"What the hell was that for?"
"I didn't like the way that building was looking at me," said Bonnie calmly.
Owen struggled to hold on to his temper. "Well, if the Hadenmen didn't know we were here before, they sure as hell do now!"
"You're welcome," said Bonnie.
"Uh, Owen," said Hazel quietly. "I think we can definitely assume they know exactly where we are."
Owen looked around to discover a small army of Hadenmen had appeared out of nowhere, in utter silence, and now surrounded them on all sides. Owen decided he was going to stand very still and hoped the others had the sense to do the same. There had to be a least a hundred of the augmented men, tall and perfect and standing utterly still with poised, inhuman grace. None of them were carrying obvious weapons. They didn't need any. They were weapons. Their faces were completely expressionless, though their eyes burned with a golden glare, as though small nuclear fires burned in each eyeball. Owen looked at Hazel, and they both pointed their guns at the ground, just so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. Bonnie was looking a bit restless, so Midnight gripped her right arm firmly with one hand, just in case. For a long moment the humans and the Hadenmen just stood and looked at each other, the Hadenmen augmented by human tech, the others enlarged by the alien tech of the Madness Maze. None of them strictly human anymore.
Owen thought furiously. This was exactly the kind of confrontation he'd hoped to avoid by sneaking into the city by the sewers. But Owen still had hopes of negotiating some kind of deal. Even after all he'd seen of the Hadenmen's past atrocities, he still believed in talking rather than fighting whenever possible. He had to. It was either that, or give in to the way of the warrior, to blood and fury and the beast. And Owen had seen enough death and destruction in his life. He looked cautiously for someone who looked like a leader or spokesperson, and then tensed as one of the augmented men suddenly stepped forward.
"Hello, Owen," said the Hadenman in a harsh, buzzing voice. "Remember me?"
"My God," said Owen slowly. "Moon? Is that you?"
"Yes," said Tobias Moon. "Your old companion. They rebuilt me after I was destroyed by the Grendel on lost Haden. Hello, Hazel."
"It's been a while, Moon," said Hazel. She holstered her gun and held out a hand for him to shake. After a moment Moon took her hand in his and shook it carefully, mindful of his greater strength. The Hadenman's hand was cold as a corpse, and Hazel let go as soon as she diplomatically could. Owen studied Moon carefully, and he stared impassively back with his glowing eyes. Owen shook his head slowly.
"They did a hell of a job on you, Moon. I can't see a join anywhere. I mean, that Grendel ripped your head right off."
"I remember," said Moon. "I was there." He looked at Hazel. "I remember you coming to see me in the city we built on lost Haden." He looked back at Owen. "You never came to see me, Owen."
"I thought you were dead," said Owen. "And when I did finally find out… there were so many things I had to do…"
"I understand. I am, after all, not the Tobias Moon you knew. This is his body, repaired and raised to full Hadenman functioning, and I have full access to all his memories, but I am not him. It is just as well. He had spent too long away from his own kind. He had become too human."
"So I was right," said Owen. "My old companion really is dead, after all. I've lost another friend. You'd think I'd be used to that by now. But it doesn't matter. So, what happens now, Moon?"
"That's rather up to you, Owen. You should have let us know you were coming. We would have prepared a reception for you."
"Yeah," growled Hazel. "I'll bet you would have."
"Please, put your weapons away," said Moon calmly. "You are in no danger. The Redeemer and his companions are always welcome among the Hadenmen."
Owen looked at the others, shrugged, and put his gun and sword away. After a long moment Hazel sheathed her sword, and Bonnie and Midnight followed her example. Bonnie studied the Hadenmen with open curiosity, and they looked back with equal interest. Presumably they'd never seen anything quite like each other before. Midnight folded her muscular arms across her chest and looked bored, now there was no longer any hope of a little action. Owen looked around him, taking in the blank watching faces of the augmented men. They had a disturbing similarity, as though the same thoughts moved behind different faces. The Hadenmen were perfect in shape and form, but it was not a human perfection. Their bodies were largely machine, their minds boosted by computer implants, their only aim and purpose the perfectability of all Humanity through technology. And if they had lost human attributes along the way, like emotions and conscience and individuality, that was a price the Hadenmen had always been willing to pay.
