Deathstalker

'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 to 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