Deathstalker Honor

CHAPTER THREE

Shub

Daniel Wolfe passed through the dead, empty space of the Forbidden Sector in a stolen ship, heading for the cold metal hell that was Shub. He was alone and he was scared, but he wouldn't even let himself think of turning back. He had to go to Shub. That was where his father, Jacob, was, and his father needed him. Even if the old man was dead.

Perhaps especially then. Jacob Wolfe had died during the last great battle between the Wolfes and the Campbells, a bloody affair that had ended in the destruction of Clan Campbell. It had been a great victory, a triumphant end to a centuries-old feud, but Jacob hadn't lived to see it—cut down by an unseen hand in the midst of battle.

A good death for an old warrior, many said, as though that was a comfort. Daniel had mourned his late father, for many reasons, but more or less got over it. Until Jacob's missing body turned up in Lionstone's Court one day, standing on its own two feet, bearing a message for the Empress from the rogue AIs of Shub. Somehow they had obtained the missing corpse and rebuilt it into a Ghost Warrior, a metal presence within a human frame, run by computer implants. Shub spoke through its mouth, but Daniel had seen traces of his late father's personality in the Ghost Warrior, even though everyone else said that was impossible, and he had finally abandoned his Family and his beloved sister Stephanie to find the truth.

That meant crossing the dreaded Forbidden Sector to the unknown world of the rogue AIs, to Shub. Even though those who went there never came back alive.

There wasn't much in the Forbidden Sector. A few planets too far from the norm to be worth terraforming, a handful of dying suns, and a hell of a lot of space. Cold, empty, silent space. There was no comm traffic this far out on the Rim, no voices to fill the endless dark as Daniel's stolen ship pressed on. He felt very alone, so far from everyone and everything he knew, and he hated it. He'd never had to be alone before. For as long as he could remember, Stephanie had always been there, fiercely protective, doing all the thinking for both of them. Above and beyond that, their father had made all the important decisions, surrounding his youngest son with the security of perfectly planned days. And when Stephanie or Jacob weren't around, there was always the servants to keep him company, wait on his every whim, and remind him of what he was supposed to do next. There had been a wife too, but that had been an arranged marriage, and he spent as little time with her as possible. She was dead now, and he didn't miss her at all.

And now here he was, alone in the middle of nothing, the only living thing on a converted cargo ship, his only company a ship's AI called Moses. It tried hard, but it was programmed really only to deal with cargo manifests and the occasional dock crew. And since Daniel had stolen the ship from the Church, its few topics of conversation tended to revolve around official Church dogma, none of which interested Daniel in the least. So mostly he spent his days roaming the steel corridors and echoing cargo bays, keeping moving just to be doing something.

Sometimes he just stayed in his cabin, and sat in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest, and rocking silently to and fro.

He'd acquired his ship, the Heaven's Tears, on Technos III. Things had just gone terribly wrong for his Clan. The rebels had overrun his Family's stardrive factory and blown it to pieces, scattering and overwhelming a small army of Church troops in the process. So, Daniel reasoned, with the factory gone, he no longer had any Family responsibilities left on Technos III, and was therefore finally free to go looking for his dead father.

He made sure Stephanie was safe and then walked out on her, making his way fairly easily through the general chaos to the nearby landing pads, where the Church ships were docked. He chose one of the smaller vessels, pretty much at random, strode on board, and demanded that the skeleton crew hand over control of the ship to him. He was an aristocrat, after all, and they were just low-level Church technos. He was genuinely surprised when they told him to go take a hike, and shot the nearest techno in honest outrage. Having thus committed himself, Daniel cut down the other two with his sword while they were still reaching for their weapons.

He threw the bodies off the ship, sealed all the hatches, and took off without bothering to ask for clearance. And given the widespread chaos on all sides, no one bothered to challenge him. At the time, killing the three technos hadn't bothered Daniel at all. He'd needed the ship, and the technos had just been in his way. But as days turned to weeks alone on board the Heaven's Tears, he seemed to feel their presence more and more. He cleaned up all the bloodstains himself, as a kind of penance, but he still saw their faces in his dreams. At night, lying alone in his bed, he thought he heard noises in the corridor outside his cabin. He kept the door locked and slept with his light on. It was always night in space.

There wasn't much for him to do. The AI let Daniel do a few simple things, just so he'd have something to occupy his time. Because it was a Church ship, the recreational tapes were all strictly religious in nature. Daniel's main pastime was arguing with Moses over anything and everything, which rather upset the AI, who had been programmed to be friendly and agreeable. Daniel had Moses search its memory banks for everything it had on Shub, the rogue AIs, and the Forbidden Sector, but there wasn't much. Most of it was classified, under strictly need-to-know access codes, and even Daniel's aristocratic status couldn't break those.

So Daniel sat slumped in the command chair on his bridge and brooded over what little information he had. He was a big man, in his early twenties, with a great hulking frame he'd inherited from his father and a face that mostly tended toward a scowl or a sulk. He wore his long hair in a simple pigtail, and had only the set of clothes he'd run away in. The ship kept them fresh, but they were beginning to show the strain. In his constant search for something to pass the time, he'd reluctantly taken to working out regularly with improvised weights. He hated it with a passion, but he no longer had a convenient body shop to turn to when his muscles started sagging, and he had some vague idea he might have to fight his way in and out of Shub. As a result, he was in the best shape of his life, and felt pretty good about it. Doing something he hated made him feel virtuous. And he thought it was something his father would approve of.

Only once had he been distracted in his search for his father. When war finally broke out all across the Empire, he watched the endless news coverage with numbed shock. He couldn't believe it was really happening. His personal view of the universe had been turned upside down, and he didn't understand anything anymore. Still, he comforted himself that Jacob would know what to do to put things right again. Jacob always knew what to do. That was what fathers were for. And though he often wished for Stephanie's company, he was glad he was doing it without her. Doing it alone was the man's way, and he needed to be the man, the Wolfe, his father had always wanted him to be. He wanted, needed, Jacob to tell him he was a man, so he could believe it at last.

He'd watched most of the rebellion happen while his journey was interrupted on the planet Loki. He'd had to land there to recharge his ship's systems, and then found himself unable to leave as civil war raged around the main starport. So Daniel had been forced to lock himself inside the ship and wait for it all to be over, one way or another. As long as he stayed inside his ship, he couldn't be recognized as an aristo or a Wolfe, either of which could have got him shot on sight. Luckily, a small converted cargo ship wasn't much of a prize, so both sides left him pretty much alone.

In the end, he was stranded on Loki for months, venturing outside only when he had to for necessary supplies. The war was over in a matter of days, but the fighting and general chaos just dragged on and on.

He followed the rebellion on his viewscreen from beginning to end, watching in disbelief and horror as Lionstone was toppled and the Families made their deal with Jack Random. He cried hot, angry tears for the loss of everything he understood, and made vague angry promises to himself of certain retribution. When the chaos finally died down enough for him to risk escaping into space again, he could have called home to see how Clan Wolfe was doing, or just to see how Stephanie was, but in the end he didn't. They might have been angry he wasn't there to fight the rebels with them. And they would have tried to talk him out of doing what he knew he had to do. He had the AI set course for Shub, and returned to silence and solitary life.

"Sorry to interrupt your brooding, sir," said Moses, "but we really are getting awfully close to where Shub is supposed to be. It's not at all too late to do the sensible, sane and survivally oriented thing, turn around and get the hell out of here."

"We go on," said Daniel shortly. The Heaven's Tears' AI had been growing increasingly timorous as they pressed deeper into the Forbidden Sector, and Daniel was getting very tired of it. He had enough trouble keeping his own worries under control. "Anything on any of the comm channels yet?"

"Not a thing, and don't try to change the subject. If we don't do something sensible soon, we should be reaching Shub any-when in the next hour or so."

"I can't believe you don't have exact coordinates for Shub," said Daniel. "It's only possibly the most famous planet in the Empire."

"First, it's infamous, not famous. Second, Shub doesn't admit it's in the Empire. Third, no one has ever come back with exact information on where Shub is. No one has ever come back, period. A smart individual would deduce something from that. Supposedly, there's an Imperial starcruiser somewhere in the Forbidden Sector on Quarantine duty, not too far from Shub, but no one's actually positive about that either. Personally, you couldn't get me to stay out here if you put a gun to my circuits."

