"What's the purpose of this place?" Tara asked. "Why are we here? Why are all these species here? What do the O—the V—do with them?"
"We call it the Zoo. The V come in, once in awhile, and select certain creatures—and lead them back through the gates. And that's the end of it. We don't see them again. Sometimes they take our people as well. There's nothing we can do except watch. We don't know what happens to them. All we know is we lose wives, sons, daughters, husbands…"
"Our thanks for bringing our daughter back." A second bearded man confronted Tara. The girl we had rescued was in his arms. "We had given up hope. We are forever in its debt. We will never again speak ill of the Legion. What can we do to assist it?"
"We need to know everything about this world," Tara said. "Tell us all it knows. Teach us how to survive. We wish to join forces with it to ensure our joint survival."
"We will tell it all we know. We will help it survive!"
"And then we kill the apes!" the girl hissed from her father's arms.
***
We moved our camp, occupying the area adjoining the Fort. All humans were now united in this strange world, and our numbers made us a formidable force to everyone except our captors. The Systies showed us the borders of the Zoo. It was quite extensive and full of creatures from other worlds, but it was totally enclosed by the deadly, invisible wall of raw power that we had discovered on our recon. The wall seemed to extend up the full height of the steel beams that channeled it. Going over it was out of the question. The wall also extended into the ground. An effort by the Systies to tunnel under it had resulted in one fatality. An effort to determine how deeply the beams were buried in the ground had also failed. We were considering all these factors, but we knew nothing could be done to alter our situation without psybloc. And we did not have any psybloc. The situation was not promising.
***
The large humanoids with the small heads showed up one day, all eighteen of them. We watched them as they set up camp next to us. That night they were attacked by the lizard creatures, and we reacted by helping them fight off the attackers.
The following morning a delegation of the humanoids confronted us with strange gestures and open hands. I reached out gingerly for one of the creatures and we linked fingers. I looked right into those alien eyes and I saw a deep sorrow, and a solemn promise. That night we extended our perimeter to include the humanoids, and they walked guard duty with us and our lights pierced the dark, all night, and the attacks stopped.
We were masters of O-Rock in no time at all, within the confines of the Zoo. Even the vampire spiders seemed reluctant to take us on. I felt very sorry for most of the species trapped in there with us. Some of them were so exotic, so different, that we had no way of communicating. One species had great gossamer wings, a long tube-like snout, and flaring antennae. They kept holding up their wings to fly, but they couldn't, not in that grav. The rain was washing away their fluffy skin. It was a shame. They must have been graceful and beautiful in their world.
I knew we were in the same situation as them. It appeared there was no way out for us, ever. Our mission had failed, spectacularly, just as I had told Tara it would. We were going to spend the balance of our lives here, waiting for the O's to haul us away, one by one, to meet our end. It was certainly over for us. It was foolish to think otherwise. But as long as life remained in our bodies, we were going to continue to act as soldiers of the Legion.
***
And then one dark day two O's walked in on us, accompanied by Gildron. We only had enough time to panic before the icy tendrils of their psypower paralyzed us with terror. Two tall O's, wearing long dark cloaks, glared ferociously at their surroundings with Gildron between them. He was also wearing a cloak—an O cloak.
His boots stopped before me as I grovelled in the dirt.
"Get up, Three," he said. "Where is Cinta?"
He helped me up. The O's were so close, so totally evil, so totally powerful, that I was having trouble breathing. Gildron put a heavy hand on my shoulder, and I led him to Tara.
She was cringing in a foetal position, surrounded by her stricken comrades. Gildron reached down and pulled her to her feet. She threw herself against his chest, embracing him frantically, wild with relief but still terrified. I was sticking pretty close to him myself. Gildron seemed strangely unaffected by the O's psypower.
Valkyrie cried out in horror as they led Tara and me away and Redhawk informed her. My heart burned for her.
