Deathstalker d-1

by Simon R. Green

  "I didn't mean to alarm you, good sir, but you'll understand that in our position it pays to be cautious, if not downright paranoid. Allow me to give you the first part of the current password: New."

  "Hope," said Valentine, relaxing just a little but not lowering his gun. "Rather an obvious choice, I would have thought, but then no one asked my opinion. May I ask who you are?"

  The figure moved slowly forward, taking its time so that Valentine wouldn't feel threatened. It finally came to a halt before him. bent almost in two under the low roof, and Valentine's interest increased as he realized that any identifying signs were concealed inside a long flowing cape. Even more interesting, there was nothing inside the cape's hood: no face, no head, nothing at all. The ball of light bobbed cheerfully at the figure's shoulder, bright and clear, and Valentine had to tone down his vision.

  "I am Hood," said the figure. "Coordinator between the clone and esper undergrounds and the cyberats. And you, sir?"

  "Valentine Wolfe, patron and advisor to the undergrounds. I've heard of you, Hood. The shadow in the background, the presence behind the throne, so to speak. I and the rest of the patrons are required to reveal our identities, the espers insist on it, but you alone are allowed anonymity. I wonder why."

  "Because I'm valuable to them," said Hood. "And as long as they need me, they indulge me. I've heard of you, Valentine, hut then I suppose everyone has. You've pumped quite a lot of money into the undergrounds by all accounts, but I have to say I can't see why. You are heir to the Wolfe Clan; you stand to inherit everything. What on earth do you need that you have to come to the undergrounds to get it?"

  "Sorry," said Valentine. "I never tell everything on a first date."

  "As you wish. I wonder what the undergrounds want this time that such important backers as you and I had to be summoned so urgently?"

  "It had better be important," said Valentine. "I feel quite naked without my usual persona. Shall we go?"

  "Of course. It's not far now. After you."

  "Oh, no. After you."

  The cape's hood bobbed once in what might have been agreement or humor, and Hood turned and led the way down a side runnel that if anything smelled even worse. Valentine followed close behind, his gun still in his hand. He flushed most of the drugs from his system, but kept a few in reserve, just in case.

  Normally the underground only summoned its patrons one at a time, so that if they were captured they wouldn't be able to identify anyone else. Something important must be in the wind for two to be needed. Valentine studied Hood's enigmatic back thoughtfully. The lack of a face was interesting; the underground was almost fanatical in its need to know exactly who it was dealing with. It could be a holographic disguise, but nothing less than an esp-blocker would protect Hood's thoughts from an esper's probing mind, and the underground wouldn't tolerate that for a second. Hood: a supplier of money, reportedly well connected, he worked well with both the clone and esper undergrounds, which was rare. They didn't trust easily, and there were few indeed who'd earned the trust of both.

  As if to underline that thought, Hood and Valentine came to a sudden halt before the first warning sign. It was a dead man, hanging from the ceiling like a broken puppet. Its arms and legs had been smashed, with white points of splintered bone protruding from the bloody flesh. The corpse slowly raised its head to look at Hood and Valentine, and its eye sockets were empty. Blood spilled down the colorless cheeks like thick crimson tears. It opened its mouth, and maggots poured down its chin.

  "Go back," it said slowly, haltingly, as though it had almost forgotten how to speak. "Go back now."

  Valentine looked at Hood. "Be honest: Would this scare you if you were a crack squadron of the Empress' guards?"

  "Not really," said Hood. "But then, I've seen it before. They insist on running this routine even when they know it's me. I think they just do it for the practice."

  The dead man scowled at them. "Turn back. I mean it. I'm not kidding."

  "Oh, shut up," said Valentine. "I've seen scarier things than you in my daydreams."

  "He probably has," said Hood. "This is Valentine Wolfe. The Valentine Wolfe."

  The dead man disappeared between one moment and the next. The smell stayed pretty much the same, though. The empty hood looked at Valentine. "They've heard of you."

