'Hit the Queen. She's the heart and mind of them all.'
'You heard the Investigator, marines. Hit the Queen with everything you've got.'
Vivid light seared from the away team's disrupters and blasted away great chunks of the Queen's body. The pale flesh boiled and vaporized and blew apart, only to seal itself together again in moments. The Queen was just too big for them, too huge even for energy weapons to do any real damage. She towered over them, vast and monolithic, and from everywhere at once lesser aliens came suddenly swarming into what was left of the tunnel. There seemed no end to the living wave, and Silence knew that this time no weapon he had would be enough to stop them. They would just keep coming until their sheer numbers overwhelmed the away team. If he was lucky he'd die then.
And then everything changed. The enigmatic gift he'd acquired from the Madness Maze blazed brightly in his mind and Frost's, and they were linked again, mind to mind, soul to soul. A vast, incomprehensible roar filled their heads: the alien thoughts of a million insects, and thundering through it like a great heartbeat, the commands of the Queen.
It took Silence and Frost only a moment to patch into the roar of the mass mind, seize control, and impose their own commands upon it. The insect tide turned away from their human prey and fell upon the Queen. They swarmed all over her gigantic body and began to eat her alive. The last thing Silence and Frost heard before the link broke and they fell back into their own heads again was the Queen, screaming. They both grinned savagely.
Only human again, Frost and Silence looked at each other. They couldn't see each other's faces, but they didn't need to. Silence glanced briefly at the stunned marines watching the insects devour their own Queen, and decided explanations could wait. He activated his comm implant and accessed Frost on the command channel.
'It's not the same as the creature we found on Unseeli,' Frost said calmly. 'And it's nothing like what those poor bastards found on Wolf IV. So what exactly have we got here? The creators of those killer aliens in the vaults on Grendel? Or the ancient enemy the Grendel Sleepers were created to fight? Or something else entirely?'
'Beats the hell out of me,' said Silence. 'Let the specialists worry about it. We need to talk, Frost. This… link of ours. It's getting stronger. I don't know how much longer we can keep it hidden.'
'We have to,' said Frost. 'They mustn't know what really happened here. They'd reclassify us as espers. Strip us of our rank. Turn us into lab rats. I'd rather die than live like that.'
'There's always the underground.'
'Not for us.'
'No,' said Silence. 'Not for us. Aliens like these could return at any time, and only a strong and undivided Empire can hope to stand against them. So we'll keep quiet about what happened here. Act like it's a mystery to us, too. Lionstone doesn't need to know.'
'On the other hand,' Frost said thoughtfully, 'Lionstone was actually really quite lucky here today. With the fleet gone and the planet's defenses in disarray, Golgotha was practically defenseless. If we hadn't turned up when we did, this ship could have trashed half the damn planet. We saved her Imperial ass. Could be she'll be grateful. Grateful enough to overlook our recent failures. What do you think?'
'Not a chance,' said Silence.
CHAPTER THREE
Drowning Men
Finlay Campbell, outlaw and terrorist, once the most fabled fop and dandy of his age, and under another name secretly the Masked Gladiator, darling of the bloodthirsty Arena fans, hung upside down on the end of his rope and wondered if perhaps he was getting a little too old for heroics. Spread out below him lay the wide streets and bristling avenues of Golgotha's main city, the Parade of the Endless. It took its name from the endless supply of would-be heroes who came thronging every year to try their strength and courage in the Arena the city hosted. The aristocracy lived in the city, too, in their tightly guarded pastel towers, because after all this was the very best place to be, to see and be seen, in all the Empire. Apart from Lionstone's Court in the Imperial Palace, but you went there only when summoned. And if you were wise, you made out your will before you went. Just in case.
