Crawling, cold and frightened and hungry, into the domain of the dead, awaiting the evil embrace of the O's. Hopeless—surely it was hopeless. We did not know what had happened to the mission; deceptors were so heavy, we couldn't even hear command overrides. We were on blackout, dead to the world, cowering like dogs, burrowing like worms, twitching at every sound, every movement.
Priestess deserved better, I knew. We would die together, at least. Together. My eyes roamed over the corridor walls. A slimy, gritty, dark cenite metal. Centuries of filth encrusted the deck. I did not like it. It reminded me of the exos. This was an exoseg world, and this corridor stank of exos. Perhaps the Omnis didn't use it any more—well, that was fine with me.
"How ya doin', Redhawk?" A quiet whisper from Psycho, down the corridor.
"Flying…I'm flying, Psycho. Pink clouds, it's really beautiful. I'm all right, earther, big ten on that." Redhawk was completely out of his head. He was our worst casualty. Priestess had kept him alive and stabilized the wounds and patched his armor. Now he was in Neverland, Nineland, courtesy of Priestess's tender armored fingers. Priestess kept us all alive, in Death's Holy Land. Redhawk could not even walk, now. But Priestess would keep him alive, until we all died. Redhawk, Beta Ten—a certified lunatic. He had gotten us almost there, almost down, when it happened.
Psycho was trying to get Redhawk to swallow his rats. I saw them as shadows in cold muted light. Psycho was having trouble—Redhawk's face was flushed and beaded with sweat, and he was hallucinating and didn't want to eat. Priestess had been struggling with him when Psycho pushed her aside and told her to get something to eat herself.
"Priestess—how you doing?" I whispered it.
She stirred slowly and came to life, looking my way. "Thinker…I'm all right. Psycho, how's Redhawk? Is he eating?"
"Yeah, he's eating now," Psycho responded. "He's not all here, though. You sure you didn't give him too much of that stuff?"
"I gave him the correct dosage. His injuries are extensive—we must spare him the pain." Priestess raised her eyes, looking up into the dark. What was there for her to see? Nothing—there was only nothing, for us all.
Spare him the pain, I thought. Why not the rest of us as well? There was probably a regulation against it somewhere. Pain is good for you—that's what we believed, that was Legion doctrine. Pain is good for you.
The earth trembled, a faint, distant shudder, and suddenly it was as if the corridor was made of jelly and we were moving. We could feel the vibrations in our bones, a deep deep lava heartbeat. Specks of dirt floated down from the roof, and we all froze, in the grip of the Gods, awaiting our fate.
It slowed, and stopped. Once again it was solid rock, all around us. Adrenalin, still flooding my veins. Terror, cold and exhausted. How much more? Deadman, how much more?
"Earthquake. Scut." Five sounded disappointed.
"It's the lake," One informed us. "The whole starport is floating under the lava, and the lava is moving all around it—and through it. The lava must be busting up their starport. We dropped two antis right into the lake—it's got to be an unholy mess by now."
"Nice job," Psycho responded. "How come the O can build a starport like that, when we can't?" Psycho was short and wiry, pale blue eyes and a smooth, child's face. But if you looked closely into his eyes, you could see there was something wrong.
"I'm sure Merlin could explain it," One replied wearily, "but I can't." Merlin was Beta Four, our science wizard.
"Well, let's go back to Atom and ask him." Psycho was an incurable little smart-ass.
"Fine idea," Snow Leopard said. "You got an ops plan that will accomplish that, you let me know." It was indeed a fine idea. Beta Four had all the answers, but he had lost his legs in the Coldmark raid, and he was growing a new pair back on Atom. Atom was all we wanted, just to see Atom, again. Atom's Road was a holy place to us, our only home in a hostile galaxy. Atom held Beta Four; and Beta Eight, Dragon; another casualty from Coldmark. Deadman, I missed them! Merlin was a genius—we could sure use his insight here! And Dragon—he was like a force of nature, he was simply unstoppable. I'd rather have Dragon covering my back than anyone I knew, but Dragon was not with us either. Serious internal injuries, and a clenched fist, to show he'd pull through. There was not much left of Beta now—Two and Seven—Coolhand and Ironman—were also back on Atom, in the Body Shop. Coolhand was my blood brother, from Providence and Hell. It was not the same without his calm, faint smile. I wondered how Ironman was. We all had a soft spot for Ironman, the Kid. But he was long gone now—Two and Four and Seven and Eight were only memories, here in the guts of the beast. Whatever was to happen here would depend entirely on us: our leader Beta One, warname Snow Leopard; our Manlink Beta Five, warname Psycho; our medic Beta Nine, warname Priestess; our pilot Beta Ten, warname Redhawk; and yours truly Beta Three, warname Thinker, the Fool, the Fatalist. Lastly was Beta Six, Warhound, now missing in action. Six soldiers, out for a walk in the dark. We were still on Atom's Road; believe me, we all knew that.
Priestess sat up, her hands moving against the corridor wall. A faint reflection from a cold knife. Now what?
"What're you doing, Priestess?" She did not answer. I moved closer. Her pale face held no emotion. She was scratching something into the dark cenite metal of the corridor wall with her cold knife. I moved the lolite closer. It was a Legion cross, spidery silver lines cut into the black grime of the centuries. She wrote her lover's name under the cross: 12/22.
She put away the knife, and contemplated her handiwork calmly. I wondered if Beta Nine was going over the edge. I pondered the cross. 12/22, the 12th of the 22nd, the 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment of the 22nd Legion. The Black 12th, we called it, and the 22nd was the Black Legion, the Rimguard. The Legion was Priestess's lover, and my rival.
She always had a Legion cross on the wall in her quarters. I wondered about that, but I thought it a harmless eccentricity. Priestess was a believer, I knew. And here, in the cold jaws of death, she still believed. I took a deep breath.
"You planning to be here long, Priestess?" I whispered.
She slowly turned her head and focused on me with a sad little smile. "No, Thinker…no, I hope not. I just wanted to show we had been here."
"Who do you think is going to see it?"
She sighed wearily, and let her eyes stray back to the cross. "It doesn't matter, Thinker—it doesn't matter. Probably nobody. But it means we were here. It shows we came this far. This far, at least, into the camp of the O's."
Into the camp of the O's. Lord, that we were! The Twenty-second's motto was "Deliver us from Evil," only in the Legion chant, it was "I will deliver us from Evil." Well, this was it, all right; the O's were all the Evil you could ever want, and it was up to us to do the delivering. It was all up to us—one under-strength squad, Beta of CAT 24, Second of the Ship, Atom's Road, 12th CER, 22nd Legion. And maybe Beta Nine was right; why shouldn't we mark this place with our sign? It might be our epitaph. But even if we were never heard of again, at least we knew we had done it. Perhaps a million stellar years in the future, an intrepid band of brave archaeologists would come probing into a cold, dead world; full of extinct volcanoes and dead lava seas; and billions of bizarre, petrified, monstrous fossils; and come across our Legion cross and the notation: 12/22. What would they think? What sort of lunacy, they would wonder, could have drawn intelligent life to such a violent, savage, primeval world?