"Dragon, pass him the printout of that old sector navchart, and our own sector chart. And pass him the print of that entry on Rima 2."
"Tenners." Dragon dug the three documents out of his beltpak and held them out in his gloved fingers. The O reached out one long arm and snatched them up. I could see only death, lurking behind its blackened, split faceplate.
"All right, that's it. Back off—slowly," I said.
"Good idea," Dragon whispered. I was sweating profusely. I could feel the drops, sliding down my temples, dripping off the tip of my nose. The O watched us as we backed away, but made no move to follow. When we recovered our weapons we did not power on the psybloc, and the O kept his field down. When we put the sand dune between us again I breathed a giant sigh of relief. Thank God for Dragon! I certainly couldn't have done that alone. The fellow has ice water in his veins.
"Thanks, Thinker," Dragon said. "That was a little scary. I'm not sure I would have done that without you."
Chapter 10
On the Cross
That's all of it?" Tara put down the mission report. She was as lovely as ever, but she seemed weary, speaking sparingly and moving slowly. A disorderly collection of printouts littered the conference table before her.
"That's it," I replied. Snow Leopard, Dragon and I faced Tara and another Starcom officer across the table in a small conference room in the CS Atom's Road. I did not know the officer. He looked young, but everybody looked young in the Legion. Tara had not introduced us so it was unclear if he was her super or sub. Starcom officers did not normally wear rank insignia. Unopened dox cups were set in front of each of us. We were too nervous to pop them.
"I take full responsibility," Snow Leopard said. "I can assure you Squad Jox uncovered all the information on Rima 2 that could be found in the library of Imperial Padan. The Guardian was most cooperative and was able to come up with quite a lot in addition to the original entry in that encyclopedia. Unfortunately there was only that one reference to the White Death—the list of human and O worlds that had been stricken by the fungus, and an estimated death count on each world. However, Rima 2 was not listed, as the list had been compiled before the plague reached it. And by that time Odura was pretty much cut off from the rest of the galaxy."
"Nothing else?" Tara's companion asked. A pale face, prominent bones, dark eyes.
"That's it. Our pilot sent probes into every dead ship in orbit while he was up there waiting for the squad. Nothing. Upon completion of the mission, the Die Young orbited Voltura—the closest world stricken by the White Death. Much of the planet was covered by the fungus. The remnants of human civilization lay in ruins, and the only higher life form was the fungus. We didn't have time to chat with the Mind, but the stuff is certainly alive. We recovered samples of the substance, and it's undergoing analysis by the lifies."
"The O," Tara interrupted. "Did you pass all of the information to him?"
"We passed everything," I said. "We had three contacts. All it gave us was that one cube we passed you earlier."
"I see," Tara replied, then fell silent. She appeared to be deep in thought.
"It's gone, Tara," I said. "Rima 2 is gone. We failed." I liked to put things in perspective.
"Squad Jox did not fail," Snow Leopard interrupted, glaring at me. "They did all that was possible. The target world had been destroyed. But they identified its former location, and learned all that could be learned. Squad Jox performed its mission flawlessly. If there is to be any blame assigned here, I demand full responsibility."
Tara looked up in annoyance. "Stop talking about responsibility. The mission was successful. The information you've brought us is invaluable. We're just going to have to…change our plans."
"Has there been any progress in countering the White Death?" I asked.
Tara sighed, and looked down at the table. "No. The lifies are still helpless. Last week there was a riot at the starport on Veronica 2. The Legion was evacuating women and children, but only limited numbers could go. The women were fighting for their children, Wester. It degenerated into a riot, then a stampede. Hundreds were injured. Scores of children were killed—trampled and crushed—before the Legion could restore order with vac. It was terrible, Wester—terrible. A Legion world, falling into chaos. The Legion, having to fire vac at women and children. It's a tragedy, Wester. We've got to counter this plague! If we don't, it will destroy ConFree, the System, even the O's…it will destroy humanity. Our worlds will look just like Voltura."
"What can we do?"
