. I just hope they don’t send one of their super-espers. There are rumors . . . old, old stories, from the dark days of esper beginnings, about appallingly powerful espers . . . mad minds, abominations, created by the Mater Mundi for reasons we can only guess at. Living weapons, that could destroy whole cities with a single thought. There are those who say these super-espers run the ELFs.”

“If they were so powerful, why didn’t they fight during the Rebellion?” said Rose.

Brett frowned. “Maybe they were too crazy, too uncontrollable, to be used; even against Lionstone.” Brett looked about him uneasily. He was spooking himself, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “Or just maybe, they refused to be used by anyone, even their own creator . . . Oh hell, I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. Maybe we should just turn around and get the hell out of here while we still can.”

“Finn wouldn’t like that.”

“Finn can’t turn you inside out just by thinking about it.”

“I’ll protect you, Brett.”

“Against ELFs? Against super-espers? You’re good, Rose, but you’re still only human. God alone knows what the super-espers are. Even the names give me the creeps. The Gray Train. The Shatter Freak. Screaming Silence. The Spider Harps. Blue Hellfire . . .”

Rose frowned at that last one. “Any connection with Stevie Blue?”

“No. She came much later. And really she was never more than just another pyro, despite what the legends say. She’d have had to be at least three people, to do everything they said she did. I wish we had an esp-blocker, I really do. Finn could have got us one, if he’d wanted to. But no, that would have been a betrayal of trust, get the negotiations off to a bad start . . . Idiot. The only way to negotiate with an ELF is from a position of strength. And preferably from a completely different planet. I want to go home. And hide under the bed. If I get killed doing this, I swear I’m going to come back and haunt Finn.”

“I think we’re here,” said Rose.

They came to a halt before a single unobtrusive side door marked simply MAINTENANCE. It was just slightly off the beaten track, in a cul-de-sac you couldn’t easily find unless you knew what you were looking for. Above the door, someone had stenciled a stylized blackbird, the sign they’d been told to look for. Brett swallowed hard and then looked casually about him. No one seemed to be looking, so he tried the door. It opened immediately at his touch, and Brett slipped quickly inside, Rose all but treading on his heels. The door shut behind them with a final-sounding click. Brett immediately tried the door again, but it wouldn’t open. It had locked itself. Brett shrugged glumly, and led Rose down the narrow corridor before them.

The walls were bare steel, unburnished, glowing dully in the amber light from the glowspheres set into the ceiling at regular intervals. It could have been just another maintenance tunnel for the service crews, but Brett didn’t think so. It was unnaturally quiet. The roar of the crowds and the caged specimens were entirely gone, as though Brett and Rose were now in an entirely different place. Their steps barely echoed at all, as though the sound was absorbed by the walls. The long corridor was full of a strained hush, as though someone unseen was listening to their approach. Or perhaps even quietly following them . . . Brett kept glancing back over his shoulder, but there was never anyone there.

But they were being watched. He had no doubt about that.

The corridor stretched endlessly away before them, curving back and forth, but leading always, inexorably, downwards, into the depths of the earth under the Zoo. No maintenance crew would ever have legitimate business this deep. The Zoo, and the city, and civilization itself were far above them now. No one would hear them cry out or scream. No one would ever know what happened to them . . . Brett felt like whimpering. He glanced across at Rose, and took some comfort from her customary calm, cold, implacable expression. Whatever she might or might not be feeling, it wasn’t affecting her as it did Brett. He was glad she was with him, surprising though the thought was. But the ELFs were so scary that even Rose Constantine seemed like a comfort in comparison.

The corridor finally came to an end at a solid steel door that filled the tunnel from wall to wall. It had no markings, and no sign of any lock or handle. Brett looked at the distorted reflections of himself and Rose in the shining metal, and shuddered suddenly. There was something really bad on the other side of the door. He could feel it, in his bones and in his water. And something was pressing increasingly strongly against the mental shields he’d only learned so recently to construct, to keep the world’s thoughts out. Something beat against the walls of his mind, something almost unbearably huge and alien and hungry. Brett screwed his eyes shut, like a child afraid of the dark and the things that might be in it. His hands clenched into fists as he fought to hold his mental shields in place. Something laughed softly, soundlessly, and as suddenly as that the assault was over, and the pressure was gone. Brett let out his breath in a long ragged sigh. He opened his eyes, and found Rose was looking at him curiously. Clearly, whatever he’d felt hadn’t affected her. Before he could say anything, there was the sound of a dozen or so heavy locks unlocking, one after the other, and the door before them swung slowly open. It swung outwards, into the corridor, and Brett and Rose had to retreat from it.