Secret of the Legion

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "Girls have to cry every once in awhile, Willard," I told him.

  "I'm glad I'm not a girl. Can I have some water? Is Tara sad?"

  "Kiss her. Maybe she'll cheer up."

  Willard kissed Tara on the cheek, and she threw the napkin down and wrestled him to the grass as he struggled to escape, giggling.

  "Kiss me, will you?" Tara chided him. "Don't you know it's illegal to kiss a psycher? I'm going to tickle you to death!"

  I settled back with a cold drink. Hopeless—it was hopeless. Maybe it would become clearer once I got my memory back.

  ***

  She came to me through the mists—a pale face, all youth and innocence, as serene as an angel, looking up at me with a faint smile. Gleaming black hair, deep brown liquid eyes and a small mouth with ripe tender lips. She blinked once and I was hers, then and forever. She was serving me something from the cooker. "Flanpie," she said, setting it gently down on a wall table. She was dressed in Legion camfax, as slender and lithe as a cat. She was absolutely adorable. I vowed to love her forever, and never leave her side.

  "Do you believe in God?" she asked me.

  The world erupted, a deafening bone-shattering blast of starmass roaring in my ears, engulfing me in deadly white-hot flames. My armor was melting, Sweety was shrieking warnings into my ears, and Priestess was gone—gone! She was lost and blind, flaming like a meteor, staggering, groping, lost in the starmass, melting, dying, going out like a fleck of burning ash, calling my name—"Thinker! Thinker! Thinker!"

  I screamed and awoke in a blind panic, thrashing wildly, slamming up against the brainscan devices. Marty came running out of the dark, snatching at my arms.

  "Three! Three! Three! Calm down! It was just a dream!"

  I collapsed against the pillow. My body was covered with cold sweat, and my heart was thumping. Marty was quite concerned.

  "The hell it was," I hissed. "It was the past!" And I wasn't likely to forget it.

  ***

  I began to retain some of the images that came flooding up from my brain in my sleep. They weren't really dreams, but were the result of the techs poking around in my brain, stimulating the LTM circuits. I wasn't recalling any of this on my own, since the caps were still in place, but when they prodded the circuits directly, I didn't have to recall anything. It flooded my mind, just like a dream. And when it did that, I could sometimes remember it when I woke up. I wasn't recalling a memory, I was remembering a dream. But these dreams were from the past. I was cheating, bypassing the caps. I was getting little glimpses of the past.

  Daytimes, I went to class. It was a rather special class—I was the only student. But it was all part of Tara's plan. I learned about the Legion. I learned what happened to a new recruit, where he goes and what he does. I memorized my lines. There was a lot to learn, a lot to read. It kept me busy.

  Dragon often joined me on the range. They had a first-class range out in the wilderness. I soon grew familiar with a wide range of weaponry, Legion and Systie. I had done it all before, you see. It was all strangely familiar.

  I got to know the E. I got to love the E. The E Mark 3 was a little black bitch, hot and nasty and very talented. Treat her good, treat her bad, it didn't matter. She would stand by you no matter what. She was beautiful and faithful and tough as nails. I could strip her in the dark, blind as a bat, bathe her lovely limbs in slick and put her back together again in no time flat.

  We fired for hours, Dragon and I, shattering the afternoon, then triggering the lights and firing on into the evening. I loved it. I loved every freaking frac. Full auto x, cracking right through the ear baffles. Xmin, xmax, the targets flashing and erupting, smoking phospho shrapnel tracers shooting skyward. Laser, death's bright light, snapping, shrieking. Vac flashing, knocking the targets flat. Flame, sheets of white-hot gas, setting the world afire. Hell, on tap. Canister, erupting like the end of the world, shredding the target with a hot hail of cenite microdarts. It sounded like a swarm of killer bees, and it chilled my blood.

  I loved it. It was better than sex. Dragon and I would laugh in sheer delight as smoke poured from our targets.

  "We're living on borrowed time," Dragon said once, with a far-off smile. "Might as well enjoy it."

  "No argument here!"

  Whit joined us once. She stayed about a half hour, watching us, then left. I guess girls just hate it when they're not the center of attention.

  We had a couple of new girlfriends. That was the problem.

