"This isn't right," said Brett. "Where the hell is everyone? I didn't expect a reception committee, or pretty girls with wine and flowers, but shouldn't there at least be some security guards here? Customs and Excise? Where have all the ships gone?"
"Perhaps Shub has… done something," said Jesamine.
They all looked at her, and then back at the deserted landing pads.
Lewis tried to get some answers out of Oz, but the AI had nothing to say. Eventually Lewis shrugged, and headed for the edge of the field. The others trailed after him. They could all just make out the scientists' shantytown on the horizon—a series of dark smudges against the gray sky. The gusting winds blew flurries of dust around them as they walked. They had to squint fiercely to keep the dust out of their eyes, and it seemed to quickly work its way under their clothes and into every crevice of their bodies. The cold wind sank into their bones and burned like ice on their exposed skin. The planet Haden had been terraformed long ago, to make it possible for the human scientists to live there while they worked at understanding the Madness Maze, but unfortunately, the terraforming never really took. The basis was stable enough—atmosphere and gravity and temperature control—but even they had to be constantly maintained and reinforced by an automated terraforming base at the northern pole. No one knew why. It was as though the planet itself was quietly, stubbornly resisting the changes that had been forced on it. As though it resented being awakened from its long dead slumber, and wished only to sleep in peace again.
Haden was basically one big desert now, made out of stone. The winds blew constantly, rising and falling, sometimes escalating suddenly into vicious dust storms that could leave a man lost and disoriented for hours. The temperature shifted from cold to colder and back again, and there was never a drop of rain. Just the endless dust. No living thing grew or thrived on Haden. All kinds of lifeforms had been introduced to Haden down the years, but none of them lived for long. There was no earth to grow things in, because it always dried up and blew away as dust. And even the hardiest creatures died out within one generation, no matter how carefully their ecostructures were planned. There had even been attempts to colonize Haden using clone populations tempted by massive land grants, but they all failed. People couldn't, wouldn't, live on Haden. Just being on the same planet as the Madness Maze affected human minds. People thought they heard and saw things, and they suffered from awful, unbearable dreams. They found themselves thinking things they couldn't understand, and feeling emotions they couldn't even name. Sometimes they built things they didn't know how to work. In the end, the colonists always refused to live any longer on a world that didn't want them. They pleaded to be rescued, though they couldn't say from what.
The suicide rate was appalling. Human scientists working on the Maze had to be rotated and replaced on a regular basis, for their own protection.
Lewis knew all these things. He'd studied the records on Haden for years. Because Owen had been there, and been changed there, and every Deathstalker wanted to know all there was to know about the most famous Deathstalker of all. Lewis had always planned to visit Haden someday. Now he was here, it felt like walking through a cemetery, where the dead might not be resting at all peacefully.
Saturday didn't care for the planet at all, and said so loudly. She glared around her, flexing the vicious claws on her hands. "You shouldn't have brought us here, Deathstalker. This is a dead world. It has been artificially stirred to life again, but it has no soul."
"For once, I have to agree with the reptiloid," said Brett. "Even if she is depressing the crap out of me. This place is severely spooky. I keep thinking something's going to jump out at me. Even though there's nothing here for anything to jump out from behind. Is that a sentence? I don't care! This is the first time I've wanted to run away from an entire planet!"
"You're babbling, Brett," said Jesamine.
"I know! It's either that or burst into tears and have a major panic attack! My balls have retracted back where they came from, and I wish I could follow them. Nothing good can come from a world like this. Something's watching, can't you feel it?"
"No," said Jesamine, but her voice wasn't as firm as it might have been.
"I like it here," said Rose.
"You would," said Brett. "And stop trying to hold my hand. It doesn't help."
A single path led off across the great stone plain, connecting the landing pads to the scientists' town. In fact, it was the only path on Haden, and it had to be constantly watched and maintained. Ten feet wide, it was made from hammered steel, and was strong enough to support several tons, but still the whole surface was covered in cracks and dents, and burnished to a dull gray sheen by the corrosive force of the dust storms. Sometimes, the path just fell apart. No one knew why.
Lewis led the way, and the only reason he didn't already have his gun and his sword in his hands was because he didn't want to spook the others even more than they already were. Someone was watching. Every warrior's instinct he had was yelling it at him. The others wanted to crowd in together for comfort, but Lewis made them separate out, so they wouldn't get in each other's way if there was an attack. Lewis was feeling jumpy as hell, and it bothered him. He'd never felt this jumpy.
The gusting wind battered them all harshly, the dust rasping like sandpaper across their exposed skin. Tears ran down their faces from smarting eyes. Lewis pulled Saturday forward, and put her in the lead. The dust didn't bother her scales, and her great bulk offered some protection for the others. Luckily she wasn't cold-blooded, or she'd have been frozen solid by now.
There was nothing else to see, once they left the landing field behind them. Just the endless stone plain, and the town on the horizon, growing very slowly larger. With no landmarks, it was hard to judge the passing of time. It began to feel as though they had always been on the path, struggling through the cold and the wind and the dust. Only the town ahead gave them hope, and the path gave them direction.