  Valentine smiled. "Everyone's heard of me." He paused. "Can you hear something?"

  A low roar began from somewhere behind them, building steadily in volume. The tunnel floor vibrated under their feet. Thick ripples surged across the surface of the slime. A growing pressure built in the air, like the wave of compressed air that precedes an underground train. The roar grew louder and the floor shook. Valentine looked quickly about him, but there was nowhere to run except further down the tunnel. The roar was deafening now, the pressure of the air flat and heavy against his face. Hood was standing very still, as though frozen in place by shock. Then a vast wave of rushing water came bursting through the tunnel toward them, thundering forward like a runaway train.

  "They've opened the damned sewers!" yelled Valentine. "Grab onto something or we'll be swept away!"

  The tidal wave loomed up before them, filling the tunnel, and then it was gone. No water, no noise, nothing at all. The air was quiet and calm and undisturbed. Valentine let his breath out slowly.

  "You bastards."

  Got you, crowed a voice in his head. I don't just do corpses, you know.

  Hood shook his head and chuckled slowly. "We did ask for it, didn't we?"

  Just practicing. I never get to do anything down here. No one comes for ages. I don't know why we bother keeping a watch. Go straight ahead and take the second left. Meeting's just ahead. You're expected. And tell them I could do with a drink.

  There was a lot Valentine felt like saying, but he didn't. He had his dignity to consider. He looked at Hood. "You can't get good help these days."

  "It never pays to underestimate espers," said Hood, starting off down the tunnel again. "They know everything you're thinking."

  "Oh, I doubt that," said Valentine, splashing through the slime after him. "Anyone who enters my mind does so at their own peril, after all the things I've done to it."

  "Good point," said Hood. "How did someone like you ever get involved with the underground in the first place?"

  Valentine smiled. "My experiments with various unusual substances led me to rumors of a new, very experimental drug that could make an esper out of anyone, even from those with absolutely no family history of psionics. If there is such a drug, I want it. Esp is one of the few experiences still unknown to me. Just the thought of something so new and vital makes my mouth water. I must have it.

  "Pursuit of this drug brought me to the elves and the underground, and for the first time I realized what a potential power base they represented. With their help, I could attain heights of power I would never otherwise have dreamed of. The espers will break free eventually, Hood. It's inevitable.

  They are the wave of the future, the next evolutionary step for humanity. And I intend to ride that wave as far and high as I can. Who knows, it might even carry me to the Iron Throne itself. Now wouldn't that be something." He paused thoughtfully. "Of course, I'd have to kill my father and Family first. I'm quite looking forward to that."

  He stopped talking suddenly. It seemed to him that he was saying entirely too much to someone he barely knew. He didn't know why. Perhaps the tidal wave illusion had upset him more than he realized. Or perhaps not. Either way, he'd watch his words very carefully from now on. He was beginning to get the feeling they weren't entirely his own. He'd always known there was a risk in dealing with espers, but he'd thought the mental disciplines he'd mastered in constantly altering his brain chemistry would give him some kind of protection. But spilling his secrets to a comparative stranger definitely wasn't like him. He took him out his silver pillbox, took out a tab and pressed it against the side of his neck, over the vein.

  "Just a little something t
o wake me up," he said blithely, putting away the pillbox. He smiled broadly as the jolt kicked in. He took a deep breath and let it out through his smile. Already his thoughts were feeling clearer, faster, sharper. 'Tell me about yourself, Hood: What brought you into our little world of treason and subterfuge?"

  "I was part of the security force responsible for tracking down and eliminating the cyberats," said Hood. "But the more I learned of them, the more I grew to understand and then envy their unrelenting search for truth and freedom. The Empress stays in power because her people control information, regulating how much we're allowed to know about anything. You can't protest against a thing if you don't know it's happening. Most of what we know is based on lies and distortions. The cyberats showed me pans of the world I'd never seen before, and having seen, I couldn't close my eyes again.

