"Everything?" said Owen.
"Damn right," said Hazel.
Owen looked back at the viewscreen and changed the subject. "I wonder why the Hadenmen came back here. Everyone knows why they wanted a rich prize like Madraguda. But from what you've said, it's hard to see what makes Brahmin II so attractive. What do they mine here? Anything important?"
"Not really," said Hazel. "Some minor minerals. Useful stuff but not valuable."
"So what brought the Hadenmen back here to make it their new base? What makes Brahmin II so special?"
"You got me," said Hazel. "Maybe that's one of the things we need to find out on our little trip dirtside."
The viewscreen finally flashed up the first pictures, and Owen and Hazel fell silent as they saw what the Hadenmen had done to Brahmin II this time. The cities had been devastated, blown away by concentrated disrupter fire. Not even ruins remained, only shallow craters in the earth. The only exception was Brahmin II's main city and starport, still standing, but the Hadenmen had put their mark on that too, transforming it into something new and alien with strange structures and unfamiliar technology.
"This is worse than the last time," Owen said finally. "A scorched-earth policy for the outer cities, and then setting up shop in the main city. They're here for the long term. And I made it all possible."
"Will you stop putting the weight of the universe on your shoulders!" snapped Hazel. "Not everything that happens is your fault. Let's concentrate on the matter at hand, namely sneaking into the main city, getting our information, and sneaking out again with all our important parts still attached. Anything else can wait till later. When we know what's going on here, we can come back with what's left of the Fleet, launch a surprise attack, and open up with everything we've got. That'll wipe the smile off their faces."
"We can't leave," said Owen. "Look at those figures on the side of the screen. Those are life-sign readings. The majority of the population are still alive, and being held in the main city. A human shield against Empire intervention. The Hadenmen have always understood human weaknesses, even if they don't share them. We have to rescue the colonists. We're the only hope they've got."
Hazel sighed. "There's always something, isn't there? Why can't things be simple anymore?"
"They never were," said Owen. "Except in retrospect. And the movies. How well do you know this city?"
"Very," said Hazel. "Our one lucky break. This is the city I was planning on breaking into anyway. I used to work there; it was the capital and main administrative center. Even ran the mines from there."
"Then that's probably why the Hadenmen preserved it. What's it called?"
"Brahmin City. They weren't the most imaginative colonists I ever ran across."
"Then take us down, Oz. Find a landing place reasonably close to the city outskirts, but far enough away that a boundary patrol won't stumble over us."
"Shouldn't be a problem," said Oz. "As far as my scans can tell, there are no border patrols. Nothing's moving outside the city. Damned fools are relying entirely on their sensors. Hadenmen always did put too much faith in tech. Hold on to your chairs. Here we go."
The Sunstrider II fell slowly out of orbit, drifting down like a solitary silver leaf unnoticed in the forest. Owen and Hazel studied the viewscreen intently as Brahmin City finally loomed up beneath them. New buildings rose among the old, tall silver shapes with sudden bulges here and there. Outgrowths of brightly shining tech piled on top and around each other, as though they had grown to their present shapes rather than been planned and constructed. The battered city looked as though it had been infected by some vast silvery parasite, shooting up in every open space and choking the old human remnants of the city that was. The Hadenmen were building themselves a new home, and there was nothing human in its form or nature. Nothing at all.
They parked the Sunstrider II in one of the lesser craters, all that was left of one of Brahmin City's suburbs. Owen and Hazel disembarked with gun and sword in hand, just in case Oz was wrong about the border patrols, but all was still and silent. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, and nothing at all disturbed the dusty air. Owen looked slowly around him, taking in the desolate landscape. It was every shade of gray, from scorched earth to beaten stone, and nothing lived in it for as far as the eye could see. A cemetery plot with no grass, no flowers, and no headstones, and nothing left of the dead to bury. The end of time will look like this, thought Owen. When we are all gone and life itself is gone to dust. It reminded him very much of Virimonde, and he wondered if he was always fated to arrive too late. Just once he would have liked to be a savior rather than an avenger. He put away his sword and gun. They felt small and useless in the face of so much death and destruction.
