Secret of the Legion

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "The O's recognized me," Gildron said. "They accepted me as a friend and equal. Ever since we seized that first ship, I have known that the O's held the secret of my origins. My heart has been heavy for many years, ever since the slavers tore me away from my family on my home world. I never knew where my world was, but I can still see every detail of our happy home, all my relatives and friends, our whole community. We were blissful and content until the slavers came. They took me away, and nobody among your people had ever seen anything like me before. Only the slavers knew the location of my world, and they weren't telling. I had no idea where it was. Our people are not concerned with their place in the Cosmos." He shook his massive head, and a faint smile arose.

  "Then my lovely Cinta brought me up out of that dark pit where the slavers cast me. Out of the dark and into the light. Your people were so primitive you could not even communicate, except by chattering like monkeys. I gave up. I was content to live the rest of my life with Cinta at my side. She was a good companion, even though I thought her quite retarded." He looked at her fondly, and she placed a hand on one of his.

  "Then we met the Legion on Uldo," Gildron continued, "and boarded that Omni ship, and the O's could have killed me and you but they did not. They told me the story of their people, and it was an endless odyssey from the death of their universe into a new existence. They had been migrating for hundreds of years across the great gulf, and they met only fear and resistance along the way. They became cold and hard. Only in one world were they welcomed, without qualification. My world. Picture it as our history describes it—a heavy recon squad of armored O's, wielding fearsome weapons, glowing in purple force fields, stalking through a peaceful little forest village that was only instants away from transformation into a flaming, howling wilderness. My ancestors held out gourds of fresh spring water in welcome. And the O's paused, and drank. They lived peacefully with our people for many years, and then moved on. In all their travels, only we had welcomed them. That is why we are all still alive. That and the Star." He paused, and sipped at his tea. His gaze was lost, focused somewhere in the past.

  "I know where my world is now."

  "Gildron!" Tara squeezed his hand.

  "Yes. They only now told me, back there. I can go home now. After all these years."

  We were speechless. I could imagine his joy. I too wanted to go home.

  "You have no idea how difficult it was for me to kill those two O's for you, when we seized their ship, after they had told me about how my people had welcomed them. The O's on O-Rock knew what I had done. They understood, about my loyalty to Cinta. Can you comprehend it? They understand loyalty, and respect it. They told me where my home is. You humans are wrong about the O's. Most life forms respond to kindness—even the O's."

  "It's kind of hard to kiss and make up after they've killed two billion of us," I said. "We can respond to kindness. We can respond to cruelty, too. All we've ever seen from the O's is hatred. Talk is meaningless. Only a brain-damaged Systie Goodlib would respond to words. The O's can end the war anytime they want, by ceasing their attacks on our worlds. And until that happens, the war will continue."

  "Yes. Yes, I know," Gildron said. "It's a pity."

  "Life is a pity. But we're in it. And there's no sense in deluding ourselves about it."

  ***

  Valkyrie left the Body Shop on her own, blinking her eyes, feeling her way to the door. I met her there.

  "Valkyrie. It's Thinker. How did it go?"

  "I can see, Thinker!" Her face brightened. "It's still just light and dark, but my vision's coming back. The medics say I should completely recover. It should get a little better every day."

  "Wonderful! Gimme a squeeze." We embraced, happy again, lost for just an instant in our private world.

  "It's amazing what they can do," Valkyrie said as we walked along the corridor toward her cube. "They said even if my eyes had been completely destroyed they could replace them with biogenned eyes, and I'd get my sight back."

  "I'm glad you're all right."

  "I have to be all right, to go on the mission."

  "Eleven…I'm afraid that's not possible. You can't go on the mission if you can't see."

  "I'll get better. I'm going on the mission."

  "Valkyrie. You remember what the Mound was like. It was a bloody madhouse. We're going right into it—and we must be one hundred percent efficient, or people are going to die—maybe us. If your vision is not perfect, you'll be a liability. I'm sorry. You can't go. It's out of the question. I've lost enough friends already. I don't want to lose you as well."