Finlay decided that his thoughts were drifting in unnecessary directions. Hanging upside down with the blood rushing to your head will do that to you. He sighed once, reached up and took a firm grip on his line, and hauled himself back up, hand over hand, till he reached a convenient resting place on the side of Tower Silvestri. Luckily, the Silvestri Family went in for rococo design, so that the sides of their tower were crusted with hundreds of niches and unexpected curves, full of ugly little statues with exaggerated genitals and faces only a mother could love. Finlay squeezed in beside a particularly well-endowed gargoyle with dyspepsia and got his breath back. All this time and trouble just to climb a nine hundred-foot tower. Definitely getting past it. Be taking milk in his coffee next.
If it hadn't been for his safely line, he'd have made a really nasty sploch on the ground below. That was what you got for hurrying. Normally, he'd have known better, but he'd fallen behind schedule. His own fault. He'd stopped off on the way to the tower to indulge himself with a good meal at a decent restaurant. Nowhere fashionable. He couldn't afford to be recognized. But since his Clan had fallen prey to an extremely hostile takeover by Clan Wolfe, he'd been forced to flee for his life. And the only people he could flee to were the clone and esper underground, who were fine when it came to courage and ideals and sticking it to authority, but rather lacking in the comforts department. In particular, Finlay missed the fine cuisine his position entitled him to. While never exactly an epicure, he knew what he liked. Soup so clear you could swim in it. Meat served very rare. In fact, just kill the beast, dismember it, wave the meat in the direction of the fireplace, and then slap it down in front of him, that was all he asked. A few out-of-season vegetables, just for bulk and fiber, and finally, a disgustingly sticky sweet to finish on. Heaven. Absolute heaven.
He'd been denied it for so long, and the smells wafting out of the little tucked-away bistro he passed proved just too tempting. A quick glance at the watch face embedded in his wrist had assured him he was well ahead of schedule, so… he allowed himself to be weak. He hadn't looked at his watch again till after his third helping of dessert and was horrified to see how much time had flown while he indulged himself. He dropped a handful of coins on the table and ran out the door like a man ashamed of the tip he was leaving. He'd got to the base of Tower Silvestri with aching lungs, a stitch in his side, and his recent meal rumbling rebelliously in his stomach. It was a wonder the guards hadn't heard him. He followed the agreed-upon approach, slipping between patrols, and threw himself at the side of the tower like a sailor fresh home from the sea visiting his wife. He was still very late, and he'd hurried the climb. Which was how he nearly came to be decorating half the pavement with his insides.
He checked his watch again. He was cutting it very fine. He worked on his breathing, slowing it determinedly back to normal as he stared out over the city. The pastel towers stretched away in all directions, a forest of metal and glass and alien stone, gleaming prettily in the sunlight. He glanced at his reflection in the mirrored steel behind him. He needn't have worried about anyone recognizing him in the bistro. He didn't look at all like he had used to. In his glory days he'd looked like nothing so much as a multicolored bird of paradise, dressed always in the brightest silks and graces current styles allowed. Tall and graceful and fashionable to the very moment, from his polished leather thigh boots to his velvet cap. On his last visit to Court, with his florescent face and metallized hair, he had worn a long cutaway frock coat that showed off his exquisite figure, and a pair of jeweled pince-nez spectacles he didn't need, and everyone there had bowed to him as one of the not-so-secret masters of fashion. Now look at him.
The face in the reflection could have been anyone. No cosmetics to camouflage a minor defect or bring out the bone structure. No bright colors to loudly announce status and rank, or attract the attention of other proud peacocks. Finlay's face these days was thin and drawn, with deep lines accentuating the mouth and eyes. He was just twenty-five and looked at least ten years older. His long hair was a yellow so pale it was almost colorless. At Court it had shone a bright metallic bronze, curled and bouncing over his shoulders. Now it hung limp and lifeless, and he didn't give a damn. He wore a simple leather headband to keep it out of his eyes. He knew he should cut it short. It would have been much more practical. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to do that. It would have been too much like cutting his last link with the person he used to be.
Once his clothes had been the peak of fashionable excess. Now he wore a loose-fitting thermal suit with a chameleon circuit that took on the colors of his surroundings. Finlay smiled briefly, and the man in the reflection smiled back, but Finlay still didn't recognize him. That man looked rough and hard-used, and very, very dangerous.
