Owen made his way through the scarlet and crimson jungle to join Moon. He looked intent and thoughtful and didn’t seem to even notice the pouring rain. The lepers nodded and bowed as he passed, and turned to watch him go. There was new strength and purpose in him, and they could sense it. So could Moon. He fixed Owen with his faintly glowing golden eyes and raised a single eyebrow.
“I take it a ship of some sort is on its way?”
“Got it in one, Tobias. Be here early tomorrow. I need you to do something for me.”
“If I can. What did you have in mind?”
“Go back through the jungle to where we first crash-landed, find the wreck of the
Sunstrider II,
remove the stardrive, and bring it back here.”
Moon lowered his eyebrow, and thought about this. “You have a use for a disconnected stardrive?”
“Oh yes. The
Sunstrider II
was fitted with the new alien-derived stardrive. Whatever ship I put that drive into will be one of the fastest ships in the Empire. And I’m going to need that edge, to get to Hazel in time. Do it for me, Tobias. I need this.”
“When do you want me to start out?”
“Right now would be good.”
Moon considered the matter. All work had stopped as the lepers listened to see what he would say. Moon finally shrugged. He hadn’t quite got the gesture right yet, but it was recognizable. “The tree felling is pretty much finished. My people can finish up on their own. Very well; I’ll put together a small party, and go get you your stardrive, Owen. But please understand; when you leave here, you go alone. I share your concern for Hazel, but I cannot abandon the people here. I am their only link with the Red Brain, at present. I have ... responsibilities here.”
“It’s all right,” said Owen. “I understand. I’ve always understood duty.”
They smiled at each other, both understanding this might be the last time they were ever together. The lepers slowly got back to work, for once not driven by a tongue lashing from Sister Marion. Owen looked about for her, and finally discovered her sitting on a tree stump, staring tiredly down at the ground, her hands neatly together in her lap. Her shoulders were bowed as though by some great weight, and her head hung down as though it were too heavy for her neck muscles to support. Even the ribbons from her hat were hanging limply down.
“She doesn’t look too good,” said Owen.
“She’s dying,” said Moon. “She’s in the last stages of the disease, and her strength is leaking out of her day by day.”
“I didn’t know,” said Owen, honestly shocked. It was hard to think of the invincible warrior nun being beaten by anything less than a sword thrust or a disrupter bolt. He knew she was a leper, but he’d always vaguely thought she was too stubborn to give in to it. “How long has she been like this?”
“Some time now. Don’t feel bad for not noticing. You had your own problems. There was nothing you could have done, anyway. It’s just her time. Leprosy is a one hundred percent fatal disease. No one gets out alive. She insists on helping out here, making the most of what’s left of her life before she has to be confined to the infirmary for her last days. She’ll hate that. Just lying around, unable to interfere in everyone else’s life. I asked her if she’d made her peace with God, and she just laughed, and said
We never quarreled.
I think I’ll take her with me, when we go to get the
Sunstrider II.
One last adventure for her.”
“Why, Tobias,” said Owen. “I do believe you’re growing sentimental.”
“I’m working on it,” said the Hadenman.
The trip through the jungle to the crashed starship went much more easily than the original trip from the crash to the Mission. This time the crimson vegetation writhed back out of their way, forming a wide path for Moon and Sister Marion, and the half dozen lepers they’d brought along to fetch and carry as necessary. The rain was coming straight down and hard, soaking the lepers’ gray robes, and plastering Sister Marion’s purple streamers to the side of her hat. Moon wasn’t bothered at all by the constant lukewarm rain, but had enough sense by now to keep such comments to himself. He linked briefly with the Red Brain, and wide purple palm leaves stretched out over the trail to deflect some of the rain. The ground squelched underfoot, and collecting rainwater squelched inside everyone’s boots. Nobody had much to say. If the Deathstalker himself hadn’t asked for this expedition, even the presence of Moon and Sister Marion couldn’t have kept the lepers from rebelling and turning back, but the lepers would do anything for Owen.
Owen himself was back at the Mission. He wanted to be there on the landing pad the moment the courier ship touched down.