Hazel was mooching around, kicking the gray ground to see the dust rise up in clouds and slowly settle. She had also put away her weapons, and looked distinctly annoyed that there'd been no one around for her to use them on. Owen took in a breath to call to her, and then coughed harshly as the dust floating in the air irritated his throat. The air everywhere was thick with it, a shifting gray haze like the ghosts of powdered buildings. It was even thicker higher up in the atmosphere, and the light of the falling sun shone through it in a gorgeous haze of faded colors, like a rainbow bought secondhand from a market stall.
"Come on, Owen, there'll be time for sightseeing later." Hazel was impatient as always. "Brahmin City is just over that ridge on the horizon. An hour's walk tops."
Owen fixed her with a suspicious gaze. "You said you knew a way into the city that the Hadenmen probably wouldn't have covered. Are you ready to discuss that yet?"
"Well," said Hazel, not meeting his gaze. "It's a way in, but you're not going to like it."
"I haven't seen a single thing about this planet that I've liked so far. What's wrong with this way in?"
"It's… through the sewers."
"Of course," said Owen. "It would have to be, wouldn't it? How come you know about it?"
"My job here was part of city security. The rebuilding of the colony was finally getting under way, with new cities springing up everywhere, but the cost was going way over budget, and I mean way over. So they hired a whole bunch of security experts with nasty, suspicious minds to find out where all the money was going. Sounded like an interesting job when I took it, but it turned out to be mostly paperwork and computer time. But I got there in the end. I hacked into files I wasn't supposed to know about, and found hard evidence that one of the main contractors was working a scam with one of the main unions. The contractors arranged for extra overtime, none of which was actually done, and the contractors and the union bosses split the take between them. None of the poor working slobs ever saw any of that money, of course.
"Just as I was getting ready to lower the boom on the bad guys, someone finked me out, and contractors and bosses grabbed their ill-gotten gains and did a runner. I ended up chasing them clear across the city and out through the sewers, to where they had a ship waiting. Anyone else, they might have made it, but having to run that far had put me in a really bad mood. But would you believe it, after all that hard work, the city fathers gave me only a measly bonus of a hundred credits a head? And I had to supply the heads as proof. Luckily I had them to hand… What are you smiling at?"
"It's just… I find it rather hard to see you as an agent of law and order," said Owen. "Still, I bet no one jaywalked while you were around."
"Anyway," said Hazel with great dignity, "even though the Hadenmen have been doing a lot of rebuilding aboveground in Brahmin City, I'll bet good money they haven't touched the sewers. Hadenmen have no need for toilets, remember? One of the most alien things about them, if you ask me. So, we go in through the sewer outlets, follow the path I used, and just pop up now and again to see what's happening. If we're sneaky enough, and fast enough, the inhuman bastards'll never know we're there."
"I just know I'm going to catch something awful," said Owen. "But it does sound like a plan. Lead the way, Hazel."
They set off toward the jagged ridge rising on the horizon, clouds of gray dust puffing up with every step they took. They both coughed painfully at first, as the dust sank into their lungs, but after a while they used handkerchiefs to improvise masks for their mouth and nose, and the going got a little easier. Owen hoped fervently that Hazel's handkerchief was a lot cleaner than it looked.
They plodded on across the gray landscape, moving in a drifting cloud of disturbed dust, their footsteps eerily muffled, their feet banging hard against the unyielding stone. There were no landmarks, and the ridge just sat there ahead of them, never looking any closer. Owen started talking again, even through a handkerchief, just to keep from going crazy through boredom.
"If I'm recalling this correctly," he said as distinctly as he could, "you said you got fired from your job here, and you actually had to leave Brahmin II in somewhat of a hurry. What went wrong? I would have thought after exposing a scam like that, they'd have given you the keys to the city."
