Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

again.
    Haden was basically one big desert now, made out of stone. The winds blew constantly, rising and falling, sometimes escalating suddenly into vicious dust storms that could leave a man lost and disoriented for hours. The temperature shifted from cold to colder and back again, and there was never a drop of rain. Just the endless dust. No living thing grew or thrived on Haden. All kinds of lifeforms had been introduced to Haden down the years, but none of them lived for long. There was no earth to grow things in, because it always dried up and blew away as dust. And even the hardiest creatures died out within one generation, no matter how carefully their ecostructures were planned. There had even been attempts to colonize Haden using clone populations tempted by massive land grants, but they all failed. People couldn't, wouldn't, live on Haden. Just being on the same planet as the Madness Maze affected human minds. People thought they heard and saw things, and they suffered from awful, unbearable dreams. They found themselves thinking things they couldn't understand, and feeling emotions they couldn't even name.
    Sometimes they built things they didn't know how to work. In the end, the colonists always refused to live any longer on a world that didn't want them. They pleaded to be rescued, though they couldn't say from what.
    The suicide rate was appalling. Human scientists working on the Maze had to be rotated and replaced on a regular basis, for their own protection.
    Lewis knew all these things. He'd studied the records on Haden for years. Because Owen had been there, and been changed there, and every Deathstalker wanted to know all there was to know about the most famous Deathstalker of all. Lewis had always planned to visit Haden someday. Now he was here, it felt like walking through a cemetery, where the dead might not be resting at all peacefully.
    Saturday didn't care for the planet at all, and said so loudly. She glared around her, flexing the vicious claws on her hands. "You shouldn't have brought us here, Deathstalker. This is a dead world. It has been artificially stirred to life again, but it has no soul."
    "For once, I have to agree with the reptiloid," said Brett. "Even if she is depressing the crap out of me.
    This place is severely spooky. I keep thinking something's going to jump out at me. Even though there's nothing here for anything to jump out from behind. Is that a sentence? I don't care! This is the first time I've wanted to run away from an entire planet!"
    "You're babbling, Brett," said Jesamine.
    "I know! It's either that or burst into tears and have a major panic attack! My balls have retracted back where they came from, and I wish I could follow them. Nothing good can come from a world like this.
    Something's watching, can't you feel it?"
    "No," said Jesamine, but her voice wasn't as firm as it might have been.
    "I like it here," said Rose.
    "You would," said Brett. "And stop trying to hold my hand. It doesn't help."
    A single path led off across the great stone plain, connecting the landing pads to the scientists' town. In fact, it was the only path on Haden, and it had to be constantly watched and maintained. Ten feet wide, it was made from hammered steel, and was strong enough to support several tons, but still the whole surface was covered in cracks and dents, and burnished to a dull gray sheen by the corrosive force of the dust storms. Sometimes, the path just fell apart. No one knew why.
    Lewis led the way, and the only reason he didn't already have his gun and his sword in his hands was because he didn't want to spook the others even more than they already were. Someone was watching.
    Every warrior's instinct he had was yelling it at him. The others wanted to crowd in together for comfort, but Lewis made them separate out, so they wouldn't get in each other's way if there was an attack. Lewis was feeling jumpy as hell, and it bothered him. He'd never felt this jumpy.
    The gusting wind battered them all harshly, the dust rasping like sandpaper across their exposed skin.
    Tears ran down their faces from smarting eyes. Lewis pulled Saturday forward, and put her in the lead.
    The dust didn't bother her scales, and her great bulk offered some protection for the others. Luckily she wasn't cold-blooded, or she'd have been frozen solid by now.
    There was nothing else to see, once they left the landing field behind them. Just the endless stone plain, and the town on the horizon,