  Tara came by once, hoisted an E, and bet us each a hundred credits she could out-shoot us. Then she humiliated us both, and to prove it wasn't an accident she did it again. She did it so easily we were stunned. As the echoes faded into the distance, she slipped her earbaffles off. Downrange was wreathed with smoke. It was glowing, flickering, burning.

  "It's good to relax," she said quietly. She was clutching the E just like a baby, and her face was cold and hard.

  ***

  Moontouch's guard suddenly appeared out of the dark, all shields and spears and tridents. Then the wall of warriors parted and Moontouch was there, clutching Stormdawn to her breast. I reached out and embraced them. A prickly wave of emotions rippled over my flesh as I inhaled her scent, for probably the last time. We kissed, feverishly. She was crying silently, tears rolling down her cheeks. I kissed the child, my own lovely son. I prayed for them both. I had given them eternal life, but it was not enough—it was certainly not enough.

  "Come on, Three—let's go!" Whit, in the aircar. I tore myself away. Deadeye was standing by the car, his fierce eyes gleaming. We embraced.

  "Take care of her, Deadeye!"

  "My life, Slayer—my life!"

  I floated back to consciousness, flooded with emotion. Moontouch—my wife, my son! Good Lord, I had seen her, I had tasted her tears, she was right there! I was lying in the dark on the psybed, and my skin was crawling. I had touched her, Moontouch, my wife, embracing me in a soft night, holding my child, my very own boy—saying goodbye for the last time. I felt totally helpless, totally alone. I vowed again to kill the people who had tried to erase my wife and son forever from my mind. And I vowed to find my loved ones again—no matter what.

  My memories started to come back to me, slowly and tentatively at first, building on the dreams that the techs stimulated every night. Then, as they began to target and destroy the caps, I started to remember things on my own—when I was awake.

  Every memory was precious to me, something to be savoured like a rare wine. I almost cried, the first few times, when I brought up the past on my own. What a fragile, wonderful thing is a memory, I thought. It's just a closed electrochem neurocircuit, a stimulated synapse, but what a magical thing it is—a picture of the past, so vivid, so charged with emotion I could feel it on my skin. Thoughts, smells, tastes, regrets, love, loneliness…flooding my brain. The past, the past, the past—surfacing, in my mind. People I knew, people who had loved me. Saved from oblivion. Back with me, again! It felt so good I could hardly believe it.

  Day after day, the caps disintegrated, as the techs identified and annihilated the static blocking the decoding centers. And soon it was a torrent of memories, a raging river—I was remembering it all. At first it was a jumble, random flashes from the past. Then I slowly began to sort it out. I saw the Legion Gate and Providence and Planet Hell. I tasted my savage love for Valkyrie, I saw the drop onto Andrion 2 again, and I kissed Priestess under a starlit sky. I remembered burning exos, and fighting the Soldiers of God. And Moontouch, the Delegate from the Past, showing me the Book of the Dead in the Tomb of the Kings. A forest, burning in the night over a Systie base. The mission to Coldmark, and Valkyrie drawing a knife over Millina's throat in one swift, bloody movement. A Legion trooper, screaming as he was being cut out of a fused A-suit. Then it was Andrion 3, the river of doom, swift black deathbirds, the kitchen of the Gods, Oplan Gold and death's cold road. And Mongera—we were holy pilgrims, bound for death, dueling with the O and the Systies under nuclear skies. We
bade farewell to our oldest comrades there.

  It was all coming back, our nasty little trip to Katag, the image of a dead man tied to a chair, haunting me. Then it was Uldo and the ultimate mission, Beta against Beta. Sleeping underwater in my A-suit. A squad of Systies, leaning into the current. The Mound, Blue Jade, starmass, everyone running from certain death, lost and doomed. And then there was the Ship. Yes—Tara and I and Gildron and Willard, on that endless, hopeless blind trip into an uncertain future, on that alien ship. We thought we were doomed, but we wound up on Andrion 2, again. I did it myself—me and the Gods.

  And then I had said a hurried goodbye to my wife and child, and ConFree snatched me and psyched me. I never learned what had happened to my beloved

  Priestess. Alive or dead, I didn't know. She was an ache in my heart, now. I loved her, absolutely, just as I loved Moontouch and my child. I didn't try to understand it. I was grateful just to know it.

  ***

  More than two months later I was ready. Tara was proud of me, I knew. She would have never told me, but I knew it. I was her biogen, just as I had promised, and no human was going to stop me. She probably thought I was invincible, and maybe I was. I was armed with the past. It was a formidable weapon.