The O's took us back to the gate, up the slimy mud slope and between the two massive steel beams that marked the entrance to the Zoo. Several O troopers in full armor were guarding it. I could smell the stink of ozone, again.
The O's marched us back to a muddy field and I looked up and there it was—that great metal stage, wreathed in mist, illuminated by smoky torches, crowded with O's and surrounded by armored O's wielding energy weapons. This time, however, the field facing the stage was deserted. We were alone, just Gildron, Tara and me. Our Omni escorts had faded away. We stood there, in that vast muddy plaza, awaiting our fate. The Emperor showed himself, stepping forward up on stage, peering out of his black cloak. The sky was dark and threatening with low-hanging clouds spitting a faint mist, but there was a bright light directly overhead. A single star, flickering, ice-cold, brilliant, right over our heads.
It was the Star. My skin crawled. And I suddenly realized that the psypower was gone.
"What's the sit, Gildron?" I hissed.
"This is our only chance, Three. They wanted to deal with me, because my people are the only ones they can trust. They offered me freedom, and I refused. I told them only Cinta and Beta Three could make this decision, and I told them there must be no psypower. Cinta, you must speak for us all. You must be strong."
"That's the Star," Tara said slowly.
"Yes. The Star is our salvation. At first I tried to hide it, but they found it. They were horrified when they saw it had returned to them. They do not want it even for a day. They fear its power. It almost destroyed them, once. They want us to take it and leave. It is the only solution for them. They know they cannot destroy it. They know they cannot trust themselves with it. They do not want it here. It is too dangerous."
"What must I say?" Tara asked.
"The Benevolent Supreme One, the All-Knowing, offers us freedom. You, Three, and I. We will take the Star and leave. They will help us return to our universe."
Freedom! Salvation! It would have been so easy, then, to say yes, yes, yes!
Tara's face darkened. Her shoulders went back, and she stepped away from Gildron, facing the emperor bravely, shaking back her hair. Her defiance was obvious, even before she spoke.
"No. The answer is no! It's all of us, or none! Tell him that!" I closed my eyes. I was never prouder of Tara than I was at that very moment, waiting for the O troopers to blast us to atoms. She had redeemed herself—for everything.
The stage erupted. I knew Gildron had communicated the message telepathically. The Emperor raised his great spidery arms and shrieked his rage. His flunkies trembled in concern. I was expecting a blast of psypower, or worse, but it did not happen.
"The Compassionate, the All Powerful, the Creator, has ruled that all humans from your ship are to accompany the Star," Gildron said. The mad emperor and his court were frozen on stage, glaring at Tara. I saw her lips form the word, and I could hardly believe it.
"No," she said. "No! All humans are to accompany us—not just those from our ship. All of them!"
The Emperor remained frozen, but his evil eyes blazed with hatred. Nobody was moving. A light rain fell. The Star hung there, overhead, crackling slightly, illuminating us all. I was wide-eyed with amazement and horror. I did not think I would have had it in me to so brazenly defy the will of the O's lunatic emperor. We were surely dead now—Tara was a fool!
"The Living God wishes to purge his realm of all evil," Gildron said. "The Star is evil, and all humans are filthy, diseased carrion, carrie
rs of evil. God decrees that all humans are to be banished from his universe, with the Star, immediately."
"And the humanoids. The ones living next to us. They're evil, too. Tell him!" I cringed. Tara had gone insane, that was obvious.
The Emperor leaped forward to the edge of the stage, his cloak swirling around him. One long arm went up, trembling, a mailed fist, poised to strike.
"You don't want his hand to come down, Tara," I choked.
"The humanoids are evil as well," Gildron said. "They are banished! Now go! Speak no further! Leave our realm, or face our righteous wrath!"
"Tell him his terrified slaves hasten to fulfill his commands," Tara said. "And hold me up. I think I'm going to faint."
***
Gildron accompanied us back into the Zoo on his own. It didn't take us long to break camp. We were highly motivated. So were the Systies, once we told them what was happening. We made our humanoid allies understand by gestures that they were to come with us and they showed no reluctance.
