Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

their morale, and give you some idea of the kind of people you’ll be
    fighting alongside. Don’t be nervous of them. Bits of them won’t fall off if you speak too loudly, and you can’t catch it just by shaking hands. They’re just people. I suggest splitting up into ones or twos; you’ll be less… intimidating that way. It’s not every day we get living legends walking among us. Be back here in an hour, and there’ll be a hot meal ready. Now, be off with you. I have my rounds to make in the infirmary.”
    She gently but firmly shooed them all out of the common room, and shut the door behind them. Owen shook his head slowly.
    “So that’s Saint Bea. I was expecting one of the nuns who taught me as a child.
    All loud voices and stiff necks and a devil with the steel ruler.”
    “They probably went on to become Sisters of Glory,” said Hazel. “Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Now pay attention, people: forget what she said, no one goes off on their own. We don’t know enough about the situation here. I don’t think Saint Bea would necessarily lie to us, but there could be all kinds of undercurrents here she knows nothing about. So, Hazel and Moon, you come with me. Bonnie and Midnight, stick close together and watch your backs. We’ll meet here in an hour.”
    “He just loves being in charge,” said Hazel to Bonnie and Midnight, and they nodded knowingly.
    “Let’s get out of here before he starts making one of his speeches,” said Midnight, and she and Bonnie went off to meet some lepers. Owen looked haughtily at Hazel. “I have no idea what you were talking about.” Hazel grinned at Moon. “The trouble is, he probably doesn’t. Lead the way, sir Deathstalker, oh savior of Humanity.”
    Owen sniffed loudly and set off. Hazel followed, grinning, and a rather mystified Moon brought up the rear.
    Bonnie Bedlam freaked the lepers out. She loved sweeping back her clothes to flash people, and show off her many piercings and body modifications, and soon a small but fascinated crowd had formed around her. After a while Bonnie and some of the braver lepers began comparing mutilations and trying to one-up and gross each other out. There were shrieks and mock shocked gasps, and soon they were chatting away as though they’d known each other for years. The idea that someone would voluntarily cut and pierce and modify their own flesh fascinated the colonists. That Bonnie took pride in her differences from the norm just blew them away. It wasn’t long before she had fervent disciples sitting at her feet, working out how to start some piercings of their own. All flesh is beautiful, said Bonnie firmly. Anything can be made sexy. A spirited argument arose as to whether it was better to pierce dead flesh or that which still had some feeling. Bonnie strongly recommended the latter, to get the full experience. Midnight Blue stood quietly behind Bonnie, trying hard to be shocked in the face of the lepers’ obvious enthusiasm. It had never occurred to them that their disfigurements didn’t have to be ugly. The lepers revealed more and more of themselves as they grew more comfortable in Bonnie’s presence. Midnight was horrified at what the disease had done to some of its victims, but fought to keep it out of her face.
    Missing fingers and toes were common, and many had eaten-away noses and ears. It was always the extremities that went first. Many had sores and open wounds that would not heal, sometimes bandaged, sometimes not. There were drugs that helped slow the symptoms, but there’d been no deliveries for some time. The Empire needed all its cargo ships for the war, and even a Saint’s pleas had to take second place to the military. Abandoned yet again, the lepers refused to give in. They watched themselves and watched each other, and tried to live as normal a life as possible as they fought to establish a self-sufficient colony. Children were being born for the first time, most of them free of the disease as yet. And for the first time there was hope. For the future, if not for themselves. When things
    got too bad, there was the Mission infirmary. Not so much a hospital as a resting place before the end, when they were no longer capable of caring for themselves. Mother Superior Beatrice ran the infirmary.
    The lepers couldn’t say enough about her. She gave them hope and faith, and a reason to live when it would have been so easy to just lie down and die. The lepers worshiped her, much to her