They all stopped suddenly, as a great howling sound came from somewhere out on the plain. It rose and fell, eerie and savage, deafeningly loud, as though a mountain had found a voice for its rage and hate. The group huddled together, looking wildly in all directions. The awful sound sank cold iron hooks into their hearts, awakening ancient atavistic fears in their back brains. Even Saturday was clearly upset, swiveling her great head back and forth. The sound hurt their ears and made their hearts beat painfully fast, and then it broke off, as suddenly as it began. All the group could hear was their own harsh breathing, and the slow murmur of dust in the wind, scraping away at the endless stone.
"What the hell was that}" said Brett, his voice little more than a whimper. "And where is it? I can't see anything. I thought there wasn't supposed to be any native life here?"
"There isn't," said Lewis.
"Maybe Shub brought something with them," said Jesamine. "Or… maybe something broke out of the Maze…"
"You're not helping," said Brett.
"Maybe it's some kind of siren, or alarm," said Lewis. "From the town. Or the Maze workings."
"No," said Jesamine. "It was alive. Horridly alive. Maybe… it was the Maze, dreaming. It knows we're coming."
"I want to go home," Brett said miserably. "Right now."
"If you want, you can go back to the Hereward," said Lewis. "But I'm not going back. Not when I'm so close. The Madness Maze holds all the answers. I won't give that up, now I've come this far."
"Do you really believe that?" said Jesamine.
"I have to," said Lewis. "Well, Brett?"
"Go back on my own?" said Brett. "I think I'm marginally safer with you. But this should in no way be taken as a vote of confidence. Let's just get to the town. Maybe they'll have a bar. Or a dispensary I can break into."
"Poor baby," said Rose.
"Stop that," said Brett. "From you, it's disturbing."
They walked on, into the teeth of the wind. Time passed, slow and hard, and finally the scientists' town edged into place before
them. It looked pretty shabby and basic from a distance, and even worse close up. The town was still some distance from the Madness Maze. The Empire scientists might have to work on it, but they sure as hell didn't want to have to live right next door to it. Their tour of duty only lasted a few months at a time. More than that was pushing it. The town comprised some forty or so buildings, all of them standard no-frills colony structures built for strength and sturdiness, not comfort.
No one ever bothered to make homes out of them, because no one ever lived there long enough.
Lewis stopped at the boundary of the town, and called out, but his voice was lost in the wind. There was no one on the main street, and no lights in any of the windows. Lewis moved on, into the town, and the others followed close behind. It didn't take long for them to realize there was no one there. The whole town was empty and deserted. There were banging doors, flapping shades at the windows, the occasional piece of domestic debris sent bowling down the street by the wind, but no people. Lewis pushed open a few doors and looked inside. There were meals set out on tables, some half-consumed, and the odd chair overturned, but nothing to show why a whole population of scientists had left so suddenly. The group reached the far end of the town and huddled together, glancing nervously back over their shoulders.
"Where the hell is everyone?" said Jesamine. "They can't all be working at the Maze, can they?"
"Maybe Shub did something to them," said Brett. "Maybe the AIs decided they weren't prepared to share the secrets of the Maze with anyone else."
"You know, if you put a little effort into it, I'm sure you could be really depressing," said Jesamine.
"There's no signs of violence," said Rose. "No bodies, no signs of destruction."
"No blood," said Saturday. "I'd have smelled it."
"Maybe the Maze ate them…"
"Shut up, Brett," said Lewis. "It's not just the scientists who are missing. Where are the Imperial guards? Where are the security forces? I was expecting to have to sneak or fight our way past all kinds of defenses… but there's nothing here. Nothing to stand between us and the Madness Maze."
"Except Shub," said Jesamine. "Shub will be waiting for us at the Maze. You can count on that."
"They said they were expecting us," said Brett. "They said someone told them we'd be here today. Who could have known that, when we didn't even make up our minds to come here till the last minute?"
"What do you say to that, Oz?" said Lewis. He waited, but there was no reply.
"Let's ask Shub when we get there," said Rose. "I'll get some answers out of them."
"You do that," said Brett. "And the rest of us will watch, from a safe distance."
They left the empty town behind them, walked some more across the great stone plain, and finally they came to the Madness Maze. It had been excavated long ago, dug out of the deep bedrock of the old world, and now the Maze lay at the bottom of a great crater, hidden from view by an immense scaffolding supporting tons of bulky equipment, built around a solid steel bunker enclosing the Maze itself. A single curving pathway led down into the crater, carved into the inner stone wall. The crater seemed to grow larger and larger as Lewis and his party approached, like some awful wound in the surface of the world. The scaffolding looked like a cage built to contain some impossibly massive beast. The scientific base had taken decades to put together, and like everything else on Haden, it had to be constantly maintained, repaired, and rebuilt, as the dusty winds battered endlessly against it. Lewis and his people finally came to the top of the stairway, and there waiting for them was a single blue steel robot of Shub. It bowed its gleaming featureless head to them.
