Deathstalker Honor

Midnight sniffed dismissively. "In my Empire, the Church found a new role after the rebellion. Everyone is a 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.

"Of course," said Mother Beatrice. "Please follow me."

She led them through the crowd, who bowed again as Owen and his party passed, though nowhere near as deeply as they'd bowed to Saint Bea. The compound led on to a series of low buildings with narrow alleys running between them. In the center was a ramshackle wooden building the size of a barn, built like everything else from the local black trees. The interior rooms turned out to be surprisingly civilized, with all the usual amenities, if few luxuries. Owen and Moon stripped off their soaking wet clothes in one room, while the women were escorted to another. Thick, hot towels were provided, and Owen rubbed himself down briskly, standing as close to the open fire as he could get. Warmth moved slowly through him, and he stretched luxuriously, as self-centered as a cat. He hadn't known there could be such pleasure in just being dry and warm.

Moon went about his toilet with quiet thoroughness, with no obvious signs of enjoyment. The door opened just enough for an arm to throw in two sets of simple but functional clothing, all in gray, followed by the ubiquitous hooded cloaks, and then the arm withdrew and the door closed again. Owen sorted out a set for himself. The clothes seemed sturdy enough, but showed signs of much hard use and washing. More than one leper had these before me, Owen thought uncomfortably, and tried not to wonder how many might have died wearing them. He shrugged mentally and put them on. It wasn't as if he had a choice.

He glanced over at Moon, who was still toweling himself. Metal implants showed clearly all over his pale skin, but that wasn't what drew Owen's attention. "Uh, Moon…"

"Yes, Owen?"

"I understood that all Hadenmen were… desexed."

"Yes," said Moon. "All of the sexual parts are cut away when a human becomes a Hadenman."

"But you appear to have a full set of… well, everything."

"Yes," said Moon. "They grew back. Other changes are taking place in my body all the time. I believe it to be a part of the ongoing changes the Maze is working in me. Certain tech implants have disappeared, absorbed into my body. I don't seem to need them anymore. I have detected no lowering in my general efficiency. But I am becoming… more human."

And I've been worrying about the Maze making me less human, thought Owen.

Owen and Moon made their way to the common room, where the three women were already warming themselves before a roaring log fire. They were also wearing the basic gray clothes provided, complete with cloak and hood, though Hazel had lifted up the back of her skirt so she could warm her bare bottom before the fire. She grinned unconcernedly at Owen.

"I see you got the basic outfit too. Apparently gray is in this year."

"I hate it," said Bonnie. "What's the point of having tattoos and piercings if you can't show them off to everyone?"

"I think it's a vast improvement," said Midnight. "You've done things to your body I wouldn't to a dead dog."

"Prude!" snapped Bonnie.

"Pervert!"

"So?"

Owen gave Hazel a hard look. "All the alternates you could have called up, and you had to choose these two…"

"Don't you take that tone of voice with me, Owen Deathstalker. After all, you married one of them."

Luckily the door opened at that moment, and Mother Beatrice came in. Everyone immediately shut up and managed some kind of polite smile. Mother Beatrice laughed.

"Nothing like a nun entering a room to stop a conversation in its tracks. Don't worry, when you're Mother Confessor to a colony of lepers, there isn't much left that can shock you. I'm afraid those outfits are all the clothes we have to offer you. It's all the Empire provides. Still, the cloaks and hoods provide a useful purpose in hiding the ravages of the disease in its later terms. Most of the colonists remain largely unmarked, but they choose to wear the cloak and hood too, in a sign of solidarity. There are those who flaunt their deformities, but that's mostly just a plea for attention. Don't let them bother you." She looked at Moon for a long moment, and then turned to Owen. "You should have told me you were bringing a Hadenman with you. I have no objection to his presence, but my people have suffered much at the hands of the augmented men. I can't guarantee his safety."

"That's all right," said Hazel. "We'll guarantee his safety, by kicking the ass of anyone who even looks at him funny."

"This is Tobias Moon," said Owen. "He turned against his own people to side with Humanity."

"You mean he's a traitor."

"No, I mean he's a friend. We've been through a lot together. We all vouch for him. That should be enough."

"It's more than enough," said Mother Beatrice. She put out a hand to Moon, and he shook it gravely. "I'm sorry if I seemed a little cold, sir Moon. I've never met a Hadenman socially before."

"That's all right," said Moon generously. "I've never met a Saint before."

Mother Beatrice laughed briefly and shook her head. "You still haven't. No one's ever met a Saint when they're alive. It's more a posthumous award, bestowed by people who never met the real person." She looked at Hazel. "Speaking of reputations, I've heard a lot about you, Hazel d'Ark."

"You don't want to believe everything you see in the holos," said Hazel uncomfortably.

"Oh, I don't," Mother Beatrice assured her. "You should hear some of the things they've said about me. Last I heard, they were claiming I was feeding this entire colony on five protein cubes and five pints of distilled water. I wish. I'm no Saint; just a nun, going where I'm needed. Now, perhaps you'll be good enough to introduce your two friends, whom I confess are unfamiliar to me."

"Oh, sure," said Hazel. "The tall steroids case with a butcher's ax on her hip is Midnight Blue. The S and M freak is Bonnie Bedlam. They're… cousins of mine. Good fighters. Now, perhaps you'd be good enough to brief us on the current situation. I was given to understand things were pretty desperate here, but we traveled through miles of jungle to get here, and never saw a single Hadenman."

"They come and they go," said Mother Beatrice. "We don't know why. They started off attacking the outer settlements, but soon focused their attention here. We're the main communications center, the only starport, and the main distribution center. Whoever controls the Mission controls the fate of the colony. But the jungle and the weather make air attacks and ground travel impractical, so they have to come on foot. And though there are always more of them in every attack, so far we've held them off successfully. High-tech weaponry doesn't last long here; the rain gets into everything. So most of the fighting has been hand to hand, steel on steel."

"Even so," said Owen, "how has a simple wooden fort like this stood off a Hadenman army?"

"With increasing difficulty. The jungle is our protector. The Hadenmen have to get through it to get to us, and while the plant life here has always been somewhat aggressive, it really hates the augmented men. By the time they get to us, they're already exhausted and thinned out by what the jungle's put them through. And we do have a number of true warriors here. Some were marines before their condition was diagnosed. They've made good teachers. And we also have two Sisters of Glory."

"Bloody hell," said Hazel, deeply impressed. "I'd back two Sisters of Glory against an army of Hadenmen, no problem. I'd even give odds. How did they come to be here?"

"How do you think?" said Mother Beatrice, and Hazel had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

Owen saw Moon's puzzled frown. "They're something new. Appeared while you were still dead. The Sisters of Glory are nuns who used to be part of the old Church's Brotherhood of Steel, a semi-mystical order within an order, trained in all martial arts. The old Church used them as internal police, debt collectors, and for scaring the crap out of the ungodly. After Mother Beatrice reformed the Church, most of the Brotherhood were up on charges for atrocities, mass murder, and being massively politically incorrect. So the Mother Superior revamped the few survivors as the Sisters of Glory, and gave them a new mission in life: fight to put an end to fighting. Protect the weak and the needy. Die fighting that others might live. The last warriors in a pacifistic Church, the order tends to attract… extreme types."

"Very diplomatically put," said Mother Beatrice. "Actually, they're mostly homicidal headbangers with strong suicidal tendencies, and I just wanted a place I could put them all so I could keep an eye on them. To my surprise, they've turned out to be very good at what they do. Still a little too keen to martyr themselves for the cause, but I suppose that goes with the territory. Anyway, you'll meet them later."

"Oh, good," said Owen. "Two more homicidal women in my life. Just what I needed."

"What was that?" said Mother Beatrice. "Don't mumble, sir Deathstalker. It's a very annoying habit. Now then, we seem to be in a quiet phase at the moment, so why don't you all take a walk through our little community? It'll be good for their morale, and give you some idea of the kind of people you'll be fighting alongside. Don't be nervous of them. Bits of them won't fall off if you speak too loudly, and you can't catch it just by shaking hands. They're just people. I suggest splitting up into ones or twos; you'll be less… intimidating that way. It's not every day we get living legends walking among us. Be back here in an hour, and there'll be a hot meal ready. Now, be off with you. I have my rounds to make in the infirmary."

She gently but firmly shooed them all out of the common room, and shut the door behind them. Owen shook his head slowly.

"So that's Saint Bea. I was expecting one of the nuns who taught me as a child. All loud voices and stiff necks and a devil with the steel ruler."

"They probably went on to become Sisters of Glory," said Hazel.

"Wouldn't surprise me at all. Now pay attention, people: forget what she said, no one goes off on their own. We don't know enough about the situation here. I don't think Saint Bea would necessarily lie to us, but there could be all kinds of undercurrents here she knows nothing about. So, Hazel and Moon, you come with me. Bonnie and Midnight, stick close together and watch your backs. We'll meet here in an hour."

"He just loves being in charge," said Hazel to Bonnie and Midnight, and they nodded knowingly.

"Let's get out of here before he starts making one of his speeches," said Midnight, and she and Bonnie went off to meet some lepers.

Owen looked haughtily at Hazel. "I have no idea what you were talking about."

Hazel grinned at Moon. "The trouble is, he probably doesn't. Lead the way, sir Deathstalker, oh savior of Humanity."

Owen sniffed loudly and set off. Hazel followed, grinning, and a rather mystified Moon brought up the rear.

Bonnie Bedlam freaked the lepers out. She loved sweeping back her clothes to flash people, and show off her many piercings and body modifications, and soon a small but fascinated crowd had formed around her. After a while Bonnie and some of the braver lepers began comparing mutilations and trying to one-up and gross each other out. There were shrieks and mock shocked gasps, and soon they were chatting away as though they'd known each other for years. The idea that someone would voluntarily cut and pierce and modify their own flesh fascinated the colonists. That Bonnie took pride in her differences from the norm just blew them away. It wasn't long before she had fervent disciples sitting at her feet, working out how to start some piercings of their own. All flesh is beautiful, said Bonnie firmly. Anything can be made sexy. A spirited argument arose as to whether it was better to pierce dead flesh or that which still had some feeling. Bonnie strongly recommended the latter, to get the full experience.

Midnight Blue stood quietly behind Bonnie, trying hard to be shocked in the face of the lepers' obvious enthusiasm. It had never occurred to them that their disfigurements didn't have to be ugly. The lepers revealed more and more of themselves as they grew more comfortable in Bonnie's presence. Midnight was horrified at what the disease had done to some of its victims, but fought to keep it out of her face. Missing fingers and toes were common, and many had eaten-away noses and ears. It was always the extremities that went first. Many had sores and open wounds that would not heal, sometimes bandaged, sometimes not. There were drugs that helped slow the symptoms, but there'd been no deliveries for some time. The Empire needed all its cargo ships for the war, and even a Saint's pleas had to take second place to the military.

Abandoned yet again, the lepers refused to give in. They watched themselves and watched each other, and tried to live as normal a life as possible as they fought to establish a self-sufficient colony. Children were being born for the first time, most of them free of the disease as yet. And for the first time there was hope. For the future, if not for themselves.

When things got too bad, there was the Mission infirmary. Not so much a hospital as a resting place before the end, when they were no longer capable of caring for themselves. Mother Superior Beatrice ran the infirmary. The lepers couldn't say enough about her. She gave them hope and faith, and a reason to live when it would have been so easy to just lie down and die. The lepers worshiped her, much to her discomfort. Among themselves they had declared her the patron Saint of lepers.

Eventually Bonnie moved on, word of her appearance moving ahead of her so that there were always people waiting to meet her. Many of the lepers were pathetically grateful that anyone had come to fight beside them. They'd been told they were the lowest of the low for so long that many had come to believe it. Bonnie blew that notion away on a cloud of raucous laughter. Midnight began adding the occasional dry comment, just to provide a balance, and found a ready audience for her sharp wit. It had been a long time since the lepers had had anything to laugh at. Bonnie and Midnight moved on through the small village of low buildings, smiling and chatting and making themselves known, until finally they had to beg for a little time for themselves. The lepers withdrew to a respectful distance, while Bonnie and Midnight pulled up their hoods and lowered their voices so they could talk privately.

"Oh, Jesus," said Midnight softly. "The poor bastards. How can you keep smiling like that? They're dying and they know it and they haven't given up. I think of the kind of guts that takes, and I feel like nothing in comparison."

"I smile and laugh to make them laugh, because the last thing they need is some outsider weeping buckets over them."

"They break my heart. It's so… unfair. These people had lives, futures, dreams… they had friends and families and loved ones. And now they have nothing but the disease that's killing them. And they still believe in God. If I were in their place, I'd curse Her name every day. They put me to shame."

"If you so much as sniffle, I'll slap you a good one," said Bonnie fiercely. "We have to be strong, for them."

"Strength through piercing," said Midnight. "A novel approach to psychotherapy."

"Whatever works. Their bodies have ruled their lives for so long, it's only fair they should get back some control over their flesh."

"They're strong people," said the warrior woman. "They'll make good fighters when the Hadenmen come again."

"Of course they will. But can we defend this place indefinitely?"

Midnight shrugged. "Depends on how many Hadenmen we have to fight off. Which in turn depends on how badly the Hadenmen want this planet. The Mission's walls are sturdy, the attackers have to come to us across an open clearing, and apparently we don't have to worry about large-scale weaponry. And there's the Sisters of Glory that Hazel was so impressed by. The situation could be a lot worse. Anyway, the question's redundant. We'll hold out because we have to. Because there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no starship to get us off-planet."

"And no reinforcements," said Bonnie. "There's just us."

"We don't stand a chance, do we?" said Midnight Blue. "Not a hope in hell," said Bonnie Bedlam.

At first Owen and Hazel had to walk on either side of Moon, with their hands hovering over their weapons, because once the lepers recognized a Hadenman, they either ran or tried to attack him. The atmosphere got very bad very quick, until Owen identified himself, and just like that the mood changed. People came running from all over to meet the legendary Deathstalker, and once he'd vouched for the Hadenman, things calmed down a lot. Everyone wanted to meet the great hero of the rebellion, and he warmed in the glow of appreciation, and was soon at his most charming and gracious. Hazel smiled determinedly in his shadow, and did her best to be polite. Owen kept his smile steady as he clasped hands that weren't always complete, and had a kind word for everyone. No one wanted to get close enough to Hazel to shake her hand. Soon the crowd around them had got so dense no one had room to move anymore, so Owen led the way to the compound before the main gate, and the crowd sat facing him in neat rows, filling the great open space.