  "My growing contacts with the cyberats led me to the underground, and the more I learned of their struggle, the more I sympathized. It took me a long time to convince all the various elements of my sincerity, but my connections with the Empress' own security forces made me an invaluable ally. I have proved my worth. So the man who once haunted rebels now works to protect them. Such is life. I've always felt a little irony was good for the blood. I'm intrigued by your interest in the esper drug. I assure you, it's very effective."

  "How do you know?" said Valentine.

  "Because I took it," said Hood. "I volunteered; in fact, I insisted. I'd seen so much I'd never seen before, and I wanted to see even more. The results were… interesting. Minor telepathy, some projective imagery, similar to what we just saw in the tunnel. I'm no match for a born esper, but I see deeper and more clearly now than I ever did before. Theoretically, stronger doses of the drug should produce stronger effects, but there have been unfortunate side effects in others who have tried the drug."

  Valentine smiled serenely. "That's part of the thrill of experimenting with a new drug: the risks and discoveries. The joy of exploring unknown territories and daring fate to do its worst. Not unlike the thrill of being a rebel, really. I always look forward to getting the call. Though I do wish they'd stop changing the meeting place. Every time I have to walk a little further and pass through even more disgusting scenery to get there."

  Hood shrugged. "Basic security. Keep moving, keep looking over your shoulder, and keep everyone else off balance. The Empress has a lot of people trying to find the underground, and they've got a much bigger budget than we have. I do my best to quietly steer them in the wrong direction, but there's a limit to what I can do without giving myself away. I might support the underground, but I have no intention of dying for it."

  "Technically speaking," said Valentine, "this isn't actually the underground. We're not that far from the surface, just in between the inner and outer spheres. I think they just call it the underground to confuse people."

  "Understandable. And you must admit, saying you're part of the underground sounds a lot better than saying you're one of the in-betweenies."

  Valentine smiled politely, and they walked a ways in silence. They both knew that by now unseen minds were probing theirs to make sure they were who they were supposed to be. They also knew that if either of them had even looked like failing the test, they'd be dead. Nothing was allowed to threaten the underground. Valentine and the man called Hood rounded a corner, ducked under a low entrance and stepped out of the cramped tunnel into a brightly lit giant cavern of gleaming metal. Hood's ball of light snapped out. Multicolored wires crawled across the walls, hung dangling from the high ceiling and disappeared into conduits like snakes sliding into their holes. Mysterious bulking machinery jutted out of the walls, crowding each other for space. The floor was covered with debris, smashed and broken pieces of high tech, some recent, some apparently not. There were living things in the center of the floor, but Valentine chose not to look at them just yet. He straightened up slowly with a grateful sigh, and massaged his aching back with both hands.

  "You're the tech expert. Hood. Where the hell are we this time? It looks like a repairman's nightmare."

  "An old workstation, by the look of it. Abandoned and forgotten and renovated by the cyberats. There are lots of places like this between the various worlds within Golgotha; places that served a purpose once, but were left behind as technology moved on. The cyberats love them; play with them for hours. They've got hundreds of refuges like this that don't appear in current computer records anymore."

  "It's a dump," said Valentine.

  "Well, yes, but you have to admit it does smell better than the sewers."

  "Actually, I quite like dumps. They appeal to my preference for chaos. I love the patterns they make."

  He giggled cheerfully, and Hood looked at him. Valentine looked back, and then the two of them walked forward to bow courteously to the esper representatives in the middle of the great metal chamber. As always, the representatives hid their true identities behind telepathically projected images. They might have been there in person, or they might have been sending the images from somewhere else. It was a talent that Valentine greatly envied.