  "I'm going. You don't understand. I have to go! My vision's getting better! I'll be fine!"

  "You just walked right past your cube."

  "Don't try to stop me, Thinker! You can't do that! It's not fair! You're not leaving me behind!" She touched the lock, and the door to her cube snapped open. "You just wait. I'll get better."

  She broke open a couple of dox, and we sat there on the bunk in her cramped little cube with the wall table down, looking into each other's eyes. Cool emerald eyes, I thought. But the whites were solid red. The cross of the Legion was burnt onto her forehead. She was crazy, but absolutely captivating.

  "What's the latest on the drive?" she asked.

  "Work is proceeding on schedule. Looks like they'll get it done."

  "How about the probe?"

  "It was rotten with D-neg. They've successfully isolated and extracted a sample. They should be feeding it into the reactor soon." We had been incredibly lucky. The very first probe, the one we had successfully recovered, had been peppered with raw D-neg. If only Tara had listened to Gildron, we could have avoided that nasty vacation on O-Rock.

  "And what happens if they slip up somewhere?"

  "We all die. Instantly. But as Tara said, there's nothing to worry about. We won't feel a thing."

  "If it does happen, I'll see you in Heaven, Thinker."

  "How many fingers?"

  "Pardon?"

  "How many fingers am I holding up?"

  "Two."

  "Three."

  "I'm going, Thinker! And nobody's going to stop me."

  "We'll talk about it later. You said something on the com about Dindabai. Something you wanted to tell me. What was that?"

  "Do you remember the waterfall? When we were all alone, just you and me?"

  "Of course I do."

  "I want to go back there, Thinker. Right now. Right here, while I still can't see what's around me." She reached out for me, and ran a hand gently down my chest. "Love me, Thinker—now. Rip my clothes off, and love me, and we'll pretend we're back on Dindabai."

  "Valkyrie—you know I love you. But I told you, we can't. We have to be strong. We've got to be as hard as cenite, where we're going. We've got to be biogens, totally focused, or the mission will fail. We don't have time for love."

  She tore open my tunic, abruptly. "No time for love? You're so boring sometimes, Thinker. Fanatics are really boring. There's always time for love." She leaned forward and ran her tongue over my chest. A surge shot through my body.

  "You can't even see." I was weakening, I knew.

  "That makes it more exciting. You could be anybody!"

  "You really are shameless."

  "Shut down and strip me—slowly."

  "Well, maybe just this one time. I mean, since you're so insistent and all."

  "You're aching for me, Thinker. You don't fool me. Go ahead and walk out that door. Let me see it."

  "A little later." I reached out and bit her gently on the neck, and she squealed in delight. She was an angel. And why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves, in the face of near certain death? I closed my eyes, and imagined we were back by the waterfall, on Dindabai.

  ***

  "Antimat drive is one hundred percent functional." Tara took the news calmly, leaning her head back against the command chair, her slightly slanted eyes barely open. I could see the patches on her wrists from the VIP chair. 100 percent
functional. That was a phrase to ponder, all right.

  "Commander to the antimat techs," Tara said into the SA mike. "Thanks. You guys are all right. I'll never forget you…" A sad smile appeared, and she looked over to me.

  "Success," she breathed. "Victory, Wester. Victory, from disaster."

  "We're not there yet."

  "No, but we're on our way. Pilot, initiate antimat drive. Please zero the stargate and re-enter the vac five light years short. We'll just take a little look at the neighborhood before we go charging in."

  "Initiating stardrive." There was a queasy feeling in my stomach and an icy tingling on my skin as the Star of Dindabai smoothly stretched a hole in the fabric of spacetime and leaped into hyperspace. There's nothing like it—nothing at all. It's hard not to feel superhuman when you can do things like that. But the O's had certainly given us a new perspective on things. I was smiling as we entered the hole. We were getting closer. Closer, every moment. Death, or immortality. Disaster, or victory. And either way, we were doing what was right. I prayed for Moontouch, and Stormdawn. Moontouch had it right. We were grains of dust in the wind.

