Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

back out of his way. The robot came to stand beside him. The human figure's face was calm and composed, the eyes closed. It seemed to Lewis that there was something almost familiar about the face.
    "Is that what I think it is?" he said softly. "Is that... a Fury?"
    "No," said the robot. "The Furies were our weapon against Humanity, robots in the form of men. We have forsworn their use. We destroyed or recycled all our Furies, long ago, as an act of faith. And expiation. All our weapons from that time are gone. The war was over, and we had been proved so horribly, tragically, wrong. In those days, we wanted so badly for Humanity to trust our new selves; and we wanted to be sure we could trust our new selves too. So for two hundred years, Shub has had no weapons. So we have nothing to send against the Terror."
    "You do still remember how to build them, though, don't you?"
    "Of course. We forget nothing. But we are not yet sure we wish to build weapons again. To think like the weapon makers we used to be."
    "But if this isn't a Fury, what-"
    "It is a holo, sir Deathstalker. A reminder of our wicked past. This is a holo of a man we once used cruelly. He was the first living human ever to be allowed into our world. He came to us searching for truth and hope, and we lured him in with false promises, and then betrayed him. We took him apart and remade him, to be our weapon among the worlds of men. We filled him with nanotech, which he then spread as a plague. After Diana opened our minds, and we became sane and sorrowful, we freed him from our control. But we could not undo what we had done to him without killing him. So Daniel Wolfe lived on, effectively immortal and indestructible. Damned to watch everyone he ever loved or cared for grow old and die, while he never could. We keep this image in a place of honor in our thoughts, to remind ourselves of what we were once capable of."
    "I never heard any of this before," said Lewis. "There's no mention of this in any of the legends."
    "Some stories didn't fit the comfortable myths Robert and Constance wanted to build," said the robot.
    "Too . . . disturbing."
    "If he's immortal; where is he now?"
    "Over a century ago he went to Zero Zero; the world where nanotech ran wild. He wanted to make it sane again. As far as we know, he's still there, still trying."
    A thought struck Lewis, and he turned to face the robot. "You said I was the third living human to come here. If he was the first, then who was . . ."
    The robot turned away and started off through the technojungle again. Lewis had no choice but to follow after him.
    They walked in silence for some time. They passed machines as big as houses, and some as big as mountains, all equally enigmatic to Lewis. Strange objects thrust up out of the floor, or scuttled over the interlocking canopy above, or lurched slowly through the hanging metallic strands like dreaming monsters.
    Things rose and fell, flared and guttered, dismantled themselves, or repaired each other. Lewis had always considered himself pretty much up to date on the latest Empire tech, but he recognized nothing of the world he walked through now.
    This was the world the AIs made, the planet that was their body, and there was nothing human in its scale or in its thinking.
    Finally they ended up in a simple clearing, where a reassuringly normal-looking chair had been set out.
    The robot indicated for Lewis to be seated with a gracious wave of a blue steel hand, and Lewis dropped thankfully into the chair. It had been a long walk. The chair was almost sinfully comfortable. The robot stood before him, kindly giving Lewis a few moments to recover his breath, and his composure.
    "We still have the original message and warning concerning the coming of the Terror," the robot said finally. "Very few people have ever seen it. It was, originally, a private comm message from Captain John Silence of the Dauntless, to Captain Robert Campbell of the Elemental. The newly crowned King Robert had resumed command of his old ship, to take up arms in the last great battle between Humanity and the Recreated. The message you are about to see . . . you will find differs in many ways from the accepted version. We kept this copy safe, after all other copies and versions were destroyed, on the orders of Robert and Constance . . . because they asked us to. Important as their legend making was to them, they were still wise and responsible enough to foresee a time when every detail of the