Diana nodded. "Training. The usual Empire euphemism for mind control. They started my training when I was six years old. When to use my power, and when not to. Who to use it for. And right from the beginning it was made clear to us that if we didn't learn thoroughly or quickly enough, we'd be killed. The Empire won't tolerate rogue or uncontrollable espers. Six years old is a h.e.l.l of a time to be made aware of your own mortality. But it does give you a strong sense of perspective. In the end, all that really matters is following orders.

"They experimented for a time with mind-control implants, but they couldn't develop one that didn't interfere with esper functions, so they settled for good old-fashioned psychological conditioning. I've been trained about as thoroughly as anyone can be, without an actual lobotomy."

There was a pause as they sat quietly together, not looking at each other.

"My training started at about the same age," said Frost slowly. "In learning to outthink alien minds, we give up a lot of what it means to be human. Things like emotions, conscience, companionship. Our training produces warriors, perfect killing machines to serve the glory of the Empire. I don't feel much of anything anymore except when I'm fighting. I've had lovers, but I never loved any of them. I have no friends, no family, nothing but the job. Still, if nothing else, it is an extremely interesting job."

"Is that all you have?" said Diana. "Just the job and the killing?"

Frost shrugged. "It's enough. You can't expect too much out of life, esper. You should know that."

Diana smiled briefly. "You know, we're more alike than I thought. You deal in death and I deal with life, but really we're two sides of the same coin. We both had our childhoods taken away from us, and had our lives shaped into something those children could never have understood. And we'll both probably die serving the people who destroyed our lives in the first place."

Frost shook her head. "No, esper, you don't understand me at all. I like being what I am, what they made me. I'm strong and I'm fast, and there's nothing and no one that can stand against me. I'm the most perfect fighting machine you'll ever see. I've been responsible for the destruction of whole alien civilisations, and killed men and creatures with my bare hands. It's only when I'm fighting and killing that I feel really alive. It's like a drug you never grow tired of. You can't know how it feels, esper-to know you're the best. I'm the ultimate expression of the Empire, the personification of its strength and purpose.

And all I had to give up to achieve it was a few weak emotions that would only have got in the way of my work.

"It's different for you. You take no pride in being an esper. Probably give it up tomorrow, if you could.

To be normal. I won't give up what I am, and I'll kill anyone who tries to take it away from me. You think too much, esper. It gets in the way. Life's so much simpler without conscience or emotions to complicate things."

Diana looked at her steadily. "Everything else has been taken away from me; I won't give them up too.

I'd rather die."

"You may get your chance," said Frost, looking down the corridor into the darkness. "Something's coming."

The Investigator rose to her feet in one graceful movement and stood listening, sword at the ready.

Diana scrambled unelegantly to her feet and looked wildly about her. The alien couldn't be here already.

It couldn't. Her esp would have picked it up long before this. Unless it too knew the art of psionic invisibility. In which case, things were about to get rather interesting.

Frost slapped the metal bracelet on her left wrist, and her force shield sprang into existence on that arm-a palely glowing rectangle of pure energy, humming loudly on the quiet. Diana raised her esp and reached out tentatively. The Base was silent, with none of the babbling voices she'd heard earlier. The aline had put up shields. Diana retreated quickly into her own mind, and set up her own wards.

Theoretically, they should be able to stand off any psionic attack, up to and including a mindbomb, but she'd never tested her shields in actual conflict before. Hopefully, the alien didn't know that. She glanced across at Frost, and was silently rea.s.sured by the Investigator's obvious professionalism and competence. A thought struck her.

"Investigator, if the alien is coming, wouldn't you be better off with your disrupter than your sword?"

"No," said Frost calmly. "A sword's more versatile. You can have the gun, if you want."

"No, thanks," said Diana. "I don't believe in them."

"Suit yourself," said Frost, a shrug clear in her voice. "Whatever's out there, it's close. I can feel it. I'm impressed. I didn't think anything could get that close to me without my knowing."

"Psionic invisibility," said Diana. "No way you could have known."

"That shouldn't have made any difference," said Frost. "I am an Investigator, after all. Are you picking up anything?"

