That left Priestess, out of the survivors from our original squad. I simply discarded it. Beta Nine was a believer. Born in a Legion world, she had looked up to the stars and made a vow. She ran on pure faith. She carved a Legion cross into the walls of the Omni base on Andrion 3, and she took xmax in the chest on Mongera. Nothing could shake her faith in the Legion—she had enough faith for us all. No, it could not be Priestess.
Who was left? The two survivors from Gamma, Valkyrie and Scrapper. Valkyrie was my lover, in Hell—I had never understood her, except I knew she was much stronger mentally than I was. She had been captured by the Systies on Andrion 2, and we rescued her on Coldmark. Then Gamma had been annihilated on Andrion 3, and she lost her new lover, Boudicca, on Mongera. It had changed her—she lost her soul. Now she was a fanatic, a killer, a lunatic. Systies and O's were only moving targets to her. She cared only for Scrapper, the last survivor from Gamma.
And Scrapper, now Beta Twelve—another holy, cursed walker from Gamma's catastrophe. She had been a pleasant, chatty, intelligent girl before Andrion 3. But after Andrion 3 and Mongera, she changed. Now she was silent, moody, walking in Valkyrie's tracks. I had no idea what she was thinking. She never talked to me any more. She hardly talked with anyone, except Valkyrie. They were both unreadable. But they were both fanatics, serving the Legion and no one else. Who would be crazy enough to try and use them to betray us? Who would be brave enough?
Then there were the two new squadies, the girl, Thirteen, and the boy, Fourteen. Twister was mostly scared, it seemed, but she was hanging in there bravely, silent, coping. Speedy was nothing but trouble. He hadn't stopped bitching and whining since the mission started. He certainly wasn't a mission enthusiast. He was evidently terrified, ready to jump out of his skin, and the snake attack hadn't helped matters any. He wanted to go home—that was clear enough.
Who had assigned them to the squad? Snow Leopard would know—he had asked for replacements when it appeared unlikely that Dragon and Priestess and I were going to return. I knew very little about either of them. Both were likely suspects. But they were just kids, completely new to the Legion. Would I choose someone like that to undertake a sensitive covert mission?
Probably not. They weren't the only likely suspects. Tara and Gildron were the oddest of all. Their presence in the squad was completely inexplicable to me. Why would the Legion want to waste a psycher of Tara's immense talents on a dangerous recon mission like this one? And why the ape? It made no sense. There was certainly something the Legion had not told us about Tara and Gildron.
I had known Tara longer than any of the others—we attended midschool on the same world. But she took a very strange road to the present and I had no idea, any more, how her mind worked. All I knew was that she operated at a much higher level than me. How could I judge her? And wasn't she a believer? More so than any of us?
Who, then? Gildron? A complete unknown. Impossible to even guess. Would he want to betray us? He was Tara's creature—he would do whatever she said. If he was against us, so was Tara.
Who would betray us? I didn't know. I didn't really want to know. It was going to hurt to find out.
###
We took our first break halfway down the eastern slopes of the mountains, watching a luminous dawn silently tinting the horizon behind a totally black line of hills. Below was a great flat plain, completely featureless in the dark. It was still cloudy. Behind us, in the west, the sky was velvet ink. I sipped cold water from my cooler as the sunrise slowly burnt its way into the sky. I cradled my E in my arms. We were ready for an attack. The O's probably knew exactly where we were, thanks to our nova beacon.
"Three, Eight." He was on private. There was certainly a lot of conversation underway on the private net. It was a bad sign.
"Yes, Dragon."
"I want you to know I don't think it's you. And I can tell you it's not me. You can depend on me when the shooting starts."
"Thanks, Dragon. Who do you think it is?"
"I kind of favor your buddy Cinta—or Tara, or whatever name she's using today."
"Well, I don't know, Dragon."
"She's a psycher—there are only five of us who know that. Snow Leopard, Valkyrie, you, me, Priestess. The others presumably don't know. If any of the others did it, she should know. And the five of us wouldn't try it, 'cause we know she's a psycher. Right? Snow Leopard talked with her. If she didn't name anyone else, that leaves her, and her pet."
"But maybe it was psypower—the O's. They've got to be more powerful than she is. Maybe they did something to somebody that didn't leave any conscious trace."
"There was no psyprobe alert, Thinker. The techs swear the damned things work. If the O's had projected psypower on us, our psybloc would have activated."
"Yeah, well, the tacnet power reserves should have worked, too."
"Right. Good point. Well, no matter what, I think we can trust Snow Leopard, Valkyrie, you, me, and Priestess. All others are suspect."
"Unless Cinta's covering for one of us. You ever think of that?"
"Scut. You're right—there may be more than one!"
"It means we have to be alert every instant. We can't trust anyone!"
"You got that right."
Don't trust anyone! Absolutely right. We were facing more than O's and Systies now—we were facing ourselves. The ultimate mission, I thought—Beta against Beta. It was insane—completely insane. We could always depend on ourselves, before. Now even that was denied us.
"One, Three." I kept it on private.
"Yes, Three."
"This is going to eat up the squad, One. Shouldn't you say something?"
"Not yet, Thinker—the time's not right."
"Couldn't Tara tell you anything? She must know something!"
"The short answer is she doesn't know."
"Do you suspect her?"
Snow Leopard paused, then replied cautiously. "There are reasons for her presence here that I have not yet revealed. But the reasons are not completely convincing."
"You can depend on me, One—no matter what!"
"Thank you, Thinker. Keep alert."
"I'll do that."
The sky flickered—deceptors, flowering above the clouds like a great, orange blossom. The Legion was still with us. My blood was ice cold in my veins. I knew we were going through with the mission. Beta One was going to accomplish the mission, even if it killed us all.
"Let's go, gang—we're going down to the plain," Snow Leopard ordered.
"Down to the plain?" Speedy echoed. "Won't the O's spot us down there?"
"No, they won't," Snow Leopard replied. "We'll be safer there than here. You'll see."
Chapter 6
Messages From the Dead
The reason for One's confidence became clear as we reached the plain. Our tacmods were completely snowed under, and the cause was all around us. We walked warily past a massive amtac, half-buried in the dirt. It had melted—it was just a great blob of cenite, frozen forever, an obscene slagheap. Dead A-suits lay all around us, twisted and burnt, the faceplates all melted—Legion A-suits. Shattered pieces of armor pitted the dead earth. An armored arm, white bones jutting out of one end. A shattered E. A helmet, split wide open, a charred skull looking up at us silently. The sun came up—it cast long shadows all around us. A twisted aircar lay completely upside down, surrounded by wreckage. Three Legion A-suits sprawled prone side by side in a shallow depression, silent forever, still behind their E's, sighting a long-gone enemy. Ghost soldiers, I thought. Dear holy God, we don't need these images—stop it!