Read Online Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return by Simon R. Green - Free Book Online Page A

your thoughts are smaller. I have descended from the skies to talk with you. It had better be worth it."
    "No one speaks like that," said Brett. "Not in real life."
    "You'd better let me talk to him," said Jesamine. "I speak fluent opera."
    "Let me get this straight," said Brett. "That alien—that was actually you? You changed from a human into that… thing?"
    Carrion looked at Lewis. "These people are with you?"
    "Unfortunately, yes," said Lewis. "I'd apologize for them, but it's a waste of time. Feel free to ignore them. I do."
    Carrion turned the full force of his dark, disturbing gaze on Brett, who immediately darted behind Lewis and peered past his shoulder.
    "It is a glorious thing, to be an Ashrai," said Carrion. "It's what I always wanted. I was happy to leave my humanity behind, as something I had outgrown. And now, here you are, to remind me of what I wished most to forget. What do you want with me, Deathstalker? You mentioned the Terror. How can they be here so soon?"
    "It's been two hundred years since the blessed Owen's warning," said Lewis.
    "Has it?" said Carrion. "I hadn't realized. The Ashrai experience time differently. For us, yesterday is the distant past, and the distant past is yesterday. You're the first human I've talked to since I said good-bye to the captain and gave up human weaknesses to be an Ashrai. You'll pardon me if I've lost the knack."
    "Why did you want to meet us here?" said Lewis, gesturing at the abandoned base. Not so much because he cared, but to buy himself some thinking time. This wasn't going at all as he'd expected.
    Carrion looked at Base Thirteen. "This is the only human structure left on the planet. We keep it as a reminder never to lower our guard. I thought it might help me remember how to be human again. It hasn't been a working base for centuries. All the mines and mining equipment it oversaw are long gone now, absorbed and recycled by the trees. But still, this is a place of… strong memories, for me. Bad things happened here. Do they still tell the story of the terrible events at Base Thirteen? Of the unknown alien, and the awful gifts it brought?"
    Lewis and the others looked at each other. Lewis shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm afraid not, Sir Carrion.
    Much of the history of your time is lost to us. Only legends remain. And you are only mentioned briefly, in the… unofficial legends."
    Carrion smiled for the first time. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Captain Silence made it into the official legends, I assume? Of course he did. He was a hero, after all. While I… was a traitor, and proud of it. I fought with the Ashrai, in their war against Humanity. I killed men and women from my own crew—until Captain Silence scorched this planet from orbit, and killed every living thing on Unseeli except for the trees and me." He smiled again, at their shocked expressions. "Oh, yes, children, your great hero John Silence committed genocide here, in the name of his Empire. Some years later, Owen brought the Ashrai back. Made Unseeli a living world again. That's why the Deathstalker name buys you this audience." He looked again at Base Thirteen. "I was an Investigator, once. Trained by the Empire on how best to study and murder aliens. But even so, nothing in my experience prepared me for the horror Captain Silence and I found in this dark place.
    "An alien from an unknown species came to Unseeli, from out of the endless night beyond the Rim, and its ship crashed near here. We'd never seen anything like that ship—grown as much as built, out of meat and bone as well as steel and crystal. We cut open one of its walls, and guts fell out. But the alien wasn't there. It had already made its way to Base Thirteen and slaughtered every living thing it found there.
    Afterwards, it did terrible things with their bodies. We killed the alien, eventually. John Silence, I, the young esper Diana Vertue, and Investigator Frost. John. My friend, my enemy. We were always so close; bound