"Not much. Something's coming, and it's not alone. I don't think it's the alien." She looked unhappily at Frost. "I can't be sure, but I don't think the alien's here at all. It's still hanging back. It's sent something else in its place. Stand ready, Frost. They're almost here."

"Relax, esper." The Investigator swept her sword casually back and forth before her, smiling easily.

"Nothing's going to get to you while I'm here. Though you could at least activate your force shield.

There's no point in making it easy for them. You're here as bait, not a sacrifice."

Diana blushed, and slapped her bracelet. The low hum of the force shield was very rea.s.suring. She and the Investigator stood quietly together, listening. And then the soft patter of running feet came clearly to them out of the darkness, and Diana and Frost braced themselves as their enemy finally emerged into the light.

They'd been human once, before the alien absorbed them into its system. Now they were something else, roughly human in shape, but refashioned to meet the alien's needs. They were crooked and malformed, with running flesh congealed on their frames like melted wax on a candle. Some had no skin, the red muscles shining wetly in the lamplight, their tendons twitching with every movement. Bunches of cilia waved from empty eye sockets, and mouths held needle teeth. Muscles bulged impossibly, beyond restraint or reason. The twisted faces were inhumanly blank, indifferent to thought or emotion. The alien had reworked them for its own reasons, and if there was any humanity left in them, it was buried deep, where it wouldn't interfere.

There were ten of them, jostling each other at the edge of the lamplight, as though reluctant to leave the comfort Of the shadows.Ten , thought Diana.That's not so bad. We can handle ten . As if in answer to her thoughts, more appeared, stepping out of the walls as though the walls were mist and not steel. The Investigator scowled.

"How do they do that? Those walls are solid. I checked them myself."

"The walls have become part of the alien system," said Diana softly. "They're alien now. As alien as everything else in this Base. The whole structure has become a single great organism, with the alien as its heart and mind."

Frost snorted. "So what does that make these things?"

"Antibodies. We're invaders, an infection in the system. So those things are going to cleanse us out."

"You mean they're going to try," said Frost calmly. "All right, there's a lot of them, but they're not even armed. Let's keep this in perspective, esper. We can handle this."

"You don't get it, do you?" said Diana. "They'reantibodies . The alien can make as many of them as it needs to, recycling damaged ones if necessary. It can make a dozen, a hundred, a thousand; as many as it needs to overrun us. Even you couldn't stand against a thousand, Investigator. They're not human. Not anymore. They don't think or feel or hurt. They'll just keep coming until we're dead. And then the alien will recycle us, and put us to some useful task. If we're lucky, we'll never know what."

"You think too much, esper," said Frost. "It's never over till it'sover . With this many antibodies, they'll spend most of their time tripping over each other and getting in each other's way. All we've got to do is hold them off, until either the Captain and the outlaw reach the heart of the system, or the alien gets impatient and comes here itself to take us on." She smiled unpleasantly at the shapes before her, and swept her blade back and forth. "Come on then, you useless sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes. Let's do it."

Captain Silence and the outlaw Carrion moved swiftly through the distorted corridors, heading into the dark heart of Base Thirteen. For a long time the only illumination came from the lamp bobbing along above them, but eventually strange lights began to appear in the distance, steady glows and sudden glares, like the opening of so many watching eyes. Things stirred and shifted in the shadows, sometimes alive and sometimes not. Silence kept a wary eye on all of them, but tried not to look at them too closely.

Something about their uncertain shapes disturbed him on some deep, primal level. The idea that the material world could acquire sentience and direction undermined his faith in how the universe worked.

Carrion, on the other hand, didn't seem to be bothered by any of it. But then, he'd been an Investigator once, and nothing bothered them. Silence glared about him, holding his gun so tightly that his knuckles ached. He had faith in Carrion's psionic invisibility to keep them from being detected, but walking straight into the alien's clutches went against all his instincts. He clamped down hard on his nerves, and watched where he stepped. Thick steel cables stirred sluggishly on the floor like dreaming snakes, coiling around each other in slow, sinuous movements, dripping black oil. Silvery traces glowed like veins in the sweating walls, pulsing in a fast, irregular rhythm. Silence glanced at Carrion, irritated by his continued calm.