"You would think that, wouldn't you?" said Hazel "But, unfortunately, it turned out the graft went a lot higher than I knew, and they got me fired before I could prove anything against them. Framed me for excessive violence, fired my ass, and kicked me off-planet. Bastards."
"So… if the city leaders are still alive, they're not necessarily going to be too pleased to see you?"
Hazel snorted. "Don't be daft. If they're still alive, they'd be so desperate for help they'd welcome Valentine Wolfe and Kid Death."
"I take your point. Pick up the pace, Hazel. That ridge isn't getting any closer, and it's already heading into evening. I want to be in and out of Brahmin City before night falls. I get the feeling things get pretty spooky around here once darkness falls."
"Yeah," said Hazel. "Got to be a lot of ghosts around here. Maybe we can help them rest a little better."
They finally got to the ridge and climbed to the top. On the other side, at the bottom of what had once probably been a pleasant valley, lay Brahmin City, its gleaming silver towers glowing brightly in the gathering evening. From far away came the sound of endlessly working machinery, from a city that no longer slept. Owen and Hazel made their way carefully down the far side of the ridge and into the valley, and Hazel led them straight to the sewer outlets, a series of great metal pipes protruding from the sides of what had once been a roughly cut canal. No water ran at all now, but the smell from the pipes was still pretty bad. Hazel strode back and forth before the pipe outlets, studying them with a deepening frown.
"What's the problem?" said Owen after a while.
"Give me a break, Deathstalker. I'm trying to remember which pipe is which. I was only here once, and that was years ago. I choose the wrong one, and we could end up going around in circles."
"Wonderful," said Owen. "Oz, you got any ideas?"
"Of course," murmured the AI immediately. "Through my ongoing link I have access to all the city's computer records, and they have extensive maps of the city's entire sewage system. You want the largest opening, on the far right. Follow that, and it will take you right into the main system, with openings all over the city."
Owen relayed this information to Hazel, who nodded reluctantly. "Sounds right. Okay, follow me in and stay close."
She pulled herself up into the wide metal opening and crouched there a moment, peering into the gloom beyond. The pipe was about eight feet in diameter, the lower part coated with a thick black residue. "Smells even worse than I remembered. And I don't even want to think about what I'm standing in. There used to be a lighting system in these pipes, for the sewer-maintenance people, but I can't see any switches."
"Allow me," said Oz. Light suddenly appeared in the roof of the pipe, running away into the distance. The small green globes shed an eerie light, and there were wide patches of shadow and darkness.
Hazel sniffed loudly. "Oz showing off again, is he? Tell him to check for any old security alarms in the pipes. Or any new ones, come to that."
"I'm on it," said Oz. "As long as I'm still linked in, I have complete control over what the city computers register."
Hazel straightened up and strode determinedly down the pipe. Owen steeled himself against the stench and followed her. The thick black gunk on the floor squelched loudly under his feet and made the going treacherous. Owen hoped fervently that there weren't any leaks in his boots. There was some kind of slime caked on the walls too, and Owen was careful not to reach out to them for support.
He lurched and stumbled on after Hazel, who made her way slowly but carefully down the pipe, ignoring the first openings she came to, and then diving without hesitation into a turning on the right that looked no different from any of the others. Presumably her memory was coming back. Owen followed her, and found himself in a system of smaller brick tunnels, barely six feet in diameter. The walls had been scrubbed clean sometime in the not too distant past, but the floor was still pretty disgusting. Hazel hurried on in the lead, following a map in her head that she hadn't consulted in years. Owen could have asked Oz to check if they were going the right way, but he didn't. He trusted Hazel.
The flat green light made it hard to judge distances and details, and there seemed to be a haze in the air. The smell was so bad by now it left a constant furry feeling in the mouth and nose. God only knew what conditions must have been like when actual sewage ran through these tunnels. Owen increased his pace to walk alongside Hazel, and they strode on in silence for a while, turning as Hazel thought necessary. The only sound in the tunnels was their boots on the sticky floor, the air too still even to allow an echo.