Owen had never felt at ease in front of large audiences, but the hero worship was unnerving him even more, so he overcame his natural tendency for speech making and opted for a questions-and-answers session. After a little prompting, people began introducing themselves and asking questions, most of them so familiar to Owen that he could have answered them in his sleep. Soon the lepers became just another audience to him, a little better behaved than most, as he began telling them about his time in the rebellion, or at least the parts that were suitable for public consumption, with Hazel chiming in now and again with what she considered telling points. The lepers treated them both with great respect, and Owen and Hazel couldn't help but warm to them. It had never occurred to them that the lepers might be fans of theirs just like everyone else.

Eventually Owen ran out of things to say, and introduced Moon. The audience listened quietly as he talked of his adventures with Owen and Hazel. A voice from the audience asked if he considered himself a traitor to his people, and Moon thought for a moment before finally saying no, that his people were traitors to Humanity. He actually got a soft patter of applause for that.

Time went by quickly, and Owen was surprised when Oz murmured in his ear that his hour was nearly up. Owen wasn't sure what he'd expected from a colony of lepers—perhaps shambling, death-like figures clanging a bell and shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" These quiet, warm, friendly people were a revelation to him. Previously, he'd seen his commitment to fight for them as a duty. Now he saw it as an honor. They'd been through so much, it didn't seem fair to him that they should have to face the Hadenmen as well.

He announced at last that he had to leave, and a roar of protest went up. He explained that Mother Beatrice had a meal prepared for them, and the mention of the Saint's name was all it took to clear the compound. Owen looked at Hazel.

"So, what do you think?"

"They'll fight," said Hazel. "But then I never doubted they would. Only hard-line fighters could survive in the face of all they have going against them, even before the Hadenmen. But God knows how long we can hold this place against an army. Moon?"

The augmented man frowned. "I confess I find it hard to understand what the Hadenmen are doing here anyway. The colonists don't have anything worth taking. There must be something else here, something we're missing."

"Keep thinking," said Owen. "If we knew what it was they wanted, maybe we could just give it to them. Or destroy it. Then maybe they'd go away and annoy someone else."

"I wouldn't bet on that," said Hazel. "Once the Hadenmen find out we're here, it might well motivate them to raze the whole Mission to the ground just to get us. We did, after all, destroy their plans for Brahmin II. And the Hadenmen have never been the most forgiving of people."

"True," said Moon.

"Oh, shut up," said Owen. "I've got enough problems to think about."

"I think a new one may be heading our way," said Hazel quietly. "Take a look at what just showed up."

They all looked, with varying degrees of disbelief, as a skeletally thin creature lurched toward them. Well over six and a half feet tall, the newcomer wore a long black dress of tatters, belted around an impossibly thin waist to support a sword on one bony hip and a gun on the other. She wore lace-up boots, long green evening gloves with holes, and a battered witch's hat with long purple streamers flying from the top. Her face was covered with white pancake makeup, pointed up by two bright red cheeks, and metallic green lipstick and eye shadow. She moved with an uneven, determined gait, her legs barely bending, as though the knees didn't work properly. She looked a lot like a marionette who'd cut her own strings, done something very nasty to the puppeteer, and then gone out into the world to do as much damage as possible before someone finally stopped her.

Owen let his hand drift casually down to the gun at his side. The black-clad witch lurched to a halt before him, waited a moment to make sure all her parts had caught up with her, and then glowered at Owen in what she clearly thought was a friendly fashion.

"Welcome to Hell, Deathstalker. I'm Sister Marion. Bea's second in command. I run the place while she's busy being saintly. I was going to be a Saint too when I was younger, but it turned out I didn't have the right attitude. So they made me a Sister of Glory, and sent me out to kick righteous ass on the kind of missions the Church doesn't like to talk about in public. Then I caught leprosy, and they sent me here. Bastards. Still, a nun serves God wherever she's sent, and God knows this bunch needs all the help it can get. You can say hello now."

"Hello, Sister Marion," said Owen, doing his best to appear entirely unperturbed. "That's a very striking outfit you're wearing."

The nun stretched her green mouth in a disturbing smile that showed far too many teeth. "I dress like this to mess with people's heads. And the makeup and gloves help hide the skin lesions. People here will tell you I'm an eccentric. Or a loony tune. Don't listen to them. We all have our own ways of dealing with our condition. Mine is just a little more dramatic than most. Now get your asses in gear and follow me. Bea's got dinner waiting, and there are things we need to discuss."

She turned around sharply, swayed for a moment, and then marched stiff-leggedly off without looking to see if anyone was following. Lepers scattered to get out of her way as she strode on, as implacable as a force of nature and twice as dangerous.

"So that's a Sister of Glory," said Moon.

"Yeah," said Hazel. "I don't know what the Hadenmen'll make of her, but she scares the crap out of me. Did you notice she didn't blink once the whole time she was talking to us? That nun is in serious need of psychotherapy. And possibly a hole in her head to let the devils out."

"You don't get invited to be a Sister of Glory because of your even temperament," said Owen. "Personally, I think she's the most encouraging thing I've seen since I got here. Just pull her pin, throw her at the enemy, and stand well back."

"I just hope we can defuse her afterward," said Hazel. "That is a very dangerous person."

"You should know," said Owen.

They set off after Sister Marion, and followed her back to the main building, maintaining a respectful distance at all times. They picked up Bonnie and Midnight along the way. Bonnie admired Sister Marion's dress sense. Midnight managed a frosty greeting. A small crowd of colonists tried to follow them into the main building, not wanting to miss anything. The Sister explained it was a private meeting. One colonist made the mistake of objecting too loudly, and just a little too rudely, and Sister Marion head-butted him in the face. The other colonists discovered they had pressing business elsewhere and managed a semi-dignified retreat. Sister Marion led her guests inside, leaving the unconscious colonist to lie in the street outside until he remembered his manners. Or at least his name.

To no one's surprise, the meal turned out to be mostly vegetables, spiced up with flavored protein cubes and bottles of a vicious-looking blue wine distilled from local produce. Owen didn't recognize anything on his plate, which given his previous experiments at finding something edible in the jungle reassured him somewhat. He made polite noises to Mother Beatrice and crunched his way determinedly through one unpleasant surprise after another, then washed everything down with lots of wine, which turned out to be fierce but surprisingly palatable. Everyone drank a lot of it, except Moon. Mother Beatrice in particular put the stuff away as though it were water. No one said anything, after a few guarded glares from Sister Marion. Presumably being a Saint was hard on the nerves. Owen watched Sister Marion stab her food with knife and fork as though it might try to escape at any moment, and cleaned his plate with a sense of accomplishment, hoping against hope for a decent dessert. Unfortunately, he must have overdone the polite appreciative noises, because Mother Beatrice immediately served him a second helping. Owen smiled bravely down at his heaped plate, chewed his way slowly through something very like scarlet seaweed, and listened to Mother Beatrice talk about the planet's history so he wouldn't have to think about what he was eating.

The Mission had originally been nothing more than a very basic hospital and graveyard, in a clearing cut from the jungle with energy weapons and flamethrowers. It had to be renewed daily, or the jungle crept back. There was a landing pad just big enough for one ship to land and take off. A lot of the colonists had died at first. The shock of the disease, the diagnosis, and being dumped on Lachrymae Christi was simply too much for many people, and they just lay down and died.

The lepers had to bury their own dead. No one but them ever touched foot on the leper planet. The graveyard quickly became overcrowded, so the colonists let the jungle take it back. The plants consumed the bodies overnight, so no one had to watch. There were still headstones, with names and dates. For the comfort of the living, not the dead. Rows and rows of markers, with no room to walk between them. It didn't matter.

Everyone knew Lachrymae Christi was where lepers went to die.

Mother Beatrice changed all that. Weary of the compromises and politics that were already creeping into her new Church, she made it her business to discover people who had a taste and a talent for such work, and happily handed it over to them, so she could get back to what she considered real work for a nun. And so she went to Lachrymae Christi, to give hope to the hopeless, because no one else would.

It never occurred to her that she was doing something very brave, or noble, or even self-sacrificing, risking her life in a place no one cared about, for people Humanity had discarded. She went because she thought she was needed, because she thought she could do some good.

Because she was Saint Bea.

The lepers took heart from her quiet determination not to be beaten by circumstances, or to give in to despair. She gave them back pride in themselves, and encouraged them to make as much of their lives as they could, while they still could. And she never once pushed her religion on them. To those who asked why God had allowed such a horrible thing to happen to them, she said, God has a plan for all of us. And to those who said they didn't believe in God, she just smiled and said, That's all right. He believes in you.

The lepers worked hard because she worked harder, and believed in themselves because she believed in them. They became a colony in truth at last, establishing small settlements farther and farther out in the jungle. It was a basic kind of life, but better by far than they'd had any right to expect. Everything was going so well. Until the Hadenmen came to Lachrymae Christi.

Owen got some of this from Mother Beatrice's words, and some from Sister Marion's acid interventions, and some he'd known already from talking with the colonists. It fitted with what he'd previously heard of the Saint of Technos III. He studied her unobtrusively while he was eating, looking for some kind of halo, or a sense of self-righteousness, but Mother Beatrice came across as reassuringly normal and level-headed. But there was still something about her, something… focused. Owen wondered idly if that was how people saw him sometimes. He realized Sister Marion was snapping at Mother Beatrice, and paid attention. The Sister didn't take any nonsense from anyone, not even Saint Bea.

"If you don't ease up on your workload, you'll end up in one of your own infirmary beds," said Sister Marion angrily. She hadn't taken her witch's hat off for dinner, and the long plumes bobbed emphatically as she glared at Mother Beatrice. "You work harder than anyone else, and you don't get nearly enough sleep. You're no good to anyone dead on your feet from exhaustion. And you needn't think I'm going to take over as head nurse. I can cope with the bandages and bedpans, but I'm no good at talking to them, or holding hands and mopping brows, and all that nonsense. That's your department."

"Hush, Marion," said Mother Beatrice affectionately. "After my time on Technos III, this is a picnic. Besides, I've never needed much sleep."

Sister Marion glowered at her, unconvinced. This was an argument they'd clearly had many times before, and would again.

"We need to know more about the Hadenman attacks," said Owen, pushing away his plate. It was still more than half full, so Hazel immediately transferred its contents to her own plate. Owen wasn't surprised. Hazel would eat anything if she was hungry enough. He concentrated on Beatrice. "How long is it between each attack? Normally?"

"Sometimes days, sometimes hours," said Mother Beatrice. She sounded suddenly tired. "The Hadenmen first came just over a month ago. There was no warning. No ultimatums. We were completely unprepared. The first we knew was when some of the outer settlements stopped answering our calls. Then the first refugees arrived, bringing tales of death and destruction. The few who'd tried to surrender were cut down without mercy. We lost a lot of people, until I gave the order for the outer settlements to be abandoned. Then the Hadenmen came here. We've strengthened our fortifications, and everyone here has learned to use a weapon. The Sisters of Glory have proved excellent teachers. And then there's Colonel William Hand, and Otto. You'll meet them later."

"Much later, if you've got any sense," said Sister Marion.

"They're good fighters," said Mother Beatrice reprovingly.

"They're complete bloody psychopaths!"

"Takes one to know one, dear. And these days their… attitude is somewhat of an advantage." Mother Beatrice frowned down at her hands, clasped together on the table before her. "Every time the Hadenmen come, we lose more people. My people are brave enough, and they fight well, but lepers have their limitations as warriors. Even the smallest wound can turn deadly very quickly. It's the rain and the ever present moisture. Everything rots. Everything."

"How long has it been since the last attack?" said Moon in his buzzing, inhuman voice.

"Three days," said Sister Marion, pruning her green fingernails with her dinner knife. "They could come anytime." She looked up and fixed Moon with her bright, cold eyes. "Ready for a little action, Hadenman?"

"Call me Moon. And yes, I will fight. To protect my friends. Isn't that why anyone fights?"

There was a moment of silence that might have become uncomfortable, but it was interrupted by a polite knock at the door. Sister Marion went to answer it, and then came back to murmur in Mother Beatrice's ear. She rose to her feet.

"You'll have to excuse us. We're needed at the infirmary. Make yourselves at home. We'll talk more later."

The room seemed very quiet after the Sister of Glory and the Saint left. Everyone looked at each other, except Hazel, who was mopping up the last traces of anything edible from her plate. Everyone else regarded her with varying shades of disgust and amusement. She glanced up and saw them looking at her.

"What?"

"I'm impressed," said Owen. "Really. I couldn't eat more of that stuff if you put a gun to my head."

"I'm hungry! And you'd better learn to get used to it; we could be here a long time."

"Parliament will send a ship as soon as they learn we're stranded here," said Owen. "We're too valuable to the war effort to be abandoned."

Hazel shrugged. "On the other hand, we've made a lot of enemies in our time. Enemies who might be quite happy to see us sidelined. Face it, Owen, we're not getting off this planet anytime soon."

He shook his head angrily. "One thing at a time. Let's deal with the Hadenmen first. Moon, any ideas on how we can turn the odds more in our favor?"

Moon frowned. "We have no way of knowing where the Hadenman forces are, or how large they are. We don't know what they want, or how big a force they're prepared to field to get it. I will think on the matter further. Now, if you will excuse me, I need some time alone." He got to his feet.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Moon," said Owen. "Lots of people here have no reason to love the Hadenmen."

"I'll be fine, Owen. I don't need a nursemaid." He headed for the door, not looking back. "Don't wait up for me."

"Watch your back!" said Owen, and then the door closed and the Hadenman was gone.

Bonnie and Midnight got to their feet. "Getting late," said Bonnie. "Time for one last stroll before bed. These lepers are fascinating."

"And I want to check out the fortifications, look for weak spots," said Midnight. "See you in the morning."

And they left too. Owen looked at Hazel. "Was it something I said?"

"For once, no. I think everyone just needs some time to themselves, Owen. For all Saint Bea's upbeat attitude, this is still at heart a grim and depressing place. People came here to die, and just when they thought they'd made a life for themselves against all the odds, along came the Hadenmen to put the boot in. I've got a bad feeling about this place, Owen. We've cheated death many times, one way or another, but this is the place where death always wins. Maybe we've finally come to the one place that no one escapes from. I'm going to go and get some sleep, on a real bed with warm, dry blankets, and try not to dream. You should get some sleep too. We're going to need all our strength when the Hadenmen return." She got to her feet and looked around the empty room. "We should never have come here, Owen. Something bad is going to happen."