"Are you sure this invisibility of yours is working?"

"Quite sure, Captain. Because if it wasn't, we'd very likely be dead by now. Have faith, Captain. I'll get you there."

Silence sniffed. "Odin, are you still following this?"

"Yes, Captain," the AI murmured in his ear. "Audio contact remains firm."

"Give me an overlay of the Level Three floor plans." The plans appeared before him, hovering on the air in glowing lines and symbols. Silence checked his position and that of the centre of the web, and scowled. They were a lot closer than he'd thought. "Odin, any chance you've reconsidered your position on letting us back on board the pinnace?"

"No, Captain. My Security imperatives are very clear on the matter. However, I will of course provide you with whatever information and guidance I can."

"Any more useful information from the Base computers?"

"Not as yet, Captain. However, there are still several areas locked away behind Security codes I don't have access to."

"All right, lose the overlay." The glowing map vanished from his sight. "Stay in contact, computer. Let me know of any changes in the situation."

"Of course, Captain."

Silence looked at Carrion. "I take it you were patched into that. Any comments?"

"Only that we should walk even more carefully from now on. We're nearly there, and I can't believe the alien will have left the heart of its system unprotected. There are bound to be defensive systems and bobby traps just waiting for us to trigger them."

"I've really missed your sunny personality, Carrion. You look for the worst in everything, don't you?"

"Yes, Captain. And usually I'm right."

Silence sniffed. "We should reach the heart in a few minutes. a.s.suming we do find a way past whatever's waiting for us, do you have any ideas as to what we're going to do when we get there?"

"Not really, Captain. A few of your grenades, backed up if necessary by a channelled psi-storm from me, should be enough to wreck whatever the alien's put together, but I can't be sure until I've seen it."

"Aren't you going to make a speech about how wrong I am to be planning the destruction of a new alien species? I seem to recall you were quite eloquent on the subject where the Ashrai were concerned."

"That was different. The Ashrai were willing to co-exist. This species is not. Its existence is based on total restructuring and control of the environment. They are as much a threat to this world and to the Ashrai as they are to the Empire."

"I wish you'd stop talking about the Ashrai as though they were still alive. They're dead and gone. I killed them all. You've been alone here too long, Carrion."

Carrion looked at him almost pityingly. "The Ashrai aren't gone. You never did understand the bond between the Ashrai and the metallic forest. I've been here ten years, and I'm only just beginning to comprehend what we destroyed here. The Ashrai were a race of espers, exhibiting psi phenomena we could barely measure, let alone understand. They fought the Empire to a standstill, for all our superior technology. And even though you scorched this planet, they're still here. Their bodies may be dead, but their souls still haunt the trees. Call it a vast living field of psi energy and phenomena earthed by the metal forest, if that makes it easier for you to grasp. But as long as the forest still stands, the Ashrai still exist.

They do not forget and they do not forgive. They were very special, John. You never did understand what you did here."

"Oh yes, Sean. I know what I did."

Carrion stopped suddenly, and gestured for Silence to stop with him. They stood a while in their narrow pool of light, while Carrion frowned uncertainly, checking the way ahead with his esp. He finally shook his head and gestured for Silence to continue, but he was still frowning. Silence drew his gun and scowled at every moving shadow. The pressure of unseen watching eyes seemed heavier by the minute, but nothing challenged them.

The corridor widened out suddenly into what had been one of the main computer bays, and Carrion and Silence stopped again, halted by the sight of what lay before them. The machines had burst apart from pressure within, and flowered into unsettling half-living constructs, held together by long, glistening strands of human nervous tissue. A constant, barely audible muttering filled the air, so low as to be almost subliminal, as the hybrid creations worked constantly on unknown alien tasks. Silence looked slowly around, not allowing himself to be hurried, no matter how much the sight revolted him. Carrion walked slowly forward, his face blank, his eyes fey and knowing.

"This is the heart of the system, the centre of the web," he said in a low voice. "Through this, the alien controls all that happens in the Base. This is its eyes and ears, it brain and memory. Destroy this, and the alien will be cut off from its creation. The Base systems will fall apart, and the alien will be left alone and vulnerable."

