Deathstalker (77 page)

It didn’t take Silence long to decide he didn’t like the Maze. He found its atmosphere oppressive, and the narrow paths between the shimmering walls began to seem uncomfortably claustrophobic, pressing in on him like the sides of a coffin. That last thought made Silence frown a little more. Enclosed spaces weren’t something that usually bothered him. Living in the cramped confines of a starship quickly cured you of claustrophobia, or you got out of the Service. But the Maze seemed somehow … overpowering, as though he was a rat scuttling though a scientist’s maze he could never hope to understand or appreciate. It wasn’t so much
that the Maze seemed big, as that it made him feel so very small.

There was a tension on the air, an approaching imminence of something about to happen. Something bad, very bad. The air rippled with heat waves though it was bitterly cold. It smelled of vinegar and burning leaves. Oiled metal and old lemon, sharp on his tongue. Colors seemed very bright, and his distorted reflection in the steel walls seemed somehow wrong. Monstrously wrong. He could hear the chattering of metal birds, and babies screaming, and a single iron bell tolling far, far away. Silence swallowed hard and tried to concentrate, but his thoughts were all over the place, and some of them didn’t seem like his at all.

Graves stopped abruptly, and Silence almost crashed into him. He stopped, too, and glared about him. Frost moved in close beside him, sword and gun at the ready. Silence could sense the rest of his people stumbling to a halt. No one said anything, but the tension was so thick it was almost smothering. Silence looked up, but there was only an impenetrable darkness, as before. He looked back at the steel walls, and his stomach lurched as he realized that there were no longer any reflections of him or his people in any of the shimmering walls. Frost was breathing harshly at his side, almost grunting, quivering with the need for an enemy to throw herself at. Graves stared straight ahead, his eyes bulging even more than usual, fixed on something only he could see or sense.

“What is it?” Silence said harshly, forcing the words out. “Booby trap?”

“It knows we’re here,” said Graves, his entirely normal voice seeming almost painfully loud. “It doesn’t want us. We’re too … inflexible. We’re not capable of the changes it wants to make. We wouldn’t survive the process.”

“How far from the exit are we?” said Silence, making himself concentrate on what mattered. “Are we far behind the rebels?”

“We have to go back, Captain.” Graves’ voice was flat and uncompromising. “It doesn’t want us here. It’s dangerous for us to be here.”

“What the hell are you talking about, esper?” snapped Frost. “What do you see?”

Graves turned to look at her, and blood seeped suddenly out from under his eyelids, running thick and slow down his
cheeks like crimson tears. And then his eyes exploded with soft, wet sounds, the blood and other fluids spraying Frost’s face. She snarled with distaste, but didn’t give ground by so much as a step. Blood poured in streams from Graves’ mouth and nose, his eye sockets and his ears. Silence grabbed Graves by the arm, and it crunched up in his grasp as though there was nothing really there inside the sleeve anymore. The esper folded up and fell slowly and gracefully to the floor, just an empty skin and so much blood. Silence and Frost moved to stand back-to-back, their weapons in their hands.

There were screams all around them. Some didn’t sound human. A marine came running toward Silence. He’d thrown away his weapons and had both hands clapped tight to his ears, as though trying to block out some intolerable sound. He kept running even though Silence stepped into his path to stop him, then ran straight through Silence as though he was a ghost. Silence turned quickly to look behind him, but there was no trace of the marine anywhere. Silence put his back against Frost’s again, turning round just in time to see a man’s head explode as though it had a grenade in it, showering the screaming, jostling mob of marines and espers with blood and brains and fragments of skull.

An esper disappeared, air rushing in to fill the vacuum where he’d been. Other espers were crying and laughing, their eyes wild and empty. A marine fell into one of the steel walls and disappeared as it swallowed him up. Something horrible appeared in the midst of everything: a tangle of bone and blood and viscera that might have been human once. It disappeared with a wet smack as it reached out to Frost with a dripping hand. She shook her head fiercely, as a throbbing headache beat in her ears like a pulse. Her hands were trembling, but she still held onto her weapons.