Valkyrie was overjoyed at my return. She still could not see, but I threw an arm over her shoulders and pulled her tight. Together! We were all to walk out of here together. It was incredible.
Just as we were leaving, a strong delegation of man-apes showed up. There must have been close to thirty of them. They stood there together for awhile, hunched over and scratching, watching us. Then they pushed forward one of their number. He approached us reluctantly, shambling forward. He was holding a canteen—our canteen. He placed it on the ground gingerly, before us, then rapidly retreated to his fellows. They all turned and left, anxiously, almost running. One of our medics recovered the canteen.
"What the hell was that all about?" Redhawk asked.
"I think I know," I replied. "It was the canteen. The damned thing was too advanced for them. It was probably wrecking their society. They were probably having power struggles over it, bashing in each other's skulls to possess it. They finally decided they'd be better off without it."
"Well I'll be damned."
"You know what? Those apes are smarter than we are."
***
The O's weren't too gentle with us when we trooped back through the gates. They lashed at us with their psypower and reduced us to a flock of terrified, quivering slaves—once again. All except Gildron. The Star accompanied him, floating gently a few mikes over his shoulder. The psypower did not seem to be directed at him, but the rest of us were herded like doomed mumpups, under that dark sky, into a great black ship. They had agreed to set us free, but they hadn't agreed to be nice about it. They forced us down a narrow, icy metal corridor lined with locked hatches, and when we were all there they sealed us in. It was dark and cold and crowded—there were so many of us packed in there we could barely move.
The shuttle launched suddenly and I knew we were on our way. Gildron did not seem to be with us.
"Thinker—look at this!" It was Whit. We had been underway close to a half hour. I found my way forward to her position by one wall. She had found a sliding metal panel that opened to reveal a viewport and a black, dead sky. But there was something there, out in the vac, a tiny, silvery speck. It grew as I watched it, into a miniature dart, shining like a star, floating alone in the immensity of that awful, empty vac. I had never before seen anything so lovely, so captivating, so welcoming.
"It's the Star of Dindabai," I announced. "It's right out there. They're taking us back to our ship!" A tremendous cheer burst forth from our ranks.
Chapter 17
Dust of the Gods
It's hard to describe the mixture of rage and relief and apprehension that we all felt when we sealed that last airlock door, cutting us off from the O's, leaving us in the dubious safety of our own ship. We ran to our stations, frantic to bring the ship back to life, and Tara and I found Gildron already on the bridge. Throughout the ship, corridors were warped and blistered by the vicious battle that had raged there. The air still stank of smoke and burnt wiring. We ripped open our armories and tossed out new E's and Manlinks and pouches full of psybloc grenades, and everyone snatched them up eagerly. We felt disgraced and helpless, and we were determined that it not happen again. I drifted aimlessly around the bridge with an E and a beltpak of psybloc grenades as Tara and Gildron reviewed the damage reports and oversaw our efforts to get all systems back on line.
Nobody could have missed that view, out the forward viewports. The O's dark world hung in the vac like a diseased plum, a massive orb, eerily luminous but covered with an impenetrable soup of dark clouds. And out in the infinite ocean of space, two tiny feeble stars were barely visible, one white, one yellow, probably at the maximum distance to sustain life on the O's awful rock.
Looking down at O-Rock, I wondered if we would ever know the true identities of our captors. Was the mad emperor really the O's maximum ruler, or just some local bandit chief? Surely the endless hosts of O ships that plagued our galaxy did not originate from this pitiful rock? Whoever they were, the guys who attacked us had certainly kicked our asses. We knew how to fight O's, we knew how to kill O's, but we couldn't kill holos, and the O's had never before used their vac-active holos in such overwhelming numbers. The tactic had proven most effective.