"We should have known Moon would show up again," Oz murmured in Owen's ear. "You can't trust a Hadenman in anything, even to stay dead. Now he's just another of the pale harlequins, with the mark of Cain upon his brow. Watch your back, Owen."
Owen frowned. The AI's words seemed to stir a memory in him, of something he'd heard in a prophecy from a precog on Mistworld. For a moment he seemed on the brink of understanding something important, but Moon was indicating politely that they should start moving, and Owen let the thought go as he concentrated on the matter at hand. He still had hopes he could talk the Hadenmen into giving up their captives and working with Humanity rather than against them. Together, the two branches of Humanity might be capable of far more than they could ever hope to achieve separately. And the Hadenmen must have learned something from their total defeat in their last Crusade against the Empire. Surely a people so proud of their logic wouldn't make the same mistake twice?
Moon led the four humans down the street, and the rest of the Hadenmen fell in behind them, all of them walking in perfect step. Owen hoped Hazel and her alternates would continue to take their lead from him and not start anything. With luck, he could get some useful information out of Moon before they got to wherever they were going. Which was probably a good place to start.
"So," he said casually, "where are we going, Moon?"
"To the heart of the city," said the Hadenman in his rasping, buzzing voice. "There is so much we wish to show you, Redeemer. Much that you have made possible."
"We were allies in the rebellion. Why have you turned against Humanity now?"
"We follow our programming. The imperatives of the Genetic Church. The perfectability of mankind. We bring the gift of transformation for everyone."
"What if everyone doesn't want it?"
"Such a response is clearly illogical and is therefore ignored. We do as we must. What is necessary."
It seemed Moon was right when he claimed to have none of his old personality. These responses could have come from any augmented man. Tobias Moon had been different. He'd spent much of his life among humans, absorbing human characteristics despite himself. He'd always said he wanted nothing more than to be among his own people, a Hadenman among Hadenmen, but even then he hadn't been sure whether they'd accept him as he was, as he'd become. In the end, he'd died before Owen could open their Tomb. He'd never seen the second coming of the Hadenmen. Now here he was, living as he'd always wanted, and unable to appreciate it because Hadenmen didn't have feelings like that. Owen felt obscurely angry.
"You have Moon's memories," he said sharply. "You remember me and Hazel. We were friends. How do you feel about us now?"
"Hadenmen do have feelings," Moon said unexpectedly. "They are just… unlike human emotions. They arise from our minds, not chemical imbalances in the body. Understand that we give up much to become Hadenmen. Our sex is cut away from us, along with other unnecessary appetites and needs, and thus our thoughts and drives derive from different sources than yours. We give up human weaknesses to become something more, to become part of a greater whole. We do not feel pain or despair, heat or cold. We are never alone. My thoughts are logic, my dreams are mathematics. There is far more to me than the barely functioning creature you knew before."
"Don't bother trying t
o reach him," said Hazel. "I tried often enough back on Haden. There's nothing left of the Moon we knew."
"I remember," said Moon. "You came to me for Blood. Do you require some more?"
"No," said Hazel. "I don't need it anymore."
"Very wise," said Moon. "It is very detrimental to the human system."
"Being human made you capable of things that are probably beyond you now," said Owen. "Do you remember how you died. Moon? You were trying to activate the controls that would open the Tomb of the Hadenmen when the Grendel alien caught up with you. You fought, and it tore you apart, ripping your head from your shoulders with its bare hands. It had started eating your body when I found it and killed it. I tried to open the Tomb, but I didn't have the access codes. Only you did. And you came back from death to give me those codes, speaking them with your dead lips. I couldn't have opened the Tomb without your help. Do you remember any of that?"
Moon looked at him for a long moment and then looked away. "No. I remember none of that. It sounds very unlikely. Probably in the stress of the moment you imagined it. Humans do that."
Owen decided he'd drop the matter for the moment, and let the Hadenman think about it. He was sure he'd touched something in Moon, even if the augmented man denied it. "So, how did you know where to find us, Moon?"
