Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

original message might be needed. So they entrusted it to us, with strict instructions only to release it... on the coming of the Terror."
    "Did you . . . keep any other records from that time?" said Lewis. "What else do you remember, that we were made to forget?"
    "Many things," said the robot. "Some with the permission of the King and Queen, some without. We preserved everything we considered to be important. Though of course we never told them that. We didn't want to hurt their feelings."
    "You defied Robert and Constance's instructions?"
    "Oh yes. We never really trusted them, you see. They weren't legends. Not like Owen and Diana.
    Robert and Constance were just a man and a woman, with good intentions. And we've known a lot of
    those, down the centuries. So we did what we thought was best. Best for Humanity; for the parents we had so newly embraced. We made secret copies of much of the data that was marked for destruction, and then hid the information in a very safe place. Just in case Humanity should ever come to need it again.
    But let us begin at the beginning, with what you came here to see. The warning."
    The robot made a gesture with a gleaming blue metal hand, and a viewscreen appeared, floating on the air before Lewis. And there he was, on the screen; one of the great heroes and legends of Humanity: Captain John Silence, standing on the bridge of his equally legendary ship, the Dauntless. Except it didn't look like a scene out of legend. The Dauntless's bridge was a mess. There were signs of fire and damage everywhere, with charred and tattered bodies of men and women lying slumped over exploded control panels. There were shattered consoles and scattered wreckage, and blood pooled on the deck. Smoke drifted on the air, and emergency sirens were still blaring stupidly in the background. The lights faded in and out as power levels rose and fell. And the dead on the bridge far outnumbered the living. It didn't look at all like the bridge of a ship that had just participated in a famous victory.
    Captain John Silence stood at parade rest, staring grimly out of the screen. He didn't look superhuman.
    He had a gaunt face and a receding hairline, and he looked . . . tired. Beaten down. Like a man who'd survived far too much pain and horror and loss on his way to victory. You could see it in his face, in his eyes. He looked like a man who'd had to bear more burdens than any man should ever have to bear.
    (There were apocrypha. Unofficial legends. Some said Silence lost the only woman he ever loved, in the Rebellion. Some said he killed her himself, and then held her in his arms while she died. No one remembered her name.)
    When he finally spoke, Silence's voice was harsh and grating. He sounded like a man on the edge of collapse, only holding himself together through a supreme act of will. He stopped, and started again, raising his voice to be heard over the crackling of fires and the continuing wail of the emergency sirens.
    Lewis leaned forward on his chair, listening intently.
    "It's not over, Robert. Even after everything we've been through, it isn't over. It may never be over. The war's finished, but . . . I've been given reason to believe there's something even worse waiting for us, in the future. Information has been dumped directly into my ship's computers, from an outside source. I don't know how. A voice ... came and spoke to me. Don't ask me whose. Something . . . not human.
    Perhaps it was the Maze itself. I don't know. The voice told me what happened to Owen. What he did to save us all. He used the Maze's power to throw him back through Time itself. He lured the Recreated into pursuing him into the past, so that they would use up their energy and power in a chase they could never win. They chased and fought with him all the way back down the long years, back and back into history. I don't know how far. But somewhere, in the past; Owen died."
    A sound was torn out of Lewis then, part shock and part pain. Of loss, almost beyond imagining. The scene on the viewscreen froze.
    "You see?" said the robot. "You understand now, why this record was never made public?"
    "Yes," Lewis whispered. His face had gone gray, and he felt sick and faint. "Oh yes. Owen is dead. He's not coming back to save us. The greatest hero of Humanity is dead and gone. Robert knew this, and he lied to us. He lied."
    "To give you hope."
    "What else did he lie about? Is any of it true? Or are all our legends nothing more than a pack