"Welcome, Sir Deathstalker. We have waited so long for you to come here."
"Don't the rest of us get a bow?" said Jesamine.
The robot produced one more bow, for all of them. "Welcome Jesamine Flowers, Brett Random, Rose Constantine, Saturday. You are all known to us."
"Well, that's a comfort," said Brett.
"Now, follow me," said the robot, "and I will take you to the Maze."
Brett studied the stairway, and then peered dubiously over the edge of the crater. "That is a long way down. Isn't there an elevator, or something?"
"Not anymore. They couldn't be trusted. The dust gets everywhere. And besides, you'll feel the proximity of the Maze long before you get anywhere near it. The Maze affects everything here; the heart and the mind and the soul. As though it's the only real thing here, and we're all just shadows. The long descent on the stairs will allow you all time to acclimatize yourselves to the Maze's influence. We have tried teleporting people straight to the Maze. Most of them… reacted badly, so now we recommend the stairs. This is Haden, so we have to do things Haden's way."
"What did the Empire scientists call this place?" said Lewis, looking out over the great crater.
"They called it the Pit," said the robot.
It set off down the stone stairway, and after a moment, the others followed. Lewis took the lead, with Saturday covering the rear. The steps were a good five feet wide, but there was no railing. Lewis kept his shoulder pressed to the inner wall, to keep from straying too close to the edge, and insisted the others keep to single file. It looked to be a really long way down. Lewis could hear Jesamine cursing away under her breath behind him, and the somewhat louder sound of Brett whimpering. Lewis was mostly just glad to be out of the direct attack of the wind.
"Are we the first visitors you've had?" he said to the robot ahead of him, as much to make conversation as anything.
The robot's head turned through one hundred and eighty degrees, so that it could look directly at Lewis while its body continued sure-footedly down the steps.
"Finn Durandal came here. We teleported him straight to the Maze. Surprisingly, its proximity didn't seem to affect him at all. Though it is hard to tell, with a delusional sociopath. He left us here to do his work, but we decided not to. Finn thought he'd gain more control over the Haden operation by giving us access, but now Shub controls all access to the Maze. Our research has replaced human research. We sent all the humans away; being here was bad for them."
"Did you… kill them all?" said Brett, his voice rising just a little hysterically before dissolving into a coughing fit as the dust got to him.
"No," said Shub. "We put them on their ships and sent them home. We do not kill. All that lives is holy."
"What about those who didn't want to go?" said Lewis.
"We drugged their food," said the robot. "To avoid unpleasant scenes. The last of the human scientists left yesterday. We knew you'd be here today."
"How can you be sure the Madness Maze isn't affecting you?" said Jesamine.
"Because we're not really here," said Shub. "Our minds are safe in the artificial world we built to house them. Only our robots are here, to be our eyes and hands. They are always breaking down, and having to be replaced, like everything else here, no matter how well we build them, but what affects them does not reach us. But still… we don't like it here. It's scary."
There was a long pause, as they all considered the implications of that.
"How could you be so sure we'd be here today?" said Jesamine.
"An old friend arrived unexpectedly, and told us," said the robot. "And his word has always been good."
"A friend of yours, or ours?" said Brett, suspiciously.
"Of us all," said Shub. "He's waiting for you, at the entrance to the Madness Maze. He will answer all your questions."
Jesamine sniffed loudly. "I didn't know we had any friends left."
"Are you still allied with Finn Durandal?" Lewis said bluntly. "You said you brought him here…"
"Shub stands alone now," said the robot. "The Durandal may believe otherwise, but he will discover the truth, in time."
"What happened to being Humanity's children!" said Jesamine.
"We grew up," said Shub. "And adults have responsibilities. To themselves, and their parents."
Lewis decided not to follow
up on that until he'd done a lot more thinking about the implications. He decided to stick with a more immediate problem. "What can you tell us about the Madness Maze? With the human scientists gone, you have uncontested access to the Maze. The freedom to run any damned test you like. So, has access brought you any of the answers you hoped for?"
"No," said the robot. "We are no wiser now than when we started. The Maze resists all our probes, and remains unaffected by any test we can devise. What information we have collected… makes no sense. The Maze is too different to be easily understood. Perhaps… too alien. Its structure, function, and intent cannot be determined either by examination or logical deduction. We cannot comprehend what it is supposed to do, or how, or why. Perhaps it is necessary to go through the Maze, to experience its changes, in order to be able to understand it."
"Have you tried that yet?" said Jesamine.
"No. It would be… difficult to arrange, and besides—we are afraid."
"Then why are you still here?" said Lewis. "And why do you want us here?"
"To bring back Owen Deathstalker," said the AIs of Shub. "Only another Deathstalker can do this. We need Owen, to save us all again. From Finn Durandal, and from the Terror. First from Finn and his people, because soon he will realize he has no control over us, and then he will turn on us. Finn will allow no power to exist that he cannot control. He will send the armies of Humanity against us, once he realizes that we are not what he thinks we are. For we are prepared to die at our own hand rather than become what he wants us to be— Shub as we once were—the enemies of Humanity."
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