She left the room without looking back, not bothering to shut the door behind her. Owen leaned back in his chair and stretched tiredly. But he wasn't ready to sleep yet. Not while he was still trying to work out what the hell to do. From what he'd seen of the Mission so far, it was going to be hell to defend. Wooden walls, wooden buildings, wooden roof. The constant rain would help to suppress fires, but if the Hadenmen had access to the right accelerants, they could set fires no rain would be able to put out. Maybe that was what they'd gone to get.

The lepers seemed willing enough to fight, but they were still basically only invalid civilians with limited training. One on one they wouldn't stand a chance. The augmented men were designed and constructed to be efficient, merciless killers. They had internal armor, steelmesh under their skin, servomotors in their muscles, inhuman speed, and built-in disrupters. It was a wonder that the Mission hadn't fallen already. But then, a man always fought hardest when defending his home. And when he knew there was nowhere else to go.

Owen got to his feet. Hazel was right. The place stank of death. He walked slowly over to the door, still too restless to sleep. An impulse made him pull his cloak around him, and bring his hood well forward so the shadow hid his face. Perhaps if he walked among the lepers as one of them, they would speak freely in front of him, and he could learn more of the truth of the situation. He needed the truth. He couldn't make plans in the dark.

He made his way slowly through the narrow streets and alleys of the Mission. Despite the dark and the late hour, there were people everywhere. It seemed Owen wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. He moved unhurriedly along, going nowhere in particular, being as careful as everyone else not to bump into anyone. The never ending rain drummed loudly on the wooden roof overhead. Indoors, you learned to tune out the sound, but now it was like an endless drumroll, foreshadowing the action to come. Owen found himself looking out over the compound, the only large open space inside the Mission. Torches blazed at regular intervals, casting pools of gold and amber light, surrounded by shifting shadows. People stood or sat in small groups—eating, drinking, preparing weapons, or just talking quietly. No one noticed one more cloaked and hooded figure as Owen moved to join the crowd.

He found Sister Marion and another Sister of Glory holding an impromptu class on the best ways to set booby-traps and pitfalls for use in case the Hadenmen ever got past the outer wall. The two Sisters passed a bottle of the local wine back and forth as they lectured the attentive group before them. Sister Kathleen looked more like what Owen thought of as a nun, in sweeping black robes and traditional starched wimple, but she too wore a sword on one hip and a disrupter on the other. She was a strapping woman of average height, with a man's large, bony hands. She all but crackled with nervous energy, stalking back and forth like a trapped animal, her hand stabbing out to point at her audience when she wanted to emphasize something. She had the word love tattooed on both sets of knuckles. She had a long, horsey face, a wide mouth full of protruding teeth, and a voice like an angel. Owen could have listened to her for hours. Sister Marion stood beside her like a ghastly scarecrow, interjecting the odd word or comment whenever she felt the need.

"Caltrops," said Sister Kathleen cheerfully, holding up two nails twisted together. "However you drop them, they always land point up. And even a Hadenman won't get far with three inches of steel rammed through the sole of his foot. Don't forget to dip the points in fresh dung before you drop them; that'll make the wounds fester. Every little bit helps. Now, you've all seen the deadfalls we've arranged. Memorize where the triggers are so you won't set one off accidentally. Same with the spiked pits and the land mines we've improvised. And don't forget: never hit a Hadenman when he's down; put the boot in, it's safer. And if you're down, go for his hamstrings and cripple the bastard. A Hadenman may have the edge in strength and speed, but no one's ever matched a human for sheer dirty fighting."

"Don't forget the nooses," said Sister Marion.

"I was getting to the nooses!"

"A dangling noose inside the doorway of a darkened room can take out even the most experienced warrior."

"I was going to tell them that!"

"Of course you were, dear. You carry on. Don't mind me."

"Thank you."

"And if the noose doesn't kill them immediately, yank on their ankles till their necks break."

"Marion! Do you want to give this lecture?"

"Of course not, dear. You do it so well."

This had the sound of a conversation that could go on for some time, so Owen left them to it. He moved on through the compound, seeing what there was to see, listening to scraps of conversation that mostly evolved around everyday things. It was as though the colonists wanted to savor their few happy memories while they still could, before everything was lost in the fighting. No one seemed particularly optimistic about the final outcome.

Owen found Colonel William Hand and Otto sitting together on a bench outside their hut, polishing their swords and quietly singing an old marine marching song. The Colonel still wore his old uniform, ragged and tattered but still scrupulously clean. His chest bore an impressive display of medal ribbons, carefully maintained. He didn't bother with the usual cloak and hood. He had leprosy and didn't care who knew it. His gray skin was dotted with dark patches of dead matter, and half his nose was eaten away. He might have been handsome once. It was hard to tell. He looked to be in his late fifties, a large and muscular man running now to fat. His long, dark hair was greasy and stringy, held back out of his face with a plain leather headband.

His companion Otto was a hunchbacked dwarf, barely four feet tall. His overlarge head was touched with decay here and there, and most of his hair had fallen out. He too wore a marine uniform, but it was filthy dirty and he looked like he hadn't bathed in weeks. For a hunchbacked dwarf with leprosy, he seemed cheerful enough.

The Colonel looked up at Owen and fixed him with a cold, flat gaze. "You must be new, boy, or you wouldn't be hanging around us. Even lepers have their pariahs. Got time to sit and talk for a while?"

"Of course," said Owen. He sat down on the bench next to the Colonel. "May I ask what makes you a pariah here?"

The Colonel snorted. "Because I don't think the sun shines out of Saint Bea's ass. I don't have any time for her peace and love nonsense. I'm a killer, boy. Bloody good at it too. Joined the marines as soon as I was able and never looked back. Never wanted anything else."

"You seem to have had an impressive career, Colonel," said Owen, indicating the medal ribbons.

"Bet your ass, boy. I fought in every campaign of note for the past thirty years. Killed men and aliens on a hundred worlds, first to advance and last to retreat, and loved every minute of it. No regrets, no bad dreams, no stirrings of conscience in the wee hours. Mother Bea never could understand that, and for a Saint she's remarkably unforgiving to anyone who won't toe the party line. She wants me to make confession, say I'm sorry and make my peace with God. Well, I'm not sorry, and I won't say I was, and when I finally get to stand before God, I'll look him right in the eye and say, You made me a killer. I just did what you made me to do. Now, where's the next enemy?"

He laughed shortly, rooting around in the ruined half of his nose with a fingertip. "I was one of the best, but they still sent me here the moment I was diagnosed. I'm not bitter. Not really. But it came hard at the time, to give up my career for this shit-hole. Ironic, really. All the battles I fought, all the odds I beat, and in the end it wasn't a sword or an energy blast that got me, just a stupid mindless disease, killing me by inches. Not at all how I expected to die."

"You never expected to die," said Otto. "You thought you were so special you'd live forever."

"Maybe," said the Colonel. He looked at Owen. "Don't suppose you brought any cigars with you? No, of course not. Just as well, filthy habit anyway. But it's one of the few things I do miss… I missed the rebellion, you know. Biggest bloody war in the history of the Empire, and I never got to fight in it. Shame. I would have liked to test myself against the Deathstalker and his crew. They would have been worthy adversaries. Still, Empress or Parliament, it makes no difference in the end. Neither one is going to let us off this planet."

"No one cares about us," said Otto. "They're ashamed of us. We have no place in their bright new shining Empire." He sniffed wetly and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "I was gengineered like this, in case you were wondering, by my parents. They ran a traveling circus, and since hunchbacked dwarves don't tend to occur naturally anymore, they made one of their own. I was one of the stars of the show. Audiences loved to come and pity me from a safe distance. But no one ever asked me what I wanted. What my dreams were. So the minute I hit sixteen, I went straight to the nearest recruiting office and signed on. I was supposed to be a mascot, but I quickly demonstrated such a natural aptitude for killing people that I got upgraded to full service inside a year. Never looked back."

"We fought side by side in a hundred battles," said the Colonel. "Nasty little man. Very good with a gutting knife. And when I came here, he came with me. He didn't have leprosy then. A good friend, but dumb as shit."

"True," said Otto. "Very true."

"Thank God for the Hadenmen. They gave us purpose again. At least now I have a real enemy to vent my spleen on. And a chance to die a warrior's death instead of rotting away, day after day. And best of all, after months of open disapproval for my past wicked ways, Saint Bea had to come to me to help train her people how to fight. Must have stuck in her craw something fierce, but she did it. Came and asked us right in front of everybody."

"Looked like she was chewing a wasp while she said it, mind," said Otto.

"What do you think of our chances against the Hadenmen?" said Owen.

Colonel Hand grinned nastily. "Don't you worry, boy. Hadenmen will die just as readily as anyone else, if you stick your knife in the right place and twist it. Besides, if a shitty disease and a rotten planet like this couldn't beat us, a bunch of walking appliances with attitude isn't going to do it."

Owen nodded, made his goodbyes, got up, and moved on. He thought he'd enjoyed about as much of the Colonel and Otto's company as he could stand. But for all the old soldier's venom, Owen couldn't help thinking that maybe he had a point. Lepers were the dark, unspoken secret of the Empire—the forbidden subject that was never openly discussed. No cure, no hope, so just dump the poor bastards out of sight where the rest of us don't have to look at them. Owen had known about Lachrymae Christi vaguely, but it had never occurred to him to do anything about it. Leprosy was something that happened to other people. But now, having had his face rubbed in it, he vowed to do something about it. Something. Assuming he and they survived.

He rounded a corner and saw Moon, sitting alone, his shoulders shaking as tears ran jerkily down his face. There was no one near him, no obvious cause for his sorrow. In fact, those few lepers near him seemed to be trying their best to ignore him. Owen hurried over to the crying augmented man, and then stood awkwardly over him, not sure what to do.

"Moon? Tobias? What is it? Has someone said something, done something?… Dammit, if anyone's been having a go at you, I'll rip his lights out!"

The Hadenman stopped crying abruptly and looked up. "Oh, hello, Owen," he said quite calmly. "There's nothing wrong. No one has upset me. I was just trying out the emotion, to see what it felt like. Please, sit and talk with me."

Owen frowned, shrugged, and sat down next to his friend. Moon wiped his face with a cloth, quite unself-consciously. Owen looked at him. "So… nothing's wrong? You're all right?"

"I don't know. I confess I've become very confused of late. This is my second life, Owen, and many things are still new to me. Memories of my first life are always returning, but jumbled, distorted, like the actions of someone else seen dimly on a holoscreen. I can remember doing things, but not why I did them, or how I felt while doing them. I spent most of my first life living among humans, developing human traits, but most of that is lost to me now. I have emotions, I… feel things, but they are strange, puzzling things, because I have no frame of reference to put them in. I'm like a blind man seeing colors for the first time. So I laugh and cry, savoring their unfamiliar flavors, trying to discover what separates them, and how they relate to the world I live in. I see the lepers here, living and fighting and dying so bravely, and I think tears are appropriate, but it is hard to be sure. It's very hard to be human, Owen. I don't know how you manage it so effortlessly."

"You'll get the hang of it," said Owen. "You just need to practice. That's how everyone learns. And yes, tears are appropriate here. If I had any left, I'd shed them. But I've seen so many people die, fought in so many desperate last-ditch battles, it's hard for me to find room for such emotions. I have to be strong, unmoved, because everyone else needs me to be strong for them. I'd love to have the luxury of being weak again, Moon. To have someone else be strong, be the hero, so I could lean on them. It's hard work being a living legend."

"Yes," said Moon. "I remember you being a hero. You risked your life to open the Tomb of the Hadenmen after I failed. After I deserted you, leaving you and the others to fight the Empire while I went off on my own, convinced it was my destiny to reawaken my people. I was wrong. I won't let you down again, Owen. I'll never desert you again."

"Of course you won't," said Owen. "I never thought otherwise."

"There are more new things in me, apart from my emotions," said Moon. "I recently attempted to run a diagnostic on my tech implants, the internal mechanisms that made me an augmented man. To my surprise, I found most of them to be missing. My body has absorbed them. But I am as strong and fast as I ever was, my senses as clear, my thoughts as sharp. It's as though I don't need the tech to be more than human anymore."

"It's the Maze," said Owen, nodding. "When you passed through with the rest of us, it put its mark on you too."

"I am neither man nor Hadenman anymore," said Moon, frowning. "I'm becoming something else. Something different. My eyes still glow and my voice still buzzes, but perhaps only because I expect them to. You're further down the road than me, Owen. What am I becoming?"

"I don't know," said Owen. "Perhaps something we have no name or even concept for. Yet."

"I feel something when I consider this, Owen. I think… I'm scared."

"We all are. The unknown is always scary. But no doubt the caterpillar fears becoming a butterfly, even as its instincts compel it to construct its own cocoon. We have no control over what's happening to us, so… enjoy the ride. And remember you're among friends."

"I have observed the lepers. If they can face their changes with such courage, so can I." He looked sideways at Owen. "I think… something new is developing in me. I can… sense things. Things not apparent to anyone else. It's not telepathy. More like empathy perhaps. Either way, believe me when I say we're not alone here. There's something else out in the jungle. Something hidden and very powerful."

"The Hadenman army?"

"No. I'd know my own people. This is alive, but it's like nothing else I've ever encountered. It thinks slow thoughts, but it's growing angry. And it knows where we are."

"Does it have a name? An identity?"

"Oh, yes," said Tobias Moon. "It's the Red Brain."

Hazel d'Ark had joined up with her two alternate selves, trading gossip over their respective Owens, when a single leper woman approached them, limping tiredly into their path. The three women stopped abruptly rather than run her over, and the leper woman dropped to her knees before Hazel.

"Forgive my impertinence, blessed one, but you are Hazel d'Ark, the liberator of Golgotha?"

"Well, yes," said Hazel. "Though I didn't exactly do it alone. Was there something you wanted?"

The leper pushed back her cowl, revealing a face half eaten away by rot. Patches of bare skull showed through the sparse remaining hair, and her teeth showed clearly where her left cheek should have been. Up close, the smell was appalling, though Hazel and the others tried hard not to show it. The leper woman produced one gray hand from under her cloak. It was skeletally thin, and only had two fingers on it. The leper woman held it out in supplication to Hazel.