"If it's that straightforward, what are you looking so unhappy about?" said Silence.

"It's too easy. Too easy to get here and too easy to destroy. It can't be this simple. We must be missing something. I think we should investigate these systems very carefully before we do anything else."

"Carrion, we don't have the time. The alien's gone for the moment, but it could be back any minute. We have to destroy the heart while we can. Look, just because the alien is intelligent and powerful, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's very bright. The more powerful an organism, the less it needs to think things through. It uses what has always worked in the past, and expects that to be enough. Because it's never been beaten, it thinks it can't be. Everything has a weak spot, and we've found the alien's. Now give me some room and let me work. Watch the corridor if you want to be useful. I want to set the grenades and get the h.e.l.l out of here before the alien realises something is up and comes charging back."

The outlaw nodded stiffly, and moved away to watch the corridor, his expression still troubled. Silence consulted with the AI, and worked out the best places to set his grenades to ensure maximum damage.

He planted three grenades carefully, primed them all one after the other, and then sprinted back down the corridor with Carrion at his side. They'd just rounded the first corner when the first grenade blew. A shock wave of superheated air laced with jagged shrapnel came howling down the corridor, to slam harmlessly against the psychokinetic shield Carrion set up. Two more explosions followed in swift succession, and the floor trembled under their feet. The explosions were deafeningly loud, and Silence clapped his hands to his ears, grinning triumphantly. Smoke filled the corridor, billowing thickly around them. The tremors finally died away, and the corridor was quiet save for the crackling of distant fires.

Silence grinned at Carrion.

"That should ruin the alien's day nicely. You'd better run a scan, though, just in case any of that stuff is still working. I'll have the AI check it out from his end."

He broke off as the AI's voice suddenly sounded in his ear. "We have a problem, Captain. Apparently Base Commander Starblood wasn't content to just seal off the Base with a force screen; he also activated the Base's self-destruct system. A small nuclear device was primed and programmed to detonate at the end of a countdown. When the alien's systems took over the computers, it interrupted the countdown but didn't defuse the bomb. As long as the system was in control, the countdown was unable to continue, and the Base was safe. Now that you have destroyed the alien system, the countdown is proceeding again. The nuclear device will detonate in thirty-two minutes, and I do not have the necessary codes to abort it. I strongly suggest that you leave the Base now. While you still can."

CHAPTER TEN.

Friendships and Loyalties Frost pulled a concussion grenade from her bandolier, primed it, and lobbed it casually over the heads of the watching humanoids. A few turned their blank faces to follow it, but the others showed no reaction, even as Frost primed and threw two more grenades. The first exploded deafeningly in the midst of the creatures, blowing a b.l.o.o.d.y hole in their ranks. Smoke filled the corridor, and blood flew on the air in a crimson mist. The next two grenades blew seconds later, while Frost and Diana huddled back into a niche in the corridor wall, hands clapped to their ears. The ma.s.sed ranks of the humanoids absorbed the force of the explosions, scattering blood and mangled bodies the length of the corridor. The living and the injured staggered aimlessly back and forth, dazed and confused, and Frost chuckled easily as she shot the head off one creature with her disrupter. Diana shrank back from the open violence in the Investigator's voice, and brushed furiously at the blood that had spattered her clothes.

The humanoids milled back and forth, clawing at the smoke and each other. Frost laughed softly, hefted her claymore, and moved forward with a light, easy step. Her blade flashed in the lamplight as she cut and hacked her way through the blank-faced drones. Her sword jarred on bone and sliced through flesh, and she was everywhere at once, darting back and forth. Bodies fell to either side of her and did not rise again, and the humanoids reached blindly out into the smoke and chaos as the alien will behind them struggled to orientate itself. Investigator Frost cut and hacked a path into the heart of the enemy, and was content.

