Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

expendable, Stuart,” said Douglas. “That’s what the rebellion’s all about.”
    “I still get to stand between you and all danger, Your Majesty. So hold your ground here, while I open the door and then throw Tel in to check for traps and ambushes.”
    “I don’t find that at all funny,” said Tel. “Does anybody find that funny?”
    “I think it’s a bloody good idea,” said Nina. “I never trusted you, even when you were just a politician. You’ve got shifty eyes.”
    Stuart pushed the door slowly inwards, and the hanging chains rattled loudly. A cloud of stinking steam wafted out that had them all wincing and pulling faces. The steam curled slowly around them, moist and heavy and unpleasantly warm. It was rank with unfamiliar elements that brought tears to the eye and a nasty taste in the back of the mouth. Stuart braced himself, and stepped forward into the gloom beyond the door. There was an uncomfortably long pause, and then he reappeared again.
    “No one around. The lighting gets better as you go further in, but the steam’s everywhere. I’d say it was all clear, but it manifestly isn’t. We’re being watched, I can feel it. The air smells like the Devil’s armpit, but it seems breathable enough. There are freshly daubed signs on the walls to point the way. It’s not too late to call this off, Douglas. These aliens have no cause to like or trust humans anymore. Especially not a King who in the end couldn’t protect them.”
    “That’s not fair!” said Nina.
    “Yes, it is,” said Douglas. “I was their King too. It was my job to protect them.”
    Nina scowled unhappily, and looked back at Stuart. “Nikki said there’d be someone in there waiting to meet us.”
    Stuart shrugged. “No sign of anyone. Or anything. Do we go in, Douglas?”
    “Of course,” said Douglas. “We need them.”
    He allowed Stuart to lead the way back in, but wouldn’t let him draw a weapon. Diplomacy first, he said. Funerals after, Nina muttered as she and Tel brought up the rear. The door slammed itself shut behind them, which surprised nobody. The tiled walls ran with moisture, the original patterns and designs mostly worn away. The ceiling dripped constantly, but was still a relief after the driving rain. The tiled floor was covered over with a thin gray slush that might or might not have had a purpose, but made the footing distinctly treacherous. The steam billowed more thickly around them the farther in they went, and left a distinct chemical taste on the back of the tongue. Freshly painted arrows, in what might have been alien blood, pointed the way.
    They splashed carefully along a series of narrow corridors, following the signs and keeping a wary watch on all sides. Stuart insisted on keeping a few yards ahead of the others, so taut now that he was practically vibrating with tension. Douglas made a point of appearing carefree and relaxed. Nina and Tel huddled together for comfort, both clearly wishing they were somewhere else. They began to hear sounds up ahead. Slow, heavy impacts of something large moving ponderously through the corridors. Groans and hootings and strange clicking clacking noises. Splashing sounds, the gurgling of running water, and the steady rush of thick liquids moving through concealed pipes. The steam was getting thicker. And finally they came to what used to be the main swimming area.
    The pool was huge, and full of chemically treated waters, in which swam the larger aliens. In its heyday, it would have taken a thousand human bathers to fill the pool, but now it held barely a hundred large and languorous forms. The steam and the water hid most of their details, for which the humans were frankly grateful. The aliens were large bluish-gray shapes, bulbous and undulating, with long barbed tentacles and rows of great staring eyes. They could never have appeared at Parliament, except as holos. Other aliens shared the waters, drifting slowly here and there and rising up to study their visitors. There were scales and carapaces and slick furs, limbs and tails and protuberances that made no sense at all. Down at the bottom of the pool floated great flowering masses with exaggerated sense organs and trailing roots.
    All the aliens who could tolerate Logres’s gravity only if their weight was to some extent supported by the water were in the pool. More species stood watching on the marble floor around the pool—some humanoid, some reptiloid, some fungal, all of them glistening