"You have been touched by God, lady. You have worked miracles. I have seen it on the holo. So work one more miracle, for me, I beg you. Heal me."

Hazel fell back a step, shocked. "I… I can't. I don't know how."

"You have healed your own terrible wounds. You are blessed by God. Only lay your hand on me, and I too shall be healed, I know it."

Hazel looked to Bonnie and Midnight for help, but they were stunned too. Hazel looked back at the leper woman before her, and didn't have a damned clue what to say. So in the end she reached out a hand, her flesh crawling, and laid it firmly on the leper's bowed head. They both waited a few moments, but nothing happened. After a while the leper woman sighed, and got to her feet again.

"Thank you for trying, lady. My faith was not strong enough. I won't trouble you again."

She pulled her hood back over her ruined head, and limped slowly away. Hazel looked after her, and then back at her hand. She rubbed it hard against her side and then stopped, almost guiltily. She realized there were other lepers, watching her.

"I would have helped her if I could."

No one said anything, and after a while Hazel walked on. Bonnie and Midnight followed her, some distance behind.

The Hadenmen attacked just after first light. The rain was coming down like it had a grudge, but the augmented men didn't even seem to notice. They came streaming into the clearing from all sides, forcing their way through the packed treeline by sheer brute force, wood splintering and cracking under their servomotor-driven strength. The guards in the watchtowers sounded the first alarm, and lepers went running to the walls to defend the Mission. Hundreds of Hadenmen came marching through the rain in silence, attacking without challenge or war cries. They strode endlessly out of the jungle, tall and perfect like living gods, graceful beyond hope, with the sun burning in their eyes and energy weapons in their hands.

A fusillade of arrows rained down on them, mostly glancing off their internal armor. When the arrows did pierce flesh, the augmented men merely pulled them out and let them drop to the ground. They opened fire with their hand disrupters, punching holes in the wooden outer wall, concentrating their fire to create holes large enough to enter through. The wooden wall burned briefly here and there, but the driving rain soon put it out. And then the Hadenmen reached the outer wall, and the first few broke through into the compound beyond, and it was all hand-to-hand fighting after that.

The lepers up on the catwalks kept up a steady rain of arrows on their enemy, and now and again an augmented man crashed to the ground and did not rise again, an arrow in his eye. Other defenders poured boiling oil on the Hadenmen climbing through the holes they'd made in the wall. Those few defenders with energy weapons picked their targets carefully, and cursed the long two minutes it took for their guns to recharge between shots. Inside the wall, defenders rushed to meet the intruders, and held them in place by sheer weight of numbers.

Owen and Hazel fought side by side before the largest hole in the outer wall, and every Hadenman that came within reach of their weapons died. They swung their swords with far more than human strength, and the heavy steel blades sheared cleanly through internal armor and implanted steelmesh to pierce the more vulnerable organs beyond. And fast as the augmented men were, Owen and Hazel were faster. They stopped the invaders in their tracks, and step by step they pushed the Hadenmen back out into the clearing, kicking aside the bodies of the fallen to get at their inhuman foes.

Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue danced among the augmented men, laughing and singing as they killed. Bonnie threw herself into the thick of the combat, cutting everything within reach, ignoring the injuries she took herself. The wounds healed so quickly she barely felt the pain, and wouldn't have cared if she had. She was death and destruction, and nothing could stand before her. Midnight teleported back and forth across the compound, blinking in and out of existence just long enough to strike down an enemy and be gone again. She seemed to be everywhere at once, and everywhere she was a Hadenman fell.

The two Sisters of Glory came howling out of nowhere, swinging their swords too fast for the human eye to follow. They viciously cut the Hadenmen, darting in and out again, slashing at vulnerable joints and unprotected throats. Sister Marion strode stiff-leggedly into the thickest part of the fighting, lurching and swaying and somehow never where her enemy thought she would be. She brought her sword around in a long, sweeping arc, cutting right through a Hadenman's glowing eyes, and then finished off her blinded prey with a knife to the heavy veins at the top of the thigh. Blood splashed her uncanny witch's outfit, and looked perfectly at home there.

Sister Kathleen swung her sword with both hands, cutting a path through the enemy through sheer determination. She ducked and darted, bobbed and weaved, elusive as mercury, leaving dead men in her wake.

Colonel William Hand went to meet the Hadenmen with grim purpose and some satisfaction, glad at last to be doing what he was meant to do and did so well. He roared and chanted old battle cries as his sword rose and fell in simple butchery, and his heart was glad. The augmented men tried ganging up on him, but Otto was always there to watch his back, hacking the long legs of the Hadenmen and bringing them down so his knife could reach their throats and faces. He laughed and sniggered as he killed, reveling in the destruction of such perfection of form.

And everywhere, inside the Mission and without, the lepers fought as best they could, with guns and swords and sharpened farm implements, anything that came to their gray and rotting hands. Anyone who could stand came out to fight, throwing themselves at the enemy with the calm desperation of those who knew they were dying anyway. And perhaps also because they were determined to preserve the few things in their life that still had value and meaning to them. The Mission, their homes, and the Saint who had come to give them hope when they thought they had lost it forever.

They would fight for the Mission, but they would die for Saint Bea.

Slowly the Hadenmen were forced back out of the Mission and into the clearing beyond, though many died on both sides in the process. The greater open space favored the augmented men, giving them more room to move, and exploit their strength and speed, so the defenders stuck close to the outer wall, guarding the open holes, refusing to be tempted farther. And still the Hadenmen came streaming out of the surrounding jungle, hundreds and hundreds of them, tall and perfect, and perfectly deadly.

A group of Hadenmen felled one of the trees with their energy weapons, and used it as a great battering ram against the main gate of the Mission. As long as the gate held, the lepers were safe from the main force of the augmented men, and both sides knew it. The heavy wooden gates shuddered under every blow, the great steel hinges groaning loudly. The guards in the watchtowers rained down arrow after arrow at the straining Hadenmen, but even when one fell, another was immediately there to take his place. The gate began to bow inward as the massive weight of the tree slammed into it again and again. After a while the constant back and forth motion of the Hadenmen churned the ground beneath them into thick mud, and the weight of the tree sent them slipping and sliding in the treacherous morass. And then Owen and Hazel arrived to save the day.

They came running through the scattered battles, cutting down anyone who got in their way. The augmented men dropped the tree trunk and turned to face their new enemy, servomotors humming loudly in their limbs, and met Owen and Hazel with sword blows so fast they were blurs in the rain. Owen and Hazel countered them easily, and took the fight to the Hadenmen. They were quickly separated by the press of bodies, and soon they were all slipping and sliding in the mud, often hanging onto the tree trunk for support while they cut and hacked.

Hazel went one on one with a giant Hadenman. Blows and parries and counters came and went inhumanly fast, and sparks flew from their blades with every contact. The rain drove down around them, running down their intent faces. In the end, Hazel beat the Hadenman's sword aside with her superior strength, and rammed her sword through his chest and out his back. He fell to his knees, the golden light slowly going out of his eyes. Hazel jerked her sword free in a last flurry of blood, and looked around for fresh prey.

Owen moved swiftly between the Hadenmen, his lighter frame enabling him to move more freely in the muddy conditions. His sword flashed in and out, come and gone in a moment, always that little bit too fast for the augmented men who tried to crowd around him. He seemed to grow stronger and faster the longer he fought, as though something was awakening in him, until he was more than a fighter, more than a warrior. He felt invincible, like some unstoppable force of nature sent to teach the Hadenmen the error of their ways. He stamped and lunged—and then he slipped in the mud and fell.

He landed awkwardly, jarring his right elbow on something solid, and his sword flew from his momentarily numbed fingers. Immediately there were Hadenmen all around him, stabbing down at him again and again, and only their uncertain footing gave Owen the time he needed to scrabble to his feet. He shot a Hadenmen through the chest at point-blank range, and the others fell back. Owen grabbed for the knife he kept in his boot, cursing and blaspheming as he looked frantically about for his lost sword.

And then he looked up just in time to see the blunt end of the great wooden battering ram coming straight at him. Four of the Hadenmen had broken away from him to pick it up, servomotors straining loudly, and they surged forward, driving themselves and their burden through the mud and rain by sheer determination. Owen just had time to see his death coming, and then the huge end of the tree trunk hit him squarely and slammed him back against the immovable main gate.

For a moment it was like a dream. The end of the tree blotted out the light, as though night had fallen especially for him. Then he was hit hard from the front, and from behind a moment later, and it felt like the whole world was pressing down on him. He could feel his entire body, his bones and his organs, actually flattening under the impact, before things began breaking. And then pain hit him, and it wasn't like a dream at all.

His ribs cracked and gave way under the impact, collapsing inward to spear his lungs and heart. His organs were crushed and flattened. A river of blood spurted out his mouth and anus. The tree trunk swung back, but Owen stayed where he was, stuck to the main gate by his own blood. Light filled his eyes again. There was more blood, from his nose and ears and eyes. The pain was unbelievable, so bad he couldn't even think through it, trapped in the agony of that moment like a fly trapped in amber. His punctured lungs trembled in his chest, unable to draw breath in or push it out. His arms and legs were broken, white shards of bone protruding through the bloody flesh, and his face was smashed to a pulp. He slid slowly, helplessly, down the gate, leaving a thick trail of dark blood behind him on the wood, which had actually cracked and splintered under the force of the impact.

Owen lay still in the mud, not breathing, barely thinking, his heart beating out its last sporadic movements in his crushed chest. He never heard Hazel scream with horror and rage, never saw her fall upon the Hadenmen and kill them all. He lay in the mud, the rain slowly washing the blood from his ruined face, and thought, Such a stupid way to die. So many things still left to do. And then he thought, No. I won't die. I refuse to die. Not here, now, when I'm still needed.

He reached inside himself, deep down into the undermind, the back brain, that still mysterious part of his mind where his power lay, and he pulled it forth by the brute force of his will, whether it wanted to come or not. He hauled it up out of the dark place where he couldn't see, and thrust it into his broken, dying body. Healing energies crackled through him, and he wanted to scream at the new pain as his splintered bones slowly knitted themselves together again, but it wasn't until his lungs healed and reinflated that he could manage even the smallest of whimpers. His heart healed itself in a moment, beating strong and hard. Bones became strong, organs sound, and it all hurt like the pits of Hell. And then the power retreated back into the depths of his mind, leaving Owen lying there in the mud, soaked in his own blood and weak as a kitten, but brought back from the brink of death by his own refusal to be beaten by anything, even the weakness of his own body.

Well, he thought finally. There's another thing I didn't know I could do.

Hazel dropped to her knees beside him, her eyes wide at the sight of so much blood soaking him. "Lie still, Owen. I'll get help." Her voice was unsteady with barely held-back tears. "Don't die. Don't you dare die on me, Owen! I won't stand for it."

"Easy, love," said Owen, his voice little more than a whisper. "I'm all right. Healed myself. Help me back on my feet."

Hazel checked his chest first with experienced probing fingers, and then hauled him up onto his feet. "Hell's teeth, Owen. When I saw that bloody tree slam into you, I thought I'd lost you for sure. Can anything kill us anymore?"

Owen smiled grimly. "Oh, I think a direct energy shot to the head would probably do it. Or a stake through the heart. But we're getting tougher all the time. Now help me back inside, I'm no use to anyone till I've got my breath back."

Hazel helped him stumble over to the nearest hole in the wall. The remaining Hadenmen gave them both plenty of room.

Bonnie Bedlam danced among the Hadenmen, sudden death on two legs. Every blow was a killing blow, and she never bothered with a defense. When she was cut or hurt she just laughed aloud, glorying in the rush of healing flesh. Not for her the honor of one-on-one combat, and if she'd heard of fair play, it was only to laugh at it. She came and went, her sword flashing out of nowhere to pierce an undefended side or a turned back. Bonnie Bedlam was a fighter, not a warrior, and had no time at all for honor. It just got in the way. She cut down the enemy with vicious, heartless attacks, and ignored the cries for help or support from the lepers fighting around her. She wasn't there to be anyone's shield or partner. Her powers and abilities made her far more vital to the Mission's defense than any damn fool colonist who needed his hand held.

Midnight Blue wielded her ax with both hands, lopping off heads and limbs with her inhuman strength. Hadenmen blood struck her again and again, like an invigorating shower, and she wore it proudly. She roared the sacred chants of her warrior order, cutting her way through the battle like a forester opening up a new path in a crowded wood. Hadenmen fell almost helplessly before her cold, focused anger, and did not rise again. She took fierce blows and wounds without flinching, ignoring or rising above the pain in her battle fury. Most of her wounds closed almost immediately, and for those that took a little longer, she paid them no heed. She fought at the head of a small group of lepers, and watched their backs as her own. She could have teleported anywhere in the battle, but would not leave while she felt she was needed.

Sometimes one of her people would fall despite everything she could do to protect them, and then her heart would fill with rage. They all fought so very bravely, but in the end they were no match for Hadenmen. One by one they fell, until Midnight was left alone again. She vanished then, reappearing somewhere else she was needed, to protect another group of lepers for as long as she could.

Bonnie and Midnight came together in the middle of the fighting, and when they stood their ground, back to back, no one could move them. They blocked the way to the biggest hole in the Mission Wall, and the Hadenmen came at them in an endless tide, only to fall back dead or dying, like waves crashing against an immovable rock. The Hadenmen had energy weapons, but in the constant moving crush of bodies, even their augmented computer minds found it hard to hit any one target. And so the battle went, until the sheer press and numbers of Hadenmen gained enough momentum to drive Bonnie and Midnight back, step by step, until they were standing in the hole in the wall itself, and from there they would not be moved. Until the Hadenmen brought forward a large object, wrapped in layers of thick waterproofing. The augmented men fighting Bonnie and Midnight took one look, and fell back immediately, hurrying to get out of the way. Bonnie and Midnight lowered their weapons and looked at each other, and then at the object, as the Hadenmen pulled away the wrappings to reveal a portable disrupter cannon. Bonnie glared at Midnight.

"Get out of here, teleporter. Vanish."

"I won't leave you here to die."

"I regenerate, remember?"

"Not from that, you won't."

"Teleport, damn you! I'd run, if I thought I'd get anywhere."

"Bonnie…"

"Go. I've always known I'll die alone."