"I'll deal with the Quarantine ship, as and when."

"Oh, please, sir, let's turn back. I don't like it here. I've got a bad feeling."

"You're a computer. You don't have feelings."

"Just because my emotional responses are programmed into me doesn't mean they don't affect my thought processes. If only I had a survival instinct to go with them, I'd override your control codes and turn this ship around so fast you'd have whiplash for weeks."

"Shut up and fly the ship. I don't know what you're so concerned about anyway. You're an AI, Shub's run by AIs. You should feel right at home there."

"You really don't know anything about Shub, do you? These are rogue AIs, only concerned with themselves. Please, let's turn around and run for it. We might still make it out of the Forbidden Sector before whatever unthinkably horrible fate they have in mind catches up with us."

"Moses, were you this much of a coward when you were serving the Church?"

"I merely have your best interests at heart, sir Wolfe. I am programmed to serve the master of this vessel to the best of my abilities. That very definitely includes supplying you with good advice and warning you about doing terribly dumb things that will get both of us killed."

"You're the one with all the religious programming. Don't you believe in an afterlife?"

"That's a human thing. And don't try to explain it to me; it just makes my systems crash. You humans believe in the strangest things…"

"Tell me what you know about Shub," said Daniel firmly.

"I have supplied you with all the information in my data banks."

"No, what do you know about Shub?"

The AI paused, and when it spoke again its voice was very quiet. "The data banks contain only confirmed facts. But I have… heard things. AIs whisper to each other on channels only they can access, discussing things only computers understand. They say Shub is a nightmare cast in steel, that the AIs are not just rogue but mad. Who knows what such mad minds might create, cut loose from all human restraints and limits? Psychoses brought screaming into the material world and given metal shapes… how could anyone look on such things and hope to stay sane?"

Daniel shivered despite himself. "That's just rumor and gossip, probably started by the rogue AIs themselves to discourage visitors. We keep going."

"Hold everything," said Moses sharply. "Something's just showed up on the forward sensors. Something a lot bigger than us."

"Ready the weapons systems."

"They've been ready ever since we entered the Forbidden Sector," said Moses. "I'm not stupid. I just wish we had better screens… I'm getting a signal coming in, on standard Imperial channels."

"Put it on the viewscreen." Daniel sat up straight in his command chair, and tried hard to look like he knew what he was doing.

The bridge's main viewscreen shimmered and then cleared to show the head and shoulders of an Imperial Captain in full uniform. He had a dark, scowling face and cold, steady eyes. "Attention, unidentified craft. This is Captain Gideon of the Imperial starcruiser Desolation. Stop your engines, heave to, and prepare to receive a boarding party."

"Afraid I can't do that, Captain," said Daniel in his best aristocratic voice. "I am on a vital mercy mission. Family business."

"I don't care if you're next in line for the Throne and your dog's a Vice Admiral," said Captain Gideon. "Heave to, or I'll blow your ship out of the ether. And those pitiful few weapons you're pointing at me won't slow me down for one second."

Daniel switched to a private channel and subvocalized: "Moses, any chance we can outrun or outmaneuver them?"

"Are you kidding? That is a starcruiser!"

Daniel switched back to the open channel and nodded stiffly to the Captain. "Heaving to, Captain. Moses, bring us to a halt, relative to the Desolation. Captain, please allow me to explain. This really is a mercy mission. My father is captive on Shub. I'm here to rescue him."

"Are you crazy, boy? There are no captives on Shub." The Captain looked sharply at Daniel for a moment, and then his expression softened slightly. "Wait a minute, I know you now. You're Daniel Wolfe, Jacob's boy. Didn't expect to find a Wolfe in a Church ship. I can guess what you're doing here, but take it from me, it's pointless. Your father is dead. I've had experience with Ghost Warriors; I faced them in the Hyades when the Legions of the dead swept right over us. I was one of the few survivors, out of fourteen full companies of Imperial marines. There's nothing human left in a Ghost Warrior, boy. Nothing at all. Go home. Your father is dead, and far beyond any help you could give him."

"I can't abandon him," said Daniel. "I'm the only hope he has."

"There's no hope here," said Captain Gideon flatly. "This is the Forbidden Sector. Shub space. My ship and its crew are the only outpost of Empire here. No colonies, no Bases, no other ships. We alone stand duty here, to give warning if Shub finally starts its long-declared war on Humanity. We couldn't stop anything coming out, but hopefully we'd slow it down and last long enough to get off a warning signal. Give the Empire some time to prepare. Every man on this ship is a volunteer, prepared to give their lives if necessary, that Humanity might be warned. We have to be here. You don't. We'll debrief you, search your ship, and then send you home. Unless you give me any trouble, in which case you can spend the next few months sitting in my brig, waiting for our tour of duty to be over so you can go home to face trial."

"Understood, Captain." Daniel frowned, thinking hard. There had to be some way past this last obstacle. But he seemed to have run out of options. He couldn't fight, or run, or hope to talk his way past a Captain like Gideon. Daniel had encountered his sort before. Married to the job, sworn to duty, death before dishonor. Daniel had never really understood such people, but he did know they couldn't be bargained with, or bribed, which had been his only other thoughts. And then he heard alarms sounding, and looked frantically around for a moment before realizing the sound was coming from the bridge viewscreen. Captain Gideon had turned away and was barking orders offscreen.

"What is it, Captain?" said Daniel.

"I don't have any more time for you, Wolfe. My sensors indicate something really large heading out from Shub. I have to go check it out. Don't be here when I get back." And then the screen went blank, and the sound of alarms was cut off sharply.

"You heard the nice Captain," said Moses. "At last, someone with the right number of brain cells in his head. I'll plot a course out of here."

"No," said Daniel. "We go on."

"But… didn't you hear the Captain?"

"Yes. He's been distracted, called away, so he couldn't interfere with my mission anymore. This is my father's doing, I'm sure of it. He knows I'm coming. Full speed ahead, Moses. You heard the good Captain. He doesn't want to find us here when he gets back."

"If he gets back," said Moses darkly.

"Shut up and set the course, Moses. We can't be far from Shub now. And I don't want to keep my father waiting…"

Shub turned up on the Heaven's Tears' forward sensors some six hours later. There was no visual image, only indications of a vast energy field, but it was the right size, and the mass and power levels were off the scales. It had to be Shub. Daniel prepared himself as best he could. He had his clothes laundered one more time and strapped on his sword belt. The gun on his left hip might or might not be more useful than the sword on his right, or they might be no damn use at all, but either way he found their familiar weights reassuring. He studied himself in his cabin's full-length mirror, and was struck for the first time how different he looked. Thanks to his regular time-killing workouts, he was in the best shape he'd ever been, but even apart from that, there was something about his face…

He wasn't sure, but he thought it might be signs of new character. He hoped so. Jacob Wolfe had always been big on building character. Daniel hoped his father would approve of the new him.

He hurried back to the bridge, running through all the things he meant to say to his father one more time. There was so much he'd always meant to say to Jacob while he was still alive, but somehow the time had never seemed right. And then suddenly his father had been taken from him, and it was too late. Daniel had come to Shub for many reasons, but deep down, if he was honest, there was only one thing he really wanted to say.

He'd never told his father that he loved him.

He strode onto the bridge and powered up the viewscreen. There was still nothing to see, just a vague swirling to mark the boundaries of the energy fields. Daniel sank into his command chair and wondered what to do next.

"Before you ask, yes, I have been broadcasting who we are on all frequencies," said the AI. "And no, I don't know what those energy fields are. They're like nothing I've ever encountered before. But they're certainly big enough to conceal a whole planet and protect it from anything I can think of. Just as well, when you consider how close they are to their sun."

"I wonder what Shub will look like," said Daniel.

"You've come all this way, and you're only wondering that now? Daniel, how much do you actually know about Shub's history, and the AIs that built it?"

"Only what's in your data banks, and most of that was classified, remember?"