Diana Vertue concentrated on maintaining her psionic invisibility, balancing her need for safety with her duty as bait. She allowed a vague sense of her presence to leak through her mental shields, to keep the alien's attention, but hid her precise location behind a screen of ambiguity, so that neither the alien nor its humanoid slaves could tell exactly where she was. They milled around her with reaching hands, a horrid faceless ma.s.s of clawed hands and snapping mouths, but none of them could find her, even when their bodies b.u.mped into hers. She bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from screaming. The humanoids had been constructed from the Base personnel, and though they moved and fought and searched for her with stubborn purpose, they were still dead. Their faces held no thought or emotion, their skin was deathly cold to the touch, and something shockingly inhuman looked out from their unblinking eyes. Diana stood with her back pressed tightly against the wall, her face contorted with a horror beyond revulsion, shrinking away from every contact. A grinding headache began to build in her left temple, sharp-edged and blinding, as she struggled to maintain the delicate balance of her presence. There but not there.

Present but not seen. And over and above everything else, the certain knowledge that if her control slipped, even for a moment, the humanoids would turn on her and tear her apart.

Frost danced and strutted in the midst of her enemies, pirouetting with sharp professionalism, her sword swinging in unstoppable arcs. It was a good blade, Old Earth steel, and while it might not have the edge of her monofilament knife, the weight and power of the claymore was more than a match for the clawing hands of the alien drones. They swarmed about her, a living sea of hate and violence, and none of them were fast enough or good enough to touch her. Their clawed hands s.n.a.t.c.hed and tore but she was never there, defying them to find or hold her. Her force shield brushed aside those few who got too close, the glowing energy field fending off their unnatural strength. But its constant use was a dangerous drain on its energy crystal, and it wouldn't be long now before the shield collapsed. Frost didn't care. The humanoids were falling before her, and she was in her element, doing what she was trained and born to do. Nothing could stand against her. Let them come. Let them all come. She was an Investigator, humanity's warrior, and the alien was going to learn what that meant.

Diana watched the Investigator butcher the dead men from Base Thirteen with grace and style, and it seemed to her that Frost was as inhuman as what she was fighting. The Investigator's face was a cold mask of contempt and professionalism, with no trace of compa.s.sion. She killed because that was what she'd been trained to do, and because she was good at it. An expert in the art of slaughter. Not that Diana had much compa.s.sion herself for the creatures. She could see in their faces that they weren't human any longer in anything but shape. Death was the only peace and dignity they could attain to. She supposed she should be helping Frost fight, but she couldn't. Partly because the effort to maintain her invisibility took so much out of her, but mostly because just the thought of personally doing violence sickened her. The Empire had trained her well.

And then, suddenly, the humanoids fell back, turned away from the Investigator, and disappeared into the surrounding steel walls. One moment the corridor was full of smoke and baleful figures, and then they were gone, and the smoke was slowly clearing to reveal Frost lowering her b.l.o.o.d.y sword in puzzlement.

She wasn't even breathing hard. The dead lay where they had fallen, jagged metal showing in b.l.o.o.d.y wounds, and gore still spattered the floor and walls, but Frost and Diana were alone in the corridor.

Frost sniffed disappointedly and moved back to stand with Diana, shaking drops of blood from her blade. The esper shrank back from the gore-soaked sword, but Frost didn't notice. She clapped Diana on the shoulder, and looked around with an easy and contented smile.

"It looks like we were too much for them. Pity. I was just starting to enjoy myself."

"It's not over," said Diana softly. "Something's coming."

The Investigator looked at her sharply, and then glared about her, sword at the ready. "Is it the alien?"

"It must be. It burns in my mind like a beacon, wild and brilliant. It hurts to think about it. There's something . . . wrong about it."

"How close is it?"

"Close. I can hear it thinking. It doesn't make any sense. It has emotions, but I don't recognise any of them. It's like seeing new colors in a rainbow. . . ."

"You're wandering, esper," said Frost. "Keep to the subject. How big is the alien? How strong? Which direction is it coming from?"

"It's almost here." Diana rubbed at her forehead as her headache flared up again. "It's getting harder to keep it out of my mind. It's like looking into the sun when it's too bright. . . . It's strong, powerful.

Inhumanly powerful."

"Concentrate, esper."

"I can't . . . there's too much of it. . . ."

"Then bring it here. Be the bait, and I'll take care of everything else."