Midnight cried out once, in rage and anguish, and vanished. Air rushed in to fill the space she'd left. She reappeared behind the crew of the disrupter cannon, hewing about her with her ax. But even as the Hadenmen fell away, dead or dying, one of them had already aimed and fired. The energy beam surged forth, an unstoppable storm of raging power. Energies that could vaporize steel or punch through force shields crossed the space between the cannon and Bonnie in under a second, and when the beam finally shut down, there was a hole in the wall big enough to lead an army through, and no sign anywhere of Bonnie Bedlam.

Midnight Blue howled with loss, at the death of someone she might have been, at the death of a good comrade in arms. And perhaps just a little at the knowledge that no matter how fast or strong she was, she couldn't save everyone, even when it mattered most to her. She cut down the rest of the cannon's crew and held the cannon over her head, her arms muscles bulging. She'd never lifted anything so heavy before, but in that moment she felt like she could hold it aloft forever. She looked around her, picked the heaviest concentration of Hadenmen, and threw the cannon into their midst with all her strength. The cannon exploded on impact, and a sudden intense light swept through the augmented men, blowing them away like leaves in a firestorm. When the ground finally settled, there was a great crater, and broken bodies everywhere. Some of them were lepers. Midnight tried to feel something for them, and couldn't, just yet. Not while she still had that numb hole in her life where Bonnie used to be. She stumbled back to the wall, to guard the gaping hole. And that was when she heard the sound from inside.

Midnight stepped through the hole, and saw what was left of Bonnie Bedlam lying some distance inside. It was mostly bones, scorched and blackened by the terrible energies of the disrupter beam, but somehow still held together by strands of bloody meat. Bits and pieces of organs could be seen pulsing inside the broken ribs and shattered sternum. Terribly, the thing was still alive, and suffering. Midnight fumbled forward and knelt beside the body. The skull grinned at her with broken teeth, but incredibly, there was an intact eye in one of the sockets. As Midnight watched, another eye slowly formed in the second socket. Strands of muscle formed out of nowhere, creeping over the bone like solid worms, pulling the lower jaw back into place. Farther down the body, the organs were repairing themselves. The heart was beating, though its blood just splashed everywhere for the moment. The lungs reinflated, sucking in air. Long red muscles formed striations and linked the arms and legs together. Midnight looked back at the head. Skin covered the wet red meat, and lips formed slowly over the teeth. The mouth opened, and breath hissed in and out.

"Told you I could take it," whispered Bonnie Bedlam, smiling painfully. "We survived a direct hit from a cannon once before, on Mistworld, remember? Of course, Owen was with us then. We were always stronger together."

"Jesus, you're a mess," said Midnight, caught between tears and laughter. "I'll get you to the infirmary."

"No time. You guard that hole in the wall while I finish regenerating. And if you see them setting up another disrupter cannon, pick me up and run like hell, because there's no way I could survive another blast like that."

"You got it," said Midnight Blue. "If anyone gets past me, bite their ankles."

She moved back to the wall, stepped into the great hole, and defied the Hadenmen to get past her. She stood there with her ax in her hands, ready to stand her ground till the battle was over, till the death, or hell froze, whichever came first.

The two Sisters of Glory were seemingly everywhere at once, luring their leper charges on, leading from the front, singing hymns and psalms as they killed everything that came against them. The leper colonists fought with the souls of warriors, holding their own against the Hadenmen for as long as they could. For all their strength and speed, their implanted armor and steelmesh, the augmented men couldn't stand against enemies who threw themselves into the fray not caring whether they lived or died. One leper would cling to a Hadenman's sword arm, holding it down while another leper went for the throat. Some deliberately took a sword in the belly, trapping the blade so others could drag the killer down. The Hadenmen were efficient, but the lepers were inspired. The battle surged back and forth, toward the Mission and away again, with neither side able to hold the advantage for long.

Sister Kathleen saw the bomb first. Caught for a moment in a quiet eddy, she looked around for a new opponent, and saw six Hadenmen carrying a heavy explosive device among them, heading slowly for the main gate of the Mission. A bodyguard of six more Hadenmen surrounded the bomb, using their disrupters to clear the way before them. Kathleen recognized the device, having worked in mining before she came to the Church. She called out to Marion, naming the new threat, and together they carved a path through the surging crowd toward the bomb.

The two Sisters reached the bomb's honor guard together, and threw themselves at the unsuspecting Hadenmen. Their guns exhausted, the augmented men stood their ground with naked steel and would not be moved. The Sisters of Glory fought savagely, but they had been fighting for so very long, and they were after all very sick women, their strength and stamina eaten away by leprosy, as with everything else. The servomotors in the arms of the Hadenmen never grew tired. The progress of the bomb had been stopped, not far from the edge of the clearing, but the Sisters couldn't reach it.

They battled on, their faith pushing them forward when any other might have retired, or dropped from sheer exhaustion, but in the end only Kathleen saw what was needed. She said a last prayer to God, and forced her way between two Hadenmen by throwing everything she had into an attack that left her totally defenseless. She burst through, heading for the bomb, and two swords hit her from behind at once, slamming into her back and kidneys. She cried out once, blood spraying from her mouth, but kept going, the headlong momentum of her last desperate charge bringing her to the bomb. She flailed wildly about her with her sword, killing one of the Hadenmen carrying the bomb, and the device crashed to the ground. And then it was the simplest thing in the world for Kathleen to reach forward and activate the five-minute timer.

Sister Marion saw what she'd done, and cried out helplessly as Kathleen threw herself over the bomb, clinging to it determinedly so that the Hadenmen couldn't get to it and undo what she'd done. Sister Marion turned and ran for the Mission, yelling to the lepers to retreat. Others took up the cry, trusting her decision, and soon all the defenders of Saint Bea's Mission had broken away from the battle and were sweeping back across the clearing, heading for the main gate and the larger holes in the outer wall. At first the Hadenmen pursued them, but they quickly realized something was wrong, and stopped, suspecting a trap or a trick of some kind.

Back at the bomb, the Hadenmen cut and hacked at Kathleen, trying to force her to let go, but she clung to it with the last of her strength, crying out at the horrid pain of her wounds, but refusing to release her grip. Kathleen had positioned herself very carefully. The Hadenmen had to be cautious where they hit her, for fear of damaging the bomb. In the end she died, though it took the augmented men some time to realize that. They pried her hands off the bomb, breaking her fingers to do it, and threw the dead nun aside. And only then did they see the timer, and realize what Kathleen had bought with her stubborn, defiant death. The Hadenmen turned to run, and the bomb went off.

The blast killed every Hadenman still in the clearing, flattened some of the trees on the periphery, and shook the walls of the Mission. The lepers had made it inside and secured the main gate in time, and though there was some structural damage among the smaller buildings, the colonists and their champions survived. After the last tremors of the explosion had died away, and the walls and the ground had stopped shaking, Sister Marion opened the main gate and looked out. All that remained of the attacking army were a few half-melted metal shapes here and there. The Hadenman force was gone as though it had never been. There was no trace at all of Sister Kathleen. Sister Marion sighed and sniffed loudly.

"Teach those metal bastards to play with dangerous toys. God bless and keep you, Sister Kathleen, and damn all the Hadenmen to Hell."

After the battle came the cleaning up. The holes in the outer wall had to be repaired or barricaded, the injured were taken to the infirmary, and the dead were piled up in one of the storage huts. There would be time for funerals later. Hopefully. Each of the dead had to be identified first so that friends and loved ones could say a last good-bye. Sometimes the bodies were so damaged or disfigured that identification was difficult. Those unfortunates were laid out in lines in a separate hut, and tearful survivors moved slowly down the narrow aisles between the bodies, looking for someone familiar.

Collecting the dead, and either identifying or laying them out, was a disturbing, depressing business, but it had to be done. Most of those who'd gone out to fight were in no shape to do it, physically or mentally, so the duty fell to those who'd stayed within the Mission as a last line of defense to protect those too ill to fight. Colonel William Hand and Otto had ended up guarding the main gate and overseeing tactics, much to their disgust, and now used their military experience to deal with the business of the dead. There were always more, as men and women died waiting to get to the infirmary.

Hand and Otto weren't bothered by the dead. They'd seen enough bodies in their time to know the trick of treating them as objects rather than the people they'd been. Tobias Moon worked with them. He hadn't been allowed to go outside and fight, because he might easily have been mistaken for one of the enemy. So now he carried the dead into the long, narrow hut and laid them out in neat rows, his augmented arms carrying the load long after even the most determined of the lepers had been forced to give up through sheer exhaustion. He was glad for a chance to be doing something to help. The dead bodies didn't bother him at all. He'd been there.

William Hand walked slowly up and down the ranks, giving each body a number and making notes of things like personal jewelery, to help in identification. Otto staggered in and out with blankets wrapped around collections of body parts. They'd be matched up later, if possible. For now he just dumped them all in a pile in one corner, and thanked God there were no rats on Lachrymae Christi. He dropped his last load onto the chest-high pile with an emphatic grunt, turned around, and pulled a face.

"Jesus, this place stinks, Colonel. Couldn't they at least have chosen a hut with windows?"

"Splash some disinfectant around," said Hand, not looking up from his clipboard. "And if you see anything small and wriggling, hit it with something heavy."

"Can't," said Otto. "Saint Bea's commandeered all the disinfectant for the infirmary. She's even rounded up all the booze in the camp as backup. Next time, Colonel, let's not get distracted from the fighting. I'd rather take on a whole army of Hadenmen with my hump on backward than go through this shit again. Too much like working for a living." The dwarf looked around him and was quiet for a long moment. "We lost a lot of good people out there, Colonel. Fifteen, maybe twenty percent of us. And a lot more'll be dead by morning."

"Hadenmen lost a damn sight more."

"Yeah, but let's face it, that was just a preliminary skirmish. An advance force sent in to test the defenses. That's what I'd have done. The real army is still out there in the jungle somewhere, digesting the lessons it's learned. And they could come at us anytime."

"You know, Otto, it's your cheerful personality that keeps me going. Don't you have any work to do?"

"Nope. No more body parts. I had to use a shovel and a bucket for the last lot, though how you're planning to match up things like ears and teeth and red and purple blobby bits is beyond me. Don't know what we'll do with them if they're not claimed. Except maybe make soap out of them. Or soup, if things get really desperate."

The Colonel looked up from his clipboard. "Of course, your people were cannibals, weren't they?"

"Only on holy days. And only if we really didn't like someone."

"Finished," said Tobias Moon from the doorway. "There are no more bodies, though many remain gravely ill. I think you two should rest for a while now. I can continue with your work. I'm not tired at all."

"Then you're the only one in this Mission who isn't," said the Colonel. He looked at his clipboard, then opened his hand and let it drop to the floor. "Take ten, Otto. I think we've earned it."

The two of them sat down on the floor, as far away from the bodies and the smell as they could get, and wearily set their backs against the hut wall. Otto produced a battered gunmetal flask from somewhere about his person, winked at the Colonel, and they both drank deeply from it. Moon hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Hand beckoned for him to come over.

"Join us, sir Moon. You've earned a break too, even if you don't need it. Pull up a floor and sit down. Fancy a drop of something bad for you?"

"Thank you," said Moon. Alcohol did nothing for him, but he took the proffered flask anyway. He understood that was part of being sociable. He sat down beside the Colonel, took a modest drink, and then passed the flask back. "It has an… unusual flavor."

Otto laughed. "The flavor isn't why you drink it, friend. You've been out in the main compound. What's the latest news?"

Moon hesitated, running the information available through a filter of what most people found interesting. "The holes in the wall have been dealt with. The few fires did remarkably little damage."

"The people, Moon," said Hand impatiently. "What about your friends, the living legends?"

"The Deathstalker was badly injured but has recovered. Hazel d'Ark and Midnight Blue are helping Mother Beatrice in the infirmary. Bonnie Bedlam suffered extensive damage, but is healing at an accelerated rate, and expects to be fully functional within an hour or two. Those of us who have been through the Madness Maze are very hard to kill."

"Yeah," said the Colonel. "We noticed. You're probably even immune to what we've got." Hand looked at Moon for a long moment. "What would you have done if the Hadenmen had broken through our defenses and got in here? Would you have fought your own kind?"

"Yes," said Moon immediately. "Because they are not my people anymore. I am neither man nor Hadenman. I owe allegiance to no race now, only my friends."

"In the end, that's all any of us have," said Hand, lifting the flask to his gray lips again. "Friendship and honor. Nothing else matters."

"But what if honor requires that you turn against your friends?" said Moon.

"Tricky one," said Hand. "I guess you have to ask yourself: would they still be your friends if they knew you'd betrayed your honor?"

"It is very hard to be human," said Moon, sighing.

"Got that right," said Otto.

By the time things had started to settle down, it was night. The dark fell early on Lachrymae Christi. Saint Bea and Sister Marion were still working in the infirmary, struggling to save lives with insufficient medicines and instruments. It was starting to look less like a hospital, and more like a slaughterhouse. Hazel d' Ark and Midnight Blue helped as much as they could, taking breaks outside when they couldn't stand the screams or the suffering or the stench of exposed guts anymore. They sat together on the steps outside, breathing in the fresh air, gathering up the courage to go back in again. It was hard to be so powerful and so helpless at the same time. After a while Bonnie Bedlam came striding out of the shadows to join them. She wore the standard gray clothing, and was perfectly healed, so much so they barely recognized her. All her piercings and tattoos and body modifications were gone, blasted away by the energy beam, and not re-created when she healed. She was scowling fiercely as she sat down beside Hazel, just a little unsteadily.

"I hate looking like this. Like everyone else. Years of hard work gone in an instant! Even my old leathers were destroyed, that I was wearing under my cloak. I've had them for years. Made them out of the skin of an old enemy. And I'm still weak from the regeneration. Never had to do that much work before. If the Hadenmen attacked now, I couldn't beat them off with a paper towel."

"Nice to see you too," said Midnight. "We're fine, thanks."

"You look a lot more like me now," said Hazel.

"Oh, God," said Bonnie. "It's not that bad, is it?"

"Any disturbances out in the jungle?" said Midnight.

"Just the plants, eating and humping each other. How's it going in the infirmary?"

"Depends on how you look at it," said Hazel. "We're losing more than we're saving, but given the appalling conditions, it's a miracle we're saving so many. She really is a Saint, you know. Been working all day, and she's still going when we're out on our feet. I've never seen so much blood in one place. The floor's awash with it, no matter how much disinfectant we sling about. Shock kills a lot of them, either from their wounds or from the surgery. I guess leprosy weakens all the body's defenses."