  ***

  "Vac remains clear. No enemy units within detectable range." The ship was whispering sweet music to us—it was just what we wanted to hear.

  "It's a little scary, isn't it?" I asked. I was standing with Gildron and Tara by a viewport on the bridge, looking out to the sinister, dead vac of Plane Prime. Our starjump had been perfectly successful, and now we were cruising silently in the vicinity of the stargate, the magical road back to our own universe.

  "It is a dying universe," Gildron said sadly. "An ancient universe, older than we can imagine. Winking out of existence over billions of years as the stars slowly burn out and die, transforming into cold dwarfs or black holes or neutron stars. The O's are an ancient people. We have much to learn from them."

  "All I'd like to learn from them is how to counter their holos," I said.

  "It feels…cold," Tara said, looking out the port. A shiver ran over her body.

  "Commander, Engineering!" Tara jumped, and slapped at her shoulder com.

  "Commander here."

  "Sir. The D-neg plasma has been successfully injected into the unitium containment field. All readings are stable. We are fully prepped for Stage Three."

  Tara did not answer, at first. I glanced over to her. Her eyes were closed and an angelic smile had appeared. "You've got to have good people, Wester," she whispered. "You can do anything, with good people. And we've got 'em. That's excellent news, Engineering! Congratulations! Please proceed with Stage Three immediately."

  "Initiating Stage Three."

  "Stage Three?" I asked.

  "That's when they place the active containment unit with the D-neg into the power compartment in the boom. Then after that there's Stage Four—when they integrate everything."

  "Which stage is the most dangerous?"

  "They're all dangerous. Our techs are heroes!"

  "Why don't we power back into our own universe on antimat drive, and do all this fancy engineering on the other side?"

  "Don't you remember that somewhat bumpy ride we had, coming here? It may have been blind luck that we made it through. There's no guarantee we'll make it back at all, on antimat drive. We're going to do this, Wester—no matter what. If it fails, I don't think it matters if we die here or there. Do you?"

  "I don't know," I said, looking out at the dead, dark skies of Plane Prime. If you die in another universe, I thought, is your spirit trapped there forever? That would be the ultimate loneliness.

  ***

  "Are you ready, Wester? Are you ready for the future?" Tara was hesitating, putting off the moment of truth. She sat in the command chair, and I occupied the VIP chair behind her. Stage 4 was done. Everything was done, and it all looked good. All Tara had to do was give the word, but she wasn't doing it. She was nervous. I could tell.

  "You're having some doubts, Tara?" We were all strapped in, all set to go, but Tara had not yet ordered comtops on.

  "If it doesn't work, we probably die," she said. "You understand that."

  "Sure. The alternative is O-Rock. Want to go back?"

  She looked over her shoulder, fixing me with a surprisingly calm gaze. "It's not that, Wester. It's just…so much depends on this. If the D-neg drive works, and gets us back to our own universe, it means our mission was successful. It means we will change the future of the galaxy. The System will die like a rotten fruit, and I will have done it. We will have done it. It's my life's work, Wester. It means the death of galactic slavery. It means freedom and liberation for billions. Because of us."

  "I don't care about that," I said. "Just get me to the other side. I've got things to do there." She looked at me sadly and turned away.

  "Attention the ship," she said. "This is the Commander. We are about to initiate starlaunch on our newly installed D-neg drive in an effort to return to our own universe. We have zeroed our former position and all indications are that the D-neg drive is functional. However, as you all know, nobody has ever done this before." She glanced back at me, and flashed a quick smile. "We have recently had a very traumatic experience. We lost some of our closest comrades in the Fighter Force, who gave their lives for us. We were then militarily defeated, captured and imprisoned by a brutal enemy and thrown into a primitive, barbaric world. We were able to survive and return to our ship only by trusting to ourselves, and to divine providence. Now, after all these trials, we are at the threshold of final victory. We have located, isolated and installed the D-neg that was the object of our historical quest, and we are about to test our D-neg drive the only way it can be tested—with us on board. If we succeed, we return to our own universe, bearing with us the dust of the Gods, total victory for the Legion, and the death of the System. I said it before and I say it again. I am proud to be serving with every one of you. You are heroes. I know I am not worthy to lead you, and I feel honored to be doing so. Now, with the grace of Deadman and all the Gods, I pray for a smooth journey. Please secure your comtops and say your prayers. Pilot, initiate D-neg starlaunch."

