Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

kept up a good pace. Lewis was back in the lead again, and had to keep himself from pushing the pace too hard. Part of him was desperate to get to the Hadenman at last, and finally get some straight answers about Owen and the Maze. And part of him was really scared about what those answers might be. It is an intimidating thing, to meet legends in the flesh.
    About half a mile outsideMissionCity , they came across the rusting remains of some misguided logging company's attempt to introduce high tech equipment. The huge machines, several stories high, lay wrecked and abandoned in the jungle, half buried under crawling vines and slowly shifting scarlet foliage.
    Crimson tracers had invaded every grille and opening, and rain drops slid constantly down the red-rusted metal. Steel panels bulged outwards from the pressure of vegetable growth within, and dark, heavy branches had smashed through the steelglass windows. Shafts of light moved slowly across drooping cranes and saws and cutting arms. Like great beached whales of rusted steel defeated by slow, implacable forces, they were already overgrown and being absorbed by the scarlet jungle.
    When the party finally reached the exact coordinates provided by Hellen Adair, there was nothing there—just a small clearing in the middle of nowhere, no different from a dozen others they'd already passed through. Knee-high grass of a shocking pink undulated before them in slow rippling waves. Lewis and his companions looked about them, feeling distinctly upset. It had been a long walk, the rain was falling more heavily, and they were all feeling hot and sticky.
    "We've been sold a pup, haven't we?" said Brett. "I don't want to say I told you so, but I did. They never meant for us to talk to their precious pet oracle."
    "Hush, Brett," said Jesamine. "This is where we're meant to be, so there must be something here.
    Somewhere. Right, Lewis? Lewis?"
    "I'm thinking," said Lewis.
    "There is something here," Saturday said unexpectedly. The reptiloid turned his great head slowly back and forth. "I can feel… something. Perhaps because the jungle reminds me of home, a little… there's definitely something here that doesn't belong here."
    "So where is Moon?" said Brett. "Hiding up a tree, maybe? Lying down in the long grass, perhaps, having a bit of a snooze? We've been had! There's no one here! There isn't a hut or a dwelling or a big lump in the ground for as far as I can see, and I can see pretty damn far! And I'm wet. I hate being wet."
    "Something's here," said Saturday. "And it knows we're here."
    The ground trembled under their feet. The pink grass waved wildly, and then the center of the clearing bulged suddenly upwards, the ground cracking apart, throwing dark earth in all directions. Pale roots and tubers and wet crawling things surged up out of the broken earth and were thrust aside as a vast new shape emerged slowly and relentlessly from its earthy bed. A steel hull smeared with wet mud emerged from the gaping crevasse, rising up and up, until at last the wreck of an old-fashioned space yacht filled the clearing, buoyed up and brought to the surface again by the concentrated will of Tobias Moon and the Red Brain. The old ship slowly settled into its new place, half its bulk still sunken in the ground, the battered prow straining towards the overcast sky and open air for the first time in decades.
    "Dear God," said Lewis. "That's Owen's ship. That's Sunstrider Two. I'd know it anywhere."
    "Of course," said Jesamine. "They crash-landed here. The ship was never recovered. We're probably the first people to see it in two hundred years. Is Moon… inside it?"
    "I suppose so," said Lewis. "I guess… we go in."
    "Bad move," Brett said immediately. "That thing looks like a tomb to me. Or a prison. Or a trap. There could be anything in there. Anything."
    Rose slapped him affectionately round the back of the head. "All that weapons training I put you through, and you're still a scaredy cat."
    "I'm a live scaredy cat," said Brett, rubbing a bruised ear. "I can't help feeling there's a definite connection between the two."
    "We go in," said Lewis. "If Moon is in there, I really don't think we should keep him waiting." He smiled slowly. "Look at it. This is Owen's ship. It'll be like walking into legend, into his life…"
    "You're really easy to impress, Deathstalker, you know that?" said Brett. "All right, it's a famous ship, and I could probably arrange a really sweet salvage deal, if