Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

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