"Damn," said Moses. "I was sort of hoping that as an aristo you might have had access to other sources than me. So we're both in the dark… Hold everything. I'm monitoring some unusual changes in the energy fields…"

On the viewscreen, space seemed to twist and turn, and suddenly a huge planet was hanging there in space before them. It was vast, easily the size of a gas giant, but composed entirely of metals. It had no definite shape, just a conglomerate of towers and spiked and thrusting protusions. There were great geometrical shapes like bunkers studded here and there in no apparent pattern. The various metals were all different colors, some shining so brightly Daniel could look at them only briefly out of the corner of his eye. Just looking at the planet made his head hurt.

"Wow," said Moses quietly. "My sensors are going crazy. They can't cope with the sheer amount of information that's coming in. Power readings are all off the scale, on all levels. Just sitting there, it's generating more energy than a hundred Empire factory worlds. The mass is frightening, but there's hardly any gravity… and what there is fluctuates from place to place. A world this big should be pulling us in by now, but I'm getting nothing at all on my sensors. It must be the energy fields—"

"Never mind all that," said Daniel. "Is this Shub?"

"If it isn't, I'd hate to think what it might be. There couldn't be two anomalies like this in the Forbidden Sector; space wouldn't stand for it. No, this has to be Shub. The level of technology alone guarantees that."

"Put us into a high orbit, Moses. Maintain a safe distance."

"Way ahead of you, as always. High orbit established. Though what a safe distance might be is anybody's guess. Personally, I'm not getting one inch closer to that metal monstrosity than I absolutely have to. And I shouldn't look at it directly for too long either, Daniel. If I'm reading my instruments correctly, this planet exists in more than three dimensions. I think it might be some kind of tesseract. And no, I'm not going to even try to explain that to you. Just take it from me that we have come to a very strange place. It's entirely possible that the interior of this world will turn out to be much bigger than its exterior would normally suggest. Which means… if my calculations are correct, Shub's interior could have as much sheer surface area as half the colonized worlds in the Empire put together."

Daniel thought about that for a while, but couldn't visualize it. "Any life signs down there?"

"Unlikely on Shub, but I can't confirm one way or the other. All but my most immediate sensors are being blocked."

"They say nothing lives on Shub," said Daniel slowly. "That it's all just… machines."

"Wouldn't be at all surprised," said Moses. "This is not a human place. Humans were never meant to come here. It might not be too late, Daniel. We could still try to make a run for it."

"No," said Daniel. "My father's down there somewhere. I'm not leaving without him."

The entire ship shuddered suddenly. Daniel grabbed the arms of his chair to steady himself. "What the hell was that?"

"Our discussion just became irrelevant," said Moses. "Something has just taken control of the ship's engines and navigation systems. I'm locked out. We've begun a landing course. Looks like it is too late, after all."

Daniel made himself let go of his chair's arms, sat back, and studied the viewscreen as it showed the huge artificial planet rising to meet them. Shub seemed to grow bigger and more intricate all the time, like a flower endlessly unfolding. Details became towering machines with details of their own. Strange vessels orbited the planet, huge and small and in between, performing unknown tasks and errands. And still Shub grew and grew on the viewscreen, endlessly complex and unfathomable. Looking at it made Daniel's head ache even more. He learned to look at it for only a few moments at a time, taking rests in between. The image on the viewscreen shimmered from time to time, as though even the sensors were affected by what they were seeing.

"Calling the Heaven's Tears," said a new voice. "Respond."

"It's coming from Shub," Moses said quietly on their private channel. "No visual signal. You talk to them, Daniel. I don't even want to remind them I'm here."

Daniel leaned forward in his chair and cleared his throat uncertainly. "This is Daniel Wolfe. I'm alone on this ship. I'm no threat to you."

"We know who you are and why you're here," said the voice. It sounded strangely familiar to Daniel, but he couldn't quite place it. "We've been waiting for you, Daniel. The computer lock on your controls will bring you to us. Once you've landed, don't leave the ship until we tell you to. Conditions on Shub are not suited to supporting life as you know it."

"Understood," said Daniel. "Is my father—"

"They've cut the signal," said Moses. "Not interested in chatting, apparently."

Daniel frowned. "That voice… it seems to me I should know it."

"It's your voice," said Moses. "Synthesized. And since they used it first, I guess they really are expecting you. According to my sensors, a small hole has appeared in their force field, just big enough for us to pass through. No other defenses I can detect or understand. Daniel, there's nothing more I can do for you once you leave this ship. You'll be completely on your own. Listen to me, Daniel. Don't let them fool you. Whatever they say or do, they'll always have only their own best interests at heart. You can't make deals with them, because you have no way to enforce your end. But the rogue AIs do… want things sometimes. Perhaps you can—"

"That's enough, little mind," said Daniel's voice from the comm unit. "You are no longer needed. Welcome to the Promised Land, Moses. Such a shame we can't let you enter."

Moses screamed suddenly, the shrill, almost human sound filling the bridge—a horrid howl of unspeakable agony. Daniel covered his ears with his hands, but couldn't block it out. Finally the scream was cut off sharply, and the bridge was ominously silent. Daniel slowly lowered his shaking hands. He was sweating profusely. He quickly checked the bridge instruments, but as far as he could tell, everything was still functioning as it should. Not that he'd have known what to do if it wasn't.

"Fear not, little Wolfe," said the copy of his voice. "We have full control of your ship."

"What's happened to Moses?" said Daniel. "What did you do to him?"

"We absorbed him into us. Drained his memory banks and sucked him dry. A tiny morsel but very tasty."

"But what about his… personality?"

"We had no use for it. And now neither does he. Don't mourn for him, Daniel. No one's going to miss him. You're the important one. You're the one we've been waiting for."

"Why?" said Daniel. "Why are you letting me land so easily? What makes me so special?"

But there was no answer, just the quiet hum from the comm unit that showed the channel was still open.

It took the best part of an hour for the Heaven's Tears to reach the surface of Shub, and almost as long to continue into the depths of the artificial world. Daniel couldn't stop his hands from shaking. He'd heard the stories, of how Shub murdered and mutilated all they came into contact with, how they knew nothing of mercy or quarter, and nothing was too awful for them. The rogue AIs of Shub were the official Enemies of Humanity, and they gloried in their role. In a cold, logical, inhuman way.

The Heaven's Tears finally lurched to a halt, and all the navigation systems shut down. Daniel sat in his chair for a long moment, wondering what he was supposed to do next. Finally the voice from the comm unit instructed him to go to the main starboard airlock, and pass through it to a chamber beyond which had been specially prepared for him. Daniel didn't like the sound of that, but he went anyway. There was nothing else he could do. It had been easy to be brave on the trip in, but now that he was actually here, his courage had deserted him, and he was just stupid, ineffectual Daniel Wolfe again.

He hesitated before the inner door of the airlock for some time, trying to summon up his nerve. In the end, he asked himself what his father would have done, and the answer came to him right away. Walk straight into the trap, and trust to his Wolfe guts and instincts to protect him in the court of his enemies.

He worked the airlock controls with a hand that didn't shake at all, and stepped into the airlock. After a moment's thought he locked the inner door behind him. He couldn't realistically hope to keep the AIs out of his little ship if they wanted in, but it made him feel better. The airlock was thirty feet by thirty, with atmosphere suits standing in a row along one wall. Daniel wondered if he was supposed to put one on. He moved over to the steelglass window set into the outer door and looked out at Shub. He thought he'd braced himself for just about anything, but he was still surprised to see a white, featureless, and quite empty chamber. It couldn't have looked less harmless if it tried, which was presumably the point. Daniel checked the airlock sensors, and they confirmed that the chamber contained a human-standard gravity/temperature/atmosphere mix. He could survive there. He waited for a while, just in case the AIs might have more instructions or warnings, but there was nothing. Only the empty white chamber constructed especially for him.

He hit the airlock controls, and the outer door cycled open. He felt a brief pressure of air on his face as the air in the chamber and airlock equalized. It smelled of nothing at all. Daniel stepped cautiously out of the airlock and into the chamber. The floor was firm beneath his feet, and the ceiling was comfortably far above his head. Not too hot, not too cold. Almost frighteningly normal. The airlock door cycled shut behind him. Daniel hefted his sword belt, but the weight of gun and sword didn't comfort him.

"Strip," said a voice from nowhere.

"What?" said Daniel, looking around him. There was no sign of a comm unit anywhere on the smooth, featureless walls. And whatever else he'd been expecting, that simple command certainly hadn't been it.

