Deathstalker Return (31 page)

The Icarus Working.

Left behind, Finn Durandal yelled into his comm net for the nearest starcruisers to change course and intercept the fleeing city. But the only ship in range was the
Hammer.
It moved ponderously round the curve of the world, heading for New Hope. It had barely moved into sensor range when all its systems failed. Computers crashed, backups aborted, and everything that could go wrong did. Life support systems collapsed, lights flickered on and off, the artificial gravity failed, and sudden fires broke out all through the ship. The
Hammer
drifted further and further off course, and began the slow fall towards Logres. It had flown too close to the new sun in the heavens, and its wings had burned.

The oversoul concentrated one last time, and New Hope disappeared—hidden, undetectable behind its own stealth shields. The oversoul looked upon its works, saw them to be good, and considered where to go next.

While the oversoul was still planning its escape from Logres, Donal Corcoran was planning his escape from the asylum he was being held in. Corcoran was the first man to have looked upon the face of the Terror—at a great distance, and via his ship’s sensors—but he had looked upon the face of the Medusa, and the experience had marked him forever. He no longer thought as other men did. Medication didn’t affect him, even in what would have been toxic doses for anyone else. He didn’t eat or drink anymore, and he hadn’t slept in months. He still wore his old spacer’s uniform, now ragged and filthy, and he hadn’t shaved or washed or even combed his hair since he’d been dragged screaming from the bridge of his ship in a strait-jacket. He was being kept in a high-security asylum disguised as a country house, while doctors and scientists studied him from as safe a distance as possible.

But Donal Corcoran had had enough of that. He plotted awful revenges against the Terror, for what it had done to him, and for that he needed to be free.

Part of his disturbed mind was always in contact with the Terror. As though it had taken part of his mind with it when it disappeared back into the place it came from, the place that wasn’t a place. The Terror was always there on the edges of his thoughts, like a nightmare waiting to begin. Sometimes he thought it could see him too, and the thought made him whimper and bite his fingers. But he could see the place the Terror came from, even when it wasn’t there; a space beyond space. It was as real to him as the place that imprisoned him. It drew and terrified him, like a hunger for poisonous things.

It was his way out.

So one evening when the shadows seemed particularly dark and restless, Donal Corcoran went walking through the grounds of the country house. The lawns were a vivid green, newly wet from the sprinklers. Wide blooming flowers perfumed the air with their scent, and the trees were very solid, but none of it was real, any more than the house was really a house. The house was an asylum, and the grounds were mostly holo images, backed up by sound recordings and programmed smells. Donal could see right through them when he chose, though of course he never told the doctors that. Sometimes he could see right through them too. Donal went walking, stopping now and then to count and recount his fingers, because he had to keep checking the details of the few things he still believed in. Certainty had deserted him, blown away by the Gorgon’s gaze. He couldn’t trust anything anymore, except his own intentions. He giggled like a small boy contemplating a particularly clever bit of mischief, and moved his changed mind in certain unusual ways. And as he changed his mind, the world changed around him. He walked out of the illusionary garden and into a place that only looked like a place. It was cold and dark, like an endless stone corridor buried deep, deep below the ground, stretching away in every direction, including some he couldn’t even name. It smelled of dead roses and a woman’s sweat, and he could hear a baby crying in the distance but he knew it wasn’t really a baby. A great Word hung unspoken on the air, held at bay by the implacable will of a woman wailing for her demon lover. The sorrow of it would have broken Donal’s heart, if he still had one. He chose a direction and walked back into the world that everyone else agreed was real. In front of him was the door to his psychiatrist’s office. Dr. Oisin Benjamin. Donal smiled a not particularly nice or even sane smile. He pushed open the door without knocking, and strolled into Dr. Benjamin’s office.

The doctor looked up from his desk, startled, and moved his hand automatically to cover the notes he was writing. Dr. Benjamin was a great one for writing notes. He didn’t look especially pleased to see his star patient. Donal sat down in the visitor’s chair and crossed his legs casually.

“Donal,” said Dr. Benjamin, trying to sound pleasant and not at all nervous. “How did you . . . You’re not supposed to be here, Donal. My appointments are over for the day. Why don’t I ring for an attendant, to escort you back to your quarters . . .”

He was already reaching for the hidden alarm button, to summon his bully boys in white coats, when Donal launched himself out of his chair. He threw himself across the top of the desk, merrily scattering important papers, and grasped Dr. Benjamin by the throat. The two of them fell backwards and crashed to the floor with Donal on top, straddling the doctor’s chest. Dr. Benjamin struggled but couldn’t break free, pinned down by Donal’s wright. He opened his mouth to yell for help, and Donal hit him lightly in the face. There was a loud crack as the doctor’s nose broke, and blood flew from his smashed mouth.