"For the moment—nothing. Return to Recon. We're going to do all we can to unlock the secrets of the White Death. Perhaps the samples you brought back will help. In the meantime, we'll keep Recon busy. Thanks for the mission, guys. Don't despair. We'll never stop trying. As for me, I'm being reassigned. Wester, I'll keep in touch with you."
"Where are you being reassigned, Tara?" I asked.
"Quaba 7. Starcom seems to need me there."
"We'll have to tell him about the result," Tara's companion remarked.
"I'll tell him," she responded. "Thank you, Snow Leopard, Dragon, Thinker. Dismissed." We got up and left. I wondered who 'him' was, and how he would react to our report.
***
I pressed at the door chime, again. The notice on the door flashed red at me: Please Do Not Disturb. Finally the recording came on.
"Captain Antara Tarantos-Hanna wishes not to be disturbed. Please leave a message at the tone."
"Tara, it's Wester. Open the door. I'm not leaving until I see you."
I waited a bit longer. It was very late at night—probably why she did not want to be disturbed. The door clicked and slid open. It was dark inside. I stepped in. The door slid shut behind me. All the lights were out. A faint, fresh perfume was in the air. It was cool and quiet. I stood there as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Finally I could make out Tara. She was sitting on the floor, long legs folded beneath her, hands in her lap, clad in shorts and a sleeveless top. Her eyes were closed.
I knelt before her, silently. In the dark her face looked almost holy. All the weariness was gone. But I knew there was no escape for her, ever.
"Hello, Wester." It was a whisper. Her eyes remained closed.
"Tara." I hesitated. "I failed you, Tara."
"On the contrary. You've given me exactly what I need. You found Chudit."
"But it's not there any more, Tara."
"A momentary setback, Wester." Still a whisper, eyes closed. As if she was in another world. "Deadman is testing us. We shall not be found wanting. The secret of the White Death is to be found on Chudit—on Rima 2. And we're going to uncover that secret. No matter what the obstacles." She was almost glowing. Little drops of sweat beaded her brow. A tiny speck of hope came alive within me.
"You've rebuilt the Star of Dindabai," I whispered. The Star of Dindabai was humanity's first time-drive starship. Using the secrets of the Star, it had torn us a hole in the cosmos, plunging us into an alternate universe, and into the past. Most of Beta owed their lives to that technology, but the Star of Dindabai had been subsequently vaporized in a battle with rogue ConFree elements. And the Star, source of all that knowledge, had been destroyed by Gildron, Tara's eternal love, when he had died for us all.
"No, Wester. We certainly considered it. But it was determined building a clone was not justified."
"But you've got the D-neg! You told me you had the D-neg!" The D-neg—exotic matter from Plane Prime—gave us the power to cheat time. Without it, true time travel, into the past, was not possible.
"Yes, Wester. We have the D-neg. But we've learned some things since our return voyage to Uldo. We've done some experimenting. We have learned there are some very…rigid…physical limits…on transporting a living being into the past." Tara sighed, and a peaceful smile appeared. Her eyes were still closed. She looked serene.
"What limits, Tara?" My blood was ice-cold.
"Two hundred years is pushing it. More than that, and your internal organs s
tart to rupture. Don't ask how we found that out. We were lucky with Uldo. It was only a few years back, so it didn't matter that we didn't know about the limits. It seems you can go as far as you want into the future, but only a limited distance into the past. I believe it's Mother Nature's way of telling us we're doing something wrong. Chudit was a hundred thousand years ago. Well beyond the limits."
"So there's no hope."
She continued with that unearthly smile. "As long as my heart continues beating in my body, there is hope. Come closer."
I leaned forward. She reached out to me and her slim fingers wrapped around my hand convulsively and her exotic Assidic eyes snapped open. They were hot and smoky—burning like a volcano.
"If you think this is going to stop me, you still don't know me. I'm not going to stop until the White Death is vanquished, or I'm dead. You once said you were my attack dog. Well, you still are, Wester. And I need you. The Legion is going to stop the plague. And I am the Legion. So are you. Once I'm ready, I'll call you. I'm going to need my attack dog when that day comes. And I know you're not going to rest either, until this is done. I bless you, Wester. In Deadman's name, I bless you." And she made the sign of the Legion, over my face. I knew better than to ask any more questions. Tara was on it. That's all I had to know. I got up and said goodbye.
