Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

nothing else in the warehouse, except the cold and the shadows. Diana checked the other bodies. Of the seven she’d put aside, only three were still alive. Diana brushed away the dust from one viewport, and a gray mummified face stared back up at her. Seeing her own dead face gave her a bad moment, but Diana was made of hard stuff, and she made herself turn away and put her new body through a series of exercises, designed to get the blood moving properly again. It had been a long time since she’d felt . . . human. The body didn’t feel quite the way she remembered. There were differences. In some ways, it felt like haunting an uninhabited house.
    And she wasn’t used to feeling so alone, cut off from the other minds of the oversoul. She could have reached them with her thoughts; Mistworld wasn’t that far away for a powerful mind like hers, but she couldn’t risk the contact. They might object to the things she’d done and the secrets she’d hidden, even from them. Besides, she needed to be a mystery, to her enemies and her allies. Keeping them unsure meant keeping them off balance. She allowed herself a distant kind of contact with her new followers, the Psycho Sluts. They were keen and sharp and enthusiastic, and openly worshiped her, which was a useful thing in itself, but she couldn’t let even them get too close. She was a monster now, just like Finn. She’d sacrificed the lives and the souls of the seven women who would have been her clones, on the altar of her necessity.
    But then, whether as Diana Vertue or as Jenny Psycho, she’d always been able to do the harsh, necessary things.
    Just like her father.
    She enjoyed the company of the Psycho Sluts, though it was no match for the closeness of the oversoul, and did her best to be honest with them when she could. They wanted to know about how things really were, back in the days of the Great Rebellion, the history rather than the legend, and Diana told them, even when it made her look bad. She’d never cared about being a hero or a legend, except when she could turn it to her advantage. But . . . Was there never anyone special in your life? Alessandra had asked, and Diana was surprised to find she didn’t have an answer, except . . . There was never time, or room, in the life I had to lead, for anyone but me.
    Diana Vertue increased the length of her stride, hurrying through the narrow streets, trying to leave such disturbing thoughts behind her. She was back, and she had much to do. And if inhabiting her stolen clone body made her feel just a little like one of the possessor ELFs, she tried hard not to think about it. Monsters did what they had to.

    Meanwhile, the Emperor Finn was having his own problems. Since most of the transmutation engines were lost or destroyed in the battle, or, more properly, balls-up at Mog Mor, he had lost one of his most potent threats for keeping the other planets in line. If the people knew how few engines he actually had left, he’d be fighting off rebellions all across the Empire. He needed a replacement threat fast, before some damned hero dared to call his bluff. He’d heard of what the rebel fleet had done to the engines he’d left orbiting Virimonde, showing how vulnerable the things were to a surprise attack by a strong enough force.
    So Finn went to see his pet clone master, Elijah du Katt, to see how his cloned army was coming along. He’d ordered five million new soldiers, all based on his own genetic makeup, but du Katt had only just produced the first batch, of under half a million. And the advance word on their condition . . . wasn’t all he’d hoped for. Sometimes, Finn thought, things wouldn’t go right if you killed them, chopped them up, and distributed the parts as party favors.
    Du Katt’s laboratory was one of the most heavily guarded locations within the Imperial Palace. Finn preferred to keep his friends and allies close, where he could keep a watchful eye on them. Du Katt had one of the clone prototypes waiting for Finn when he breezed in. The lab itself was spotlessly clean, everything in its place, but it was perhaps just a little too brightly lit, too carefully arranged. Finn sighed inwardly. The odds were du Katt was running his own private projects again, and had tidied away the evidence a bit too thoroughly on hearing Finn was coming. Still, that was a matter for another time. Finn stood right in front of du Katt and the clone, and was pleased to see his proximity made the tic by