Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

the other people are real or not," said Ramirez. "But he's been killing them nonstop, in increasingly nasty and inventive ways, for two hundred years. If the cell force screens ever do go down, the very first thing we're going to do is shoot that bloodthirsty bastard with every gun we've got."
    "Oh, I don't know," said Finn. "He has possibilities."
    "Going to throw him at the Terror, are you?" said Ramirez. "Oh, yes, he'll be a lot of use against something that eats planets!"
    Finn looked at Ramirez. "Now, now, Doctor," he murmured. "Who knows what other… abilities any of these people might have, outside their cells? Even the blessed Owen didn't become a living god immediately; he had to grow into his powers over time."
    In the next cell, a woman sat cross-legged, smiling at nothing. Her eyes were fixed on something far away.
    "She's been smiling nonstop for two centuries," said Ramirez heavily. "Never been known to speak or move, but one thing every scientist who's seen her agrees on, is that… that's a really disturbing smile.
    Like she knows something nobody else knows."
    "Oh, I've seen a lot of that," said Dr. Happy. "Trust me, it doesn't mean anything."
    The next occupant all but filled his cell; a huge dark fleshy mass that pressed against the walls and floor and ceiling, but held back from touching the force screen. It had no discernable human details, just a great mass, slowly moving.
    "Apparently he looked perfectly normal when he went into the cell," said Ramirez. "But he's been growing steadily for two hundred years. Hopefully he'll stop once he's completely filled all the space available."
    "And if he doesn't?" said Finn.
    Ramirez shrugged. "That's up to the Maze."
    In the next cell, a woman slowly faded in and out of reality, disappearing and returning, silently screaming for help. She reached out her hands to the people outside her cell, begging for them to do something.
    "She can see us, but she can't hear us," said Ramirez. "We don't know where she goes to, or how she comes back. Or how to keep her here. Whatever powers she hoped to find in the Maze, I can't believe this was it."
    Finn found the occupant of the final cell the most disturbing, mostly because the occupant looked exactly like Finn Durandal. The two Finns stared at each other in silence for a while. The double was exact, down to the tiniest details of face, stance, and clothing. He smiled amiably back at Finn.
    "Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?" he said calmly. "I become anyone who looks at me. Anyone at all. And not just the exterior; I am you, inside and out. I know everything you know, including all the things no one else is supposed to know."
    The original Finn raised an elegant eyebrow. "A telepath, I take it?"
    "Perhaps," said his double. "Or perhaps nothing so crude. I am you, in every way that matters. If you were to die, I could step into your life and take it over, and no one would be able to tell the difference.
    "I doubt that," said Finn. "It's a matter of style, you see."
    "I know everything you're afraid of, Finn. And you're afraid of so many things, deep down, aren't you?
    Come on, you can admit it to yourself. Admit that you're afraid that you're not strong enough and smart enough to do all the things that have to be done. Admit that you worry constantly about being found out.
    Admit that you're scared you have no heart…"
    "I'm not afraid of that," Finn said calmly. "I glory in it."
    He turned his back on the double, and walked back up the aisle. The others followed him out of the aisle
    and back round the corner into the steel corridor, leaving the cells and their occupants behind. Finn then stopped and stood still, and thought silently for a long time, and none of the others cared to interrupt him.
    "They're all secure," he said finally, as much to himself as anyone. "We don't have to worry about any of them escaping. The Maze knows what it's doing."
    "Just as well," said Ramirez. "If any of them weren't crazy to begin with, they sure as hell are now, after all they've endured. But there are security cameras covering the aisle and this corridor twenty-four hours a day, just in case. Not that we have any way of stopping them if they do get out; it's just to give the rest of us a good running start to get safely offplanet."
    Finn looked at the Shub robot. "You have no ideas on how to penetrate the force screens?"
    "Not at present," said the robot. "Though I feel I should point out that even if we could