“Sorry about that,” said Donal. “Guess I don’t know my own strength these days.” He paused, trying out various expressions on his face to see which would impress the doctor the most. “Now, be still. I’m here for a little chat. One last pleasant conversation before it’s time for me to go. You should be pleased, Doctor, you’ve been trying to get me to open up to you for ever so long, haven’t you? Trying to get inside my head, to see the world as I do. Not a good idea, Dr. Benjamin. Trust me on this, if nothing else. Where I am, it is always cold and dark and someone’s crying. It might even be me. I hear the voices of all those who died on the Rim Worlds, whispering around the edges of my thoughts. They don’t like being dead again. And I can feel the Terror, moving slowly towards us, coming for us all. I want to run in every direction at once, but even more than that I want revenge. I want my thoughts to be my own again. I want my life to make sense again. I want my old life back! That’s not so much to ask, is it? I’m going to destroy the Terror, for what it’s done to me. And I can’t do that while I’m still here. So I’m off. Things to do, things to do . . . But before I go, good Dr. Benjamin, I have a present for you. One last gift, to help you understand what’s going on in my head.”

He surged to his feet, dragging Dr. Benjamin up with him as though he were weightless. He grabbed one of the doctor’s shoulders in each hand, and pulled. Dr. Benjamin screamed horribly as he came apart, ripped in two, torn apart down the middle from the top of his head, down through his torso, and all the way to the groin. The two vertical halves fell away from each other as Donal let go, and crashed to the carpeted floor. There was blood, but not a lot, before Donal sealed off both halves through the force of his will. Dr. Benjamin thrashed weakly on the floor, still alive, reaching out with his seperated arms, a single eye rolling in each half head, and making horrible sounds with his half mouths. Kept alive by Donal’s implacable will. Somewhere an alarm bell was ringing loudly. Someone had noticed Donal Corcoran wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He crossed quickly to the door of the doctor’s office, and then looked back at the two halves of his psychiatrist.

“Now you know how I feel all the time,” he said, and left.

Donal Corcoran went walking through the corridors of the asylum, sometimes using the doors and sometimes not. More alarm bells were ringing now, and he could feel guards coming his way with all kinds of restraints and weapons. Sometimes Donal avoided them by walking through walls, and sometimes he just turned sideways from the world and they couldn’t see him. He made his way out of the asylum and into the street. There was no one about. The guards were all inside, looking for him. Donal looked up into the sky and called to what was waiting. There was a pause, and then a long dark shape came plunging down out of the clouds to join him. It was sleek and silver and it knew him. His old ship, the
Jeremiah,
had escaped from its dock and come looking for him. It too had been touched by the Terror, and was more than just a ship now. The madman and his mad ship looked upon each other, and were glad. They belonged together. The ship hovered above him while he thought about what he should do, and when he stopped thinking he was on the
Jeremiah
’s bridge. He could do things like that now. He gave the order, and his ship blasted off for orbit. The
Jeremiah
was a trader’s ship, built for speed and treachery. Illegally fast and protected by state of the art stealth shields, there wasn’t much on Logres that could catch or intercept it.

Donal walked curiously through the shadowed corridors of the
Jeremiah,
and it seemed to him that the old ship looked somewhat different. It had changed since he last saw it. After the Imperial Navy had boarded his ship against his wishes, strapped him into a straitjacket and dragged him away screaming, the
Jeremiah
had been piloted to Logres and held in a star-dock for oberservation. Donal had known that, without having to be told—just as he knew that many of the scientists sent to study the ship had quit because of the nightmares it was giving them. But he hadn’t realized his ship had changed as much as he had, wandering off along new and little-used paths.

The steel corridors of the
Jeremiah
were now tall gothic arches, punctuated here and there with niches and crevices packed with fascinating things. Some of them looked almost alive. The ship’s technology had grown, run wild, mutated. Strange new constructs, of no certain function, blinked at him from consoles with too many dimensions. Sometimes there was no lighting at all, but he could still see. The
Jeremiah
and he had been joined together by their experiences, on a level that nothing could break. The metal walls were comfortably warm under his touch.

He returned to the bridge, and the main viewscreen showed him scenes of the damned, burning in Hell. They writhed and twisted, calling out silently for mercy that never came. Donal frowned, and the images disappeared. All through the ship, whispers had followed him, rising and falling like the sea, never ending, never still. He couldn’t understand them yet, but he thought he might, in time. The
Jeremiah
had been forced awake and aware through its contact with the Terror; not just the AI but the whole ship. And it hurt. Like its master, it ached for revenge. Or perhaps they both just craved death, and the peace it promised. Either way, they would find the Terror, and drag it down with them into Hell if they could.

 

 

As they were leaving orbit, they encountered the city of New Hope. The
Jeremiah
paused to match orbits, and the two vessels considered each other. The city of light and the starship holding darkness within. On the
Jeremiah
’s bridge, the viewscreen activated itself, showing Crow Jane and the Ecstatic called Joy.

“I know you,” said Donal. “I watch the news, though I don’t believe all of it. About time you got the hell out of there. It’s only going to get worse, you know.”

“I know you, Captain Corcoran,” Crow Jane said courteously. “I told them that place would never hold you, if you wanted out. Do you know where you’re going?”

“To the ends of the Empire, and beyond. Off the edges of the maps, and into the spaces marked Here Be Monsters. I have business there.”

Crow Jane turned to Joy. “You talk to him for a while. He sounds like your type.”

“Greetings, Captain,” said the Ecstatic cheerfully. “I think we should keep this short and to the point. Because your ship is upsetting the oversoul. It keeps trying to talk to them. I like roses. Do you see the Light People too?”