Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

pressing on was exhausting. According to his suit's instruments, the local temperature was high enough to melt some metals. He was sweating like a pig despite everything the hard suit's temperature controls could do, and the lack of a proper horizon made his head hurt. He was so taken up with his own inner world of hurts and confusions that he only just noticed in time that Frost had come to a halt. He avoided crashing into her through a heroic last-minute effort, and then had to fight to keep his feet under him. He took a few deep breaths to settle himself and then looked around. The place they'd arrived at didn't seem noticeably any different from any of the others they'd plowed through to get here. There was no sign of any of the alien constructs, just a large hill to their left, slumping over like a melting ice cream.
    "Is this it?" he said finally.
    "In so far as there is an it, yes," said Frost. "These are the right
    coordinates, anyway. You know, this place is really disgusting. It looks like someone sneezed it into being."
    Silence winced. "You've always had a way with words, Investigator. Now what do we do?"
    "Now we wait for someone to put in an appearance. Which, knowing this place, will undoubtedly take some time. Maybe we should have brought a bucket and spade."
    And then she broke off as the mud before them bubbled up into a thick dribbling pillar, like a slow-motion fountain. Silence and Frost both trained their suits'
    disrupters on the pillar as it bulged and contracted here and there, finally forming into a human shape, complete in every detail, including clothes. Though the clothes were made of the same mud as the body. The figure actually looked quite snappy in formal evening wear, and for a moment Silence felt almost overdressed in his hard suit. He made himself concentrate on the figure's face.
    It was gray and sweated driblets of mud, but the features were indisputably human. The eyes focused on Silence and then on Frost, and the mouth twitched in a smile.
    "Before you ask," the figure said briskly, "no, I don't really look like this.
    You are looking at a mental projection, formed from handy nearby materials.
    Trust me, you don't want to see what I really look like. Not unless you're into projectile vomiting, which I would assume could get really messy inside one of those suits. Human senses are too limited to appreciate my true beauty." He folded his dripping arms across his sliding chest and gave them a moment to think about that. "Now, what do you people want this time? I'm busy. And don't ask me what at; you couldn't possibly hope to understand."

    "If you're this planet's idea of a diplomat, I'd hate to meet your politicians,"
    said Silence. "How is it you speak our language so well?"
    "I don't. I'm communicating directly with your mind, which is slumming for me, but we all have to make sacrifices if we're to keep the gods happy. Little joke there, to put you at your ease."
    "You're telepathic?" said Frost. "That wasn't in the files."
    "Nothing so primitive. We are communicating directly, though your human minds are too limited to pick up most of what I'm transmitting." The figure stopped and frowned. "Though I have to say, you seem much more receptive than most."
    "Save the compliments," said Frost. "We're here on business."
    "Well, I didn't think you were tourists," snapped the man made out of mud. "What does the Empire want this time?"
    "Rebels and aliens; don't talk to them," said Frost briskly. "If anyone tries, contact your nearest Imperial spy satellite. Any alliances with unauthorized forces will result in severe punitive measures."
    "And what might those be?" said the mud man. "Going to arrest us, perhaps? Not unless you can build prisons in five dimensions. Or perhaps you'll take away some of our lovely mud? Help yourselves; we've got tons of the bloody stuff."
    Frost raised her right hand and triggered the disrupter built into her glove.
    The energy beam flashed out and vaporized the mud man's head. Silence started to object and then stopped himself. He didn't approve of unnecessary killing, but this was the Investigator's show. She was best qualified to decide what was necessary to get her point across. The mud man should have been more respectful, damn it. An insult to them was an insult to the Empress. And then he realized the headless body hadn't slumped to the ground. It stood just where it had, as though nothing had happened. Liquid mud bubbled in the stump of the neck,