***
"Pits, Mams, we've secured the target. Should be moving shortly. No response yet from Starguard. Li'l Miss Miss is standing by." The report crackled in my ears. We were downside on Pherdos, A & A, on our way to the rendezvous with Kiss. And behind us, a Pherdan town was burning. It was early morning. The velvet sky was full of lovely stars but the town was aflame, lighting up the horizon in a ruddy glow, outlining the skeletons of shattered buildings in stark black relief. The Pherdan base was right on the edge of town and we had taken it out along with the spaceport.
"Dragon, Redhawk, I'm on the way."
"Tenners, we'll be there." A yellow flash lit up the night, followed by a heavy boom from the town. The base was still going off.
"Thinker, Priestess, Dragon—you're rear security. Maintain your zero."
"Tenners."
"Ten." I was in knee-deep swampland by the side of the road. The roadway was slightly elevated from the swamp. It was full of Fleetcom vacheads, males and females, a long line of them, unarmored, visible only as shadows now, headed for evac, courtesy of Recon. They were the crew of the supply ship C.S. Genie. The Genie had been detained by a Pherdan tacship on some vague charge—probably as a pretext to seize the cargo. The System was disintegrating and the brand-new Pherdan Federation was becoming increasingly erratic. Detaining a ConFree starship was insane, and guaranteed a Legion response. Mams and Li'l Miss Miss had just successfully seized the Genie in orbit while Pits and Kiss had annihilated the downside garrison and liberated the crew.
I stood there in the early morning dark, secure in my A-suit, my E on my hip. Sweety scanned the tacmap for more opposition. We didn't use Holo-X for Systies—that was reserved for the O's. There were not enough units so we had to choose our targets carefully. I didn't care. The mission was proceeding nicely. Lots of dead Pherdans and no Legion casualties. They were clearly unprepared for the consequences of their actions.
As I watched the burning glow on the horizon, the system's double stars began to rise from right behind the burning town, staining the skies an electric greenish-white, a magnificent symphony of color. Off to one side stood a gaunt stone ruin that looked like a cathedral. I recalled reading in the target study that the inhabitants had worshipped a deity before the Systies imposed control many years ago. A lovely skeletal black cathedral was outlined in pink by that glowing horizon. The crew of the Genie continued along the road, still only shadow figures. A faint wind moaned lightly.
"Priestess—look."
"I see." She was on the other side of the road, looking back at the holocaust. "It's beautiful."
A ghostly flutter passed over us. It was the Kiss, gliding in to the rendezvous. I thanked Deadman for that glorious dawn and thought, again, of the deadly plague sweeping the galaxy. Months had passed since my last talk with Tara. The White Death had hit the System with a vengeance. Chaos ruled everywhere the fungus appeared, System or ConFree. The Legion was dealing with it—even if it only meant dealing with death. A religious revival was sweeping infected ConFree worlds. But for us, it should not have mattered. Recon was kept quite busy doing Deadman's work. What we were doing was good. Tara had said it. The crew of the Genie was now free again. But a whole lot of Pherdans were dead. Good seemed to flow from evil, somehow. To free a slave, to rescue a child, to liberate a comrade, you had to kill somebody else. That was the equation. And we were first-class killers.
"Dragon, Redhawk. Commencing loading. We'll be making several trips—Li'l Miss Miss has got to cover Genie."
"Redhawk, Dragon. Tenners. Just do it. We'll cover you."
I settled down in the mud next to the roadway. The double suns were visible now, a brilliant white, an electric green, right behind that old cathedral. Lord, what a view. It was heavenly.
"Priestess, Thinker."
"Yes, Three."
"I'm never going to leave you."
"On the cross, Three. On the cross."
