Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

breath. Owen found himself relaxing a little, in spite of himself.
    "You know," she said finally, "you really do look like shit, Deathstalker. I spend my days nursing the sick and the dying, and I know shit when I see it.
    Your weight's way down, and your face shows more bone than anything else. And your eyes are so deep set they look like piss holes in the snow. I'm worried about you, Owen. There are dying men here who look better than you."
    Owen smiled slightly. "Don't hold back, Bea. Tell me what you really think."
    Mother Beatrice shook her head slowly. "You're like a child, Owen; you know that? You don't hear a damned thing you don't want to. Still, you did look really impressive just then. Thanks for being the hero, one more time. Now why not take a few hours off? Get some rest."
    "I can't rest," said Owen.
    "Do you sleep, at all?"
    "Sometimes. I have bad dreams."
    "I could give you something to make you sleep."
    "I have bad dreams."
    Mother Beatrice changed tack. "I have some good news for you, at last. The comm center just reported contact with an Imperial courier ship on its way here. They commandeered our Church supply ship, just to get to you. Somebody out there still believes in you. Try and hold yourself together till they arrive. I don't want this Mission to be remembered as the place where the great Owen Deathstalker moped himself to death."
    Owen smiled briefly. "I promise. I've been waiting for a ship."
    "Hazel may already be dead," Mother Beatrice said quietly. "You have to consider the possibility, Owen."
    "No I don't."
    "Even if you find where the Blood Runners took her, there may be nothing left for you to do."
    "There's always revenge," said Owen.
    Something in his voice made Saint Bea shiver despite herself. She nodded briefly, got to her feet with a grunt, and walked away. There were some things even a saint had no answers for. Owen watched her go, and behind his composed features his mind was churning. A courier ship meant a message from Parliament.
    They must need him for something urgent. Something too difficult or too dangerous for anyone else. But once he was on a ship, and safely offplanet, he was heading straight for the Obeah Systems, and to hell with whatever Parliament wanted. His mental abilities were gone, including his link with Hazel, but he still knew where to go to find the Obeah Systems. Once before, he'd reached out across uncountable space, to mentally locate and kill the Blood Runner called Scour, and he still remembered where his mind had gone. He only had to concentrate and he could feel the path to the Blood Runner homeworld stretching away before him, calling him on. All he needed was a ship. If Hazel was still alive, he would rescue her, and he would make the Blood Runners pay in blood and fire for taking her. And if she was dead…
    He would set the whole damned Obeah Systems afire, to blaze forever in the dark as Hazel's funeral pyre.
    Outside the Mission, the scarlet and crimson jungle flourished. Black-barked trees rose up from a sea of constantly moving vegetation, all of it blushing various shades of red, from shining purples to disturbingly organic pinks. The
    jungle on Lachrymae Christi was more than usually alive, and varyingly sentient, and spent most of its time warring on itself (except in the rutting season), but all the barbs and thorns drew back as Tobias Moon walked among them. He was their one true beloved and friend, the only one in the Mission who could make mental contact with the single great consciousness of the whole planet's ecosystem: the Red Brain. Which would have been enough to make practically anyone somewhat big-headed; but Moon was a Hadenman, and a survivor of the Madness Maze, and so he took it in his stride. If he thought about it at all, he thought of himself as a gardener, on a somewhat larger than usual scale.
    At the moment, he was overseeing the felling of trees, to provide much needed lumber for the Mission repairs. The Red Brain had given the human community permission to take what was needed, and did what it could to make the job easier by pulling back the more dangerous and obstructive vegetation in the area. Moon oversaw as much of the felling as possible, just in case of misunderstandings, but so far everything was going smoothly. He consulted with the Red Brain, gave the orders on where the trees were to be taken from, and Sister Marion stalked stiff-leggedly back and forth, making sure his instructions were followed to