  "So there doesn't appear to be anything further on it?" Dr. Varna was looking at Dr. Lock quizzically, his long sun-bleached hair dangling loosely over one eye. We were sitting around a conference table piled high with doc printouts and psych readouts and brainscans, sipping dox. Half of the ceiling was plex, flooding us with diffused sunlight.

  "We can't get any further readings on it," Dr. Lock replied, grinning and snapping his head to one side and back again. "I believe that's all he's retained."

  A silence settled over the room. I savoured the dox. It was good stuff.

  "Three?" Tara queried me gently. She always called me Three when the brain police were present.

  I put down my dox cup and sighed. "I've told you again and again and again. And I'll do it again, if you want. The ConFree interrogators were asking me about a ship. And it wasn't the O's starship. They wanted to know about a ship that landed near the Mound when we were inside. They asked me repeatedly about it. They gave me multiple psytests, to ensure I was telling them the truth. And I was. I told them we had been inside the Mound, battling O's and Systies, and we didn't know anything about any ship. Except the one that was inside the Mound."

  "How did they describe this ship?" Tara asked.

  "I told you—they didn't. I asked, at one point, what kind of a ship was it? Was it a shuttle? A starship? They didn't answer. They just said it was big, and it landed near the Mound, and how could we not know about it? I told them we had spent most of our time in the Mound trying to avoid being vaporized or broiled alive, and we weren't focused on what was going on outside. I told them our tacmods had alerted us when the Systie squad breached the Mound's main doors, and later when Blue Gold entered as well. But we received no notice of a ship landing."

  I went back to my dox. I didn't give a damn what it meant.

  "It's troubling," Tara said.

  "Downright strange," Dr. Lock said, nodding and grinning and looking around the room eagerly, his eyes lit up.

  "What do you think, Tara?" Dr. Varna asked.

  "It's not the Legion," Tara said, "or we would know about it. I don't see how it could be a Systie ship, either, because if it was, the Legion would have detected it. The only ship that registered in that area was the O ship, when it launched with Three and I on board. It launched from the roof of the Mound and shot out of the at into the vac and into stardrive. It's all on the record. That was the only ship. There wasn't any ship that landed there, and there wasn't any ship that took off from there—except the one O starship. And when the Legion secured the site there wasn't any other ship."

  "But ConFree seems convinced there was. Otherwise why question Three about it so extensively?" Varna asked.

  "If the System had the capability to land a ship near the Mound without having it blasted to atoms by the O's," Dr. Lock asked, "why would they have sent that DefCorps squad after Beta on foot?"

  "I'm convinced," Tara said, "this is why the System—or ConFree—or both—got so excited when Three disappeared from Nimbos. They realized that a de-psyching would reveal their questions about this ship."

  "A ghost ship."

  "A ship that wasn't there."

  "All right, then, it was an O ship. A second Omni starship. It had to be. What else is there?"

  "But it never arrived," Tara said, "and it never left. No, the same objections apply to an Omni ship as to a Systie ship. The Legion would have detected it. The O's can't hide their ships from us."

  "But if it wasn't ConFree, and it wasn't the Legion, and it wasn't the System, then it must have been the O's. Right?"

  A long silence ensued. Tara was looking up at the sunlit ceiling.

  "Three doesn't know anything about this alleged ship," Tara said thoughtfully. "And ConFree knows it. All he knows is that he was asked about it by ConFree. Why should that be so important? Does it mean they already know what it was? Or they don't?"

  Nobody had an answer to that.

  "What do you think, Three?" Dr. Lock asked me.

  "It doesn't matter what I think," I said. "But I'll tell you, if you really want to know. I think those ConFree interrogators were smoking dope. The Legion knew what was happening on Uldo. They had that planet covered like a wet blanket. A flea couldn't have hopped without showing up on a Legion sensor. If the Legion says no ship arrived there, and no ship left, then there couldn't have been a ship. It's crap. Some ConFree clown misinterpreted something, and some other clown foolishly put it in an info report, and ConFree Hqs went out of orbit when they read it, and the interrogators were stuck with the result. There wasn't any ship. It's crap."

  "It's troubling," Tara repeated.

  It wasn't troubling to me. I didn't care.

