Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

wondering, by my parents. They ran a traveling circus, and since hunchbacked dwarves don’t tend to occur naturally anymore, they made one of their own. I was one of the stars of the show. Audiences loved to come and pity me from a safe distance. But no one ever asked me what I wanted. What my dreams were. So the minute I hit sixteen, I went straight to the nearest recruiting office and signed on. I was supposed to be a mascot, but I quickly demonstrated such a natural
    aptitude for killing people that I got upgraded to full service inside a year. Never looked back.”
    “We fought side by side in a hundred battles,” said the Colonel. “Nasty little man. Very good with a gutting knife. And when I came here, he came with me. He didn’t have leprosy then. A good friend, but dumb as shit.” “True,” said Otto. “Very true.”
    “Thank God for the Hadenmen. They gave us purpose again. At least now I have a real enemy to vent my spleen on. And a chance to die a warrior’s death instead of rotting away, day after day. And best of all, after months of open disapproval for my past wicked ways, Saint Bea had to come to me to help train her people how to fight. Must have stuck in her craw something fierce, but she did it. Came and asked us right in front of everybody.” “Looked like she was chewing a wasp while she said it, mind,” said Otto.
    “What do you think of our chances against the Hadenmen?” said Owen. Colonel Hand grinned nastily.
    “Don’t you worry, boy. Hadenmen will die just as readily as anyone else, if you stick your knife in the right place and twist it. Besides, if a shitty disease and a rotten planet like this couldn’t beat us, a bunch of walking appliances with attitude isn’t going to do it.” Owen nodded, made his goodbyes, got up, and moved on. He thought he’d enjoyed about as much of the Colonel and Otto’s company as he could stand. But for all the old soldier’s venom, Owen couldn’t help thinking that maybe he had a point.
    Lepers were the dark, unspoken secret of the Empire—the forbidden subject that was never openly discussed. No cure, no hope, so just dump the poor bastards out of sight where the rest of us don’t have to look at them. Owen had known about Lachrymae Christi vaguely, but it had never occurred to him to do anything about it. Leprosy was something that happened to other people. But now, having had his face rubbed in it, he vowed to do something about it. Something. Assuming he and they survived.
    He rounded a corner and saw Moon, sitting alone, his shoulders shaking as tears ran jerkily down his face. There was no one near him, no obvious cause for his sorrow. In fact, those few lepers near him seemed to be trying their best to ignore him. Owen hurried over to the crying augmented man, and then stood awkwardly over him, not sure what to do.
    “Moon? Tobias? What is it? Has someone said something, done something?… Dammit, if anyone’s been having a go at you, I’ll rip his lights out!” The Hadenman stopped crying abruptly and looked up.
    “Oh, hello, Owen,” he said quite calmly. “There’s nothing wrong. No one has upset me. I was just trying out the emotion, to see what it felt like. Please, sit and talk with me.” Owen frowned, shrugged, and sat down next to his friend. Moon wiped his face with a cloth, quite unself-consciously. Owen looked at him.
    “So… nothing’s wrong? You’re all right?”
    “I don’t know. I confess I’ve become very confused of late. This is my second life, Owen, and many things are still new to me. Memories of my first life are always returning, but jumbled, distorted, like the actions of someone else seen dimly on a holoscreen. I can remember doing things, but not why I did them, or how I felt while doing them. I spent most of my first life living among humans, developing human traits, but most of that is lost to me now. I have emotions, I…
    feel things, but they are strange, puzzling things, because I have no frame of
    reference to put them in. I’m like a blind man seeing colors for the first time.
    So I laugh and cry, savoring their unfamiliar flavors, trying to discover what separates them, and how they relate to the world I live in. I see the lepers here, living and fighting and dying so bravely, and I think tears are appropriate, but it is hard to be sure. It’s very hard to be human, Owen. I don’t know how you manage it so effortlessly.”
    “You’ll get the hang of it,” said Owen.