Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

poisoned chalice that was the Madness Maze?
    Could they ever have a life together after this, or had he come all this way just to kill a monster, and die with her rather than become a monster himself? So many questions, and no answers at all. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to go on. Hazel was his love, and his responsibility, even if she’d never admitted it. He couldn’t leave her, mad and sorrowing, in the dark.
    He was getting close to . . . something. He could feel it.
    He broke out of the rainbow run, and dropped back into the slow steady course of time. Stars and planets reappeared around him, calm and stationary against the endless night. Owen wasn’t sure how far back he’d gone into the past, but once again he was hanging in orbit over the same familiar planet. Remembering how he’d been treated before, he surrounded himself with a powerful force shield and stealth screen, so that he could take a cautious look around before becoming involved, without having to worry about being observed or attacked.
    He swore briefly as he discovered he’d just missed Hazel again. She had been here recently, perhaps as little as a few weeks previously, but she was gone again, diving even further back into prehistory. But why had she stopped here, however briefly, in this particular moment of time and space? Owen reached out with his enlarged senses, and immediately detected something strange and yet somehow familiar, down on the surface of the planet below. It sort of reminded him of Hazel. Had she left something of herself behind? It was a strong presence, powerful but elusive, with fluctuating attributes that reminded him of his time inside the Madness Maze. It definitely wasn’t Hazel, but . . . Could some other Maze survivor have come back through time, pursuing him as he pursued Hazel?
    Owen pushed the mounting questions aside, so he could consider his own position. He listened in to the thousands of communication channels emanating from the planet below that was Logres, Golgotha, Heartworld, and now apparently simply the Hearth of Humanity. He sorted through the various frequencies, searching out the information he needed about exactly what lay below him. It seemed he had emerged in the far past, in the very first days of Empire, when Humanity had only just discovered the stardrive, and was setting out to explore the stars, to see what was there.
    Owen stopped listening, and looked around him. Great clumsy satellites whirled ponderously past, accompanied by all kinds of abandoned junk and tech; almost enough to make a planetary ring. Owen drifted slowly down towards Hearth, just enough to put himself safely underneath their various orbits and out of their way. Also in orbit were huge, ungainly starships, being slowly put together in orbiting docks by people in what looked like primitive hard suits. The unfinished ships bristled with all kinds of probably untested tech. This was the first wave of expansion, Humanity’s first great leap out into the unknown. These brave prototype ships looked nothing like the sleek and sophisticated craft of Owen’s time, and he had to admire the courage of the visionary men and women who were ready to trust their lives to new ships and a barely understood drive, in the service of Humanity’s oldest dream. To go to the stars . . .
    Owen went swiftly through the communication channels again, trying to get some feel for what kind of political setup he’d be facing this time. Apparently the Empire at this time consisted of the nine planets in the solar system, all of them terraformed or colonized to some degree, ruled more or less democratically by a Council of the Nine, based on Hearth. There was no throne, no Emperor. From what Owen could gather, Humanity was pretty much at peace with itself, and full of hope and good intentions.
    The road to Hell has always been paved with good intentions.
    Owen considered the planet turning so very slowly beneath him. He had to go down. He needed to know what it was, that felt to him like Hazel and the Maze and something more. And he was tired. He could use a rest. The pursuit could wait, for a while. After all, he had all the time in the world . . . And then his head snapped round, and he glared suspiciously into the dark. Something was coming his way, he could feel it, and it was heading straight for him. Even though nothing in this primitive age should have been able to detect his presence. He glared in the direction he knew