  Chapter 7

  Deep Dreams

  It was easy enough, inserting myself into the Legion's replacement mechanism. Tara got me to Auraga, and Auraga was an interstellar transportation hub. My docs were excellent, fully backed up in Legion records. I was an ACT grad from the new training facility on Guarados, on my way to Quaba 7 for reassignment. The LC had the Loyalists pretty much wired, since many of the so-called Loyalists were LC sympathizers. Tara assured me I would have plenty of help along the way. The Legion had purged their records of Beta Three, and this made it a lot easier to re-introduce me as a new personality. Tara didn't even have to alter the genetic ID. She told me I was the only one she could trust to ultimately do what had to be done. Her faith in me was touching, and justified, but it just made me angry. I knew she was perfectly right. I was her damned biogen. I already knew they'd have to kill me to stop me.

  Standing in line in the Auraga terminal to present my docs to board the Legion freighter, I had to admit Tara had done a great job. I was a new Legion troopie once again, dressed in new blacks, my hair cut short, my face burnt brown, allegedly from months in ACT, hauling a nitex shoulder bag that contained all my possessions. I could remember my original ACT course on Planet Hell, but I had also memorized every detail of my new history. Tara had thought of everything. I even had an explanation for the scars on my knuckles and my biogenned arm. I wasn't afraid of anything.

  Aboard the ship I was given a bunk in troop quarters. It was just a recessed slot in a cenite bunk wall, but it was all I needed. There were troopers above and below me. I didn't care. The ship was full of replacements bound for the war. I didn't mix with them. I ignored them. I wanted the word to get around that I was sullen and hostile. I'm sure it did.

  I spent a lot of time in my bunk in stardrive, dreaming, pondering the past and the future. It was strange how things worked out, I thought. I was going to do Tara's bidding, but in so doing I was going to accomplish my own tasks as well. Moontouch was on Andrion 2—Moontouch and my son. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing them. And it was only
because of Tara that I could. I should be grateful, I decided—not resentful. I had met plenty of people on Dindabai who didn't wear white coats. The milbase was swarming with troopers and vacheads and the town was inhabited by actual civilians as well as plenty of government people. All of them were focused on the national goal of survival in a hostile galaxy and working out the political problems with ConFree. I knew it was only because of the Lost Command's resolve that I was headed for a reunification with my family. Yes—I should be grateful.

  ***

  "All right, Eight One Nine. These are your orders. You're on a wait list for reassignment. Easy duty. See the orders for your quarters. Just check your messages regularly—you could be moving out at any time. You're on the warm body list as well. You'll be called if we need you." He was a young trooper, impeccable in his blacks. Was he looking at me curiously? Was I imagining it?

  "Yes sir!" I saluted smartly, took the orders, and disappeared. I knew better than to ask any questions—the orders would have all the answers. And I knew there wouldn't be any reassignment for me until Redhawk gave Tara the go-ahead.

  I paused outside in the quadrangle. An extensive, deserted parade ground stretched out before me—red clay, packed down as hard as stone by the boots of thousands of recruits. It brought back memories of Providence. It was so wonderful to have memories again! I took a deep breath and looked up—two far-off white suns were glittering in a cobalt blue sky. Quaba 7 was quite a place.

  As I approached the aircar port on foot, a shrill whistle drew my eyes to the massive installation looming before me. A high wind gusted all around me, and two flags snapped from a double flagpole over the main entrance ahead—the ConFree flag and the black Legion war banner. I thought briefly how ironic it was that the Loyalists and the Lost Command were saluting the same flags. Then the aircar popped up from behind the port and flashed overhead, a black blur, a titanic blast of raw power, hitting me like a physical blow, almost deafening me. I turned in astonishment to watch as it receded into the distance, a dull black dart on the horizon, suddenly spiralling up and into the dark sky, heading straight up now, right for the double sun, still spiralling, just like a bullet. Then a second hotcar boomed overhead, shattering the morning again on the trail of the first, seemingly only marks above my head. I was on a wide walkway leading to the port, and he was as low as he could get, using it as an aiming point. I caught a quick flash of the car as it passed, dark camfax skin, muted Legion cross, black plex shimmering in the sunlight, spitting white-hot nuclear exhaust. Then it was gone, whistling eerily, spiralling up into the sky like a metal bat, hot on the trail of the first car. I was frozen, my eyes rivetted on the aircars, now two tiny darts, trailing white contrails up into the stratosphere.