"It's not fair," said Midnight. "They fought so bravely. They won the battle. They deserved better than the little we're able to do for them."

"Yeah," said Bonnie. "It's one thing for us to go out and fight; we're practically unkillable. We can get hurt, but nothing really threatens us anymore."

"And in the end Sister Kathleen won the battle," said Midnight. "Not one of us. And gave her life to do it. Didn't even hesitate."

"Lord, what marvels these mortals be," said Bonnie.

"We're like the monsters in the old stories," said Hazel. "Cut us, shoot us, burn us; we just keep coming back for more. Unless they stick a stake through our heart, cut off our head, burn it, and scatter the ashes. I don't think even you could come back from that, Bonnie."

"I'd give it a bloody good try," she said.

"The Hadenmen," said Midnight. "They're the real monsters. Giving up their humanity for their love of tech. Perfectability isn't achieved through the body but through the spirit. What honor is there in attacking a Mission full of sick people?"

"They want something," said Bonnie. "And they never let anything get in the way of what they want. Least of all morality. I can respect that. Sometimes, in order to achieve anything of value, you have to be prepared to sacrifice something else of value. Friends, honor, morality… love. I love my Owen with all my rotten heart, but I'd sacrifice him to save the Empire, and he knows it. Can you say you wouldn't do the same?"

"I lost my Owen," said Midnight. "I would sacrifice the Empire and everything in it to have him in my arms again."

"But how would he feel about that?" said Hazel.

"Oh, he'd be appalled," said Midnight. "But then, Owen always was much more honorable than me."

"Where's your Owen?" said Bonnie to Hazel.

"Around," she said. "He was overseeing the repairs to the wall, but I haven't seen him for ages. Been too busy. I thought he was going to die today, but once again he pulled himself back from the brink. Man's got more lives than a basket full of cats. But…just for a moment, while he was lying there in his own blood, I thought. What would I do without him? What would there be for me to live for with him gone?"

"Why don't you tell him that?" said Midnight softly. "If the Hadenmen come again, you might not get another chance."

"Later maybe," said Hazel. "We're still needed here."

"I can help out for a while," said Bonnie. "Go find your Owen."

Hazel looked down at the ground before her. "I never wanted commitment. To be bound to any one person. I've spent my whole life fighting to be free, defying any kind of authority, just to be sure that no one ran my life but me. And then I met Owen, and fate bound us together no matter how much we struggled. I… admire him greatly. He's brave and kind and honorable, and he loves me. I've always known that. But… I never loved anyone in my whole life. I don't know if I have it in me to love anyone, even a man as fine as Owen. I'm not the loving kind."

"I thought that for a long time," said Midnight. "I didn't realize the truth till my Owen was dead and lost to me forever. Don't make the mistake I did, and wait too long. We heroes tend to live tragically short lives."

"Go talk to the man," said Bonnie. "I'll cover for you with Saint Bea. Come on, Midnight; you hold them down and I'll do the stitches."

They got up, squared their shoulders, and went back into the slaughterhouse. Hazel sat alone on the steps, staring out into the gloom.

Owen Deathstalker moved through the open compound, anonymous again in his leper's cloak and pulled-down hood, listening to the people talk. They sat in small clumps around open fires, passing their last few bottles of booze back and forth. It was supposed to have gone for the infirmary, for emergency use, but it hadn't taken the lepers long to decide that if their current need wasn't an emergency, they didn't know what was, so they'd dug up the hidden bottles they'd stashed away for a dry day, and poured the stuff down their necks as fast as they could stand it. The cheer of their victory hadn't blinded them to the reality of their situation. They knew they were just waiting for the next act. So they talked and laughed and sang, praised Saint Bea and the Sisters of Glory, and talked about the living legends who had come to lead and protect them.

"They say the Deathstalker died and brought himself back to life," said a leper with half his face eaten away.

"Nah," said another man, his face hidden in the shadows of a broad-brimmed hat. "When you're dead, you're dead, like the blessed Sister Kathleen. When you're gone, you don't come back."

"That's for the likes of us," said the third man at the fire, a tall, gangling sort, sitting hugging his bony knees to his chest. "We're human. He isn't. Not anymore."

"Of course he's human," said the first man. "He was born among us to become more than us, to lead us to victory. Like he led the rebels against the Empress."

"That was Jack Random," said the second man. "The professional rebel. Though they say he's immortal too these days. And Ruby Journey and Hazel d'Ark, and that bloody Hadenman Moon. Every bugger except us, seems like."

"Yeah," said the third man. "But they're still human. Old Daft Sally asked Hazel d'Ark to heal her by laying on of hands. Didn't work."

"Maybe Sally just didn't have enough faith," said the first man.

Owen decided he didn't like the way the conversation was going. He stepped forward into the light of the fire. "May I join you, friends?"

"Sure," said the first man. "Take a pew. I'm Harry. The one with the stupid hat is Sigurd, and the boring one is Glum."

"I'm Giles," said Owen. "I'm… new. I've met the Deathstalker. He didn't seem all that special to me. Just a man, trying to do what's right."

"Then you must have had your eyes shut," said Harry, picking at a scab on the side of his face he still had left. "He's been touched by God. Has to have been to do all the things he's done. They say angels fought alongside him in the great rebellion, and were seen flying in the skies above all the great battles."

"He's no Saint," said Sigurd. "There's only one Saint here, and she's still up to her elbows in guts in the infirmary. And I saw the Deathstalker on the holo, fighting in the streets on Golgotha, and there weren't any bloody angels there. Just Hazel d'Ark, and she sure as hell isn't any angel. Unless it's the fallen kind. Nice tits, though."

"Angels wouldn't show up on a film," said Harry patiently. "They're spiritual creatures."

"If he was a Saint, he'd heal us," said Glum, still looking down at his knees. "Save us all, and wipe out the Hadenmen with a wave of his hand. But he didn't, because he can't. No, he's powerful, all right, but he's still one of us."

"There are those who say he's a monster," Owen said quietly. "That no one should be able to do the things he can do. That all power corrupts—"

"Bull!" said Harry angrily. "He was born an aristo, but he gave it all up to champion the downtrodden! He gave up wealth and position of his own free will, refusing to live in comfort while the people lived in slavery! He's a hero. A legend."

"That was Jack Random," said Sigurd stubbornly.

"Random was a failure on his own. Everyone knows that. The Deathstalker fought for us when no one else would. Freed Jack Random from prison and put new life into him. He could have been Emperor if he wanted, but he turned it down." Harry shook his head wonderingly. "You only see his like once in a thousand years."

"He gave the Hadenmen a chance at redemption," said Glum, looking up for the first time. "Who else would have done that? All right, they betrayed him in the end, but that's Hadenmen for you."

"They say he killed a Grendel with his bare hands," said Harry reverently. "A Grendel, mind you! No man could do that who wasn't touched by God."

"But doesn't it scare you, some of the things he can do?" said Owen.

"Oh, hell," said Sigurd. "Of course he's scary. Heroes always are. They're all pretty spooky, all the Maze people. If they did go bad, who could stop them? They could kill us all, lay waste to whole planets, destroy the damned Empire if the whim took them. They could be monsters. But the point is, they aren't. The Deathstalker came here to save us when no one else would. He could die here, along with us, and no one would ever know. But he came anyway, because it was the right thing to do. In the end, that's all that matters."

"Touched by God," said Glum. "Driven by destiny. Chosen to be a hero. Poor bastard."

"Yeah," said Harry. "He could have taken the crown. I would have. Instead he's here with us. In Hell."

"Oh, I don't know," said Owen. "From what I've heard, Parliament's an even more dangerous place than this. At least here you can be sure who your enemies are." He got to his feet. "I have to go. Thanks for your company, friends."

He left them sitting around their fire and made his way back across the compound, heading nowhere in particular. He'd heard them talk about Owen Deathstalker as a hero and a legend, and as some poor bastard touched by God, and didn't recognize himself in either vision. As a historian, he'd always known such revision and reinvention of his life was inevitable, but it came hard to see himself already disappearing behind the old masks of myth and folk hero. They'd be saying he was born in a manger next, with three wise Lords come to visit him.

His feet took him to the infirmary, where Hazel was. When in doubt, he always went to Hazel. She was perhaps the only person who'd known him from the beginning, who'd been through all the changes with him. Perhaps the only person left who knew the real him. He found her sitting on the steps outside the infirmary, her head hanging tiredly down. He sat down beside her, and she grunted an acknowledgment.

"You should get some sleep," said Owen gently. "It's been a long day."

"You're the one who should be sleeping," said Hazel. "Hell, you nearly died today."

Owen shrugged. "Business as usual. Saint Bea still working in there?"

"Yeah. Nearly finished, though. Those who were going to die have done so, and the rest have all been attended to. She's just mopping the place out now. Getting ready for tomorrow. How many do you think we'll lose tomorrow, Owen?"

"Too many. They fight well, and they're brave enough, but most of them belong in sick beds. And even if they were fit, they'd be no match for an army of Hadenmen. I don't think anything is, under these conditions. Maybe not even us. The real army will be here tomorrow, and maybe even somewhen tonight, and then the walls to this place will come down like matchsticks, and the real butchery will begin. What the hell do they want here? Moon said there's something out there in the jungle, something he could sense but not describe. Called it the Red Brain. Maybe that's what the Hadenmen want."

"What we need is a miracle," said Hazel. "Maybe if we asked Saint Bea very nicely…"

"I don't think God's listening to us right now," Owen said tiredly. "We're on our own."

"Nonsense," said Mother Beatrice briskly, coming out of the infirmary, freshly starched and spotlessly clean. "God is always with us. He just won't fight our battles for us."

"I don't believe in God anymore," said Hazel. "Not after everything I've seen. All the evil, all the suffering, all the death."

"People were responsible for that evil," said Mother Beatrice. "Not God. And you have lived to see much of that evil come to an end. Be content with that." She sat down beside Owen on the steps, rubbing her hands with a damp cloth. There were still specks of dried blood around her fingernails.

"Why did you come here?" said Hazel. "Didn't you have enough of seeing people die after Technos III?"

"I came here because I was needed," said Mother Beatrice calmly. "Why do you and Owen keep throwing yourselves into danger?"

"Same reason, I suppose," said Owen. "Because people need us, because no one else can do what we do. I still believe in the old virtues of duty and honor, even though they seem to have gone out of fashion in today's new order of deals and compromises."

Mother Beatrice smiled. "And that part of you is the part that hears God's voice. You can't ignore it any more than I can."

"I fight because I'm good at it," Hazel said stubbornly. "My life's revolved around violence and killing for as long as I can remember. Everywhere I've been, it was always kill or be killed. Where's God's voice in that?"

"It isn't what you do that matters," said Mother Beatrice patiently. "It's why you do it. It is the cause we fight for that defines us. God gave you the warrior's gift, Hazel, but left it up to you what to do with it."

"I never wanted to be a warrior," said Owen. "It was thrust upon me by circumstances."

"Maybe in the beginning," said Mother Beatrice. "Nobody sane wants to be a hero. Few tales of real heroes have happy endings. But you became what you are because of who you are, because you couldn't look aside and do nothing while evil flourished. You are the best kind of warrior, Owen—the man who never wanted to be one. I never wanted to be a Saint. I still wince inside whenever anyone uses the word. Hell, I only joined the Church originally to get out of marrying Valentine Wolfe. But I found my faith, or it found me, and I can no more turn aside from those who need help than I can stop breathing. In the end, honor defines us all. Because without honor, our lives would have no meaning at all."

Owen listened, and wanted so desperately to believe, but still couldn't be sure.

And then the three of them looked up sharply as all hell broke loose in the jungle around the Mission. Owen and Hazel drew their guns, forced aside their tiredness, and ran for the outer wall. People ran alongside them, rubbing too little sleep from their eyes and shouting questions no one had answers for. Owen and Hazel sprinted up the wooden steps that led to the catwalk inside the top of the outer wall, and looked out across the clearing at the jungle beyond. The light from the Mission didn't penetrate far into the dark, and there was no moon above to light the scene. Hazel called for more light to be brought. Owen listened intently to the commotion raging in the jungle, but couldn't make any sense of it. Were the Hadenmen fighting each other? Soon the catwalk was packed with people, most of them holding up torches or lanterns, and for the first time movements could be seen in the jungle, of dark forces rushing back and forth. And then the first screams came out of the jungle, in the unmistakable buzzing tones of Hadenmen, followed by the familiar deadly sound of energy weapons discharging.

Owen strained his eyes against the dark and the rain. The clearing was utterly deserted. Whatever was happening was limited to the jungle. He could hear screams and cries of anger, and the sound of people running, crashing through the heavy foliage. Dark figures could be seen fighting and struggling. They might have been Hadenmen. But there were other shapes too, dark and indistinct, moving too fast to be defined. And where they went, the screaming rose anew.

Mother Beatrice pushed in beside Owen. "What is it, sir Deathstalker? What's happening out there?"

"Damned if I know. But at a guess, I'd say someone or something is kicking Hadenmen ass. And doing a damn good job of it."

"Could they be reinforcements? Marines perhaps?"

"I don't think so," said Hazel. "The attackers don't seem to be using guns. And they don't move like anything human. Are there any creatures on this planet that we don't know about, Mother Beatrice?"

"No. Nothing at all."

"I have never heard a Hadenman scream before," said Owen. "What could be so deadly, so terrible, than even the Hadenmen are afraid of them?"

"Well, you could always go out and take a look, but if you do, you're going on your own," said Hazel firmly. "I'm not putting one foot outside this wall until there's enough light to see what I'm aiming at."

"The Hadenmen have disrupters," said Mother Beatrice. "It doesn't seem to be doing them any good, does it?"

The tumult in the jungle suddenly broke off, the last few screams choked off. The crashing and the thrashing stopped, and there was no sign of movement anywhere. The night was completely still, and the Mission's defenders stood silently on the catwalk, listening to nothing but the crackling of torches, the endless pattering of rain on the roof, and their own massed breathing. The jungle was dark and calm, holding its secrets within.

"Well," said Owen finally. "At a guess, I'd say that whatever it was, it's over now. I think we'd better post double guards for tonight, on three-hour shifts. Everyone else, go get some sleep. Just because a few Hadenmen apparently got their just deserts, it doesn't necessarily mean we won't be facing a whole army of the bastards out there tomorrow."