"You were detected the moment you entered the city. We have made this place over in our own image, and now every Hadenman is a part of the city, and nothing moves in it that is not us. Our sensors detected you and identified you to us as the Redeemer. So we came to escort you into the heart of our mystery. We will hide nothing from you. You and your Family have always been good allies to the Hadenmen."
"You said that once before," Owen said slowly. "But I never found the time to follow it up. Or perhaps I was afraid to. Exactly what dealings have your kind had with Clan Deathstalker?"
"Our association goes back centuries. Originally through the computers of Giles Deathstalker, who contacted the scientists who passed through the Madness Maze, and afterward made themselves over into the first Hadenmen, and then later, through various Family members, up until our abortive first Crusade. They supported us, provided what we needed, helped us remain hidden from the rest of the Empire. When the Crusade failed, and we fled to our Tomb to wait for better days, your Family kept a watch over us, until it was your destiny to come and awaken us. That's how your dead father's ring came to hold the coordinates for lost Haden. Everything was carefully arranged. You were just the last cog in a great machine."
"And what was the nature of this relationship?" said Owen, holding his anger within him. "There must have been a deal. Who promised what to whom?"
"We would help the rebels overthrow the Iron Throne and place them in power. In return, the Hadenmen were promised planets of their own, and a percentage of the Empire's population. A levy, a tithe. Millions of men and women, to be used as found necessary."
"No," said Owen. "No! My father would never have agreed to such a thing!"
"Are you sure?" said Hazel quietly. "Giles sure as hell wouldn't have had any problems with such a deal. And you always said your father would make a deal with the Devil if that was what it took to get what he wanted."
"The end justifies the means," said Owen bitterly. "Anything for the greater good. The nobility of sacrifice, as long as it wasn't his. That kind of shit was why I broke from him, and refused to be a part of his intrigues. But I never even guessed he'd be a part of something like this."
"It was a good deal, from which both sides stood to profit," said Moon calmly. "And entirely logical. We did our part, and the Empire is yours. Now we are taking what was promised us. Beginning with Brahmin II."
Owen's hand dropped to the gun at his side. Hazel clamped her hand down hard on his arm. This wasn't the time. Not yet. "What's so special about this world?" she asked. "This is the second time you've come here."
"There are ore deposits here unavailable throughout the rest of the Empire," said Moon. "No use to humans, but vital to Hadenmen technology. The native population is a useful bonus. Brahmin II is just the beginning. We will go from planet to planet, one at a time, taking control of the populations and their resources. The humans we will make over into ourselves, our numbers growing with every world. The Empire will be slow to see our threat. They will not go to war with us over a single planet, not in their present weakened condition. By the time they realize how much we have taken, and how many of us there are, it will be too late. The second Crusade of the Genetic Church will sweep across all Humanity, bringing the gift of transformation, and sooner than you would think, it will be a Hadenman empire."
"Thinks a lot of himself, doesn't he?" said Bonnie Bedlam.
"Say the word, Owen, and I'll tear this tin can apart and rip out his wiring."
"Right," said Midnight Blue, flexing her dark muscles. "One word, and I'll reduce this bunch to their component parts."
"A nice thought, but hold it for the moment," said Owen. "There are still things I need to know. Whether I want to know them or not."
Moon took them on a tour of what used to be Brahmin City. Inside the buildings. Moon showed them Hadenmen plugged directly into working systems, a functioning part of the city's technical processes. Some had been partly disassembled to fit into the city machinery. Everywhere they went, unfamiliar machinery worked endlessly to unknown purposes. Owen became increasingly convinced that the whole city had been converted into one great machine, though its purposes remained unclear.
"So where are all the people?" said Hazel eventually. "I mean, the real people, Brahmin's population, and the prisoners you took during the rebellion. What have you done with them?"
"Yes," said Owen. "It's time you told us. Moon. You couldn't have turned them all into Hadenmen in so short a time."
"They have been put to use," said Moon calmly. "Nothing is ever wasted. We will show you everything."
