Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

will have to kneel to me. Make the most of your little authority, Campbell.
    While you still have it."
    Douglas punched him in the mouth. Angelo squealed loudly, lurched backwards, and sat down suddenly.
    Blood welled down his bearded chin, and tears ran from his eyes. Douglas took a step forward, and Angelo scooted frantically backwards across the grass.
    "Never outstay your welcome, Angelo," Douglas said calmly. "And by the way, for a warrior of the Church Militant, you take a punch like a sissy. Now get out of my sight, or I'll have them set the dogs on you."
    Angelo rose unsteadily to his feet, gathered what was left of his dignity about him, and opened his mouth for one last cutting comment. Only to lose it all and run for his life when Douglas suddenly growled and lunged at him. Crow Jane watched him go, and then looked thoughtfully at Douglas.
    "Was that really necessary?"
    "Oh yes," said Douglas, happily. "Absolutely. You have no idea."
    They both turned to consider Donal Corcoran, who had ignored all of what happened, intently counting his fingers over and over again. His whole body was trembling, as though full of energy he didn't know what to do with. His face was slick with sweat, though it was only pleasantly warm in the fake garden.
    He looked up suddenly to glare at Douglas, his head cocked slightly to one side.
    "You. It's all your fault. You shouldn't have had me brought here. To Logres, to this place. I wanted to stay on my ship. I knew where I was, there. We've been through a lot together. We're connected, you see. Both changed by the Terror. The Navy took me by force. Boarded my ship, wrestled me to the deck, put me in a straightjacket, and brought me here. I don't want to be here. I don't feel safe. I need to be out there . . . waiting for it to show its face again. You do know it's coming back, don't you?'
    "Yes," said Douglas. "If the Terror continues on the same course, it will cut a swathe through all the most densely populated worlds, and come here. To Logres. That's why I had you brought here, Donal.
    Because of what you've seen, what you know. I need to know what you know."
    "You can't," Corcoran said flatly. "Even I don't know everything I know. There's more inside my head than just me. You think I don't know what this place is? I know. I can hear the barred windows and smell the guns. Best looking rubber room I ever saw." He looked around sharply, and tensed, half crouching, as though preparing to run. "I'm never alone anymore. I'm haunted by ghosts. I can hear the
    voices of every man, woman, and child who died on the Rim worlds. They talk to me, in the quiet between other people's words. They tell me what it's like to be dead. They don't like it. They didn't like it the first time, either. That's why they became the Recreated. But now, all they have is me. Whatever I am now. I will be their vengeance, hunt down the Terror and destroy it. Make it suffer, make it pay, for what it did to them, and to me. And maybe then I'll be able to sleep again."
    "We all want to stop the Terror," Douglas said carefully. "Do you know how we can do that, Donal?"
    Corcoran looked at him sideways, smiling craftily. "Let me out of here, and I'll tell you."
    Douglas sighed, and looked at Crow Jane, who shook her head slowly. "I've been trying to get inside his mind, and I can't. It's spooky in there. I've never encountered anything like this before. He isn't an esper, and he has no actual telepathic shields, as such; it's just that his mind is too . . . different. I've known aliens whose thought patterns were easier to understand. It's like . . . part of his mind is always missing.
    Like . . . not all of him came back from the Rim. Perhaps when he encountered the Terror, it took part of him, and kept it."
    "There is a place that is not a place," Corcoran said softly. "Sometimes ... I can sense it, just behind my shoulder. I think maybe . . . the Terror was born there. Look into my eyes, little esper, and perhaps you'll see it too."
    Crow Jane looked away. "I can't. It frightens me."
    Corcoran laughed. It was a thick, ugly, disturbing sound with nothing sane about it. Douglas shuddered, despite himself. Corcoran looked slowly around the garden that had been made for him, sneering at its security, denying himself its comforts. He turned suddenly to glare at Douglas.
    "Let me out of here. I can't be here. I have business to be about. You have no right to keep me here!"
    "What you know, or might remember, could