Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

that covered the world’s only continent from shore to shore. It fell on the wise and the wicked, the plain and the glorious, the lucky and the unlucky, and the rain it raineth every day. Lachrymae Christi had never known summer or winter, sunshine or snow, and never once had its gray skies been blessed with a rainbow. The rain fell on the planet’s unfortunate colonists too, though colonists wasn’t perhaps the correct word to describe them.
    They hadn’t come to this world through choice. They were rounded up by gloved and helmeted men and herded into the holds of cargo ships, persuaded on their way by long electric prods and drawn guns.
    They traveled in hardship and despair, and were finally dumped on their new home to make what kind of life they could for themselves. Supply ships left the bare necessities now and again, but that was the extent of the Empire’s compassion. No one gave a damn whether the unwilling colonists lived or died, as long as they stayed where they were put. They were banned from starflight, banned from civilization, from a Humanity that had turned its backs on them. But against all the odds, the colonists had survived, and prospered in their fashion. If only to spite those who had abandoned them there. Lachrymae Christi was a leper colony.
    The Sunstrider II dropped out of hyperspace and fell into high orbit over the world of eternal tears.
    Owen Deathstalker sat uncomfortably before the main viewscreen on his yacht’s bridge, and studied the silent planet’s image, hidden beneath its perpetually swirling shroud of clouds. He didn’t know much about Lachrymae Christi. Not many did. It wasn’t something respectable people talked about, as though just using the dreaded word might somehow attract the disease’s attention. For centuries the Empire had boasted that its scientists had defeated disease, and that with the regeneration machines and the cloning tanks, nothing should stop a man of decent means from living a long and healthy life. It was a different matter for the poor, of course, but that was true of everything. Then, some seventy years ago, leprosy had returned—an almost forgotten horror from Humanity’s distant past—and the scientists could do nothing. It spread rapidly from world to world, infecting rich and poor alike, and soon it was everywhere.
    No one knew what caused or spread it, and there was no hope or comfort available for its victims. Only isolation, shunned by friends and neighbors. And so, rather than have the victims hanging around as a reminder of science’s failure, it was decided that once diagnosed, all lepers would be given a one-way ticket to the Rim, and a world no one wanted, where they could be with their own kind, and Humanity could comfortably forget them. Only some people couldn’t, wouldn’t forget.
    Hazel d’Ark slouched onto the bridge and dropped bonelessly into the chair next to Owen’s. She scowled at the image on the viewscreen and sniffed loudly. “I can’t believe you agreed to this mission, Owen. I swear if I leave here with less than my usual number of fingers, I am personally going to drop-kick you out the nearest airlock.”
    “There’s really nothing to worry about,” said Owen, trying hard to sound reassuring. “All the latest medical information says you can’t catch leprosy by casual contact. I checked.”
    “They don’t know that! They don’t know anything for sure. They still haven’t even worked out where the hell it came from.”
    “What exactly is this leprosy?” said Midnight Blue from behind them. The tall, dark warrior woman was leaning in the doorway, drinking a vitamin extract straight from the bottle. “We don’t have anything like it where I come from.” “Same here,” said Bonnie Bedlam, pushing past Midnight to claim the only remaining chair on the bridge. Her various piercings clattered loudly as she sat down. “Are there really people down there with bits falling off them?” “Only in the worst cases,” said Owen. “It’s a neurological disease. Victims lose all sense of feeling. Even small wounds refuse to heal and become infected. Flesh rots and decays. It’s a slow and very nasty way to die. There are some drugs that help, but not much.”
    “Is it too late to turn this ship around?” said Bonnie.
    “I thought you believed in disfigurement as a fashion statement,” said Midnight. “There are limits,” said Bonnie. “Though I never thought I’d hear myself saying