Sister Marion lurched suddenly as the muddy ground gave under her boots. Moon put out a helping hand, and then quickly withdrew it as the Sister glared at him, mopping at her face for the hundredth time with a tattered handkerchief from her tattered sleeve.
“Hate the jungle. Trees black as coal and plants the color of blood and organs. And it stinks too.”
“Rotting vegetation on the ground produces the mulch from which new life arises,” said Moon.
Sister Marion snorted. “Yeah. Even the prettiest rose has its roots in shit. I’ve always known that. Rain and stink and a jungle that looks like a living abattoir. No wonder we were sent here; no one else would have wanted this place.”
“We’re almost at the crash site,” said Moon. “Not much further now.”
“Did I ask?” snapped Sister Marion.
“I thought you might like to know. It’s in the clearing, right ahead.”
“Hate the rain,” growled the nun, looking at the ground. “Never liked rain.”
When they finally entered the clearing, everyone stopped just inside the boundary. After a certain amount of confused peering about, the lepers turned a hard look on Moon. The clearing was just like all the others they’d already slogged through, overrun with crimson and scarlet vegetation, with no sign anywhere of a crashed starship. Sister Marion turned ominously, slowly to Moon.
“If you’re about to announce that you’re lost, I may find it necessary to kick your augmented backside up around your ears till your insides rattle, for the good of your soul.”
“No need to put yourself out,” said Moon. “This is the place. We cannot see the ship because the jungle has swallowed it.”
“Let’s just hope it hasn’t bloody digested it as well.” Sister Marion broke off suddenly. She started to raise a hand to her head, and then stopped herself deliberately. The gloved hand was clearly shaking, but no one commented.
“It’s going to take a while to retrieve the ship,” said Moon carefully. “Why don’t you find somewhere relatively dry and sit down for a while, Sister? You’re tired.”
“I’m dying, Hadenman. I’m always tired.” She shook her head slowly, and sat down carefully on a half-rotten tree trunk. Moon gestured at the other lepers, and they moved away to give him and the Sister a little privacy. The nun sighed quietly. “What is the world coming to when the only person I’ve got to talk to is a bloody Hadenman? Mother Beatrice is too busy, the Deathstalker’s got his own problems, and the other lepers ... are too afraid of me. So that just leaves you.”
“You can always talk to me,” said Moon. “All the information I have been programmed with is at your disposal.”
Sister Marion stared out into the clearing for a long time, the rain pattering loudly on and around her. “I know I shouldn’t be bitter,” she said finally. “But I can’t help it. So much left to do here, and I won’t be around to see things get done properly. Who’ll look after Bea when I’m gone, and stop her working herself to death?”
“I’ll be here,” said Moon. “I’ll watch over her. But you mustn’t give in, Sister. You’re a fighter. A Sister of Glory.”
“I’m a leper. And I’ve always known that’s a death sentence. I just thought ... I’d have more time. We’re all dying here, Moon. You mustn’t feel guilty that you can’t save us, the way you saved our Mission.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” said Moon. “That’s Owen’s job.”
They both managed a small smile at that.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” said Moon. “We fought off armies of Hadenmen and Grendels, but we can’t save you from a stupid disease.”
“Yeah, well, that’s life. Or rather death. God sends us out, and he calls us home. Get on with it, Moon; find your damned ship. Be useful.”
Moon paused uncertainly. He wanted to comfort her, but didn’t really know how. Owen would have told him to follow his instincts, but Moon wasn’t sure he had any. So rather than say the wrong thing, he just nodded and turned away to survey the great open clearing before him. He knew exactly where the
Sunstrider II
had made its final violent landing. Moon remembered everything, and was never wrong. Unlike humans, he was unable to forget anything. Though sometimes he thought there were things he might choose not to remember if he could.
