Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

screwed up everything else in my life, but I still know my duty. The Empress must be warned. I swore an oath upon my honor to serve and protect the Empire to the last drop of my blood, and I still believe in that, irrespective of whoever happens to be sitting on the Iron Throne. The Empire is worth preserving, for all its many faults. All the alternatives are worse; from barbarism and mass starvation on a thousand worlds if the system breaks down, to all kinds of petty dictatorships if the Empress's authority is broken. The rebellion is a threat to civilization itself. I don't even want to think of what might happen if those damned AIs on Shub seized the opportunity to attack while we were preoccupied with a rebellion. And what about the aliens?
    You saw that thing on Unseeli, with its half-living ship. Lionstone must be warned and made to understand the urgency of the threat. She won't want to believe me, so she'll order a mind probe; and she'll believe that. Whether she wants to or not. So I'm going back because I have to. But you don't have to, Investigator."
    He took a long drink. His throat was dry. Frost shook her head. "I have to go back, too. The Empire trained me to be an Investigator, and I don't know how to be anything else. And I wouldn't want to, even if I could. I like being what I am. It's direct and uncomplicated. But only the Empire has any use for an Investigator. So I'm going back, and hope that between now and then something happens to get us off the hook."
    "And if nothing does?" said Silence. "If I did run, afterward… would you come with me, Frost?"

    "No. I can't. I have to be what they made me." She looked at him for a long moment. "I can warn the Empress. It doesn't need both of us. And it certainly doesn't make any sense for both of us to die."
    "I can't do that, Frost. I couldn't leave you to face the storm alone."
    "I'd leave you, if I could."
    "I know that." Silence smiled at her and wasn't bothered that she didn't smile back. She was an Investigator. And though she was supposed to be nothing more than a cold, calculating killing machine, Silence thought he understood her, even in the things she didn't—or couldn't—say. He didn't need the link for that.
    "How's Stelmach?" he said finally. It was as good a way to change the subject as any. Frost snorted.
    "Still sulking, because we had to leave his precious alien pet behind on the Wolfling World. Apparently, he only learned to control the Grendel alien by accident and isn't at all sure he can re-create his success again with another subject. Still, you can be sure he's already got some story worked out, to make him look good and us very bad."
    "Undoubtably," said Silence. "I swear he was closer to that bloody alien than he ever was to anything human. Mind you, if I'd been christened with the name Valiant and only ended up as a Security Officer, I'd be hard to get along with, too. Whatever report he turns in, you can be sure his main motive will be to stab us in the back."
    "Of course. That's what Security Officers are for."
    "The point being, that he'll be more interested in looking out for his own interests than in convincing Lionstone of the rebel threat. Just another reason why I have to go back. Dammit."

    "We could always kill him," said Frost. "Hard to stab anybody in the back from inside a coffin."
    Silence thought about it. "No. It would only complicate things further. He doesn't know enough to really hurt us. He doesn't know about the link."
    They'd never told anyone. The link wasn't esp, as far as they could tell, but it wouldn't prevent the Empire treating them as espers, if word ever got out. And espers were second-class citizens, little better than a clone. Certainly it would be the end of their careers as Captain and Investigator. They'd end up as lab animals, specimens to be quarantined, studied, and quite probably vivisected. So they never told anyone.
    "Have you heard anything from your daughter recently?" said Frost.
    Silence shook his head. His daughter Diana was an esper. She'd been with them when everything went to hell on Unseeli. She'd gone through a lot—enough to break anyone else. But she was his daughter, after all. Diana survived and emerged stronger than she had been before. Strong enough that when they returned to Golgotha from the Unseeli mission, she jumped ship and disappeared into the clone and esper underground. Silence hadn't seen her since or received any word from her. He was glad of that. He