  The esper leaders were a mystery, and they were determined to keep it that way. So a waterfall fell through the air, bubbling and gushing, coming from nowhere and going back there when it touched the floor. Strange colors came and went, and two shadows that might have been eyes hovered midway. Beside the waterfall a swirling mandala hung upon the air, an intricate pattern of glowing lines twisting and turning in upon itself endlessly. Valentine could have watched it for hours. Next to that, a twelve-foot-long dragon lay curled around a tree, light gleaming dully on its golden scales. Valentine was never quite sure whether that was one representative or two. He'd never heard the tree say anything, but then the dragon didn't have much to say, either. And finally, there was the individual Valentine always thought of as Mr. Perfect. A massively muscled figure, developed almost to the point of caricature, he stood with his arms across his massive chest, staring commandingly at his visitors. Valentine always felt an overwhelming urge to sneak up behind him and goose him. Except he probably wasn't really there.

  There was no guarantee anyone was. The images could be coming from anywhere. They had no reality outside the recipient's mind. Valentine was familiar with that feeling. It occurred to him that Hood might be seeing something completely different. He'd have to compare notes later. He'd been quietly trying to piece together some idea of who was behind the images for some time, but to no effect. The esper representatives were extremely paranoid about their secrets, and with good cause. The reward for esper rebellion was death. Eventually. The cavern was silent, but the air was tense and brittle with the unspoken speech of the telepaths. Hood leaned in close beside Valentine.

  "I can just about tap in on what's going on. Listen through me."

  A sharp prickling wrapped around Valentine's head like a halo of barbed wire, and slowly he became aware of a soft susurrus of voices filling the chamber. They meshed and intersected without colliding, a hundred voices speaking all at once without confusion or loss of meaning. The voices were more than just words: thoughts and feelings and impressions rolled around each other, adding tartness and flavor. And underlying the music of gathered minds, the hard unyielding beat of six major minds: conferring, directing and deciding. Valentine's mind swayed with the rhythm, but held itself apart and intact. The impact would have been too much for the normal human mind to cope with, but Valentine's mind wasn't normal anymore. Not after all the things he'd done to it. He hung on the fringes, savoring what he could, fascinated. If this is what the esper drug can do, I want it. And to hell with what it costs me. He sensed as much as heard Hood's laughter beside him.

  And then Hood moved away, and the link was broken.

  Valentine rocked on his feet, shrunk once again to the narrow margins of his own mind. Faint traces of the experience remained with him, leaving him hungry for more. Valentine smiled wryly. Presumably that had been Hood's intention, to get him off balance and at the same time
concentrate his attention on ways of getting the esper drug for himself. Except Valentine knew all about drugs, and bowed to none of them. He had other business here besides the esper drug. The underground was a route to power, and that came first. Always.

  He looked round sharply as four men with the same face entered the chamber from another entrance. They wore carefully distinct clothing, but they moved in the same way and their faces held the same thoughts. Clones. Presumably representatives for the clone underground. They were tall and slender, almost impossibly graceful, and had a natural gravitas that went beyond dignity. Valentine knew a natural leader when he saw one. Whatever they were all here to discuss, it must be pretty damned important. The clone leaders rarely appeared in person.

  They were followed in by three women with the same face, and Valentine's interest was piqued. He'd seen that face before. Seen it on an esper called Stevie Blue, who died at the Empress' feet after humiliating her in front of the whole court with a pie in the face. She'd been an elf: Esper Liberation Front. The more extreme edge of the esper underground. And now it seemed she was a clone as well. That was unusual. Not many espers survived the cloning process.

  The three women looked to be in their early twenties, wearing the same leather and chains their dead sister had worn, not to mention the same T-shirt, bearing the legend "Born To Burn." They were short and stocky, with muscular bare arms, and one of them was casually hefting a solid steel dumbbell as though it weighed nothing. Long dark hair fell to their shoulders, full of knotted ribbons. Their faces were sharp, high-cheekboned, and daubed with fierce colors. They each wore swords on their hips in leather scabbards that looked like they'd seen a lot of use. The three women looked cold and calm and very dangerous.

  "Welcome, Stevie Blues," said Mr. Perfect. "You honor us with your presence. As espers and clones, you are uniquely suited to bring the two undergrounds together."

  "Even though neither of us can be sure where your loyalties really lie," said the dragon, a long, thin tongue flickering out of his mouth.