Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

below cheered out again to see it, but the espers didn’t notice. They fought to focus every bit of power they had through Diana Vertue. It was a terrible thing to come face-to-face with their progenitor, after all these years. They had found at last their founder and creator, only to discover she was a mad god that wished only to devour her children. But the oversoul still had a few tricks up its sleeve. A few hints from the precogs. The oversoul sent down Crow Jane and the Ecstatic called Joy, to join the others in the court.
    Standing alone before the last throne, Alicia didn’t actually look like much. Just a small, short, blond woman in an old-fashioned spacer’s uniform, the only mark of strangeness about her the huge dark eyes that dominated her small pale face. The kind of woman you’d pass every day and never give a second look. But even though she’d turned off her glow, her presence was still stamped upon the court, like a boot crashing into a face. She dominated the whole court by her very existence.
    Behind her, a man and a woman entered the court, striding along side by side. Alessandra Duquesne, last of the Psycho Sluts, and John Silence, last of the old legends. She had dropped down out of the sky and snatched him up from the thick of the fighting. She carried him towards the palace, and Because we’re needed was all she had to say. Silence went along with it. He was used to sudden changes in direction in his life. At first, Alessandra had been a little confused, thinking there was someone else with Silence, but she pushed the thought aside to concentrate on getting to the palace as fast as possible. Why are you crying? Silence had asked, and she told him about having to kill her oldest friend. Silence had nodded, understanding. Rebellions always kill your friends first, he said, remembering Alexander Storm, and others.
    Silence and Alessandra circled carefully around Alicia, giving her plenty of room. They could feel the power radiating from her. They joined Douglas and Finn and Diana before the throne. They’d heard Alicia tell her strange history as they approached the court. They told the King and Emperor of the collapse of the thrall armies, and Douglas nodded, relieved there was at least one problem that he didn’t have to be worried about for the moment. He nodded to Silence.
    “I understand you’re really the legendary Captain John Silence. Why did you masquerade as Samuel Chevron for all those years? Did my father know?”
    “No,” said Silence. “No one knew. That was the point. I felt it best to conceal my true nature.”
    “Lot of that going around at the moment,” said Douglas.
    And then Crow Jane materialized in court right next to them, along with Joy, and they all jumped. Crow Jane wore her battered leather jacket, with a bandolier of throwing stars across her bosom. Her sharp face looked even paler than usual, showing off her jet-black hair and lips and heavy eye makeup. Joy, whose brain had been surgically altered so that he lived in a constant state of orgasm, smiled brightly on one and all, an average, almost anonymous-looking man in a simple white tunic. Crow Jane nodded briskly to Diana.
    “The oversoul sent us. No one seems too sure why, but our precogs were unanimous that Joy needs to be here. Don’t ask me what good he’s going to do, unless he intends on smiling Alicia to death.”
    “I am here,” Joy said politely, “because this is where I’m supposed to be. And how often can you say that with any surety? Hello, Alicia!” And then he wandered off to look at some walls.
    “I feel so much safer,” Finn said to Douglas. “Don’t you?”
    John Silence nodded uncomfortably to his daughter Diana. They moved a little aside, so that they could talk privately. They knew they should have been concentrating on Alicia, but it seemed like they had all the time in the world, to say all the things that needed to be said.
    “Been a long time, Father,” said Diana. “Since we last met in person. A hundred and eighteen years.”
    “I’ve been busy,” said Silence.
    “You never were much of a father,” said Diana, without heat. “Always ready to sacrifice your own daughter to the greater good. First on Unseeli, back when we were both still only human, and then . . .”
    “I did what I thought was necessary,” said Silence, meeting his daughter’s angry gaze with old, tired eyes.
    “You betrayed me to the uber-espers! You led me into an ambush, and then