Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

they did: because we have no choice, and because there's no one else."
    "Don't put money on it," growled Brett. "Show me a safe route out of here, and I'd be gone so fast it would make your head spin."
    "I've played Owen and Hazel in half a dozen operas," said Jesamine. "Marvelous roles, of course, but I can't say I really knew either of them. You only have to look at a place like this to realize they lived in a whole different world from us. We've all got soft, since then."
    "Maybe that's part of what we're fighting for," said Lewis. "So that we can all be safe enough that it's all right for us to be soft."
    "Oh, very deep," said Brett. "This is all Owen's fault anyway. He should have stopped the Terror before he left. It's his unfinished business that's going to kill us all."
    He knew that was unfair even as he said it, and no one bothered to answer him. Lewis glared around the giant, empty hall as though he could force answers out of it through sheer strength of will.
    "You were here before, Oz," he said abruptly. "Or at least, your progenitor was. What do you think we should do now?"
    "It wasn't exactly me," the ship's AI said uncertainly through their comm implants. "When you get right down to it, I'm just a Shub subroutine created around bits and pieces left over from the original Ozymandias. What memories I have from that time are fragmentary at best. Still, this place is more familiar than most. I remember… a room full of mirrors, whose shimmering surfaces revealed possible futures. I remember automatons, repair robots in the shape of men, still striding elegantly through the Standing after a thousand years. And I remember finding the Shadow Men, Imperial assassins set after Giles Deathstalker. He killed them, and then put their stuffed and mounted bodies on display."
    "Okay," said Brett. "This is seriously creeping me out."
    "I never liked Giles," said Oz. "Never trusted him."
    "Giles Deathstalker," Lewis said thoughtfully. "The first and founder of my Clan. Our family archives don't have much on him. Just an old portrait, and stories of some of the great battles he fought. Owen found him preserved here, the last remnant of an earlier time. They fought side by side in the Great Rebellion, and then Giles went bad, and Owen had to kill him. Deathstalker luck…"
    "Aren't there any happy endings in your family's history?" said Jesamine.
    "Always a first time for everything," said Lewis, smiling. "Oz, anything else you can tell us?"
    "For some time now, I've been trying to make contact with the Standing's computers," said the AI. "I
    can tell they're all back online now, awake and aware. The amount of power being generated in this castle is simply staggering, and it's still rising. All kinds of systems are waking up, and I don't recognize even half of them. Lewis, the castle's computers have to know you're here. I'm trying every contact protocol in my records, but they won't open up to me. They feel… strange. Not like any form of computer mind I've ever encountered before. I think… they're even older than the Standing itself…
    Lewis, I might have an idea. An almost memory from Owen's time. You talk to them. Declare yourself, your name and your heritage. And show them the ring. Go on—they're listening. They're waiting."
    Lewis rose slowly to his feet, and the others got up with him. He headed towards the center of the hall.
    The others wanted to go with him, but he waved them back. He stopped in the middle of the great and empty hall, and looked around him. He could almost feel another presence there with him, surrounding him.
    "I am Lewis Deathstalker," he said, not proudly or defiantly, just calmly stating a fact. His voice was strong and clear in the quiet. "I am outlawed now, but still I am the first of my Clan, as Owen was before me. And I have come here as he did, in search of help from my Family. Because if I fall, the Empire falls with me. As proof… I bear Owen's ring. The Deathstalker ring: sign and symbol of Clan authority."
    He held up his hand to show off the chunky black-gold ring, and the castle answered him. All the lights in the hall came on at once, fierce and powerful, blasting away the shadows of centuries. A great viewscreen appeared, floating above the cold fireplace. Images came and went swiftly, of faces familiar and unknown, but all of them Deathstalkers. A great beam of light, shimmering and silver, slammed down right next to Lewis, a spotlight so blinding and intense that