Two marines slammed into each other and ran together like two colors on a palette, their sticky flesh intermingling beyond any hope of separation. They both screamed with the same voice. Silence wanted to shoot them, but he didn’t. He might need the charge in his gun yet, if only to turn it on himself if it became necessary. Marines and espers were running in all directions now, strange and distorted as though space itself had become elastic where they were. And all around the harsh popping of exploding heads and what used
to be human voices laughing and screaming their sanity away.

A growing pressure built around Silence’s mind, as though his head was in a vise. His fingers seemed to have too many joints, and he didn’t trust his body anymore. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating on his mission and his duty. Neither seemed too clear anymore, or particularly important. He forced his eyes open and glared about him, desperate for some enemy he could identify or attack, but there was nothing. Just the dreadful steel walls, and his people dying. He looked back and saw Frost, falling to her knees. She still had hold of her sword and gun, but her eyes were lost in a private hell.

Silence’s thoughts slammed together again. He grabbed Frost by the arm and hauled her to her feet, and if her arm didn’t feel entirely human, well, neither did he. He had to get out of the Maze. Get Frost out of the Maze. He pointed his disrupter at the nearest wall and fired. The searing energy beam tore through the steel like paper, crumpling it up and throwing it aside. He holstered his gun and grabbed Frost’s. She was muttering to herself, and her eyes were starting to focus again. He aimed his gun at another wall, and it swung slowly backward, opening up a path for him. He hurried back the way he’d come, as near as he could tell, dragging Frost along with him.

And only a few moments later he was staggering out of the Maze, hugging Frost to him, and Stelmach was hurrying forward to meet him. Silence handed Frost over to him, and then sat down suddenly as his legs gave out on him. Somebody was crouching beside him and pressing a hypo against his neck. The cold hiss of the drug surging through his blood revived him a little, and his head began to clear. He realized Dram was standing over him, holding another hypo, and he forced himself to his feet again. He looked across at Frost, who was still sitting on the ground. Stelmach was leaning over her with an empty hypo in his hand, muttering reassuringly to her. Probably embarrass the hell out of her, once she was feeling better, but it seemed to be what she needed for the moment. He looked at Dram, standing beside him.

“How many others made it out of the Maze?”

“There haven’t been any others,” said Dram. “You two are the only ones. What happened in there?”

Silence shook his head, trying to force his thoughts into
some kind of order. “Some kind of esp attack. People went crazy. The whole Maze is one great booby trap.”

“Were the espers any protection?”

“No. They were the most susceptible of all.”

Dram nodded. “Next time I tell you not to take espers somewhere, do as you’re told, Captain.”

Silence looked at Dram. “Did you know this was going to happen?” he said softly.

“No. But I had my suspicions. Now, what do you suggest, Captain? You’ve used up all your marines and espers, but we still have to get past the Maze to reach the rebels.”

Silence glared at the Maze. His mind was clear again. “Get everyone back to the main pinnace. Have the pilot power up with special attention to the weapons systems.”

Dram raised an eyebrow. “Are we going somewhere, Captain? May I remind you of your orders, and the urgency of our mission. …”

“I don’t need reminding,” said Silence. “I know what I’m doing.” He moved away from Dram to rejoin Frost, who was back on her feet again and looked more like herself. She nodded shortly to Silence.

“Thanks for getting me out, Captain. Things got a little fraught in there for a while. Give me a few minutes to catch my breath, and I’ll take another stab at the Maze.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Silence. “We’re not going through the Maze again. I’ve got a better idea. Now come with me back to the main pinnace. And before you ask, no, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Very well, Captain. May I ask who it was murmuring sweet nothings into my ear while I was recovering?”

“Valiant Stelmach, as it happens.”

“Ah. I really must thank him, when I have a moment. And also make it very clear that if he ever talks of it to anyone else, I will kill him.” She looked at Silence steadily. “We’re the only survivors, aren’t we?”

“Yes. The others are all dead. If they’re lucky.”

Frost nodded slowly. “This is going to be one of those days, I can tell.”

