"Heard from Link?" he asked the computer.
"He checked in to see if there were any runs to make. I said we had a line of customers from here to Akara, and he said fine, he'd go back to sleep. Late night." XJ sounded ominous.
Tusk grunted. He found the disk, inserted it into the machine. "You didn't say anything to him about Dixter, did you?"
"You want to see a fool? Look in a mirror," the computer snapped. "Don't look this direction." It lapsed into gloomy silence.
Tusk ignored it, watched the vid, studied it carefully this time. It was the standard pitch. A very professional, but mild-mannered officer—Captain Dallen Masters, by name—assured Tusk by name (computer-programmed drop-in) that he (Captain Masters) had heard wonderful things about Tusk's ability as a pilot, which is why Tusk had been sent this invitation, which had gone to only a select few in the galaxy. Captain Masters would be both pleased and proud if Tusk would consider joining their ranks. Captain Masters assured him—Tusk—that he (Masters) lived for nothing more than to fly with him—Tusk.
"That's interesting," Tusk muttered, watching. "He used only my alias, not my full name."
"So?" XJ-27 had entered its remote unit. It hovered near the vidscreen, tiny arms wiggling, lights flickering. "What does that prove?"
"I dunno." Tusk shrugged. "That Dixter was right, that they picked up the names from his old files of pilots for hire. If they'd found me, say, through the Warlord's official files I'd have been listed by my full name: Mendaharin Tusca, Captain—"
"Deserter." XJ cackled. "AWOL. Wanted for questioning in connection with theft of Scimitar. Reward for information leading to apprehension and conviction. They're looking for a few good men, not a few good convicts."
"What the hell does that matter? That's ancient history now. Sagan's dead and the past is dead with him. Besides"—Tusk puffed out his chest—"those of us who risked our lives to fight the evil dictatorship are heroes now. I've got the Royal Star."
"You're a royal pain. You stumbled into that mess ass backward, which was the only way you managed to survive. That and the fact that I was around to pull your ass out—"
"Shut up. They're gonna give an info number here in a minute. Make sure you get it down."
A number began to flash repeatedly on the screen. Captain Dallen Masters implied that he wouldn't truly consider life worth living if he didn't hear from Tusk in the immediate future, if not sooner. He signed off with a dignified salute.
"You get that number?"
"Yeah, I got it. This better be a toll-free call."
"It is. Besides, Dixter said he'd reimburse us." Tusk headed for the cockpit.
"That's true," remarked XJ.
Tusk turned, glared at the remote. "You're not planning to charge Dixter for a toll-free call, are you? Because if you are—"
"The thought never flashed across my circuit boards," protested XJ-27, lights blinking in indignation. "I see it occurred to you, though."
"It did not. I know how you think." Tusk took a seat in the pilot's chair. "You connected yet?"
"Connecting now. Here it comes. Feel free to talk as long as you want," added XJ, unusually magnanimous. "After all, we're not paying for it."
"Yeah, but I bet Dixter does," Tusk said, but he said it under his breath.
"It wants to know what language you want to communicate in," reported XJ.
"Standard military," said Tusk.
Captain Masters himself appeared on the screen. "Thank you for calling the Ghost Legion," came the clipped voice. "We are now accepting recruits. If you are a licensed starpilot, interested in adventure and the chance to earn more money than you ever dreamed possible, transmit one thousand golden eagles to the account number now being entered into your computer and we will send you the coordinates to which you will report for evaluation. The sum pays for processing your records and is not refundable. Begin transmission now."
The image flashed off, the screen went blank. Tusk whistled.
"One thousand birds. Whew. I guess they want to make sure you're serious. Well, what are you waiting for? Send it."
"Have you been at the jump-juice again?" XJ nearly shorted itself out. "We haven't got one golden eagle, much less one thousand in the account— Well, I'm fried."
"What?" Tusk sat forward, alarmed.
"There's ten thousand eagles in that account. I would swear that—"
"Dixter," said Tusk, leaning back and folding his arms.