I could only shudder, thinking of that obscene zoo. There was nothing we could do for the other species. We had tested the emperor's patience as it was. Perhaps the Legion could return here some day, in force, and set all those pitiful creatures free. But I knew it was a foolish dream. We had enough problems in our own universe to occupy the Legion for several generations, and nobody was going to mount an expedition into another universe to liberate creatures we knew nothing about.
"What do you think, Systems?" Tara asked.
"Better than I expected," Systems replied. "The stardrive can be repaired, but it will take some time. The Ship estimates fifteen hours. Otherwise, there's lots of superficial exterior and interior damage but no other major systems problems. We could limp out of here on vac drive and make the repairs underway if you'd like to get away from this place before they change their minds."
"I was thinking the same. How many O ships in orbit here?"
"Twenty-six total."
"How odd. Only twenty-six ships. Surely this can't be their home planet."
"They don't have a home," I said. "I believe they lost their home—generations ago. Can we get out of here, please?"
"Yes—of course. Gildron, do the O's understand it's going to take us awhile before we can leave their universe?"
"Yes. The Living God has decreed we are not to be hindered. He does not want to see the Star again." Gildron took the Star out of an inside pocket and released it. It floated up to the ceiling, casting a pale glow. I despised the damned thing. I realized it was the only reason the O's had set us free, but it was also the reason we had gone there in the first place.
"All right, vac drive, build to max velocity. I want the antimat systems techs to have absolutely everything they need to get the job done ASAP. That's number one priority. Tell them to get to work right now."
"They are," Systems replied.
"Vac launch," the pilot said, "with pleasure!" O-Rock slowly fell away from the forward viewport as the Star of Dindabai glided smoothly into the vac. I reflected on what we might have learned down there. A little humility, hopefully. But there was the Star, the cursed Star, still with us. We were still putting all our hopes in the damned thing. I knew we would be better off without it.
"We'll have to use the Star to counter those holos," Tara mused aloud. "First thing we'll do when we get back to Dindabai. We can do anything with the Star—but we can't do everything. This will have to be next on the list, Gildron. We can't have this happening again."
Gildron did not answer. He seemed lost in thought. He had been very quiet since our disastrous visit to O-Rock.
***
We met in the Commander's Dining Room with the Systies and the humanoids. The Systies were wearing brand-new ship's fatigues. We were all still a l
ittle giddy at the mind-numbing luxuries available on board after our Stone Age lifestyle on O-Rock. It didn't matter that the corridors were all shot up and half the hatches were blown off. It was miraculous that we had hot and cold water, toilets, warm beds and as much food and drink as anyone could want.
"We never thought we'd say this," the Systie leader said, raising his glass, "To the Legion." We got up and drank. It wasn't often that a Systie toasted the Legion.
The humanoid leader reached out one great arm and linked hands with Gildron. Such a human gesture said everything. Gildron had insured the humanoids were comfortable on board. They were wearing new tunics fashioned in their own style from material taken from ship's stores. Gildron learned they were from our own universe, from a world we had not yet discovered—but we knew where it was now. The humanoids zeroed it on a star chart. If we did get back to our own universe, we could return the humanoids to their own world. Gildron told them that, and they were grateful. I felt good about that. I decided I had been wrong about Tara. She was the reason they were here; she had risked us all, the whole ship, for them, for beings who were not even human, for creatures who had done nothing for us. Except…they had stood the night watch with us, back on O-Rock. Was that enough? Was that it? Was it just because they stood together with the Legion, against the rest of creation? And wasn't that enough?
Maybe that was enough, in Tara's mind. She was a dark angel, I decided, dedicated and fearless. System Goodlibs would say she was totally immoral, but they would be completely wrong, as usual. Just the opposite. She was totally moral. No wonder people like her scared the hell out of the System.
Tara and I met with Gildron alone later in the Conmod. His puzzling silence was troubling. Something was up. He told us, hunched over a cup of Dinda Highlands blue tea, scowling at the conference table, avoiding our eyes, clenching and unclenching one beefy fist.
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