  I slipped my comtop on, secured it, and closed my eyes. Tara certainly had a way with words. She had not mentioned the possibility of instant annihilation if anything went wrong, but I think we were all very much aware of it.

  ***

  "In the red…in the red…in the red…" the pilot was whispering it, an insane chant, a mantra for lost souls. We were into the out, rushing to an unknown fate, powering into the eye of the hole on D-neg drive, blind and helpless, totally out of control, in the hands of the Gods. My skin was ice cold. The viewports were dark and it looked to me like the black dust of the hole.

  "What's the sit, Thinker?" It was Valkyrie, hissing in my ears from far away.

  "We're in the hole," I replied. "Looks good so far." I hardly dared say it. We had launched into hyperspace, and it had been smooth as slick. We were in—and going deeper and deeper.

  "Pressure dropping…still in the red…no deflection yet…we're riding the beam…this is incredible…look at those readings! We're on minpower and look at those readings!"

  I knew there was no way back. We would succeed, or die miserably.

  "We're past vortex recovery with zero deflection!" the pilot said. We were in the wormhole, stretching Plane Prime, reaching out blindly for U1. If it wasn't there, we were going to be in big trouble.

  "Good," Tara replied. "Just keep going. If it's there, we'll run into it. If it's not there, we'll never find it again. Turning back won't solve anything."

  I prayed to Deadman and all the Gods of Hell. Let the damned thing work, I thought. Get us back where we belong. Get us out of this insane, dead, starless void. I've got things to do, I thought—things to do! I was trying not to think about the universe we were leaving behind, but I kept getting little flashes from O-Rock. What if we fall back to Plane Prime? What if U1 has shifted? We'll be trapped forever in an alien universe, doomed and hopeless, never
to return.

  "Zero deflection. Riding the beam." We were going further and further into the hole, straight as a laser, and there was not the slightest hint that we were going to arc back into Plane Prime. We were hurtling directly into the hole, and if our universe was not there, we would probably be lost in hyperspace for all eternity.

  "Gliding on beam." The pilot was thrilled with his marvelous new toy.

  "Might as well relax, Wester," Tara remarked. "Looks like a long trip."

  Relax? I was sitting down, but my heart was going like a trip hammer. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. And Priestess came to me out of the past, a faint dreamy smile, a child's face, dark hypnotic eyes and vulnerable lips. She was sitting on the squadmod steps on Andrion 2, clutching her knees, looking out at me, completely content. I was sitting beside her under the stars, and I knew the tacsit console was going to sound in an instant, and our whole world would never be the same afterwards.

  "Attention the ship." Tara was maddeningly calm. "This is the Commander. We have successfully starlaunched, and it appears that we are not returning to Plane Prime. It is still too early to know if we will succeed in penetrating our own universe. Please maintain the alert, but you may remove comtops if you like. I will inform you of any change in our status."

  I did not bother to remove my comtop. Three hours, I thought. It had taken almost three hours for us to find our way from U1 to Plane Prime, completely out of control, on antimat drive. Would it take less time, or more, on D-neg drive, to return to our own universe?

  Less, surely.

  Unless, of course, the stargate had shifted. In which case…we would never get there. But we had to get there. Beta Nine was calling me, again.

  ***

  "EXITING STARDRIVE!" The sudden announcement shocked me awake from a dozing stupor in the VIP chair. My eyes widened as I focused on the viewport.

  "We're on track, stargate locked on and open—exit!" The pilot barely had time to say it before the viewports flickered, the ship shuddered slightly, and stars filled the ports.

  Stars! A velvet sky, burning with billions of brilliant diamonds. Yes! I ripped off the links and shot over to the viewport, convulsed with joy.