"I'm surprised we haven't seen any rats yet," Owen said eventually. "I mean, wherever there are sewers, you find rats, even in the most salubrious parts of the Empire. Which this isn't."
"No self-respecting rat would set foot in a sleazebag operation like this," said Hazel. "But I take your point. There was certainly something scuttling in the shadows the last time I was down here."
"Maybe they all left when the sewage ran out."
"Or maybe the Hadenmen put poison down."
"Yeah," said Owen. "Maybe."
They pressed on through the increasingly narrow tunnels. The curving brick walls all looked pretty much the same, but Hazel still seemed fairly confident about where she was going. Owen didn't have a clue where he was, and the unbroken quiet was beginning to grate on his nerves. The shadow-filled openings in the tunnels they passed began to seem more and more to him like watching eyes and hungry mouths, and he was increasingly troubled by the conviction that there was something down in the tunnels with them, watching and waiting. He concentrated, calling up the enhanced hearing the Maze had gifted him with, and suddenly his ears were full of the crash of his and Hazel's boots on the floor, the rustle of their clothing, and the rushing sound of their breathing. He faded them out and listened to what was left. And there, far ahead, right on the edge of his hearing, was a slow, solid drumming sound, like the beating of a giant heart, and the murmur of regularly disturbed air.
Owen quietly caught Hazel's attention and tapped his ear. She concentrated and then frowned as she heard it too. They drew their guns and their swords and moved cautiously forward, checking each tunnel opening they passed. The sounds gradually grew louder, till the tunnel floor seemed to shake beneath their feet in rhythm to the steady heartbeat ahead. And then they rounded a corner and stopped abruptly as they came face to face with a giant steel fan filling the tunnel from floor to ceiling, its massive steel blades churning around and around, though the sewage it had been intended to stir up was long gone. Hazel gave Owen a hard look, and they put away their weapons. They both glared at the fan. There was clearly no way past it, and the heavy blades swept inexorably around much too quickly to try dodging past them.
"They must have added this after I left," said Hazel.
"Oz, any chance you can shut this thing down?"
"Afraid not," said Oz. "Power is either on or off. No cutouts."
"I could have tol
d you that," said Hazel when this information was conveyed to her. "They cut every corner they could when they were building this place."
"If we could stick to the matter at hand," said Owen. "Oz, shut everything down, and we'll climb through in the dark. Then you can power up again."
"Ah," said Oz. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. The power system is so unstable, I'm not a hundred percent sure I could start the power back up again at all."
"Wonderful," said Owen.
"Look," said Hazel. "It's just a lump of metal, when all is said and done. Let's blow it away. A couple of point-blank disrupter blasts should do the job easily."
"I really wouldn't do that if I were you," Oz said hurriedly. "It's all I can do to keep the city systems quiet as it is. Even I have my limits. You start setting off alarms down there, and all hell will break loose."
"Hold everything," said Owen. "You told me you had the city computer jumping through hoops and doing what they were told. What's changed?"
"Well," said Oz reluctantly, "it seems I might have been a little overoptimistic in my initial projections. The Hadenmen have revamped the city computers far beyond their normal capabilities, and they've been… fighting back for some time now. I can just about maintain the status quo, but you set off any alarm for any reason, and you are strictly on your own."
"Wonderful," said Hazel when Owen broke the news. "I told you not to put your trust in ghost AIs. All right, we can't shoot it. What does that leave? If we took a really good running start and dived between the blades—"
"They're just heavy enough and sharp enough to cut us in two," said Owen. "And I don't think even we could regenerate from something like that."
"All right, let's just rip the damn thing out of its setting. We're strong enough, together."
"That would be bound to set off an alarm. I don't want to emerge from the final tunnel to find half a hundred Hadenmen waiting, armed to the teeth with Hadenmen weapons."
Deathstalker Honor d-4 Page 24