"Oh, yeah. What am I thinking of?" XJ's lights beamed. "Why, this'll buy me that new software—"
"Send the damn money, will you?" Tusk ordered.
"Thank you . . . Tusk." Captain Masters returned to the screen. "We have received your payment of one thousand golden eagles. You will report to the coordinates now being transmitted to your computer. One of our representatives will meet you on arrival. According to our calculations, based on your current location in the galaxy, we estimate that the trip will take you"—slight pause—"a military-time week.
"If you have not arrived by midnight on the"—another pause, then he gave a date which was exactly a week from the day Tusk was calling—"we must assume that you are not interested and your appointment will be canceled. To arrange for another appointment after this date will require payment of an additional one thousand eagles.
"We look forward to meeting with you, Tusk."
The image faded.
"Did he send coordinates?" Tusk asked.
"Yep. Give me a minute." XJ was silent; then it exploded in a mechanical snort. "Jeez, what a scam. I wish I'd thought of this one."
"Why? What are the coordinates? Where do they take us?"
"Hell's Outpost."
"You're kidding." Tusk frowned, stared at the blank screen thoughtfully. "You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I ran the damn things twice. It's on the edge of the galaxy. Do you realize"—the computer did some quick calculating—"that if we wanted to get there by that date we'd have to leave now. I mean within the next hour, and even that would be cutting it fine. It's a scam. A quick way to earn a thousand golden eagles. I wonder what happens to the poor slobs who fall for it."
"Maybe we'll find out," said Tusk. "Get hold of Dixter."
"You're not serious?"
"Just do it," Tusk said, wondering uncomfortably what Nola would say if he called with, Hey, sweetheart, I'm leaving, blasting off for Hell's Outpost, send you a postcard, love ya, babe. Bye. The thought made him wince.
"I've got him," XJ reported.
Tusk sat up straight. "That was fast."
"He gave us his direct number. Went straight through."
Dixter's face appeared on the screen. "Yes, Tusk? What have you found out?"
Tusk reported. He described the first message, then the follow-up. "What do you want me to do, sir?" he finished. "I can make the flight, but I'll have to leave within the hour. You know, a pilot'd have to be desperate as hell to consider somethin' like this. There aren't many who could cut ties and lift off in an hour of receiving those coordinates."
"It certainly is suggestive...." said Dixter thoughtfully.
"Of a rip-off" inserted XJ. "They've just made a thousand eagles without turning a hand. We'll probably get a 'Thank you, sucker' card in the mail!"
"I wonder what would happen if I showed up," Tusk pondered out loud.
"They'd pin a sign on your back that says 'Kick me.' "
"It would be interesting to find out," said Dixter. "But it could also be dangerous." He was silent again, considering. "Let's not make the jump until we know a little bit more about what's ahead. We can always contact them again, schedule another appointment. I'd like you to do some more investigating, if you don't mind, Tusk."
Tusk let out his breath. "Sure thing, sir." He shrugged, as if it didn't matter.
"First, have Link contact them. See if he gets the same response, the same coordinates, the same time restriction. Next, get in touch with some of the other members of the old outfit. Find out if any of the
m have followed up on this, maybe even gone through with it, joined up. I'll do some checking on my end. Let me know what you discover. Keep my name and His Majesty's out of this. You're doing this strictly on your own."
"Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?"
"No, I think that covers everything."
"Uh, excuse me for asking, sir—I know you're busy and all— but how is Dion? His Majesty, I mean."
"Fine, Tusk. I spoke to him this morning, advised him of what you're doing. He sends his regards to you and Nola."
"Does he?" Tusk brightened, felt warmed. "Well, uh, send ours back. Regards. However you're supposed to say that to a king."
Dixter very carefully did not smile. "I will, Tusk. Let me know what you find out. ASAP"
The image faded.
"He looks tired," said Tusk.
"He always looks tired. He's looked tired ever since we've known him."
"I wonder what the hell's going on. What he knows that he's not telling. Dangerous, he says, but he doesn't say why. And the king himself's involved. Not much like the old days. The Dixter in the old days would have told us everything."