It didn’t take them long to get back through the forest to the main pinnace. The
Dauntless
had used its banks of disrupter cannon to blast a way through the frozen atmosphere and the planet’s surface to reach the hidden interior of the
Wolfling World. After that it was simple enough to fly the pinnaces down the new tunnel, so they could blast an opening into the ancient caverns below. Silence led what remained of his people back through the dark forest to where the pinnaces lay waiting and ordered them aboard the main pinnace. The long narrow ship was already powered up, all systems on-line, and Silence felt a grim satisfaction as he ordered the pilot to move the ship slowly forward.

The pinnace’s engines murmured threateningly as the craft rose a few feet into the air and then edged forward foot by foot. Silence sat stiffly in the bridge command chair, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen. The dark forest filled the screen, ancient and awesome. Silence studied it for a long moment, and then personally took control of the pinnace’s weapon systems and blasted a path right through the forest. Most of the trees disappeared in a moment, blown to nothing by disrupter cannon firing at point-blank range. The ship moved smoothly forward, hovering a few feet above the scorched earth. A few burning trees still stood at the extreme edges of where the forest had been, but nothing else remained between the pinnace and the Madness Maze.

Silence brought the ship right to the edge of the Maze, only a few feet short of the first shimmering steel walls, and held it there. The Maze looked back, silent and arrogant, holding within itself the blood and ghosts of murdered men. Silence sat back in his command chair, smiling coldly at the viewscreen. Frost stood silently at his side. Silence’s hand moved to the fire controls. He might be too late to save his people, but he could still avenge them. The Empire scientists would be furious at the loss of such an important alien find, but Silence couldn’t bring himself to give a damn. He grinned coldly and opened fire.

The Maze was swept away almost instantly, its metal walls curling up and disintegrating like leaves caught in a flamethrower. Silence shut down the disrupter cannon and listened intently as his bridge crew gave him the new sensor readings. No trace of the Maze remained, leaving the Hadenman city beyond broken and shattered. Air and temperature readings dropped to normal surprisingly quickly, but Silence felt he was owed some good luck.

He was the first to leave the pinnace and step out onto the blasted plain, and Frost was right there at his shoulder. The air was hot and dry, rasping in their lungs. There was nothing
to show the Maze had ever been there. Frost chuckled softly.

“Don’t mess with us; we’ve got the big guns. Nice shooting, Captain. Ever thought of becoming an Investigator?”

“A shame about the Maze,” said Dram, moving forward to join them. “I would have liked to study it, but time is of the essence. The rebels must not be allowed to reach the Tomb of the Hadenmen. Will you lead the way, or shall I?”

“I lead,” said Silence. “This is still my mission.”

He gathered up what remained of his people, a dozen technicians from the pinnace, the Wampyr, Stelmach and his pet, and led them across the bare plain toward what remained of the city. They all carried their guns at the ready, but nothing appeared to threaten them. The metal walls were gone, and with them the bodies of the fallen. Silence made a mental note to hold funeral services at a later date. The forms should still be observed, even if the bodies could not be recovered. And then he saw something standing alone in the middle of the plain. He increased his pace, and soon they were all standing around a large glowing crystal, staring silently at the tiny human baby it held.

“Now that is interesting,” said Frost. “Why didn’t the pinnace’s sensors pick this up?”

“To hell with the sensors,” said Silence. “How did it survive the disrupter fire?”

“A force field of some kind,” said Dram.

“Right,” said Frost. “A force field that our sensors didn’t even know was there and could stand up to point-blank energy cannon. Whoever left this baby here really didn’t want its rest disturbed.”

“Leave it,” said Dram. “It’s not important. Only the rebels matter now.”

“Agreed,” Silence said reluctantly. “Move on, people. Keep together when we hit the city, but don’t get in each other’s way. If you see anyone, and they’re not us, open fire. We don’t have any friends down here.”

Before the Maze went down, the five people who’d passed through it and survived stood at the edge of the Hadenman city and began to discover just how much they had been changed. They all felt stronger, fitter, their thoughts unusually clear and lucid. Even the Hadenman was moved to say how well his various systems were functioning.
They all looked at each other, waiting for someone to put into words what they were feeling, all of them strangely reluctant to break the mood of the moment in case it might fade away if questioned. Finally Owen shook his head slowly.