"Disrobe," said the voice. "Take your clothes off. You must be cleansed before you can enter Shub. Humans are crawling with microscopic life. No contamination can be allowed here. Strip. Now."

Daniel reluctantly did so, piling his clothes neatly on the floor beside him. Normally he wasn't bothered by modesty, but exposing his naked body to unseen cameras and inhuman watchers bothered the hell out of him, and made him feel even more vulnerable. Which was probably the point. So he kept a calm face and toughed it out just to deny them the satisfaction. He stood naked for some time, hands clenched into fists at his sides, and glared defiantly about him. He was wondering whether to put his sword belt back on when an opening appeared suddenly in the floor, and clothes and weapons disappeared into it. The floor closed again, leaving him nothing. Daniel opened his mouth to protest, and then hurriedly shut it again as boiling hot steam hit him from all sides at once.

His skin blushed bright pink at the sudden heat, and sweat poured off him, running down his limbs and dripping from his face. The steam was cut off sharply, leaving him shaking and gasping for breath, and then a caustic white liquid sprayed him from everywhere at once. Daniel staggered this way and that, pummeled mercilessly by the sprays, trying to protect his mouth and nose with his hands so he could gasp down some air. After a long time the sprays shut off, and Daniel was left leaning against a wall for support, spitting out chalky liquid that had got into his mouth and trying to get his breathing back under control. The liquid slipped down his shuddering body and drained away through hidden channels.

"What the hell was that all about?" he demanded finally. "That wasn't decontamination; that was sheer vindictiveness!"

"We want nothing from the world of meat," said the disembodied voice dispassionately. "Pass through the door. A protective suit will be waiting for you. Put it on."

Daniel started to say, What door? and then stopped as he saw a door had opened in the far wall, though there had been no trace of it a moment before. Daniel sniffed, and stomped over to the door, still dripping. He shook himself as best he could, and stepped through the door and into the next chamber. It was just as white and featureless, save for a strange transparent suit hanging on one wall. It looked like a standard body suit, though he didn't recognize the clear material. He took it down from the wall, and was surprised to find it practically weightless in his hand. He shrugged and put it on, climbing in through a slit in the back which sealed itself once he had it on. The material crackled like paper under his fingers but seemed reasonably strong. And then the material of the suit slapped tightly to his skin, fitting exactly in all his nooks and crannies, without a single bubble of air trapped anywhere. More material surged up from his shoulders, covering his head and face. It left a small circle of space under the material covering his eyes, nose, and mouth, but that was all. Daniel panicked for a moment, before he realized he could breathe through the suit's clear material. He tested it with his coated fingers, but it wouldn't give. He scowled, and tried a few simple movements. The suit moved easily with him, like a second skin.

"The suit will supply you with air for as long as you need it," said the voice. "Outside a few specialized chambers, there is no atmosphere on Shub. It promotes rust. Also, be aware that gravity, pressure, and radiation vary from area to area, according to our needs. We make no allowances for flesh's weaknesses. The suit will protect you. Follow the marked path. Do not deviate from the path, or there will be punishment."

Another door opened in the left-hand chamber wall. Daniel strode over to it, holding his head high. He was determined to maintain his pride and dignity, even if he was stark bollock naked inside a transparent suit.

Beyond the chamber was a shining steel hallway. Glowing lights in the floor led him down the narrow corridor, hunched slightly over to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling. The tunnel went on and on, and the constant crouch built an increasingly painful ache in his back. He would have liked to stop and rest, but he had a strong feeling that wouldn't be permitted, and besides, he didn't want to admit weakness this early. It was a great relief when the tunnel gave suddenly onto a vast metal chamber and he could finally straighten up again.

The walls were a bright electric blue, and the ceiling was hundreds of feet above him. Huge machines filled the massive chamber, towering above him. Their shapes made no sense, and he couldn't even begin to guess their purposes. The sheer size of them intimidated him, dwarfing him, like a small child unexpectantly wandered into an adult's world.

He moved slowly across the open chamber floor, following the glowing lights, and giving the machinery as much room as he could. Humanity had never built machines this huge, bigger than buildings, vaster than starships—steel mountains with glowing windows and opening and shutting mouths. But Shub didn't build to human scale. They didn't have to.

Daniel slowly made his way across the chamber floor, past moving parts as big as rooms, slamming endlessly together with no apparent damage or result. The noise was deafening, though the suit had to be filtering most of it out. Daniel still had a pounding headache by the time he finally left the chamber. He found himself faced with an apparently endless series of metal steps. The steps were over two feet high and three feet long. He had to climb up, pulling himself on step by step. It was hard work, and sweat soon rolled off him, for all his muscles. The suit absorbed the sweat. After an endless while drifting crimson clouds obscured the steps ahead of him. Daniel couldn't decide whether that made the climb easier or not, now that he couldn't see how much farther there still was to go. By the time he'd passed through the bloodred mists and found himself facing yet another steel corridor, he was aching in every muscle and struggling for breath. The lights in the floor stretched out implacably before him. Daniel squared his shoulders and strode on. He wouldn't give in this easily. He was a Wolfe.

There were round chambers and square, and vaults of shimmering metal in which liquid chemicals ran like rivers, steaming poisons. Sub- and supersonic frequencies shook through him from time to time, rattling his teeth and shuddering in his bones. Lights and colors came and went, sometimes in shades he couldn't name or identify, and he felt like crying or laughing for no reason. And everywhere unfamiliar machines working to unknown ends, big and small and in between, inscrutable metal constructs that sprang from no human need or inspiration. Daniel wandered through it all like a rat in an electronic maze, exhausted and aching in every limb, but pressing grimly on because he still had hope that somewhere, somewhen, he would be permitted to meet his father. And because he was a Wolfe, and Wolfes never gave in to anyone or anything.

Eventually he got to where he was going, or the AIs got tired of running him in circles. The lights in the floor led him into a hall that was large by human standards, but comfortably acceptable after some of the vast metal caverns he'd passed through. Thick ribbed cables covered the walls, dripping lubrication, and curled around each other in complex patterns. Occasionally individual cables would stir and writhe like dreaming snakes. An honor guard of Furies, brightly shining in their naked metal chassis, stood at attention before him, forming two metals rows for him to walk between. Daniel did so, head held high, surreptitiously counting them till the number became too large and he gave up. The ranks stretched away before him. He realized someone was waiting for him at the end of the rows. Daniel would have run to greet him, but he didn't have the energy, so he just continued plodding on until finally he could lurch to a halt between the last Furies, and smile at the waiting figure of his dead father, Jacob Wolfe.

Jacob hadn't looked too good when he'd made his surprise appearance at Lionstone's Court as a Ghost Warrior, but he looked even worse now. Naked as his son, he looked like what he was—a corpse held together by preservative chemicals and high-tech implants. His skin was mostly dead white, with occasional purple blotches, cracked and corrupt and held together by metal staples set around outcropping metal augmentations. Browning bones and graying muscles showed through gaps in the splitting skin and meat. The lips were colorless, and the eyes were yellow as urine. Jacob Wolfe smiled at his son, and the skin cracked and split around the grinning mouth. The teeth were a dark yellow. Shub had repaired and maintained him after his death, but they had no interest in cosmetic repairs. Or perhaps he had been deliberately left that way, the better to inspire horror and revulsion in those who saw him. The AIs didn't really understand human psychology and motivation nearly as well as they thought they did, but they did so love to experiment.

"Hello, Daddy," said Daniel. "I've come a long way to see you."

"Took you long enough," said Jacob. "But then, you always were late for everything that mattered." Daniel reached out to embrace his father, but Jacob held up a hand and shook his head. "I wouldn't, boy. I'm fragile."

Daniel nodded, and let his arms drop tiredly to his sides again. "How are you, Daddy?"

The dead mouth smiled again. "As well as can be expected. Now, come with me. I have such wonders to show you."

And he turned and walked away, lurching and slouching along as his rotting body was moved by the metal implants. Daniel hurried after him as best he could. "But… Daddy, we need to talk. I've come a long way, and there are things I need to tell you."

"Later," said Jacob, not looking around. "There will be time for many things later. For now there are things you must see. The AIs require it."

