Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

hell of a lot chancier.
    And then the Durandal's fleet appeared on the horizon, and there was no more time. Crow Jane sank into the welcoming embrace of the oversoul, one mind becoming many, as every esper onNew Hope joined into a single magnificent effort of will. The whole city blazed with light, brilliant and blinding, and even miles off in the distance everyone in Finn's fleet cried out and had to turn their eyes away. The floating city, ten miles wide and five high, began to shake. Millions of minds concentrated as one, andNew Hope shook and shuddered as slowly, slowly, it began to rise. A great psionic pressure thundered on the air—a mental presence so strong that people all over Logres could feel it. The city ofNew Hope rose up through the rapidly thin-ning air, moving faster and faster, surrounded by its own shimmering force field, all of this power generated solely by esper minds working in unison. Far below, helpless on his gravity sled, Finn Durandal watched his prey escaping, and howled with rage. Even his armored gravity barges couldn't follow whereNew Hope was going.New Hope emerged from Logres's atmosphere and moved into orbit, leaving the world behind. The whole city glowed fiercely, a new star in the night.
    The Icarus Working.
    Left behind, Finn Durandal yelled into his comm net for the nearest starcruisers to change course and intercept the fleeing city. But the only ship in range was the Hammer. It moved ponderously round the curve of the world, heading forNew Hope . It had barely moved into sensor range when all its systems
    failed. Computers crashed, backups aborted, and everything that could go wrong did. Life support systems collapsed, lights flickered on and off, the artificial gravity failed, and sudden fires broke out all through the ship. The Hammer drifted further and further off course, and began the slow fall towards Logres. It had flown too close to the new sun in the heavens, and its wings had burned.
    The oversoul concentrated one last time, andNew Hope disappeared—hidden, undetectable behind its own stealth shields. The oversoul looked upon its works, saw them to be good, and considered where to go next.
    While the oversoul was still planning its escape from Logres, Donal Corcoran was planning his escape from the asylum he was being held in. Corcoran was the first man to have looked upon the face of the Terror—at a great distance, and via his ship's sensors—but he had looked upon the face of the Medusa, and the experience had marked him forever. He no longer thought as other men did. Medication didn't affect him, even in what would have been toxic doses for anyone else. He didn't eat or drink anymore, and he hadn't slept in months. He still wore his old spacer's uniform, now ragged and filthy, and he hadn't shaved or washed or even combed his hair since he'd been dragged screaming from the bridge of his ship in a strait-jacket. He was being kept in a high-security asylum disguised as a country house, while doctors and scientists studied him from as safe a distance as possible.
    But Donal Corcoran had had enough of that. He plotted awful revenges against the Terror, for what it had done to him, and for that he needed to be free.
    Part of his disturbed mind was always in contact with the Terror. As though it had taken part of his mind with it when it disappeared back into the place it came from, the place that wasn't a place. The Terror was always there on the edges of his thoughts, like a nightmare waiting to begin. Sometimes he thought it could see him too, and the thought made him whimper and bite his fingers. But he could see the place the Terror came from, even when it wasn't there; a space beyond space. It was as real to him as the place that imprisoned him. It drew and terrified him, like a hunger for poisonous things.
    It was his way out.
    So one evening when the shadows seemed particularly dark and restless, Donal Corcoran went walking through the grounds of the country house. The lawns were a vivid green, newly wet from the sprinklers.
    Wide blooming flowers perfumed the air with their scent, and the trees were very solid, but none of it was real, any more than the house was really a house. The house was an asylum, and the grounds were mostly holo images, backed up by sound recordings and programmed smells. Donal could see right through them when he chose, though of course he never told the doctors that. Sometimes he could see right through them too. Donal went