Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

the Empire. Surely a people so proud of their logic wouldn’t make the same mistake twice? Moon led the four humans down the street, and the rest of the Hadenmen fell in behind them, all of them walking in perfect step. Owen hoped Hazel and her alternates would continue to take their lead from him and not start anything. With luck, he could get some useful information out of Moon before they got to wherever they were going. Which was probably a good place to start. “So,” he said casually, “where are we going, Moon?”
    “To the heart of the city,” said the Hadenman in his rasping, buzzing voice. “There is so much we wish to show you, Redeemer. Much that you have made possible.”
    “We were allies in the rebellion. Why have you turned against Humanity now?” “We follow our programming. The imperatives of the Genetic Church. The perfectability of mankind. We bring the gift of transformation for everyone.” “What if everyone doesn’t want it?”
    “Such a response is clearly illogical and is therefore ignored. We do as we must. What is necessary.”
    It seemed Moon was right when he claimed to have none of his old personality. These responses could have come from any augmented man. Tobias Moon had been different. He’d spent much of his life among humans, absorbing human characteristics despite himself. He’d always said he wanted nothing more than to be among his own people, a Hadenman among Hadenmen, but even then he hadn’t been sure whether they’d accept him as he was, as he’d become. In the end, he’d died before Owen could open their Tomb. He’d never seen the second coming of the Hadenmen. Now here he was, living as he’d always wanted, and unable to appreciate it because Hadenmen didn’t have feelings like that. Owen felt obscurely angry.
    “You have Moon’s memories,” he said sharply. “You remember me and Hazel. We were friends. How do you feel about us now?”
    “Hadenmen do have feelings,” Moon said unexpectedly. “They are just… unlike human emotions. They arise from our minds, not chemical imbalances in the body. Understand that we give up much to become Hadenmen. Our sex is cut away from us, along with other unnecessary appetites and needs, and thus our thoughts and drives derive from different sources than yours. We give up human weaknesses to become something more, to become part of a greater whole. We do not feel pain or despair, heat or cold. We are never alone. My thoughts are logic, my dreams are mathematics. There is far more to me than the barely functioning creature you knew before.”
    “Don’t bother trying to reach him,” said Hazel. “I tried often enough back on Haden. There’s nothing left of the Moon we knew.” “I remember,” said Moon. “You came to me for Blood. Do you require some more?”
    “No,” said Hazel. “I don’t need it anymore.”
    “Very wise,” said Moon. “It is very detrimental to the human system.” “Being human made you capable of things that are probably beyond you now,” said Owen. “Do you remember how you died. Moon?
    You were trying to activate the controls that would open the Tomb of the Hadenmen when the Grendel
    alien caught up with you. You fought, and it tore you apart, ripping your head from your shoulders with its bare hands. It had started eating your body when I found it and killed it. I tried to open the Tomb, but I didn’t have the access codes. Only you did. And you came back from death to give me those codes, speaking them with your dead lips. I couldn’t have opened the Tomb without your help. Do you remember any of that?”
    Moon looked at him for a long moment and then looked away. “No. I remember none of that. It sounds very unlikely. Probably in the stress of the moment you imagined it. Humans do that.”
    Owen decided he’d drop the matter for the moment, and let the Hadenman think about it. He was sure he’d touched something in Moon, even if the augmented man denied it. “So, how did you know where to find us, Moon?” “You were detected the moment you entered the city. We have made this place over in our own image, and now every Hadenman is a part of the city, and nothing moves in it that is not us. Our sensors detected you and identified you to us as the Redeemer. So we came to escort you into the heart of our mystery. We will hide nothing from you. You and your Family have always been good allies to the Hadenmen.”
    “You said that once before,” Owen said slowly.