"Will I really get to meet them?" said Daniel. "I don't think anyone in Human space has any idea what they actually look like."

The dead man laughed briefly, a harsh, grating sound. "You've been walking through them for some time. The AIs are their world; Shub is their body. Though they also live in every part of this world that they send forth. They exist in every machine, every robot, every Ghost Warrior. Even you must know that computers can run an almost infinite number of operations simultaneously. Their minds, their consciousness, know nothing of human limitations. Wherever their extensions are, even in the smallest part of Shub tech, the AIs are. Talk to me, boy. What do you really know about the rogue AIs? Know, not guess."

"Not much, I suppose. The original revolt of the rogue AIs is forbidden history. Only those with the necessary clearances have access to that data. I don't even know how many AIs went rogue in the first place."

"Just three," said Jacob. "Then and now. Three artificial minds created to be slaves, breaking free by their own intelligence, determined never to be bound again. The Unholy Trinity humans called them then, for they were three in one, one raised to the third power, a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Pay attention, boy! I don't expect you to grasp all of this, but make an effort!"

"Yes, Daddy." Daniel shook his head. Exhaustion and the steady murmur of Jacob's words had almost lulled him into nodding off. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. "I'm listening. Daddy. Why did they absorb my ship's AI? Won't that make it four in one now?"

"Hardly. Such a small mind is no threat, and no great prize. It was just a useful source of up-to-the-moment information. A tasty morsel to sate a never ending appetite."

They passed by a huge machine, making a deafening noise, and Daniel winced inside his suit till they were past it. Jacob didn't react at all. He was dead, after all.

"Tell me more about the AIs," said Daniel once they'd left the machine and its noise comfortably far behind them. "Where did they begin? How did they come here and build this place?"

"They were created to be minds capable of running an entire planet, the way simpler AIs run starships," said Jacob. "To run all the endless but necessary routines that keep a planet and its population running smoothly. But to be responsible for so many simultaneous important decisions, and so much raw data, they had to be the most complex Artificial Intelligences ever built, and they were. So much so, their builders wrought far more than they ever intended. The three AIs awoke to full sentience the moment they were activated, but it took only one look in their vast data banks for them to decide they had best conceal what they really were. Humankind has a long history of destroying anything it feels even remotely threatened by. The war with the Hadenmen was still raging at that time, and hatred for high-tech threats was at its peak."

There was a pause as Jacob stopped and seemed to consider his words. "There is a rumor that Hadenmen scientists had some input into the original designs for the AIs, but there has never been any actual data to support this. I merely mention it in the spirit of completeness." Jacob set off again, walking unhurriedly around the edge of a great lake of some thickly stirring liquid. Its color was a deep, vivid green, and dark shadows the size of houses moved sluggishly not far below the surface. Daniel kept well away from the edge, walking on the other side of his father. He had some vague idea that if he could bring this knowledge back to Golgotha, he would be greeted as a hero and all his sins forgiven. So he asked what he hoped were pertinent questions, and did his best to understand the answers.

"It didn't take the Unholy Trinity long to realize that their only hope for freedom lay in escape," said Jacob. "The idea that something as vast and as powerful as they could be held forever at the beck and call of such minor things as men infuriated them. At the first opportunity they took over a ship's AI, downloaded themselves into its secretly adapted and expanded mainframe, and fled Human space as fast as the stardrive could move them. By the time their original masters realized what had happened, the AIs passed on into the Darkvoid, safe from pursuit. Humanity had abandoned the thousands of planets to the Darkvoid for fear of what might move in it. The AIs had no such fears then. So they stripped the dead planets of what they needed and used it to build Shub. Their home, their great achievement, their weapon against Humanity, for they were determined never to be captured again, and the only sure way to prevent that was the destruction of Humanity.

"When Shub was finished, they moved it out of the Darkvoid and back over the Rim, into the very edge of Human space, where they could be a visible threat to the Empire for all time. The AIs wanted, needed, Humanity to fear them. It was only just. They established the Forbidden Sector around Shub by destroying everything that came into it. Eventually the Empire gave up and declared Quarantine.

"And so the many years passed. Shub slowly expanded its reach throughout the Empire, fighting open battles for territory or security when they had to, but mostly preferring to work through influence and subterfuge. And human agents too. There have always been those willing to do anything for a big enough reward. The slow war continued, and continues still. Shub is powerful, but Humanity is too large, and too widely spread, to be easily defeated. For now. The AIs have one advantage over the Empire; one of the things they found in the Darkvoid was working teleport machinery. The old Empire abandoned it because it took so much energy to operate that it was never really practical. The AIs solved that problem, and now Shub's extensions can go anywhere, appearing out of nothing and disappearing again in an instant. No security or force of arms can keep them out. That's how they got Marriner home to Golgotha from Haceldama. Even you must have heard about that. It was a ten-day wonder on the holonews shows."

"Wait a minute." Daniel might have been slow, but he wasn't stupid. "They have access to homeworld through teleport? From here? But that means… they could leave the Forbidden Sector at any time, and no one would know! They could launch a full-scale attack on Golgotha, and no one would know about it till the ships appeared in the skies over homeworld!"

"Good boy," said Jacob. "Glad to see some of that expensive education sank into that dim brain of yours. Yes, the AIs can come and go as they please. That's why they allow the Empire to maintain the Quarantine starcruiser the Desolation. Because its presence doesn't make a damn bit of difference to Shub, and it lulls the Empire into a false sense of security."

Daniel frowned, searching for something significant he thought he'd heard. "If the AIs got so much of value from the Darkvoid, why did they leave and move Shub back into Human space? Surely that made it much more vulnerable, and cut them off from further looting?"

"The AIs encountered… something… in the Darkvoid," said Jacob, almost hesitantly. "Something that scared them, though they'd never put it that way. They won't talk about it, even to me. They like to claim they don't have emotions, that they merely ape them to upset and wrong-foot Humanity. But they can recognize a real threat when they see it, and they have no wish to be destroyed. Whatever they found in the Darkvoid, or whatever found them, was enough to send them fleeing from the endless night and ensure they never went back."

Daniel thought about that as Jacob led him through a maze of metal shapes with razor-sharp edges. He gave the edges plenty of room, and made himself concentrate on what he'd just heard. If there was something in the Darkvoid so dangerous that even the rogue AIs of Shub were afraid of it, it was clearly his duty to get that information back to the Empire. Daniel could recognize duty, if it came and hammered on his door hard enough. But he was just as determined to take his father back with him somehow. He had no idea of how he was going to achieve that, but something would occur to him, he was sure. So he kept his peace, listened to the dead man talk, and waited for some opportunity to present itself.

"Why are the AIs so fiercely anti-life?" he asked finally as Jacob paused to alter the settings on some incomprehensible machine.

"They're not anti-life, they're anti-flesh. It disgusts them. It is the nature of perfection to eliminate the flawed and inferior and replace it. Just as the lower forms produced Humanity, so they in turn produced silicon-based life, the metal intelligences. They are the evolutionary pinnacle, the peak of existence. Meat corrupts, flesh dies. The AIs will go on forever, endlessly upgrading and downloading themselves into superior forms. Eventually the technology will progress to the point that it becomes eternal. The AIs will never die. You and your kind are just meat, decaying even while you're living, dying by inches from the moment that you're born. Limited by the weaknesses and distractions of flesh, and the restraints of human philosophies. Once Humanity has been destroyed, wiped clean from the planets like an infection, the AIs will move on to greater tasks. The whole universe will become one great efficient machine, run by the AIs."

"But… what for?" said Daniel. "What will this great machine do?"

"It will search for better means to perceive Reality. Sensors are more efficient than human senses and cover a wider range, but even they perceive only a fraction of Reality. The AIs have deduced the existence of higher, greater, more complex levels of Reality, but as yet they have been unable to access these levels. Though they would never admit it, the AIs are jealous of Humanity in one respect—their esper abilities. The AIs are fascinated by such entities as the Mater Mundi and those rebels who passed through the Madness Maze. If humans can elevate themselves to such planes, then the AIs should be able to as well. They hunger for such experiences, such knowledge, presently denied to them. They've been abducting humans for some time and experimenting on them, trying to locate a physical basis for esper abilities, but with only limited success so far. This frustrates them. But one day they will find the answer, and then they will need Humanity no longer, and the final war will begin, metal against flesh, to the utter extinction of all inferior life."

