"She's a slaver—it could be bad."
"Probably something illegal."
"It doesn't matter—we should help."
"I thought she had some kind of in with the Legion."
"What does she want, Thinker?"
"All I know is what's in the message," I replied. "Just that. So what's the word, One? Do I go?" I had already decided I was going—it was not really an issue. The only issue was whether or not I got Snow Leopard's permission. It would be a lot easier with it. Without it, I was going to call in all my cards—Dragon, Merlin, Priestess, Redhawk, Valkyrie—they were all going to help me. I already knew what each one was going to do to help me get off Veda 6. I couldn't see anyone turning me down. We had been through a lot together.
"Tell them the rest," Snow Leopard said.
I turned back to the screen. "As you can see, she's given me funding. I presume it's for the trip. If you're not on official business you can still travel, even on Legion ships, if that's all that's available. But it costs plenty. The current fare to Mica Three from here is twenty-two thousand credits—one way. You can't pay return fare in advance, because the route might not be the same. As you can see, she's forwarded exactly three times what I need."
"Sounds like she's trying to tell you something," Merlin commented.
"That's what I think," I said. "I think she wants me to bring a couple of buddies."
"Why didn't she just say it?" Dragon asked. "If she can afford to send you close to a million credits, she can afford a few more words in the star tracer."
I shook my head. "That's just the way she is. She never says anything straight out."
"It sounds pretty straight to me," Psycho laughed. "I need you—ha! We may never see Thinker again!" Psycho could be counted on to say something like that. Everyone ignored him. Snow Leopard stirred, partially hidden in the shadows.
"All right, this is it," he said. "We certainly owe her. Thinker, you get three weeks sick leave—Priestess will prep it. That much is within my power. If you choose to travel during that period, it's your business. It's highly unusual, but there's nothing illegal about it. What happens after you get there, we don't know. It's true that Cintana Tamaling has close ties to the Legion. But she's on a Legion world. Whatever problem she has evidently cannot be solved officially. It may be illegal. All I can say is use your best judgment, don't get caught, and be back in three weeks at the latest. Earlier, if you can. We're not staying here forever. We'll be moving soon—I'm expecting a big offensive against the O's. And I don't want to have to explain any missing troopers."
I was light-headed with relief. I should have known Beta One would come through! It was so much better this way. Finally I found my voice. "I owe you, One. Can I take two guys with me?" I figured I might as well press it; Snow Leopard owed his life to Tara, after all.
"Who do you want?" Snow Leopard was expressionless. I knew it would hurt, asking for Dragon.
"I want Eight—and Nine." I wouldn't be afraid of anything, with Dragon at my side. And Priestess—yes, she was for protection as well.
"Nine!" Psycho exclaimed. "Thinker, you scut! You're just afraid to leave her here with me!"
"You wish!" Priestess shot back at him.
"Dragon?" One asked.
Dragon was staring into space. He told me later that at that instant he had flashed back to Tara, leaping from the escape pod on Mongera holding an E, covering her mouth, a hot nuclear wind blowing her hair around. Dragon blinked, and turned to me, then back to Snow Leopard. "Sure, I'll go," he said.
"Priestess?"
Priestess wet her lips. "Tenners." Her gaze flashed over to me. "I'll come."
"Priestess," Snow Leopard said. "Sick leave for the three of you. I'll approve it. Now get moving. First leg is that freighter to Aran. If we're not here when you get back, I'll expect you to find us."
###
I brooded alone in my cube, trying to decide what to take. I didn't like it one bit. This summons from Tara was exactly the last thing I needed. We had enough problems, trying to regenerate the squad after the disastrous mission against the O's on Mongera. And now this. Yes, we owed her, we all owed her, but it wasn't fair. My mind whirled with terrifying images, echoes from the past.
After Mongera they had sent us here, to a medmod on Veda 6, a backwater garrison world reserved for the truly lost, where the air tasted of sweet rain and forest and the nights were still and cold with a billion stars glittering in a deep black sky. We had time to think.
Priestess and I didn't need any words. I kept my new arm around her, although I guess it was really the Legion's arm. The damned thing felt fine. We'd lie out there on the terrace of the medmod on deckchairs under the stars, and the rest of Beta would be all around us, silent. I wondered why we were there, but Priestess knew exactly why she was there. She had always been stronger than I. The Systies had almost killed her, but she had survived. She had taken x-max right in the chest and was still badly scarred. She worried that it meant she was not beautiful any more. I told her it was the mark of the Legion, and that it made her more beautiful than ever.
She was closer to me than before, but more distant at the same time. It was not easy to talk—we preferred not to talk. It was enough just to be together.
They saved our dead for us. When we were all out of the bodyshop, we burnt them in a still dark night lit up by nuclear flames. Five bodies, all in their A-suits, just as they had been when hit—Coolhand and Warhound and Ironman and Boudicca and Sassin, laid out side by side on the platform under dark stars, and all the brutal horror of their deaths came flooding back. Snow Leopard and Valkyrie held the torch and touched it gently to the pyre and the platform flashed and burst into white-hot flames and the Gods of War consumed them, five nuclear pyres glaring in the night like miniature stars. I cried like a baby.
Snow Leopard survived—so they said. Better than new, the body shop claimed. I was not at all certain about that. Snow Leopard was always a bit distant. In the old days, he talked with me. Later he talked with Coolhand and Merlin. Now he didn't talk at all. It didn't matter. We'd still follow him to Hell.
Shortly after our arrival at Minos Station, One called each of us into his cube, where he sat at his desk with printout tacmaps of the battlefield at Fernveldt. He asked each of us to go over, in exhaustive detail, what we had done and where we had been and what we had seen. We answered him, he thanked us, and that was that. Since then he had stayed by himself. I figured he was going over the action to see if he had done anything wrong. To see if he should blame himself, for all our dead. I knew he was bleeding inside for his lover Boudicca—and for the others too. Foolish—nobody could have done better than our One. Nobody! I'd follow him tomorrow—today! Just give me the word.
We may have been walkers, but we were all there. We had all changed. Dragon was harder than ever. He had added some new images to those strange pale miniature faces which adorned his hands and knuckles—the dead, faces from his past. I knew their images and numbers were on the monument as well, the Legion Monument to the Dead, with that final line: Died in Service.
Died in Service—that fate was reserved for us all. They died facing the enemy. They died for us, I thought, for all of us, for the Legion, and the Legion is us.
I touched a holcard that was lying on my desk and both squads flashed to life in miniature, mils from my face. We grinned at the holscan, splattered with the mud of Planet Hell, celebrating some mindless triumph. Beta and Gamma, living and dead—we were all still there. My heart burned with grief. Psycho was smirking, seemingly ready to plunge a hot knife into Dragon's back. Psycho would be all right—wielding a Manlink was his destiny. He'd be a little tougher, a little nastier, after Mongera, but he'd be all right. I knew he had been especially depressed by Warhound's death. It had been the same with me. Both Warhound and Ironman were special. They were innocents, I thought, in the service of a savage God. I'd never told either one how I felt. And now they were gone. And Coolhand—Deadman, Beta Two was my blood brother. The Gods had snatched him away, and it didn't seem right. They were all in the picture—Coolhand and Warhound and Ironman. Children, grinning in the face of death.