Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

was convinced it had something to do with her occasional trips into the Hadenman city. Maybe this time he'd find out what it was. He sighed, and glared once again at the watch face embedded in his wrist. Up in the great Hall of the Last Standing, that ancient stone castle that also happened to be an extremely powerful starship, representatives of rebels and freedom fighters from all across the Empire were gathering in a great council to determine the shape and future of the forthcoming rebellion. And he was stuck down here in the gloom, waiting for Hazel. He could have gone up without her, in fact Hazel had insisted he should, but he was damned if he would. She was up to something, and he wanted to know what. He might love her, but that didn't mean he trusted her any farther than he could spit into a hurricane. She'd been a pirate and a clonelegger long before she took on the dubious respectability of a rebel. And besides, something was wrong with Hazel. She'd been distracted lately, up one minute and down the next, and absentminded and vague when she wasn't snappy and bad-tempered. This wasn't actually untypical of Hazel, but it had grown much worse of late, enough for Owen to become concerned. Perhaps it was the strain of being a rebel and always on the run. Or a side effect of the many changes the Madness Maze had worked in her. Either way, if he was going to help her, he had to know what the problem was. Which was why he was prepared to wait right there till hell froze over, if that was what it took to find out what she was up to in the Hadenman city.
    It stretched away before him, a gleaming expanse of shimmering metal and glass, spread out across the floor of a giant cavern. There were towers and suspended
    walkways, and squat sharp-edged buildings, all shining brightly from within, pushing back the gloom of the cavern. The city had been built by the first Hadenmen, many years ago, and in its inhuman cradle they grew many and powerful.
    They abandoned it to launch their war on humanity and never returned. Those few who did come back, beaten and dismayed, chose to sleep in the Tomb of the Hadenmen, until such time as they might rise to glory once again. And while they slept, the city maintained itself, until it was recently shattered by the roaring energy cannon of Captain Silence's task force. Only wreckage and ruin remained, sadly gleaming shards of past majesty.
    Now the revived Hadenmen were busy restoring and rebuilding it, and the city slowly stirred itself and came alive again, gleaming and brilliant. One of the Hadenmen had taken Owen and Hazel on a brief tour of the city, and just the sight of the enigmatic misshapen structures up close had been enough to make Owen's skin crawl. The buildings had not been designed with human comforts or logic in mind, and their purposes remained hidden and mysterious. The quiet was eerie and disturbing, unbroken by any sound of conversation or working machinery. No one building or structure was quite like any other, and everywhere there were strange shapes and unnerving angles, like the menacing cities we glimpse in nightmares in the hours when the night is darkest. Just the tour of the city had given Hazel and Owen maddening headaches, and they'd made their excuses and left as soon as they politely could. Owen had never ventured in again; but Hazel had.
    Owen shuddered suddenly as he looked out over the city, convinced on some deep level that it knew he was there and was watching him with a thousand unseen eyes. Hadenmen were everywhere, performing unguessable tasks, hurrying back and
    forth on unknown missions, like so many ants in a nest, but silent, always silent. Working together, communing on a level no human could reach, the Hadenmen became a gestalt, a single mind greater than the sum of its thoughts, working toward an end incomprehensible to human thought. Giles Deathstalker, Owen's revered ancestor, thought the city might be a physical expression of the Hadenman group mind, and when it was complete, they would be, too.
    Owen had known only one Hadenman before, and that was Tobias Moon, who'd lived among humans so long he had become all but human himself, much to his disgust.
    He died trying to free his people from their Tomb and never saw their great awakening. In the end Owen had revived them, and not a day went past without his wondering if he'd done the right thing. The Hadenmen had repaired Moon afterward, but though his body now worked as efficiently as