Deathstalker

trapped.'

'For someone who didn't want to worry us, I'd say you've managed very well,' said Owen.

'I could break the door down,' said Moon in his grating inhuman voice.

'Thanks for the thought, but no,' said Owen. 'The last thing we want to do right now is make a bad impression. Those energy guns are probably still trained on us, and I don't want whoever's behind them feeling nervous. If you want to be useful, Moon, try talking to the castle. If there are computers inside the Standing, you might be able to communicate with them.'

Moon nodded and frowned slightly, concentrating. In that moment, much of the humanity went out of the Hadenman's face, dominated by the blazing golden eyes, and Owen fought down a sudden impulse to shiver. Moon's face cleared, and he looked at Owen. 'Nothing. If there are any computers in there, either they're not listening or they're not talking.'

'Show your ring to the sensors again,' said Hazel. 'That got a response last time.'

Owen lifted his hand and showed it a little selfconsciously to the windows above the door. No light showed, and he'd started to lower his hand again when suddenly he was somewhere else…There was no warning, or sense of transition; one moment he was standing before the door and the next he was in a great hall, presumably inside the Standing. It stretched away before him, incredibly long and wide, and completely deserted. An army could have drilled in the hall, or a full Clan gathering could have danced in it, but there was no sign of any life save for the lights shining overhead. There was no fire in the great marble fireplace, but the floor had been recently waxed and polished, and there was no trace of dust anywhere. The others were suddenly in the hall with him, looking almost as confused as he felt.

'What the hell just happened?' said Hazel, one hand dropping to the gun at her side.

'Transfer portal,' said Owen. 'I've heard about them, but never expected to encounter a working one. They were created centuries ago; instant teleportation between two places to save the aristocracy the bother of actually having to travel from one place to another. They never caught on because of the massive amounts of power involved, and because they were a security nightmare. Then espers came in and replaced them. No power sources required, and a damn sight cheaper to run. The Empire's always had a fondness for slave labor over machinery. This place must have a hell of a power source hidden away somewhere, if it can still operate a transfer portal after all this time.'

'Nine hundred and forty years,' said Random. 'Whoever built this Standing built it to last.'

'I've just had a really nasty thought,' Hazel said quietly. 'If this place is being run by computers; could it have been taken over by the AIs from Snub? They're supposed to have all kinds of technology that we don't.'

'You're right,' said Owen. 'That is a nasty thought. If you have any more like that, feel free to keep them to yourself. Things are tricky enough as it is without us getting paranoid. We're a long way from Shub, and the last I heard, the Enemies of Humanity were safely tucked away behind an Imperial blockade. Let's all please concentrate on the matter at hand.'

'You got us in here, Deathstalker,' said Ruby. 'What say you lead us to this ancestor of yours? I've got a few questions I wouldn't mind putting to him.'

'All right,' said Owen, trying hard to sound confident. 'Follow me.'

He strode off down the great hall, the echoes of his footsteps sounding loud and flat in the silence. The others moved quickly after him, not wanting to be left behind, trying very hard to look casual and unimpressed. Owen allowed his hand to rest quietly near his gun. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to find at his ancestor's legendary Last Standing, but this wasn't it. This immense castle wasn't the last refuge of a desperate man, driven and harried to a planet light-years from civilization. This was a power base, designed for survival against overwhelming odds; a place to strike back from. But he never had. He had all this power at his command, but instead he chose to hide himself away in stasis, waiting for an awakening that never came. Owen frowned. Presumably the Empire had been just as overwhelming an enemy then as it was now, but Owen had a strong feeling he didn't have anything like the whole story. He strode on, trying to look confident and unthreatening at the same time. He didn't want to appear a threat. He was pretty damn sure the Standing had just as many security measures inside as it did outside.

He reached the other end of the hall without incident, stepped through the open door and found himself somewhere else, completely unconnected to the hall. He'd just passed through another transfer portal. It didn't take Owen and the rest of his party long to discover two important things about the portals. One, Every door in the castle was a portal leading somewhere unexpected, and two, you couldn't go back through the door to wherever you'd just come from. And so the party jumped blindly from room to room, passing ever deeper into the depths of the Last Standing. Owen kept himself oriented with his internal compass, but he had no way of knowing exactly where in the castle he was at any given time. Or how to get out of it. All the rooms were perfectly clean and brightly lit, but with nothing to show they had ever been lived in. Owen became increasingly convinced that they were being watched at all times, but couldn't spot anything that might have been a sensor. Whoever was controlling the portals apparently had some destination in mind, but where and why remained a mystery.

Owen kept walking and tried very hard to be patient. He had a strong suspicion that even if he had felt like being awkward, it wouldn't have made any difference. He was in someone else's hands now, for better or worse. He tried to keep his hand near his gun without being too obvious about it. They passed through room after room, all of them devoid of interest or personality. No fixtures or fittings, no comforts of any kind. Owen became increasingly convinced that no one had ever lived in the castle.

Until finally they came to what Owen immediately thought of as a trophy room. Unlike the other rooms, this one was of a more comfortable size, though its contents were anything but comforting. A large glass case took up the center of the room, some ten feet square. And in that case, like trophies on display, stood three men in outdated battle armor. They were so still that Owen first thought they were models of some kind, but when he moved forward and pressed his nose against the glass, he quickly became convinced they were real. Their poses were stiff, their faces were blank, and there were bloody holes in their armor.

'They're dead, aren't they?' Hazel said finally. 'I thought at first they were in stasis, but there's no trace of any equipment.'

'They're preserved in some way,' said Random. 'I'd kill for a closer look at them.'

'No problem,' said Moon, and smashed one of the glass sides with his fist.

Owen whirled around, gun in hand, every muscle tensed for an attack that never came. He slowly relaxed and turned back to the Hadenman.

'Moon, if I wanted a heart attack, I'd play Russian roulette with a fully-charged disrupter. Don't do anything else without checking with me first. You could have set off some kind of security system.'

'We need information,' said Moon, entirely unfazed by the anger in Owen's voice. He stepped through the wreckage of the glass wall, splinters crunching under his boots, and studied the figures closely. Random moved in quickly after him, followed by Hazel and Ruby. Owen decided he wasn't doing any good just standing outside on his own, shook his head resignedly and entered the glass case himself. Up close, the three figures looked even more disturbing. Moon prodded one with his finger, and it rocked gently on its feet.

'What the hell are they?' said Hazel quietly, as though afraid they might hear her. 'It's not stasis, whatever it is.'

'They're preserved,' said Moon. 'They died, violently according to the evidence, and then their insides were removed, and some kind of preservative material was pumped inside them.'

'How can you tell?' said Random, sounding more intrigued than anything else.

'I can smell the chemicals,' said Moon. 'And there are telltale signs in the skin, if you know what to look for.'

Owen decided not to ask how the Hadenman knew which signs to look for. He didn't think he really wanted to know.

'Who do you suppose they were?' said Ruby.

'According to the Family histories,' Owen said slowly, 'my ancestor, the original Deathstalker, was pursued here by three of the greatest mercenary assassins of their time: the infamous Shadow Men. They were never heard of again. Apparently they did catch up with their prey after all.'

You mean he killed them, and then had them preserved and mounted as trophies?' Hazel pulled a face. 'Nasty sense of humor your ancestor had, Owen. Or was this usual, for the time?'

'No,' said Owen. 'No, it wasn't.'