He put the thought aside for later contemplation, reached out with his Maze-enlarged mind, and made contact with the overconsciousness called the Red Brain. It was like plunging into a vast cool ocean, alive with endless points of light, a billion plants fused into a single mind larger than even Moon was comfortable dealing with. Once, he had been part of the Hadenmen massmind, but the Red Brain was larger and wilder and almost terrifyingly free, and only its glacially slow plant thoughts enabled Moon to deal with it without being swamped. Moon and the Red Brain moved together, linked but still separate, like a single whale singing its songs to a sentient sea. And when the Hadenman asked the Red Brain to return the
Sunstrider II,
it was happy to oblige.
Moon dropped back into his own body, and not for the first time was struck by how small and fragile it seemed. He had a feeling he was growing out of it, like a set of children’s clothes. He put that thought aside too, as the clearing before him began to shade and shudder. The ground rumbled under his feet, and the scarlet and crimson plants waved wildly. Moon calmly called the lepers back to join him and Sister Mario, and they wasted no time in obeying. The ground in the center of the clearing bulged suddenly upward, cracking raggedly apart. Plants were torn up by the roots and thrown aside, displaced by the upthrusting earth beneath, but they were only small parts of the massmind, and easily sacrificed. The earth growled and rumbled as something buried deep below was slowly forced to the surface again. Those plants in the clearing mobile enough did their best to get out of the way as the great rent in the earth bulged open, forced apart by the sudden rebirth of the
Sunstrider II.
It lurched to a halt, buoyed up by the thrusting earth and vegetation beneath it, and slowly settled into its new berth. The earth settled down, the plants came to rest again, and everything in the clearing grew still. Moon looked the crashed starship over critically. It looked like hell.
But then, it had been one hell of a hard landing. The mud-smeared outer hull was split open in several places, and the rear assembly was mostly ripped away. There were signs of extensive fire damage, outside and in, and most of the sensor spikes were gone. Which was precisely why Owen had only sent him to retrieve the stardrive; the only part of the ship likely to have survived intact. Moon thought of the approaching courier ship. Someone was in for a surprise. Moon smiled slightly, and turned his attention back to the crashed ship. It only took a few moments to call up the blueprints, and locate a reasonably wide crack in the outer hull, not too far from the engine section. With a little luck, and a certain amount of brute force, he should be able to reach the stardrive fairly easily. He looked back at Sister Marion.
“I’ll enter the ship alone. Make sure everyone else keeps their distance unless I call for them. The stardrive is based on poorly understood alien technology, and radiates forces and energies that are highly inimical to human tissues. The drive should be safely contained within its casing, and therefore theoretically safe, but there’s no telling how much the casing may have suffered in the crash.”
“What if the casing’s cracked, and the drive’s compromised?” said Sister Marion.
“Prolonged exposure would be quite deadly. In which case ... we will have to abandon it. The jungle can bury it again, deep enough to keep it safe from any risk of exposure. But let us think positively. Owen needs that drive.”
“If the emanations are that dangerous, you shouldn’t be going in at all,” said Sister Marion sharply.
“I am a Hadenman,” said Moon. “And I have been through the Madness Maze. That makes me very difficult to kill.”
“And too bloody cocky for your own good. You watch yourself in there.”
“Yes, Sister. If anything should go wrong, you and your people are not to come in after me. Whatever the circumstances. Go back and get Owen. Is that clear?”
“Oh, get on with it. We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Moon moved slowly across the clearing, treading carefully through the tattered vegetation and thrown-up soil to reach the crashed ship. It had been a beautiful yacht once. Now it was just so much scrap metal, with perhaps one last valuable prize left within. Moon made his way cautiously down the side of the ship, peering in through the wide rents in the outer hull. His internal sensors reported low-level radiation, nothing for him to worry about. The airlock was impassable. He finally reached the wide vent by the engine section. The radiation level jumped alarmingly, but Moon felt sure he could tolerate it for as long as needed. There were other forces at play too, none of which he recognized, but he’d expected that. He accessed his computer again, and then used the disrupter built into his left wrist to perform a little necessary surgery on the interior beyond the gap in the hull. He stuck his head into the gap, and pierced the darkness with his glowing golden eyes. The engine section was fairly close at hand, but still concealed by several layers of shielding. Cutting through them with the disrupter would take hours, and he didn’t think even he could sustain that much radiation contamination without harm. Which only left him one option.