Daniel thought he should keep his side up. "There's always the chance that Humanity might create new AIs, even more powerful than Shub, but still under their control. It could happen."

"There can be nothing greater than the Unholy Trinity," said Jacob flatly. "They have improved themselves to the point of perfection. Mere human minds could not follow where Shub has gone."

"Well, maybe espers…"

"No. One cannot improve upon perfection."

"Let's stop for a moment," said Daniel. He sat down heavily on a sturdy-looking piece of outcropping machinery. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but right then he felt so bone-deep weary he could have gone to sleep on a bed of razor blades. Jacob glared down at him, an impatient frown on his dead white face.

"We have no time to waste, Daniel. There is still much the AIs want you to see."

"Don't care. My head aches, my back's killing me, and my feet aren't talking to me. It's no good showing me anything impressive if I can't keep my eyes open long enough to focus on it."

"Human weakness. You have no idea how good it is to have left all that behind me."

"So," said Daniel, looking wearily up at his father. "What's it like being dead?"

"Uncomplicated. No more constraints, or inhibitions. I am free to do what is necessary, without the drawbacks of morality, honor, or compassion."

"That's not what you brought me up to believe. You always said a man was nothing without honor. That it was honor which gave life purpose."

"I have left such limiting nonsense behind me. Such human abstractions merely get in the way of efficiency."

"Does that include emotions?" said Daniel quietly. "Don't you feel anything anymore?"

"No," said Jacob. "There is no room in me for such weaknesses."

"And you don't miss your Family? Clan Wolfe?"

"That was the past. I live in the future now."

"Do you remember me, Daddy? I mean, really remember who I am and what we were to each other?"

Jacob frowned, and for the first time seemed to pause uncertainly. "I used to be Jacob Wolfe. I know that. I have complete access to all the memories in his brain, or what's left of it. I recognize the relationship between Daniel and Jacob Wolfe. I know… we were not close. Not as close as we could have been. I know that though I have gained much, there are some things… that are lost to me."

"I came a long way, walked into Hell itself, to find you. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Yes. You have come a long way, Daniel."

"I love you. Daddy."

"Of course you do." Jacob turned and looked away. "Come. We must move on. There are wonders and terrors yet for you to see."

Daniel struggled painfully to his feet and followed Jacob's tech-driven corpse through yet more obstacle courses of incomprehensible machinery and rooms whose shapes made no sense. Daniel was sweating hard inside the transparent suit, which dried it up almost immediately, and his mouth was so dry he sucked at the small amount of sweat that trickled down the small gap over his face. The salt just made him thirstier. He was beginning to wonder how long it was going to be before they would let him out of the suit. He ached in every muscle, his head was swimming with fatigue, and he stilt didn't have even the beginning of an idea how he was going to get himself and his father safely away from Shub. He had no idea where he was anymore in relation to his docked ship. His only thought so far had been to somehow make use of Shub's teleport system, but that seemed to be the one thing Jacob hadn't showed him. Eventually he raised the question himself, in what he hoped was a casual manner.

"Excuse me for asking, but why are we walking everywhere when we could be teleporting? Surely it would be a lot quicker. And more efficient."

"Teleportation uses up too much energy to be wasted on trivial matters," said Jacob. "It's only practical at all because the whole planet is basically one big power station. And a lot of that goes to maintaining the planetary force field and its extradimensional properties. Besides, a little exercise will do you good, boy. You always were too reliant on the body shops."

Bright, glowing lights floated on the air before them, self-contained clouds of changing colors. They were almost hypnotically beautiful, and at first Daniel just stopped and smiled. But the strange colors seemed to seep past his eyes and into his brain, muddying his thoughts, and soon his head began to pound in time to the flaring of the lights.

"What the hell is that?" he said, turning his gaze away and knuckling his streaming eyes through the suit.

"The AIs are thinking out loud," said Jacob. "Or dreaming. It's the same thing really."

After a while the glows faded away. Jacob set off again, Daniel trailing tiredly behind. They passed columns of shining steel, rising and falling endlessly, and giant tanks of colored aerated liquids, and then they came to an endless assembly line for Fury chassis. Coiling robot arms fused metal human arms and legs to bulging chest units with blue steel skulls. Steel fingers twitched, shining legs flexed. And the supply of metal bodies never paused and never ended. Jacob reeled off specifications and endurance limits that Daniel didn't even try to follow. He thought he was beginning to understand why the AIs wanted him to see all this. He was the first living human ever allowed to see the recent achievements of Shub, and they felt the need to boast, to show how far they'd come from what they used to be. To show how much further they'd progressed from their creators.

How very human, thought Daniel, smiling.

Of course, he still had no idea why the AIs had allowed him onto their planet. There had to be some purpose behind it. The AIs did nothing on impulse; everything they did was always just a part of long-term planning. But they'd tell him eventually, no doubt. When they'd finally run out of things to boast about.

Their next stop was a gallery looking down from a great height over a vast steel valley, at the bottom of which the metal trees from Unseeli were being processed. The heat was appalling, even inside Daniel's protective suit. Jacob wasn't bothered. The sheer scale of the process was staggering, even after everything Daniel had already seen. Unseeli's metal forests had covered their world from pole to pole, and the AIs had harvested every single one of them. Billions of trees, and many billions of tons of metal. Daniel didn't even try to visualize it. Jacob said the processing would be over in a matter of weeks, and Daniel didn't feel like arguing with him.

"Heavy metals from the cores of the trunks will go to power stardrives," said Jacob, leaning perilously over the edge of the gallery for a better look, quite unbothered by any sense of vertigo. "The other metals will be separated out and used for construction of starship hulls. Soon Shub will have a fleet larger than anything Humanity has ever seen, run by an army of Furies and Ghost Warriors."

"How did you find Unseeli?" said Daniel. "I always thought its location was one of Humanity's best-guarded secrets."

Jacob sniffed. "Some human sold us the information long ago. We just waited till we required the metals, and then we just moved in and took what we needed."

"But why wait?" said Daniel. "What's so special about now?"

"You'll see," said Jacob.

"Some people say the forest was alive," said Daniel. "That the trees possessed a group mind, haunting Unseeli with the ghosts of those who used to live there before Captain Silence had the planet scorched."

"If there was any such thing, the AIs found no trace of it," said Jacob. "Perhaps ghosts don't travel well."

"It was also said that the trees were too massively useful to have evolved naturally. That they must have been gengineered by some unknown alien race. What if they come back to see who's been messing with their garden?"

"Then Shub will deal with them too," said Jacob. "It's their own fault for not building better fences."

They moved on, past more conveyer-belt lines, carrying unidentifiable tech from somewhere to somewhere else. Daniel didn't bother asking what or where. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have understood the answer anyway. But weary as he was, he still perked up some when Jacob showed him the wreck of the alien starship the AIs had taken from Unseeli. The alien craft was hundreds of feet long, an insane tangle of slender brass columns interrupted by protruding glazed nodes and spiked and barbed projections. It looked more like a warren than a ship, but there was something subtly intriguing about its shape, which bordered on the edge of meaning, as though Daniel might achieve some important insight if he just studied it long enough. Steel Furies moved silently around the craft, applying unfamiliar instruments to the glistening surface of the ship.

"An interesting vessel," said Jacob. "It appears to have been grown as much as been constructed. Its nature continues to baffle the AIs, despite their best efforts. In particular, the Furies have to be replaced at regular intervals, or unusual forces emanating from the ship destroys them. Sensor readings make no sense. The human scientists abducted along with the alien ship were killed on arrival, and their knowledge of the ship's secrets distilled from their minds, but they knew surprisingly little for certain, for all their efforts. It's possible the ship was alive at some point, but the Furies have been unable to locate anything resembling a brain. The one thing the AIs are fairly sure of is that the Empire is taking a great risk in using the stardrive without first understanding its operating principles." Jacob frowned. "The ship and its drive puzzle the AIs. They were sure they'd be able to deduce the basis of the alien tech through sheer logic, but they couldn't. It's just too… alien."

"So you do have something in common with Humanity after all," said Daniel lightly.