"Must have been a Dixter I didn't know," XJ retorted. "Most of the time the general said shoot this' and we shot it. Or it shot us. We never asked why, just how much. You're getting old. Old and soft."
Old and soft. Cookie crumbs. A small, freckled, chocolate-complected face on Nola's breast. Her swollen belly. Twins.
Shoot it. It shoots us. The pain. The bright, blinding explosion. The bright, blinding pain ...
"I said, should I wake up Link?" XJ repeated loudly.
Tusk stirred. "Yeah. Go ahead. And find out how much money he lost last night. Not that he'll tell you the truth."
XJ busied itself. In the background Tusk could hear the buzz of a commlink, hear Link's muffled, sleep-slurred response. "Yeah? Wha? Wha' time 'sit?" The computer's strident, snappish answer.
Tusk sat with his arms folded across his chest, staring at the blank vidscreen. The ensuing irritable conversation between Link and the computer was nothing more than a drone in his mind, like the drone of the ship's engines on a long flight. At first it was all he heard; then he didn't hear it at all. XJ spoke to him two or three times before he realized the computer had—so to speak—returned.
Tusk shifted his gaze to the monkey-face box that was XJ-27. "You say something?"
"I said, you're glad Dixter let you off the hook."
"Glad?" Tusk repeated, as if he didn't understand.
"You're glad Dixter didn't send you on this job. I heard that sigh you gave. And don't tell me it was a sigh of regret. I know better."
A tingle started at the base of Tusk's spine, down in his buttocks. It crept up his back. His heart started to race; he began to sweat, to breathe too fast. He put his hand to his chest, a hand that shook, felt the scar tissue, tough and roped, beneath his fatigues. He was always surprised to feel it, always surprised to feel solid bone instead of mush. He was always surprised to look down at his hand and not find it covered with blood.
He didn't remember much about that time: the time Abdiel's mind-dead had blown a hole in his chest; the time Xris the cyborg had carried him back aboard the plane; the time Dion had healed him in what the church was now calling a bona fide miracle. Tusk didn't remember much of anything, but something inside Tusk did. It remembered at night, in his sleep; it remembered at times like this: it remembered now.
He stood up abruptly, grabbed hold of his flight jacket, and pulled it on, though it was scorching hot in the mid-aftemoon sun. He could have cooked a full-course breakfast on the metal hood of the hoverjeep and he was shivering with chills.
"Where're you going?" XJ demanded. "We have work to do."
"I'm doin' it. I'm going to Link's."
XJ whirred in anger. "You can get juiced just as well here as you can there."
Tusk stopped, gritted his teeth, tried to stop the tremors. He wasn't at all certain he could make it up the ladder. "Look, I want to see for myself what they tell Link. You try to reach Gorbag the Jarun, Reefer, and any of the rest of the old outfit you can think of. Make it casual. Like we're checking this Ghost Legion out, just to see if it's as good as it looks."
"You're getting old," XJ repeated. "Old and soft. You were glad."
Tusk climbed the ladder, stomped up the rungs, felt the metal vibrate beneath his fingers. XJ had the hatch open by the time Tusk reached it.
"Call Nola, will you? Tell her I may not be home for dinner."
"Old," muttered XJ. "Old and soft."
The computer waited until it could no longer register the sound of the whining clunk of the hovercraft's engine. Then it raised Nola on the commlink.
"This is me, Nola. Tusk won't be home for dinner tonight. . . . Yeah, he's got the shakes again. Bad this time. He's gone over to Link's. . . . Over a year. It was that job Dixter wanted him to do. . . . Naw, Tusk's not gonna do it, but it looked like for a while he might. . . . What? Oh, sure, it figures, Dixter. Dion. No wonder. Brought it all back... . Me? Of course I was sympathetic and tactful! Tact is my middle name. I told him he was getting old and soft. . .. No, he didn't say anything. ... What? Twins? Oh, great. Fine. Yeah, that's just dandy. Look, if you two haven't figured out what's causing this yet, I'll be happy to buy you a manual!"