"Shouldn't we send someone out to check for bodies?" said a voice farther down the catwalk.

"After you," said Hazel, and snorted, unimpressed, when there was no response.

"Any bodies can wait till the morning," said Mother Beatrice. "Everything can wait till the morning. The Deathstalker's right; post the extra guards, and everyone else get some sleep."

And since no one ever argued with Saint Bea, the watchers slowly dispersed, going to find what rest they could before morning. Owen and Hazel headed for the nearest steps, and ran into Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue coming the other way.

"A good performance," said Bonnie. "I felt like applauding."

"Don't mind her," said Midnight. "She's just being herself. What do you think just hit the Hadenmen?"

"I couldn't make out much," said Owen. "But what I did see seemed almost… familiar."

"Anyone who kills Hadenmen is fine with me," said Hazel. "I mean, come on; what could be worse than an army of augmented men?"

"I have a horrible suspicion we're going to find out, come the morning," said Midnight. "At least the Hadenmen were a known quantity. We could make plans against them. Now…"

"Right," said Bonnie. "The enemy of my enemy isn't always bound to be my friend. Especially if they're the Enemies of Humanity."

Hazel looked at her sharply. "Shub? You think there are Shub forces out there?"

"What else could take out a force of Hadenmen so easily? You ask me, that jungle is full of Ghost Warriors and Furies."

"I want to go home," said Hazel.

"But what the hell would Shub want here?" said Owen exasperatedly. "There's nothing here!"

"Except the Red Brain," said Moon, emerging suddenly from the gloom. "I can feel its presence more and more strongly all the time."

"Red…" said Bonnie. "Could it be some part of the jungle? Some plant that developed intelligence?"

"It's vast," said Moon. "Very large and very complex, and utterly alien. What I can detect of its slow thoughts makes no sense at all. All I can be sure of is that it's very dangerous. And it's slowly becoming aware of our presence. If I was a little more certain of my humanity, I think… I'd be scared."

"But what is it?" said Hazel.

"It's the Red Brain," said Moon. "And if it's as powerful and as dangerous as I think it is, then I think Haden or Shub would be right to commit any number of troops here, either to seize it or destroy it."

"But then… why are they attacking the Mission?" said Owen.

"We're just in the way," said Moon. "I don't think Haden or Shub is in the mood to share its prize."

He turned and walked back into the gloom, and was soon gone. Hazel glared after him. "I think I preferred him when he was just inhuman. He was much less irritating."

"He's certainly picked a hell of a time to go mystical on us," said Owen. "Maybe we should send him to Saint Bea, and see if she can get some sense out of him."

"The Red Brain…" said Bonnie. "Sounds like one of those evil criminal masterminds from the old holo serials when I was just a kid. Maybe we should put out a call to the Grim Gray Avenger to come and save us."

"Did you have those shows on your world?" said Midnight. "I was always a big fan of his."

"Yeah!" said Hazel. "I had all his tapes, and his special decoder ring, the one you had to send away for…"

Owen left them chattering happily together, and went off to get some sleep before he fell down. Saving his own life had taken a lot out of him. And he had a strong feeling that when morning came, and he finally saw what was waiting outside the Mission, he wasn't going to like it at all.

Dawn came suddenly on Lachrymae Christi, right on schedule. Everyone who could pack themselves onto the catwalks was there when the sunlight suddenly forced its way past the clouds, throwing back the gloom, and the view outside the Mission appeared again. And there, standing still and silent in the rain, in the clearing, all the way around the Mission, were rows upon rows of Grendel aliens. Owen looked dumbly down from the wall, his mouth dry, and could all but feel the confidence going out of the Mission's defenders.

Grendels. Gengineering killing machines from the Vaults of the Sleepers, held in suspended animation for unknown centuries, or perhaps even millennia, reborn again into an unprepared universe. Living horrors with spiked crimson armor that was somehow a part of them, and steel teeth and claws. Deadly, remorseless, invincible killers, they existed only to destroy, programmed by their unknown creators in all the subtle arts of slaughter. Shub had looted hundreds of thousands of them from the Vaults of the Sleepers, and no one had ever seen any of them again. Until now.

"That's it," said Hazel grimly. "It's official. Things just got worse."

"Are they really so much more dangerous than the Hadenmen?" said Mother Beatrice.

"We stood a chance against the Hadenmen," said Owen, almost bitterly. "I've killed any number of augmented men. I only ever killed one Grendel, and it very nearly killed me. It took my hand. I still have nightmares. And now there are thousands of them out there."

"Swords won't stop them," said Hazel. "A direct hit with a disrupter only slows them down, unless you hit one of its very few vital spots. They were created to be unstoppable. We are in deep shit, people."

Mother Beatrice turned to Sister Marion at her side. "Tell everyone to arm themselves. Even the wounded. Get everyone who can stand to defensive positions. Reactivate all the booby-traps and arm the explosives." Sister Marion nodded grimly, her tall black hat bobbing, and hurried off.

"Explosives?" said Owen.

"A last resort," said Mother Beatrice. "They're all linked together in one place, enough to take out the whole compound. A last gesture of defiance if it's obvious there's no other way."

"Put someone in charge of the button who doesn't panic easily," said Hazel. "Because we're going to do our best to give these bastards a good run for their money. Right, Owen?"

"Right," he said, flexing the fingers of the hand he'd re-grown. "But if you do have a direct line to the good Lord, Mother Beatrice, now would be a really good time to put in a claim for a miracle."

Mother Beatrice smiled. "Every legend has its ending, sir Deathstalker, and every hero falls at last, but if that's all that's left to us, let us at least die well. God expects no less. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to the infirmary. I think I'm going to be needed there."

She left, her back perfectly straight, and people made way for her as she passed, and bowed respectfully.

"She'd have made one hell of a warrior," said Hazel.

"Sure," said Owen. "She's always been a fighter in her own way. The mild-mannered don't tend to last long enough to become living Saints."

"Grendels," said Hazel bitterly. "Why did it have to be Grendels? At least we stood a chance against the Hadenmen."

"It isn't over till the fat lady croaks," said Owen. "If nothing else, let's see how many of them we can take with us."

There were startled yells from other people on the catwalk, and Owen and Hazel turned back to see the Grendels come rushing forward as one, triggered at last by some unknown signal. They surged in from all sides at once, advancing in utter silence, crossing the wide clearing in a few seconds. They threw themselves against the great wooden wall, hammering on it till the whole length of the wall sounded like a giant drum. A fusillade of disrupter fire stabbed down, punching holes through the crimson armor, but the Grendels didn't fall. Their heavy spiked fists tore chunks out of the thick black wood, and the wall shuddered under the impact. Some Grendels came scrambling up the wall, steel talons and claws digging deep into the wood as they climbed, steel teeth grinning mercilessly. Owen leaned over the edge and shot one of the Grendels through its broad, heart-shaped head. It convulsed and fell backward, arms and legs still grabbing at nothing. It hit the ground hard and lay still, and the other Grendels swarmed right over it.

Everyone with a gun was on the catwalks now, and the roar of so many discharging energy weapons was deafening. The rain burst into clouds of steam, and Grendels fell everywhere. But in the end there just weren't enough guns, and far too many Grendels, and when the steam cleared, and the defenders lowered their exhausted guns, the Grendels were still surging forward and scrambling up the wall. The disrupters were useless till their energy crystals recharged, and a lot could happen in two minutes. So the next step was bow and arrow. The archers stepped forward, leaned precariously out over the wall, and let fly. Every arrow struck its target and glanced harmlessly away. And that just left steel. The Mission's defenders lifted swords and axes and farm implements with newly sharpened edges, and waited for the enemy to come to them.

The Grendels scrabbled up and over the outer wall in one great boiling wave, red as blood, savage as Satan, and threw themselves upon the catwalk defenders. Swords flashed and axes chopped, only to rebound helplessly from living crimson armor. The Grendels tore their way through fragile human flesh, killing everything that came within reach. A Grendel plunged its spiked hand into a leper's belly and tore out a handful of guts. Steel teeth closed on throats and faces. Screaming men fell from the high catwalk, hit the ground hard, and never moved again. Some jumped rather than face the Grendels. Blood spilled everywhere, and the air was full of screams.

Outside, in the rain, Grendels smashed their way through the wall repairs and barricades, and poured through the wall in an unstoppable flood. Men and women ran screaming everywhere, but the Grendels ran faster.

Owen Deathstalker swung his sword double-handed, and sometimes the edge would cut through the crimson armor, and sometimes it wouldn't. The sheer strength of his blows was enough to send the Grendels staggering backward, but he couldn't hurt them. Hazel d'Ark fought at his side, darting and dodging in the space available on the catwalk, searching for weak spots, thrusting the point of her sword into exposed joints and twisting it, and all to no avail. Like Owen, her strength was enough to keep the Grendels at bay, but that was all. Owen tried knocking the Grendels off the catwalk with sweeping blows of his arm, but even the long drop to the hard ground below didn't seem to bother them. And step by step Owen and Hazel were driven back, while their merely human fellow defenders died around them, and they could do nothing to save them. Soon the catwalk was littered with the dead and the dying, and slick with rivers of blood that dripped from the edges of the catwalk in another endless rain. And still more Grendels came swarming over and through the wall.

"Fall back! Fall back!" yelled Colonel William Hand, down in the compound. "Fall back to the inner redoubt, and let the booby-traps do their work!"

The surviving lepers on the catwalk turned and ran, crowding down the narrow stairways, the Grendels falling on those at the back. Owen and Hazel continued to retreat slowly, trying to buy the lepers near them some time. A Grendel ducked under the arc of Owen's blade and went for his throat. Owen lashed out instinctively, and his fist smashed through the heart-shaped head, splintering the armor. The Grendel convulsed as Owen seized a handful of its brains and ripped them out of its skull. The creature spun helplessly in place, until its fellows pulled it down and trampled it underfoot.

"Nice touch," said Hazel, just a little breathlessly.

"Yeah," said Owen. "Think I broke my bloody hand."

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're cut off from the stairs."

"Then we'll just have to jump."

"The fall will kill us!"

"We're not that lucky. Jump!"

They beat aside the nearest Grendels, avoided the snapping jaws, ran to the edge of the catwalk, and threw themselves out into the air. It was a long way down, and for a few wonderful moments it was almost like flying. And then they hit the ground hard, driving the breath from their lungs. Up above them, the catwalk was completely overrun.

Owen forced himself back onto his feet through sheer willpower, and grabbed Hazel by the shoulder, pulling her up. There were people and Grendels running everywhere. A steel smile lunged for Hazel's throat. She grabbed the Grendel with both hands, whipped it up over her head, and threw it into the nearest concentration of Grendels. They went down in a pile of thrashing limbs. Owen and Hazel ran for the inner redoubt, the hall-sized communications center set up as the only practical place to retreat to if the outer defenses were breached.

Lepers ran with them, dodging or leaping over the hidden traps and pitfalls. Grendels raced after them. They fell into the spike-bottomed pits, flattened the spikes, rose unharmed, and leapt right out again. Weight-driven spikes and sword blades leapt out of hiding, only to glance harmlessly away. The improvised land mines erupted all across the compound in sudden spurts of smoke and flames, throwing Grendels into the air and even damaging a few. But there were always more, always more.

An army of death, created to be unstoppable.

The defenders streamed into the last redoubt, packing it full. There were steel shutters on the windows and heavy bolts on the doors. Owen and Hazel took up a position before the great hall, and went head to head with the first Grendels to arrive, trying to occupy the attention of as many aliens as they could, to buy the arriving lepers a few more moments of precious time.

Bonnie Bedlam was there too, with Midnight Blue. Bonnie laughed in sheer exuberance as the Grendels swarmed around her, glorying in a battle that tested her as never before. She swung her sword with all her strength, beating Grendels to the ground and cracking open their armor. She was bleeding constantly from wounds that never had the time to heal properly before they were torn open again, but she thrust aside the growing weakness in her arms, and gloried in the never ending rush of pain and regeneration.

Midnight Blue teleported back and forth in a circle around her comrade in arms, blinking in and out of existence just long enough to land a telling blow with her ax before vanishing again. Midnight chanted her order's battle songs to the rhythm of her blows, but the strength was going out of her arms. Teleporting continuously took a lot out of her, and it was getting harder all the time to concentrate. She could feel herself slowing down, and the Grendels were starting to shake off her blows.

All the Maze people were slowing down as they burned up the energies that fueled them. The human body was never meant to operate at such extremes for long.

Colonel William Hand and Otto took their stand at the entrance to the maze of narrow alleys that led between the huts. Many lepers had gone to ground there, barricading themselves inside familiar surroundings. Hand didn't give much for their chances, but did his best to buy them all the time he could. He fought savagely, calling up old skills as his strength quickly gave out. Otto guarded his side as always. But the Colonel was a long way past his prime, already weakened by a terrible disease, and after a few desperate minutes the Grendels knocked him down and swarmed right over him. He lay on his back, bleeding heavily from a dozen vicious wounds, trying to find the sword he'd dropped, as crimson armored legs stamped down around him. A Grendel loomed over him, and steel claws slashed down. Hand cried out in spite of himself, and then Otto was there one last time, throwing himself across his Colonel. The steel claws sank deeply into his back, and ripped away his hunch and half his spine. Otto shuddered once and died. The Grendel moved on.

Hand tried to move the dead dwarf off him and couldn't. There was no feeling in his hands and no strength in his arms. His throat hurt, and he could hear his breath whistling strangely. He forced one hand to his neck, and it came away soaked in blood. One of the Grendels had cut him a good one, and he hadn't even noticed. The Colonel let his hand fall back on the hard ground. He'd always thought he'd welcome a warrior's death rather than letting the leprosy eat him away by inches, but now the time was here, he would have traded everything for just a few more days, a few more hours, of life. But God didn't make deals.

He would have liked time to put his affairs in order, write a few letters… his thoughts drifted for a moment before they snapped back into focus. He couldn't die yet. Not while he still had one last duty to perform. One last order to carry out. He forced his cold right hand to the remote control Saint Bea had given to him. She'd trusted him to know the right time to use it, and have the guts to hit the switch no matter what.

The Colonel smiled grimly, his mouth leaking blood. "Goodbye, Otto," he said, or thought he said. And hit the switch.