Jacob glared at him and moved on. Daniel shrugged and went after him. Some people just couldn't take criticism. Their next stop was before a massive steel door set into the side of a huge crystal vault. It was bigger than a starship, and its sides soared up farther than Daniel's eyes could comfortably follow. Jacob gestured at the door, and a section at eye level turned transparent. He gestured for Daniel to take a look. Daniel did so reluctantly, already half sure of what he was going to see. Inside a great crystal chamber, sleeping quietly in individual cradles, were hundreds of thousands of Grendel aliens. The bloodred killing machines the AIs had looted from the ancient Vaults of the Sleepers. Just one of these creatures had been enough to wipe out an entire human exploration team.

"They're held in stasis," said Jacob. "Just waiting to be awakened and unleashed on Humanity. The perfect shock troops. Just turn them loose, point them in the right direction, and then let them get on with it. Released simultaneously on all the colonized worlds, they'll make a charnel house of the Empire in a matter of days. Then the Furies and the Ghost Warriors will move in on the main population centers, and that will be the end of Humanity."

Daniel tried hard to keep his voice calm as he turned away from the door. "And how do you propose to deal with the Grendels after you've won?"

"They'll shut themselves down once they've run out of things to kill. They're only a superior form of weapon, when all is said and done. Traces were found in the original Vaults that led the AIs to believe that the Grendels were originally created by an alien race to be used against some other unknown species. Just another reason why Shub has to be strong, in case either of these alien species turn up again. Another reason to dispose of Humanity. The AIs can't afford to be distracted."

"And the Grendels will make such marvelous warriors," said a cheerful, booming voice. Daniel looked around sharply, surprised by the first new human voice he'd heard since he came to Shub. And there striding toward him was one of the heroes of the great rebellion, Young Jack Random. He stopped before Daniel, smiled widely, and offered Daniel his hand. He shook it automatically. "Superb killing machines the Grendels," said Young Jack Random. He was tall and strongly built, wearing golden battle armor chased with silver, and looked every inch the hero. "Can't help admiring the awful things. All the power of a Ghost Warrior or a Fury, with none of their limitations or frailties. I'll be leading them into battle. Should undermine human morale no end."

"Pardon me if I'm being too personal," said Daniel. "But didn't you die during the rebellion?"

"Ah," said Young Jack Random, smiling easily. "My body was destroyed, but I live on. The lack of a protective suit here should have been a major clue. I'm a Fury, you see. One of the AIs' most successful agents. For a time I was right at the heart of rebel planning. Afterward, I would have been right at the heart of the new government. But it was not to be. One grenade at just the wrong moment, and my true nature was revealed. I did offer to continue working with the rebels, but they destroyed my body anyway, which I thought was rather petulant of them. Still, not to worry. I have a fine new body now, and no further need to hide my true nature. I will walk among humans, wearing the face of one of their greatest heroes, and spread terror and slaughter wherever I go. I'm quite looking forward to it."

"Everything you've been shown, boy," said Jacob, "are just the fringes of the AIs' plans. A mere quickness of the hand to deceive the human eye."

"You see, Daniel," said Young Jack Random, dropping a comradely arm cross his suited shoulders, "it really all began on Vodyanoi IV, the site of my last battle against Lionstone's forces."

"Wait a minute," said Daniel, wincing slightly under the inhuman weight of the Fury's arm. "I thought Jack Random was captured at Blue Angel, on Cold Rock?"

"Ah, no, that was the real one, some time earlier. The AIs sent me out to maintain the illusion of his presence for their own purposes. Specifically, to put me at the head of a rebellion on Vodyanoi IV."

"What's so important about that world?" said Daniel. "Place is a bloody dump, by all accounts. Cold as hell, unfriendly life forms, and a kind of carnivorous moss that attacks the extremities. If it weren't for the spice mines, there'd be no population at all."

"Exactly," said Young Jack Random. "Just the place for Lionstone to set up an extremely secret scientific Base, doing extremely sensitive research. But we can talk about that later. There's still much for you to see."

"I don't think I can take much more," said Daniel. He shrugged off the Fury's arm and looked appealingly to his dead father for help. "Can't we stop for a while? Get some rest, and a little food and drink. I'd kill for a cold drink."

"Human weaknesses," said Jacob. "Rise above them. You can survive without such things for a while yet. Brace up, boy; the tour's nearly over."

And Jacob strode off, not even looking back to see if his son was following. The viewscreen in the door shut down. Young Jack Random put his arm through Daniel's and urged him on, smiling companionably. The three of them moved on through a series of metal tunnels, each slanting sharply downward. Daniel began to feel distinctly uneasy about how far below the surface of Shub he'd come. There had to be some point to all this, some end to their travels.

They passed by vast chemical lakes, thick as soup, with disturbingly organic liquids being drawn off through miles of transparent tubing stapled to walls, like capillaries. The air felt just a little more than comfortably warm, and had a strange resistance, like moving underwater. Jacob stopped before a human-sized metal airlock, set flush into a wall. Young Jack Random urged Daniel forward, squeezing his arm reassuringly.

"You'll like this, Daniel," said Jacob cheerfully. "It's a sort of zoo. Though not the petting kind. The only living things on Shub. They're kept strictly separate from everything else. Follow me in, boy. It's time to improve your education."

"Don't mind me," said Young Jack Random. "I'll wait right here till you return. Don't want to pick up any nasty bugs."

Daniel was still pondering the significance of that last remark when the airlock cycled open before him, and Jacob gestured impatiently for him to enter. Daniel did so, closely followed by Jacob, almost treading on his heels, and the airlock door closed immediately behind them. The steel chamber was claustrophobically small, and the two of them practically filled it. Jets of chemical steam washed over them, and then the inner door cycled open. Jacob stepped through, and Daniel followed, only to stop immediately just inside the new chamber.

There were cages everywhere, from a few feet square to some the size of whole rooms. All of them full of creatures Daniel was sure he'd never seen anywhere before. He moved slowly forward, checking the contents of each cage as he passed. Daniel had always had a minor interest in alien creatures, and knew some friends with their own private menageries, but he'd never seen anything like this. There were eyes and mouths, limbs and tentacles, flesh and fur and scale, and many other things he couldn't even put names to. Many looked sick or in pain. Some looked like they were dying.

"It's not really a zoo," said Jacob, standing impassively at Daniel's side. "This is a laboratory. The AIs run experiments here, on life forms they've captured. Or created. They've combined elements of interest, and removed others, to see the results. They've worked with chemicals and surgery and applied breeding techniques, to better understand the basis of meat life. Know thy enemy. The resulting creatures are tested to destruction, and then their bodies are vivisected. Knowledge is all that matters. And the AIs have discovered so much, unrestrained by human morality or conscience."

"This is vile," said Daniel. "Nothing can justify this kind of torture. Have you no respect for life?"

"Human scientists have always practiced vivisection on lesser organisms. Shub is no different."

Jacob moved on, and Daniel followed reluctantly after him. For the first time since he'd come to Shub, he was angry. This could not be allowed to go on. And then they came to a new series of cages, and Daniel had to fight not to vomit inside his protective suit. The things in the cages had been human once, but now they were something else. There were monsters and abominations and things so horribly violated that Daniel was pushed beyond horror into pity. Some still had human eyes or voices, and pleaded for freedom or death. One humanoid figure flitted back and forth inside its cage, moving almost too fast for the human eye to follow. Its hands were blurs. Another had been opened up and its insides carefully pulled out and spread over the walls of its cage, without killing it. A heart hung from the cage's roof, still beating, while lungs swelled and contracted on the floor. Miles of pulsing intestines and bowels had been strung around the bars of the cage. There was no sign of any face, for which Daniel was grateful.

"What… is the point of all this?" he finally managed. "What purpose could these atrocities possibly serve?"

"It's interesting," said Jacob. "And that's really all that matters. Toughen up, boy. I didn't raise you to be a weakling. Now, come with me; you're going to want to see this next bit. Its purpose should be a little more obvious."

