Deathstalker Honor

member of the Church of Christ the Warrior now, but it is a Mystical Order rather than a religion. Everyone is raised to be a warrior from childhood on. The people will never be weak again. We have no room for Saints, for the weak or the meek—for those who don't have the faith to fight for what's right.'

'I can see you and the Mother Superior are going to have a lot to talk about,' said Owen, and Hazel nodded solemnly. 'Where do you stand on all this, Moon?'

'The Hadenmen believe in the Church of the Genetic Crusade. The perfectability of man. Man becomes God eventually. I'm no longer sure what I personally believe. So much has changed since I went through the Maze. I touched something there, something much greater than myself, but whether that was the Maze or something the Maze put me in touch with… And afterward I died, and was brought back to life again. My thoughts, my memories, my… self, should have been lost forever, but here I am. I have no memories of being dead. Owen, you said I spoke to you even after I was killed by the Grendel.'

'You did,' Owen said stubbornly. 'I heard your voice, down in the caverns of the Wolfling World. You told me the right code sequence to open the Tomb of the Hadenmen. Without that… everything would have been different.'

'Then I too have something to discuss with Mother Superior Beatrice,' said Moon. 'Even if it is only the exact nature of guilt. I shall be interested to hear her replies.'

'Hold everything,' said Bonnie. 'Back up and go previous. I think I must have missed something along the way. Why the hell do the Hadenmen want this bloody planet anyway? I mean, there's no tech here, no mineral deposits, just plants with attitude and colonists who have to count their fingers after they've shaken hands. Why would the Hadenmen waste troops and resources here? Moon, does this world have any strategic importance to the Hadenmen?'

'Not that I am aware of,' said Moon. 'The colonists are not suitable material for being made over into Hadenmen, and the planet isn't suitable for a Base or a Nest. I can only assume there is something of a unique nature here that they desire, which is as yet unknown to us.'

'Well, if we stumble across any of the invading army, try to leave one of them alive,' said Owen. 'I'll hold him down, and Hazel can ask him questions.'

'I've got a question of my own, for Saint Bea,' said Hazel. 'Namely, what the hell just the five of us are supposed to do against a whole invading army, with no ship, weapons, or backup?'

'Maybe she's hoping for a miracle,' said Owen.

In the end, it took them a day and a night and most of the next day of slow, hard slogging through the jungle and mud and rain to reach Saint Bea's Mission. They drank water from occasional standing pools. It tasted brackish, and gave them all a mild case of the runs, but at least they were able to keep it down. They'd been less lucky trying to discover which parts of the jungle it was safe to eat. Most of it came straight back up again, tasting twice as bad in the process. There was no real shelter from the rain, so they spent the night sitting miserably together around a tree, trying to sleep. By the time they reached the Mission, they were tired, cold, hungry, and very wet.

There was no warning. They just forced their way through yet another series of closely set trees, and found themselves looking out into a wide clearing, with the Mission set squarely in the middle. There was about twenty feet of open ground, and then a tall wooden wall marked the outer boundary of the Mission. The wall had been constructed of tightly packed black tree trunks, and looked reassuringly solid. The Mission itself was the size of a small village, with a long, slanting wooden roof covering everything within the walls. A single gate faced them, some twelve feet tall and ten wide, with a wooden watchtower on each side. Definitely a low-tech world, thought Owen. Hate to see what a disrupter cannon would do to that wall. Hate to think what their plumbing's like.

He stepped out into the clearing, and the watchtower sentries spotted him immediately and sounded the alarm. Owen led his party slowly across the open clearing. Armed men appeared on a catwalk inside the top of the outer wall. They were cloaked and hooded figures, some with energy weapons, most with bows and arrows. Owen didn't disparage the bows. An arrow could kill you just as dead as anything else if it hit the right spot. He murmured to the others to keep their hands conspicuously away from their weapons, and kept a careful eye on the watchtower sentries. One had what appeared to be a telescope trained on the newcomers. Hopefully, once he'd identified the approaching party as being human, and not Hadenmen, the armed figures on the wall would calm down a little, but Owen still kept himself ready. Tired as he was, he was pretty sure he could dodge an arrow. Hell, he could probably shoot the bowman's head off before he'd even finished pulling back his bowstring, but he thought he'd better not. Definitely not the best way to make a good first impression with Saint Bea. Mother Beatrice, he thought firmly. She hates being called Saint Bea. His party made it all the way to the front gate without anyone on either side developing a twitchy finger, and Owen looked up at the left-hand watchtower, blinking through the rain.

'Owen Deathstalker and party, here at the request of Mother Superior Beatrice Christiana. How about letting us in before we all drown out here?'

'Stay where you are,' said a hoarse voice from the watch-tower. 'We've sent a runner to the Mother Superior. She'll have to identify you.'

'Don't be a pratt all your life, son,' said another voice from the tower. 'That's the Deathstalker, all right. Seen his face on a dozen holo documentaries before I came here. He's a hero of the rebellion. And that's Hazel d'Ark beside him.'

'That's Hazel d'Ark?' said the first voice. 'Oh, bloody hell. Isn't it bad enough being a leper without having her here too?'

Owen looked at Hazel. 'Your reputation is spreading.'

'Good,' she said. 'Now tell them to get a move on, or I'll kick their gate in and make them eat the hinges.'

'I heard that,' said the second voice. 'Please leave our gate alone. It's the only one we've got. Give us a minute to draw back the bolts, and we'll let you in. The Mother Superior will be here soon, and there'll be hot food and dry clothes for all of you.'

'And a leash for Hazel d'Ark,' said the first voice.

'I heard that!' said Hazel.

There was a pause. 'Do you know who I am?' said the first voice.

'No.'

'Then I think I'll keep it that way.'

The gate creaked open while Hazel was still trying to come up with a suitably devastating reply, and all animosity was forgotten as Owen and his party hurried inside, glad to get out of the rain at last. The gate opened into a wide square or compound, already half full of cloaked and hooded figures, with more arriving all the time. They all had their hoods pulled well forward to hide their faces, making the crowd eerily alike and anonymous, like a convention of somewhat tattered gray ghosts. Owen stood dripping before them, listening to the very pleasant and reassuring sound of the rain drumming on the roof overhead. He looked slowly around him, trying to judge his reception, and then the crowd raised their voices in a ragged cheer. Owen let the cheering go on for a while. He rather felt he'd earned it. But finally he raised a hand to get their attention, and the cheer was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. All the hoods turned to face him, eerily expectant. Damn, thought Owen. They want a speech.

'It's good to be here at last,' he said very seriously. 'The good news is that the Empire got Mother Beatrice's call for help. The bad news is, we're all you're getting. The Empire's fighting a war for survival on a half dozen fronts at once, and we're all they can spare. But Hazel and I have been known to turn around even the most dire of situations, so as soon as we've had a word with Mother Beatrice, and brought ourselves up to speed—'

'I'm here,' said a warm but still subtly commanding voice, and the crowd parted silently to allow the Mother Superior to pass, bowing their heads deeply as she went by. Mother Beatrice wore a simple nun's outfit, with a plain wimple, rather than the much more impressive robes her rank entitled her to. A simple silver crucifix hung around her neck, and a wooden rosary hung from one hip like an undrawn gun. Her face was pale and drawn, with dark, steady eyes and a determined mouth. 'Thank the good Lord you're here at last, sir Deathstalker. We've been expecting you for some time.'

'There was mention of hot food and dry clothes…' Owen said.