him. Shub looked after its own. On the far edge of the crowd, Stelmach hid behind Silence, who had to hold Frost back from attacking the Fury with her bare hands.
Lionstone ordered her guards to destroy the Fury, and the twelve armed men rushed forward, quickly surrounding the android. It hesitated briefly, and they threw themselves at it. Their swords cut through the exterior flesh, only to rebound harmlessly from the steel beneath. They had no guns; Lionstone didn't allow them at Court. The Fury flexed its arms, and the steel spikes protruding from its body shot out like shrapnel, transfixing the guards. They fell choking and dying to the snow, and lay still.
David Deathstalker and Kit SummerIsle ran forward and snatched up two of the fallen swords. They hit the Fury from both sides at once and darted back out of range before it could turn its strength on them. David was boosting now, almost the equal of the Fury's inhuman speed, and Kid Death forced the android to a halt through the sheer speed and ferocity of his attack. The two of them whittled away at the flesh covering, revealing more of the steel beneath, but couldn't do it any damage. They dodged the energy beams and kept fighting.
Razor and Frost appeared suddenly and joined the fight with more blades retrieved from the dead guards, and the two Investigators added their skill and savagery to the battle. But even so, all the four of them could do was duck energy beams and contain the Fury where it was. They weren't doing it any real damage, and they all knew it was only a matter of time before they began to slow, and then it would get them.
'Back off!' said Lionstone loudly from her Throne. 'I've got a better idea.'
Razor and Frost threw themselves to one side, as energy beams from the Fury's eyes and mouth flashed through the air where they'd been. David and Kid Death glanced at the Throne and backed quickly away from the Fury as they realized what Lionstone had in mind. The Grendel alien stood still and silent at Lionstone's side, as though straining at an invisible leash. Its yoke chimed once, and the Grendel surged forward and threw itself at the Fury. Energy beams flashed from the alien's eyes, searing away the android's false face to reveal the grinning steel skull beneath. Spikes protruded from the Grendel's crimson armor, and the two inhuman beings slammed together and stood straining as they tested each other's strength.
The Grendel seized the Fury's head with both hands and ripped it clean off. The Fury didn't miss a step. It lashed out with one hand and thrust its steel blade through the alien's belly and out its back. Dark blood coursed down its legs, but the Grendel didn't flinch. The alien leaned over the android's exposed neck and sent an energy blast from its mouth down through the open wound into the heart of the machine. The Fury waved its free arm wildly, and then jerked up the one buried in the Grendel's gut, cutting the alien's upper body in two. For a moment they stood together, as though waiting for the strength for some last ultimate effort, and then the alien and the android both fell dead on the snow.
There was a long pause, and then Frost and Razor edged cautiously forward and looked down at the unmoving bodies. Frost stirred the Fury with the toe of her boot, but it didn't react. David and Kit came over to take a look, leaning on each other for support. All around them, courtiers were slowly and very warily getting to their feet again and brushing themselves off.
'I wonder what happened to the real Le Bihan?' said David.
'Dead,' said Razor.
'Are you sure?' said Kit.
'He'd better be,' said Frost. 'That thing was wearing his skin.'
'Damn,' said Lionstone lazily, looking at the two inhuman bodies. 'Now I'll have to order another Grendel. Relax, people, the excitement's over. That was the only Fury, wasn't it, computer?'
'That was the only Fury,' said the disembodied voice calmly. 'However, it is not the only deviation from the norm. The Vicar Roger Geffen, of Cardinal Kassar's retinue, is very definitely not human. Don't rightly know what he is, but according to the sensors, his structure and interior are completely inhuman. I can only assume he is some kind of alien, passing as human.'
'Take the creature alive!' snapped the Empress. 'Damn it: this time I want some questions answered!'
'Sorry,' said Geffen, an ordinary and average-looking fellow in a formal surplice. 'Can't stay. Things to see, people to do. You know how it is.'
His arms and legs elongated suddenly, his head leaping up on a wildly stretching neck. Different parts of his body stretched and changed shape, absorbing his clothes into himself, while different faces came and went on his ballooning head. People converged on him from all sides, and the alien fell back, collapsed, and splashed like liquid, spattering everywhere. Some of the courtiers tried to pick it up, but the pieces squirmed out of their fingers, rejoined suddenly into one central mass, and fountained up into the air. Razor and Frost tried to cut at it with their swords, but the alien flesh just broke and reformed without taking any injury. And while all this was going on, wide-grinning mouths whooped and laughed and sang a medley of popular show tunes in several different voices. Finally, it pulled its many parts together, spun around like a whirlwind, flew up into the air, crashed through the hidden ceiling, and was gone. It suddenly seemed very quiet in the Court. Valentine was the first to stir. 'Well,' he said. 'Somehow I never thought an alien invasion would be so… silly.'
And that was how the Court ended that day. The courtiers filed out as quickly as they could without seeming disrespectful, while the Empress stood on her Throne and screamed furiously at her people to find the alien, capture it, kill it, and dissect it. Not necessarily in that order. The Lord High Dram was one of the first to leave, maintaining a very low profile, and was glad to be well out of it. He had a strong suspicion the alien wasn't going to be found, and he didn't want to be around Lionstone when some poor sod tried to explain that to her. Given the creature's shape-changing abilities, it could be anywhere or anything by now. Or anyone. Dram decided very firmly that he wasn't going to think about that. The security sensors would probably track it down eventually, but it was going to be a long, slow process. There was also the problem of how they were going to contain the thing once they'd found it, but Dram decided he wasn't going to think about that, either. He had his own problems.
The courtiers had been pretty quiet as they hurried out of the frozen Court. They all had a lot they wanted to talk about, but they preferred to do it in private. Dram had a lot he wanted to say to Lionstone, but for the moment he thought it would be better to do it from a safe distance, over a secured comm channel. So he made his way back to his private quarters in the Imperial Palace, taking his time in the hope Lionstone might have calmed down a little by the time he got there. As it was, he'd barely got through the door when his viewscreen started chiming insistently. Dram didn't rush to answer it. She was going to be in a foul mood anyway, so he might as well enjoy the last few moments of peace he had left. He sank down into a comfortable chair, put his feet up on the footstool that had scurried into position, sighed deeply, and accepted the call. Lionstone scowled at him from the wall. She was still wearing her crown, even though she was calling from her private quarters. This was a dangerous sign. It usually meant she had something official and very unpleasant in mind.
'Dram, so glad you've got yourself comfortable. Don't sit up on my account. And no, we haven't found the damned thing yet, thank you so much for asking. This is all I need right now, more complications. Some days things wouldn't go right if you bribed them with a barony.'
'You should now,' said Dram. 'So tell me; how did I do? Was I convincing? Will people believe I'm the real Dram?'
'Of course they will,' said Lionstone. 'If only because they'll find the alternative too disturbing to contemplate. They'll believe you're the real you because they won't want to think a clone could get so close to me; they'll assume my security scanners must have validated you, and leave it at that. As long as I say you're Dram, that's all that matters.
'The only people who saw the previous Dram die are contained in the
'You don't need a hero,' said Dram. 'You've got me.'
The Empress smiled coldly. 'My people tell me you still haven't ordered the mass execution of the Tax and Tithe Headquarters security staff.'
'It seemed a trifle harsh,' said Dram. 'They were just unlucky. It wasn't their fault. No one could have anticipated a Hadenman ship.'
'The old Dram would have executed them all without a second thought. Some of them personally,