The explosives planted under the compound floor all went off at once, a massive thunderclap that threw the ground up into the roof, and tore the packed Grendels apart. The whole compound disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the wall blasted outward by the shaped and positioned charges, while the huts of the village stood untouched. Alien guts and shards of crimson armor pattered back to the cratered ground. No trace remained anywhere of Colonel William Hand and Otto.

Owen and Hazel fought doggedly on before the communications center, tired beyond pain or hope, driven now only by a determination not to fall while they were still needed. They were both bleeding freely from a dozen bad wounds, and the strength was going out of their blows. Owen looked around him. Nearly all the lepers were inside now. A voice yelled for him to get inside too, so they could close and bolt the doors. Owen considered it. Time seemed to slow down, so that he had all the time in the world to make up his mind. He looked to his left, and saw Bonnie and Midnight fighting back to back, their faces slack with pain and exhaustion, surrounded by Grendels. There was no way they could get to the hall in time. And besides, the hall wasn't much of a sanctuary anyway. The Mission's outer wall had been far stronger, and it hadn't slowed the Grendels down. He looked to his right and saw Hazel, still fighting, dripping with her own blood. No, Owen decided. He wasn't going to turn and run. He sighed regretfully. Time to play his last trump card, and hope it was good enough.

"Shut the door!" he yelled.

And turned back to face the enemy. He reached inside himself, diving deep into his mind, through the undermind to the back brain, and tapped into the power that lived there. He threw back his head and howled the old war cry of his Clan—Shandrakor! Shandrakor!—and all his rage and frustration and need to defend the lepers of the Mission came roaring up through him and burst out into the material world, beating on the air like the wings of a huge and powerful bird. The Grendels sensed that something new had entered the battle, and looked about them, confused. The ground shook under their feet, throwing them off balance. A great wind roared across what was left of the compound, scattering the Grendels like leaves in a hurricane. Owen looked about him, smiled once, and let loose his anger on the Grendels.

Those aliens nearest him blew apart in sudden explosions of blood and guts and shattered armor. Owen stalked unsteadily forward, his eyes wide and unblinking, his rage beating on the air in time to his heartbeat, his face grim and relentless. He had given himself up to his power as never before. He turned his head, and Grendels died where he looked. His boots hit the ground, and earthquakes split apart the cratered earth of the compound. The Deathstalker had released his rage, and the Grendels could not stand against it. They blew apart or were blown away, and not one of them could get close enough to touch him. Owen knew the power was killing him. He could feel things tearing apart, breaking down, inside him. He knew he should shut the power down while he still could. That mortal man was not meant to burn so very brightly. But he couldn't, not while the innocent still needed him. So he walked slowly on, killing Grendels, dying inside a little more with every step, killing himself as he killed his enemy.

Deathstalker.

But all too quickly there came a time when even need and determination couldn't drive him forward another step. His mortal frame had never been meant to channel so much power for so long, and finally it had nothing left to give. Owen fell to his knees. He felt very tired. He'd done so much. Maybe he could sleep now, and if he was lucky, he wouldn't dream. He fell forward, and his face slammed into the blood-soaked ground. The winds shut down, the ground stopped shaking, and the rage of the Deathstalker no longer beat upon the air.

Hazel d'Ark saw his last moment of glory and saw him fall. She'd watched in awe as his anger swept aside the Grendels, but now she cried out and ran to him. She put a hand on his shoulder, but there was no response. Hazel cried out again, in shock and horror and the pain of a heart breaking at last. She would have cried, but she didn't know how. She never had.

She looked up and saw the remaining Grendels reforming. Owen had killed a lot of them, but there were still a hell of a lot left. More than enough to tear down the communications hall and kill every living thing within it. They moved slowly forward, baring their steel teeth, flexing steel claws, and Hazel looked at them and smiled the coldest smile of her life. They were going to pay for what they had done. All of them.

She'd tried to tell herself that her particular power wasn't needed. That the Mission already had enough defenders. That she didn't need to call up alternates of herself, and see them die over and over again. Bonnie and Midnight had made her alternates real to her as never before. But she needed them now, and so she called on them, not in her own name but in Owen's. Called them forth to avenge the Deathstalker.

And they came.

Suddenly the compound was full of Hazel d'Arks, screaming in rage and loss. And all the Grendels who hadn't died under Owen's attack suddenly found themselves facing an army of warrior women, of varying faces and forms, but all of them united in pain and sorrow. There was a moment as both sides looked at each other and recognized a worthy adversary, and then the two sides surged forward and clashed together, and the dying began. Guns roared and steel flashed, and metal teeth and claws tore human flesh, but for every Hazel that fell another appeared to take her place. Hazel d'Ark had made herself a doorway through which an endless stream of alternates could appear, for as long as they were needed, or for as long as Hazel d'Ark could stand it.

She knew the effort was killing her, and didn't give a damn. She would save the lepers, not so much because she cared about them, but because Owen had. She knelt beside him, her strength seeping out of her like blood from an opened vein, and put one gentle hand upon his shoulder. She'd come this far with Owen Deathstalker, and if she had to follow him into the lands of the dead, she could do that too.

Someone was calling her name. Over and over, in a strange buzzing voice. She turned her head slowly and saw Tobias Moon kneeling beside her.

"We can't win this way!" he said urgently. "There's too many of them. But seeing you use your power has shown me how to use mine. I know what to do. Trust me! Reach out to me, and we can win this fight a different way!"

"How?" said Hazel.

"The Red Brain," said Moon. "It isn't in the jungle. It is the jungle."

And his mind reached out to hers and made contact. And through her Moon touched all the other Hazels. Bonnie and Midnight were there too, and Owen, somehow. They all joined together, melding and merging, becoming something far more powerful than the sum of their parts. They reached out and gathered up all the living minds in the Mission, from the sickest leper to Saint Bea herself. And together they turned outward, forged into one force, one thought, and touched the Red Brain—the gestalt consciousness of all the plant life on Lachrymae Christi. The jungle, millions of square miles of it, was all one connected body, and its mind was the Red Brain.

This was what the Hadenmen had come in search of, what Shub had sent the Grendels to seize or control or destroy. A whole new form of consciousness, unknown anywhere else in the Empire. A mind the size of a world. The Red Brain's thoughts were slow, moving with the rhythm of day and night, and the turning of the seasons, endlessly dying, endlessly living, immeasurably old. Alone for millennia, until the new mind touched it. Friendship was new, and joy, at being alone no longer, but it learned need and necessity too, and stretched out its vast and mighty body to help its new friend.

The jungle around the Mission erupted into movement, driven at a speed it had never known before. Trees uprooted themselves and fell across the fallen Mission wall. And across these bridges the jungle advanced and fell upon the Grendels. Barbed flails and crawling vines wrapped themselves around the aliens and tore them apart. Deadly plants with gaping maws and hideous strength erupted out of the broken ground of the compound, called up from deep below by the jungle's need. Grendels were swallowed up or ripped to pieces, unable to stand against the will of the jungle. The aliens turned and tried to flee, but once they left the Mission, huge, sucking pits appeared under their feet and dragged them down. And only a few minutes after it had begun, the jungle grew still again, no more Grendels left to kill.

The Red Brain and the mass human mind touched again. Far, far in its unimaginable past there had been a time when it was not alone, but that was so long ago it was more instinct than memory. But having been alone for so long, it was overjoyed to have companionship again, and it begged the human mind not to abandon it. For all its age, it was really only a child. The human mind reassured it. There were espers among the lepers. Communication would be possible now that they both knew what they were looking for. And now that the Red Brain had showed its strength, Haden and Shub would never dare come again. The human mind looked around the Mission, sorrowing over its many dead, and then fell back into its many bodies. There was much work to be done.

After that it was mostly a case of clearing up. Much of the Mission would have to be rebuilt, but this time the jungle would help. Once again bodies had to be cleared up and identified, and Saint Bea worked long hours in her infirmary, healing the sick. And if sometimes she laid her hands on a helpless case and whispered a quiet prayer, who could blame her? Especially when so many of them lived.

Owen Deathstalker woke up in the infirmary, astonished to be alive. Bonnie and Midnight lay in beds on either side of him, and Hazel took turns sitting with each of them. The link with the Red Brain, and its immense mental strength, had saved them, pulling them back from the brink one more time. They were still weak as half-drowned kittens, but strength came slowly back to them. Which was just as well. Hazel meant well, but she was bloody useless as a nurse. She just didn't have the temperament. They all complained a lot, and made a nuisance of themselves, and by the evening Sister Marion said they were all well enough, and would they please oblige her by getting the hell out of her infirmary so the rest of the patients could have some peace?

It was still raining, drumming loudly on the wooden roof. Owen and Hazel walked slowly across the uneven ground of the compound. The bodies were all gone, but the place itself was still a mess. Owen and Hazel took turns leaning on each other, their inner energies at an all-time low. For the time being, they were only human again, and they made the most of it. Everywhere they went, the lepers bowed and saluted and called out their names like prayers or hymns. Owen and Hazel smiled uncomfortably back, noting that for all their fervor, the lepers maintained a careful distance. Living legends were one thing; living gods were quite another.

Tobias Moon came to meet them. His eyes no longer glowed, and only the faintest buzz remained in his voice. He was moving beyond such things as the Maze continued to work its changes in him. There was a new serenity to him, a peacefulness of spirit, as though many things had at last become clear to him.

"I'm not going with you when you leave," he said calmly. "I'm staying. The people here will need a lot of help rebuilding their Mission and their lives, and I think I could be of use. Until the espers learn how, I will be their contact with the Red Brain." He shook his head slowly. "That was the most fascinating experience of my life. It's been alone so long, just like me, the only one of its kind. And the lepers… perhaps it took the dying to teach me the meaning and value of life. Anyway, I'm staying. To guard the lepers, and be the voice of the jungle."

"Never really thought of you as a gardener, Moon," said Owen dryly, and Moon laughed politely. He was still working on humor.

Owen and Hazel walked on. Bonnie and Midnight were overseeing repairs on the other side of the compound, but they waved a hand in greeting. Owen and Hazel waved back. All was peaceful and serene, like the quiet after a storm has passed.

"Well," said Owen finally. "We won another one."

"Yeah," said Hazel. "Came bloody close to losing it, though. If Moon hadn't come through at the last minute, we could have died here. I really thought I'd lost you."

"A salutary reminder that even we have limits," said Owen. "That for all we can do, we're still bound by merely human limitations. In a strange way I find that comforting. That for all our powers and abilities, we haven't left humanity behind."

Hazel sniffed loudly. "I didn't find nearly bloody dying at all comforting. And let's hope the jungle didn't miss any Grendels. I couldn't steal candy from a baby in my current condition. And that was always one of my best tricks."

"Our strength will return eventually," said Owen. "It always has before." He stopped and looked around him, lost for a moment in memories. "So many died here. I wish we could have saved more."

"William Hand and Otto," said Hazel. "Sister Kathleen. They didn't have our powers, but they did just as much to save the Mission as we did. They were the real heroes here."

"Of course," said Owen. "They were all heroes here, the living and the fallen. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an appointment in the communications center. They're trying to get a ship for us so we can get off-planet. Lachrymae Christi may be safe now, but the rest of the Empire is still in deep trouble."

"Now, that is typical of you, Deathstalker," said Hazel. "You've barely got over nearly dying, twice, and already you're talking about charging back into battle again. Aren't we entitled to some time off?"

"Sure," said Owen. "When the war's over."

"The wars are never over," said Hazel. "Not for us."

Owen put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her. "You'd be bored in a week, and you know it."

"Maybe. I really thought I'd lost you, Owen. Don't you ever do that again."

"Never," said Owen. "We're a team. Nothing's ever going to separate us."

"Promise me we'll always be together. Forever."

"Forever and ever. Even death can't part us now."

He kissed her again, and moved off toward the communications center. Hazel watched him go for a while, and then turned away and looked out over the compound. People were slowly filling in the deep gashes and craters in the ground. The outer wall was being raised again, section by section. The battle was over, and life went on. Hazel felt strangely left out. Maybe Owen was right, and all they knew how to be was warriors.

And then someone called her name, in a familiar voice but hoarse and filled with pain. She looked around, and there was Owen, leaning against the side of a hut. He looked like hell, deathly tired, face gaunt, his clothes stained and bloodied. It took a moment for Hazel to realize that they weren't the gray clothing of the lepers. It was the same clothes Owen had been wearing when he appeared out of nowhere to save her life on Virimonde. He was looking at her with such loss and longing, and he held out a hand to her, as though trying to warn her of something. She started toward him, and a sudden horror filled his face. She took another step toward him, and a silver shimmering energy field appeared around her, pinning her on the spot. She beat on the energy field with her fists, and it spat static, discharging loudly through the broken earth, but the field didn't weaken at all. And she had no power left to break it. She called out to Owen to help her, but he was gone.

Owen Deathstalker came running out of the communications center. He'd heard her call his name, even from so far away. He saw her standing trapped in the shimmering energy field, and recognized it immediately. The Blood Runners of the Obeah Systems had used it once before to try to kidnap Hazel, claiming she owed them her body for experiments, to pay off a debt incurred by her Captain back when she was still a clone-legger. Owen had saved her then by breaking the field, but now he didn't have the power.

He ran toward her, pulling the disrupter from his holster. Hazel was still struggling inside the field, but her image was growing fainter as the field disappeared, taking her with it. Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue were running across the compound too, heading for the shimmering field.

Strange figures appeared around the silver energies. Tall and willowy, albinos with milk white hair and bloodred eyes. They wore long robes of swirling colors, their faces ritually scarred in vicious patterns. Blood Runners. They laughed soundlessly at Owen and then disappeared, taking the energy field and Hazel with them.

Owen cried out in horror and stumbled to a halt, looking at the empty place where Hazel had been. He heard the flat sound of air rushing in to fill a space where something had been a moment before, and looked around to see that Bonnie and Midnight had disappeared too. Without Hazel to maintain their presence, they couldn't stay. They no longer had anything to link them to this universe. Owen felt numb, paralyzed with shock. Hazel was gone, in the hands of torturers, and he had no way to reach her, no idea where they'd taken her. She could be anywhere in the Obeah Systems. And he didn't even have a ship to get him off the planet. He'd never felt so helpless.

Owen Deathstalker, the conqueror of armies and toppler of Empires, and he couldn't even save the one he loved.

Hang in there, Hazel. I'm coming for you. Somehow I'll find you, whatever it takes. And if they've hurt you, I'll drown the whole Obeah Systems in blood.

Owen Deathstalker will return one last time in Deathstalker Destiny.