Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

permission. No one can find us, unless we allow it. Who could possibly be coming here?"
    "The Deathstalker," said the severed head, and the other computer heads took up the name, chanting it over and over again, until Scour shut them all with an angry wave of his hand. "He will be here soon," said the first head. "Soon,"
    whispered the other heads in unison, and then they fell silent.
    "Another Maze subject for our experiments," said Lament. "Fortune smiles on us."
    "Fool!" snapped Pyre. "This is the Deathstalker! He toppled the Empire! And if he can find his way here, to us, he must be even more powerful than we believed.
    He must be stopped, before he can reach Hazel d'Ark. Together, who knows what
    they might be capable of, so close to the Summerstone?" He turned and glared at Scour. "Take her. Break her. Rip her secrets out of her before the Deathstalker arrives. Do whatever you have to."
    "I always intended to," said Scour. "I trust I can count on not being interrupted?"
    "We'll protect you," said Pyre. "But don't dare fail us."
    "Come," said Scour to Hazel. "Let us return to my laboratory. And begin our explorations into the limits of suffering."
    Hazel kicked and struggled as the two headless bodies dragged her away, and couldn't loosen their grip one bit.

    Owen Deathstalker came at last to the Obeah Systems in the Sunstrider III, only to find there was nothing there. No colonies, no civilizations, nothing. Just an empty sector of space, marked on the charts as the Obeah Systems through old tradition. Owen cranked open the ship's sensors as far as they would go, but there were no lifesigns anywhere, no energy sources, no traces of artificial habitats; nothing. He sat back in his chair on the bridge, and scowled darkly.
    He'd made good time in getting here from Lachrymae Christi, pushing the stardrive to its limit, and he refused to believe it had all been for nothing.
    "Are you sure you've brought us to the right place, Oz?"
    "I was navigating ships before you were born, Owen," said the AI testily. "I told you there was nothing indicated at these coordinates, but you wouldn't listen. As far as I can tell, the Obeah Systems are what we navigators refer to as a MAMFA location."
    "And what the hell does MAMFA stand for?"
    "Miles And Miles of Fuck All."
    "I'd have you overhauled if I knew where your hardware was. Suggest something, Oz! This location is the only clue we've got to finding Hazel. Think of something."
    "She could be dead, Owen."
    "No. I'd know."
    Oz was quiet for a while, and when he finally spoke his quiet voice was unusually hesitant. "There are legends about the Obeah Systems. Old legends.
    They say the Blood Runners' world isn't always there. It comes and it goes. That it's a place only they can reach, and no one can find without their consent. But you're not just anybody, Owen. You know I've never really understood your powers, but… you once reached across space to destroy a Blood Runner, on his secret world. Reach out again… and maybe you'll be able to see where we need to go."
    Owen shut his eyes and concentrated. On Lachrymae Christi he had been reduced to merely human senses, but since coming here, he'd felt the stirrings of something returning, deep in his mind. He forced his thoughts to move in a direction that had once been so easy, concentrating all his need and urgency and desperation into a single implacable push, and a barrier gave way like a torn-aside blindfold. Power surged up in him, from the back brain, the undermind, and his thought leapt out, probing, demanding. There was something there, not too far away. He could feel it, though it wasn't really there. Owen concentrated, sweat dripping from his face, and his mind moved like a key in a lock.
    And from a place where nothing comes from, a door opened before the Sunstrider III. It opened like the petals of a rose, enveloped the ship, and took it somewhere else. The door closed, and both ship and door were gone, with nothing
    to show they had ever been there.
    Owen sat slumped in his chair on the bridge, trying to get his thoughts in order. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. He could feel it. He was in a different place now. He noticed that the stardrive had shut down, and sat up sharply. A quick study of the instrument panels confirmed that the ship was no longer in motion. It was stopped dead. Which should have been impossible.
    Further study of the close-range sensors baffled Owen even more. The Sunstrider III