Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

them,” said Hazel. “Now, answer the man’s question. What are you doing here?”
    Trignent swallowed hard, lowering his eyes. He was going to lie. Owen could feel it. He leaned forward so his face was right in front of his victim’s. The tech tried to shrink back in his chair, but there was nowhere to go. “If you lie,” said Owen, “I’ll know it. I can always get the answers from someone else if I have to, but I guarantee you won’t be around to see it.”
    “Yes, my Lord, but…”
    “I’m not a lord anymore. But I’m still a Deathstalker. Now, tell me everything you know or I’ll show you what that means.”
    “This is a processing and refining plant, my… sir Deathstalker. We take in the raw material, break it down into its basic chemical components, siphon off the desired residues, and store it for later transport off-planet.” “But what’s the raw material?” Owen said impatiently. “And what the hell is the end product?”
    “The esper drug,” said Trignent reluctantly. “We’re manufacturing the esper drug.”
    Owen and Hazel looked at each other. They’d heard about the esper drug during their time with the esper underground, but its composition was supposed to be a secret. Still, if anyone was going to dig up a new drug, it would be Valentine. And setting up production on Virimonde was a good way to keep it secret. Parliament had discovered his presence only by accident. Owen nodded slowly. He was following the trail so far. But none of it explained why the technician should still be so scared… “What’s the raw material?” said Owen. “What are you refining the esper drug from?”
    “Please,” said Trignent. He started to cry. “Please understand. I just follow orders. They’d kill me if I didn’t.”
    “I’ll kill you if you don’t answer me! What’s the raw material?”
    “The dead,” said Pierre Trignent. “The dead of Virimonde.” After that it was very quiet for a long moment. Apart from the slow, steady sounds of the rendering machinery, chewing up the latest batch of raw material. Owen’s eyes squeezed shut, but he could still see what he now recognized as crushing and pulping machinery. He could still see his dead people, stacked like logs, kept frozen so they’d keep until they were needed. His eyes opened again, and the technician took one look at the cold rage building there and began talking very quickly, almost babbling, as though relieved to finally be able to tell somebody.
    “The Lord Wolfe came here because there were so many bodies just waiting to be harvested. The esper drug has always been derived from human tissues, just as the esp-blockers come from dead esper brain tissues, but you need a lot of… the basic material to produce just a small amount of the end product.
    That’s why the esper drug has always been so rare, so secret. The Lord Wolfe saw an opportunity for mass production here and took advantage of it. He’s processed hundreds of thousands of the dead and produced more of the drug, and in a purer form, than was ever possible before. It’s really quite a simple process once it’s been set up. There’s just me, and a handful of others, to keep an eye on things. Please, I’m nobody. I just did as I was told—“ “You have been overseeing the destruction of my people, to produce a drug so addictive it enslaves all who use it,” said Owen, and his voice was very quiet and very dangerous. “I have seen horror in my time, in many wars, on many battlefields. I have waded through blood and offal, killed till my arms ached, and seen the slaughter of the good and the bad, but never have I encountered anything as cold-blooded as this. The destruction of the dead… to produce a poison for the living. Turning Humanity itself into a product. Oh, my people… my people…” He turned away, his shoulders heaving, and Hazel went after him. Trignent saw his chance and made a run for the door. And Owen Deathstalker looked around, tears in his eyes, and shot the man in the back. The energy beam punched a hole through Trignent’s back and out his chest, slamming him against the door frame. He clung there for a moment, already dead, and then crumpled slowly to the floor. Owen shook his head slowly back and forth, as though trying to deny what he’d been told. Hazel moved in close beside him, but he waved her away. There wasn’t room in him for anything but horror and sorrow and a rage to
    strike back at the cause of his