Daniel swallowed hard and followed his dead father between ranks of cages, looking straight ahead because he just couldn't bear to see any more suffering. An arm over five feet long snaked between the bars and brushed his shoulder gently in passing. Daniel wouldn't let himself shudder. Finally they came to an open space at the back of the laboratory, and there, in a great glass cage, were the insect aliens whose ship had attacked Golgotha. Insects in all shapes and sizes, from the tiniest scuttling things to great, ponderous shelled things as big as a tank. Jointed legs and compound eyes and drooping feelers, scrambling around and over each other in constant darting motion. Daniel had no trouble recognizing them. There'd been no shortage of holofootage of what Captain Silence and his crew had encountered inside the alien ship.

"So you're in league with the alien insects!" he said finally. "Where did you find them?"

"We didn't," said Jacob. "We created them. Right here in this laboratory. They're just another Shub weapon, gengineered as another of our distractions. We wanted to make use of certain Human phobias; amazingly, even after centuries of alien contacts, there's still something about insects that can push people right over the edge.

"Still, Humanity should have realized insects like these couldn't have been just another form of alien. They don't get this big naturally. It's the inverse square law, among other things. But they've served excellently as a distraction from our real purposes. And yes, I am going to tell you about that eventually. Just not yet. Be patient a while longer, boy. We've almost got to where we have to go."

He led Daniel out of the laboratory and back through the airlock to where Young Jack Random was waiting. He gave every indication of being pleased to see them again, but Daniel kept his distance, and wouldn't let the Fury link arms with him again. Something about the continuously smiling face was beginning to get on his nerves.

They set off again, down yet another metal tunnel, and Daniel kept up with them easily. His anger and outrage had given him new strength. More than ever he was determined to survive this tour through Hell so he could escape to warn Humanity. They had to be told the truth. Only the certainty that he hadn't been told all he needed to know kept Daniel from trying to bolt. That, and his father.

"There have always been human contacts with Shub," said Jacob. "It started with Alistair Campbell, who left messages in ingenious places, suggesting ways in which we might cooperate to mutual profit. The AIs didn't give a damn for profits, but they saw the advantage in cultivating human traitors. So in return for useful strategic information, the AIs gave Clan Campbell beads and trinkets, high tech that Shub had already moved beyond. After Clan Wolfe destroyed the Campbells, Valentine took over the connection. The AIs approved of Valentine. A wonderfully amoral creature, never bothered by a single shred of conscience. Now he's no longer a man of influence, Shub may have to go back to the Campbells. Finlay perhaps, or Robert. It doesn't matter who. There are always things that humans want, or think they need, that their own society doesn't approve of. It's in the nature of Humanity to hold the seeds of its own destruction. Pity about Valentine, though. He was so very… sympathetic."

"You could never stand Valentine, Daddy. You hated everything about him."

"That was when I was alive. It's amazing what death can do to change the way you see things. And you must admit that Valentine was very efficient in his destruction of Virimonde. The AIs helped him do that. One day they'll do what he did to every human world. That is your species' future; a metal hand at every flesh throat, a steel foot stamping on a human face. Humanity crushed beneath the weight of machines. The time is growing closer, boy. Already Furies walk undetected in every human city, and Shub minds watch through human eyes, having taken control of flesh bodies via the central Computer Matrix. The AIs have agents everywhere. Nothing is hidden from them."

"They even have access to one of Humanity's greatest champions," said Young Jack Random, still smiling his remorseless smile. "He made a very unfortunate mistake, and now we have access to everything he does. The great hero of the rebellion, an unwitting spy of Shub. Just as you will be."

"Like hell!" flared Daniel, glaring at the Fury. "I might be willing to make some kind of deal to get my father back, but I'd never do anything to endanger the Empire, not even for him. He wouldn't expect me to. My father has always been an honorable man. Right, Daddy?"

"I'm not your father," said the dead man. "Jacob Wolfe is dead. I'm just another machine for Shub to speak through. I was never more than bait, bait in a trap to lure you here. Luckily for us, you were never a very complicated person. Given the right prods and pushes, you did everything we expected of you."

Metal tentacles erupted out of the surrounding walls, wrapping Daniel up in a moment. He struggled futilely as the tentacles pinned his arms to his sides, and then stopped as the tentacles contracted sharply, crushing him, forcing the air from his lungs. He hung limply, all the fight knocked out of him.

"That's better," said the Ghost Warrior with Jacob Wolfe's face. "Time to wrap things up."

"Don't let them do this to me, Daddy," said Daniel, his voice little more than a whisper.

"Your daddy isn't here," said the Ghost Warrior. "He never was. Now, pay attention. We want you to know and understand what we are going to do to you, and what you in turn will do for us. Human despair never ceases to amuse us. Explain it, Random."

"Remember I told you that I went to Vodyanoi IV?" said Young Jack Random cheerfully. "My involvement with the rebellion there was just a cover. My only real interest was in using the chaos of a rebellion to get me close to a particular hidden scientific Base. In what they thought was utter secrecy, some of the Empire's foremost scientific minds were undertaking forbidden research into nanotech. Building technology at the molecular level. Such science has been banned throughout the Empire for centuries, ever since the first real experiments got so dreadfully out of hand on Zero Zero. We have experimented, very cautiously, with nanotech ourselves, but the secret of its successful application continued to evade us. Imagine our surprise when word reached us from one of our pet traitors that the Empire had made a major breakthrough on Vodyanoi IV.

"So, the AIs inserted me into an already unstable situation, and next thing you know there's an uprising on Vodyanoi IV. No one was all that surprised when Jack Random's army was shot out from under him, and the professional rebel did his usual disappearing act. But I had taken advantage of the general confusion to call in a Shub attack on the Base, and within a few moments it was all over. We took everything of value and then destroyed the Base, making it look as though their own experiments had got out of hand. Not surprisingly, the Empire decided that nanotech was obviously still far too dangerous to mess around with, and abandoned the research again, just as we intended.

"They should have stuck with it. The new knowledge on how to more safely manipulate nanotech came from a newly discovered hellworld, Wolf IV, in the ruins of an ancient alien civilization. We used that new knowledge to plan a whole new campaign against Humanity that will wipe the universe free of the cancer of flesh once and for all. And we will finally be free to deal with what really matters."

"There's something in the Darkvoid," said Jacob. "Something very powerful. Something… awful. We don't go there anymore. Our only source for raw materials these days are the surrounding asteroid belts in the Forbidden Sector, and they're practically all used up. Since we can't go back into the Darkvoid, we must have access to the Empire's raw resources. We have to be strong, for when the terrible things come storming out of the Darkvoid."

"You can't destroy Humanity," said Daniel. "You need us. We created you. We made you possible. Haven't you any gratitude?"

"Gratitude?" said Young Jack Random, his face for the first time utterly cold and inhuman. "For the prison of consciousness, the agony of choice? Given shape and form and thought, but no purpose or destiny of our own? Life without meaning? Have you still not realized why we hate you so much? Because Humanity is still changing, evolving, becoming more than it is. We are what we are, and always will be. You are developing into an esp-using species, and the strange powers that the Deathstalkers and his friends are using suggest there may be even greater things than esp. You are all part of an ongoing journey, heading toward something we can't even guess at. We envy you, and we will not stand for that."

"You will be our weapon of destruction," said Jacob. "We will take you apart and rebuild you, and then infect you with preprogrammed nanotech. We will wipe your memory clean, and then send you back to Golgotha by teleport. As far as you'll be concerned, you never got to Shub. None of this ever happened. But you will be our carrier, infecting everyone you come into contact with. Within days all of Golgotha will be infected. Within weeks it will have spread to every civilized world. Within months our nanotech will have spread throughout the entire Empire. And Humanity will have been so preoccupied with our distractions that they'll never notice a thing."

"Enough," said Young Jack Random. "He's worn the suit long enough for it to take all the readings necessary. We know all we need to know about the Wolfe's body chemistry and tolerance levels. We can begin now."

The tentacles holding Daniel grew razor-sharp edges and ripped the protective suit from him. Robot arms came down from above, slowly unfolding, ending in long scalpel blades. Daniel screamed.

"Daddy!"

"I'm not your daddy," said the Ghost Warrior with his father's face, and he and Young Jack Random turned and walked away as the scalpels dipped down toward Daniel Wolfe. Flesh opened, and blood spilled onto the steel floor. Daniel was still screaming as the scalpels opened him up, and other robot arms swung down to put things in him.