"Tenners." I listened to the music of the stars in my helmet as those two suns rose up. It was truly lovely. But none of it could banish that cold knot in my stomach. We had failed, on Odura. I had failed. Chudit was gone, and Chudit held the secret of the White Death. Millions were dying, millions more were sure to die, of the plague. We were only marking time here, I knew. If the plague could not be stopped, nothing else would matter.
It was like a curse. And it was not going to go away unless we did something.
***
"I have an appointment with Captain Tarantos-Hanna of Galactic Information." I was at what I hoped was the last door between myself and Tara in the inner portals of Hqs, 22nd Legion, on Quaba 7. It had been a long trip, I was just off the ship, and I was tired.
"ID please?" I handed over my ID. He was a very large, exceptionally alert trooper in an A-vest with a handgun at his waist. I knew the E would be under the counter, within easy reach. He waved my ID at a screen, and handed it back. "What's it about?" he asked.
"I have an appointment."
"What's it about?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps you could ask Captain Tarantos-Hanna, if you're so curious." I was in no mood for nonsense.
"She's not a captain," he said, triggering the door. It slid open, and I walked into Tara's inner sanctum. It was a large, airy office, brightened by a full-length armorplex window with a terrific view of the Hqs building and the starport beyond. The sky was darkening. It might rain. A group of people broke away from Tara's conference desk, heading for the door as Tara approached me. She was as lovely as ever, slim and alluring, but she was not smiling.
"Who's the goon?" I asked, as the others disappeared.
"You mean Delta Two. He was assigned to me. He's kind of a…bodyguard."
"You should teach him some manners."
"That's not important, Wester. How are you?" She stood before me, almost at attention.
"I'm fine. And how are you, Tara?"
"Not so good. But that's not important either. Are you ready for a new mission?"
"What mission is that, Tara?"
"The mission we talked about before, Wester. The mission to Chudit. The only mission of any real importance for the survival of humanity."
"Chudit isn't there any more, is it?"
"That doesn't matter, Wester."
"You told me time travel is not possible, to a destination a hundred thousand years in the past—like Chudit—unless you want to arrive there dead."
"That's true."
"You also told me the Legion decided not to build another copy of the Star of Dindabai."
"Also true. But none of that matters, Wester. I've solved the problem. And you're going to help me. Now. Will you do it?" Her eyes blazed
. I knew every word she was saying was true. The Star was still in her, still doing its unholy work, boring holes in her brain, wreaking its awful magic. Gildron may have killed the Star, but he could not kill what was already in her. She had to cope with that by herself.
"Of course I'll do it," I said. There was no way I could have refused this one—not even if they had told me the chances for my survival were zero. I remembered a previous pledge I had made to myself—never to get involved with Tara again. Don't even waste your time thinking about it, I thought. We don't do what we want. We have no choice at all. We are microbes on the breath of God.
"He's ready," a female voice said from Tara's comset.
"All right, Lori. Is the shuttle set?"
"Standing by."
"Tell them we're on the way. Come on, Wester, we've got to hurry." She grabbed me by an elbow and hustled me out of her office and into a corridor full of office flunkies bustling to and fro. Some of them appeared to be rather high-ranking.
We took an elevator up to topsides and emerged into an outer alcove where we were quickly carded and cleared. The door slid open to reveal an office even larger than Tara's, with a spectacular view of the entire Legion-Fleetcom complex and the starport beyond. The opposite wall was covered with d-screens, most of them active. A starmap table was off to one side. We passed about a squad of high-ranking Fleetcom officers heading for the door. One man remained, clad in Legion black, standing behind the desk. He looked young, slim and fit, average height, with short, neatly clipped brown hair, a pale, fine-boned face, and eyes that burned with an unholy light. All our leaders had those eyes. It seemed to be some kind of requirement.
"One, this is Thinker of Recon," Tara said. "Thinker, Two Two One." I snapped to attention and fired off a salute. This was the new Commander of the 22nd Legion, the Rimguard. He was the successor to Pointman, LC One, the sainted former leader of the Lost Command. Tara was certainly moving in rarified circles.
He returned my salute slowly, taking me in with his eyes. "At ease, trooper." I snapped to at ease. "So—this is Thinker. Is he as good as you say, Tara?"
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