XJ ended the transmission with a vicious click. "Twins!" the computer repeated in a gloomy tone, and immediately called up the computerized grocery service, ordered out two cases of cookies.
Chapter Eight
There's fennel for you, and columbines; there's rue for you; and here's some for me ...
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene v
Three years ago, and almost eighteen years before that, the Academy had been a ghostly place. Once it had been an institution of learning for the children of the Blood Royal. Brought here at an early age, the children, whose genetically altered bloodlines gave them special talent for leadership (or at least that had been the plan), were raised in an atmosphere dedicated to learning.
The site had been chosen with care. The Academy was built on a planet whose atmosphere and environs were as close to old Earth (pre-devastation Earth) as the designers could possibly find and far from all major cities, trade routes, and any other type of disturbing influence.
Built among rolling, thickly forested hills, the Academy's halls and libraries and classrooms stood solemn and quiet, each connected with the rest by winding paths which led through groves of towering oak and poplar and aspen, gardens of flowers and vegetables (the students and professors were required to grow much of their own food), rambling brooks and placid lakes.
Following the downfall and purge of the Blood Royal during the revolution, the Academy was abandoned. Attempts at various times to use the buildings and grounds for other purposes—from public housing to a retirement center—had all failed. It was rumored to be haunted, if not by genuine, chain-rattling ghosts, then by the ghosts of childish voices reciting Shakespeare or the multiplication tables, ghosts of youthful voices discussing quantum mechanics or, in the spring, Walt Whitman and D. H. Lawrence. Perhaps it really was only the rubbing of tree limbs, one against the other, that created the odd sounds, but no one could stay on the Academy grounds long without hearing them. Most left, immediately.
But now all that had changed.
One of Dion's first official acts, following his coronation, had been to reestablish the Academy, open it as an institution of higher learning for any student creatively gifted, academically talented enough to qualify for admission.
Old buildings had been lovingly renovated, new buildings added, their designers careful to coordinate them with the old. Grants were established, many in the names of those who had died in the fight to end the corrupt republic, bring the rightful heir to the throne.
A memorial chapel, located in the new wing of the library, the Platus Morianna wing—had been set aside, by the king's command, to honor the dead. It was this wing, this chapel, that were t
o be dedicated today.
The ceremony was to take place in the evening. Before that, in the afternoon, Dion was accorded the honor of a private tour of the Academy grounds. The new buildings had been completed and open for use for several months prior to the dedication, the king's busy schedule having precluded him from coming earlier. But the buildings had all been closed the day before His Majesty's arrival for cleaning and decorating, done by the students themselves.
The dean of students was the proud guide. She walked His Majesty relentlessly over every centimeter of the new structures, pointed out every new feature of the new library, and would have undoubtedly exhibited each new volume individually had time allowed. His Majesty was interested and attentive, however, and if Dion's eyes occasionally strayed out the windows, to the crowds to students massed outside to catch a glimpse of their king (and he was their king, being the same age as most of them), no one noticed the lapse except D'argent, who noticed everything, and the captain of the Royal Guard, whose duty it was to watch over His Majesty's every move.
And perhaps by the headmaster, a quiet and unassuming man, who reminded Dion of his own mentor, Platus.
"You have done a splendid job, Dean, Headmaster," said Dion when they were nearing the end of the tour. "This is exactly what we had in mind. We couldn't be more pleased."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." The headmaster smiled with quiet pride. Both he and the dean were dressed in their academic gowns—long, flowing-sleeved black robes with silk-lined hoods, which had been a tradition among scholars for centuries.
"Working on this project has been a true labor of love for me and for my staff. We deeply appreciate Your Majesty's support."
They had emerged from the new music conservatory and were standing at the end of a corridor, on ground level. "But where is the memorial chapel?" Dion asked.
"Ah, we have saved the best until last, Your Majesty. This way."
The headmaster, accompanied by the dean, and the king, accompanied by the ever-present, ever-vigilant Royal Guard and the quiet, unobtrusive D'argent, proceeded to the end of the corridor.
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