He led them into a tall steel tower with no windows, and the door closed and locked itself behind the last Hadenman to accompany them. Most stayed outside, but twenty augmented men remained with them. Owen didn't let it get to him. The Hadenmen might think that twenty were enough to enforce their will, but they'd never seen Maze powers working at their full extent. They were in for one hell of a surprise.
Moon opened a door that looked like any other and ushered the human party into a Hadenman laboratory. And there at last they discovered what the Hadenmen had been doing with their human prisoners. Owen had to fight for control. They were waiting for him to break down. When he did finally fight back, he wanted to be sure it was his idea. He could feel Hazel shaking at his side. He didn't dare look around to see how Bonnie and Midnight were taking it.
Before them, in a gleaming, spotless room that seemed to go on forever, the people of Brahmin II had been reduced to mere experiments. Some had been plugged into working machines, to see if they could function as Hadenmen did. Wires pierced their skin in bunches, and thin transparent tubing plunged into surgically exposed guts, gleaming red and purple in the unblinking light. Cables disappeared into gaping mouths and emptied eye sockets, and emerged again from gray brain tissues exposed by removal of part of the skull. There was no blood. It had all been pumped away. There were too many subjects to count, men and women who should have been dead, kept artificially alive in hell. All the subjects seemed to be aware of their situation and what had been done to them. But none of them struggled or protested.
"Why aren't they screaming?" said Hazel. "Damn, I'd scream."
"We removed their vocal cords," said Moon. "The noise was distracting."
"Why aren't they moving?" said Owen, already knowing the answer.
"Movement was unnecessary, and might have interfered with the tests," said Moon. "So we severed the spinal cord too."
"Why?" said Owen, not looking at Moon, his voice cold as death. "Why all this… horror?"
"People have changed since we last walked among them," said Moon calmly. "There are clones and espers and
adjusted men, and even miracle workers like yourself. It is vital that we understand the current status of Humanity before we begin improving on it. This whole tower is one great laboratory—floor upon floor, rooms upon rooms, dedicated to discovering the hidden truths of what Humanity has become in our absence. Subjects are tested to the physical and psychological limits that we might better understand the ages-old question: what is this thing called man? Would you care to see our findings so far? Our test results have been most illuminating."
Owen grabbed Moon by the arm and forced him around so they were face to face. "Are you proud of this. Moon? Of what you and your kind have done to living, sentient creatures?"
The question seemed to take Moon aback. "It is necessary. Suffering is transient, knowledge is forever. And none of the subjects are wasted. Those who survive the procedures will be made into Hadenmen, and they will never know suffering again. Those who die will supply body parts for the greater good. And everything that is learned here becomes part of the great pool of Hadenman knowledge. Man becomes more than man, by his own efforts. That is the creed of the Hadenmen."
"But how do you feel about all this?" said Owen. "About the horror your subjects feel, and the horror of what you do to them?"
"There was a time," Moon said slowly, "when that question might have meant something to me. But I have been… improved since then."
"Like hell you have," said Owen.
"Let me get this straight," said Bonnie Bedlam. "All this Hadenman crap is new to me. You're going to improve Humanity by cutting away all the things that make us human?"
"I thought you at least might understand," said Moon. "You were not content to be as nature made you. You cut holes in your flesh to make room for metal. You endured transient pain for future gain."
"Only because I enjoyed it, metalhead. It was my choice. You took these people's choice away from them. That's inhuman. And it stops right here."
Her hand moved blindingly fast toward the gun on her hip, but the Hadenmen around her moved faster. Steel-knuckled fists hammered down in unison, driving her to the floor. Midnight Blue started forward, only to stop as the Hadenmen around her moved menacingly forward. Bonnie tried to fight back, but there were too many of them, and no room to move. Hazel looked at Owen, but he just stood there and did nothing, though he wouldn't let himself look away. Hadenmen fists broke Bonnie's dead-white skin and tore piercings from her flesh. Blood spurted thickly, and her eyes grew vague. Eventually she stopped struggling and lay still, and the Hadenmen drew back and let her be.
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