Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

of ship or flier, and so was surprised to see two human forms sailing towards him. They seemed to move under their own power, wrapped in shimmering silver force shields, like two suits of perfectly fitted armor. Their faces were blank mirrors, with no obvious sensors, but slight humps on both their backs suggested some kind of propulsion unit. The force suits fit closely enough for Owen to be sure his visitors were one male and one female. They slowed to a controlled halt a cautious distance away from the cage, and looked Owen over carefully. He gave them a cheerful wave. It didn’t seem to reassure either of them.
    Pops and crackles sounded in his ears, through his comm implant, and he realized they were trying to talk to him. He waited impatiently for his comm link to find the right frequency, but when their voices finally came through clearly, he was shocked to find they spoke with an accent and a dialect so obscure and so extreme that he could barely make out one word in ten. Owen tried to talk to them, and it was clear they couldn’t understand him either. A thousand years can change a language completely. So Owen reached out and took the knowledge he needed directly from their minds, so he could talk in their tongue. He hadn’t known he could do that, until he did it. Apparently the changes he was going through affected his mind as well as his body.
    “Hi,” he said. “I’m Owen. Just a visitor, passing through. Who are you?”
    “I am Dominic Cairo,” said the male voice. “Defender of Humanity. My associate is the Investigator Glory Chojiro. From what far place have you come, and how is it you are able to survive cold vacuum without protection?”
    “Ah,” said Owen. “You’re really not going to like the answer to that.”
    “And yet we must insist upon an answer,” said the harsh female voice. “We defend Heartworld, and have responsibility for this sector. Under the authority of the Emperor Ethur, we require an answer.”
    “All right,” said Owen. “I’m from the future. About a thousand years further on. Don’t ask me how I got here, it would only upset you. I only have to think about the implications of what I’m doing, and I start to whimper. May I ask why you’ve bottled me up in this cage? Is this how you greet all your visitors?”
    “Just certain special cases, such as yourself,” said Dominic. “You had better come with us.”
    “Do I have a choice?” said Owen.
    “What do you think?” said Glory.
    She gestured imperiously at the six satellites, and they moved obediently after her as she started back the way she’d come. Dominic moved easily beside her, comfortable at her side, as though he belonged there. Partners, of some kind, Owen decided. He was a little surprised to find they had Investigators this far back, and what the hell was a Defender of Humanity? Was there a war on, with some alien species? The history of the First Empire was full of holes, on small and large matters. Owen’s historian soul rubbed its hands together eagerly. The things he’d be able to tell his academic peers when he got back . . .
    If he got back . . .
    Owen allowed the energy cage to tow him along behind Dominic and Glory. He was pretty sure by now that he could break out of it anytime he wanted, but he was interested to see where he was being taken. The journey turned out to be a long, slow process, and Owen was soon bored enough to seriously consider taking charge and speeding things up a bit, but he thought he’d better not. He didn’t want to freak out his new friends just yet. They seemed enough on edge already. So Owen just settled back and watched the stars, the satellites, and the huge ships coming and going. Occasionally he reached out and rewrote the markings on their hulls, just for the fun of it.
    The planet that would one day be called Golgotha but was now Heartworld had only the single moon, and that was apparently where they were going. Owen was mildly curious. In his time, the moon was just a dumping ground for toxic waste, in the great caverns under the surface. The moon loomed up before him, a great expanse of cold gray rock. A single huge tower thrust up from the surface, a solid steel block with no obvious openings or markings. Owen asked what it was, and Dominic curtly replied, the Spike, which wasn’t as informative as Owen had hoped.
    They all descended towards the Spike, which turned out to be surrounded by a high intensity force field. Owen could feel it,