There was another ahead—a female, skewered, hopeless, the gleaming cenite stake exiting from her neck. She was long dead and covered with frost. There was a little pile of rags at the foot of the stake. A dead baby, its head crushed, one blue hand still clutched in a little fist rising up out of a snowdrift. A long line of them loomed ahead, all crucified, up on metal stakes. Men, women, even a few children. Frozen human scarecrows, mute warnings to those who might approach.
Someone cried. Someone else cursed—awful, blood-curdling oaths.
"Don't look away," Snow Leopard said. "Look at every one. I want you all to remember this. Don't ever forget it. This is what we're fighting. The O's did this. We're just dogs, to them."
Speedy whimpered, and fell to his knees in the snow. "I can't," he gasped. "I can't go on. I've seen enough. I'm finished. Please—please—I can't."
We ignored him. We stopped, stunned. We had followed a path through the soilsat heading roughly southwest toward the mound, and now this. I could not take my eyes off the woman up on the stake. She was young, I realized. The baby—it must have been hers. And I realized in a cold flash that it had all been for this, my whole life, just for this one crystal moment, standing in the snow under those holy dead. Everything that had gone before was nothing—the Gate, Providence, Hell, Andrion 2, Coldmark, Andrion 3, Mongera, Katag—all nonsense. We were going to the Mound to confront the O's, and these poor dead people were pointing the way, raising their wasted arms, opening their filmy eyes, shrieking silent screams, urging us on—to the Mound. And I knew, as sudden as a laser burst in the brain, that nothing was going to stop me from going on.
Not blown power packs or Systie squads or nova beacons or snakes or spheres or airsat or soilsat, not traitors or hysterical new guys, not even desperate novas from Legion units—nothing was going to stop me! I was a slave of the Legion and I was marching to the Mound, and nothing at all was going to stop me.
I snapped open my visor. The snow had stopped. The air was icy. I held my E tightly against my chest. Slave of the Legion—yes, I was a slave, I realized. Just as surely as if they had put chains on my legs. I was going to die for the Legion. But that was all right—I didn't mind. We were all slaves of Fate. And we were all going to die—even immortals, like us. Those were my brothers and sisters, up there on those cenite stakes. And we were going to avenge them. I felt good—about everything. Ecstatic, I suddenly realized. Ecstatic, just as Tara had said. What we were doing was something good, she had said, something good, and simple. Marching in the mud, for God, for Justice, for our people.
"Send me back. Please!" Speedy moaned. "I can't do it. You're all insane! You're going to die if you go on—you're all going to die! One, please! I can't do this!" He was still on his knees.
"Somebody shoot him," Valkyrie casually suggested.
"Fourteen, go on private to me, please," One said. We couldn't hear the rest. We didn't even care. Shoot him, let him go—it didn't matter. We didn't need him, we didn't want him. He would not be coming with us, I knew. Everyone else was quiet, but I knew what they were thinking—I knew.
When Snow Leopard was through talking with him, Speedy came back onto the tacnet, transformed. "Thanks, One! You don't know how much this means to me. I'm going to go back and quit the Legion. You're right, this is not for me. Guys, I appreciate it. Merlin, Psycho—thanks for your help. I'm sorry it didn't work out. Twister, good luck to you. I'll never forget you guys—best of luck to all of you! Any messages? I can take messages back." He was edging back the way we had come.
"Yeah," Valkyrie said. "Tell them we're going on with the mission."
"I'll do that. Goodbye, Beta—good luck!" And he raised his E in farewell and turned and started walking back.
"He'll never make it," Psycho said.
"He knows the risks," Snow Leopard said. "He prefers them to what lies ahead. I did all I could for him. I told him exactly what route to take. Assuming he can get past the guys that are following us. It was either that, or shoot him. I wasn't going to have him accompany us any further."
"He was a strange guy," Dragon said.
"No, he wasn't," Scrapper said softly. "He wasn't strange at all. He was perfectly normal. It's we who are strange."
And that was the final, frightening word on Beta Fourteen.
We put him right out of our minds.
"All right," Snow Leopard said coldly. "We continue the mission. Recon formation."
PART II
HOLY GROUND
Chapter 8
The Mound
"That's it, guys. That's the Mound." We were flat on our armored bellies on a bleak, treeless plain. The snow had stopped and the clouds were blowing away, leaving a clear, luminous pale grey sky and a cold white sun. There was no sign of deceptors. We were lumps of snow in our camfax, crawling like worms through dry packed snow. We were several K away from the Mound but the zoom on my faceplate brought it up close, and the scope on the E brought it even closer. And there it was—the Mound.
It was a massive, circular structure, a great earthen mound on the horizon, the top dusted with a layer of brilliant white snow, glittering in the sunlight. Vents on the roof spewed faint plumes of smoke that drifted off slowly in a light breeze. There were dark openings on the sides—it was hard to make out the details. At ground level, great blackened cenite doors were firmly closed. The Mound rose up against the skyline, an imposing, brooding presence, dark and silent. It appeared to be completely deserted.
"Those windows look like they open," Psycho said.
"Those aren't windows," Dragon said. "They're grates of some kind. Don't look like they open to me."
"Do so."
"Don't."
"Quiet," Snow Leopard said. "It's doubtful we'd get to them anyway, they're too high. Does anyone see any camo doors up near the top?"
I snapped up my visor and set the scope on my E to max. Grass grew on the side of the Mound. Earth covered the entire structure. I couldn't see any camo doors. There was not a sign of life.
"They're going to spot us out here," Dragon said calmly.
"You're a real strategist," Psycho replied.
"There could be anything under that dirt, One."
"How do we get through those gates, One?"
"Mother will get us in, guys," Psycho responded quickly. Exactly—the Manlink would get us through. Tacstars—micronukes. We'd walk right in through a nuclear cloud and die with our fingers on auto x.
"Hopefully, that won't be necessary, gang," Snow Leopard remarked. "Merlin, what about those structures on top?" One was off to my left, with his spotter. I brought my sight up to the roof. There were several bizarre metallic devices up there.
"Commo or guidance systems," Merlin said. "Hard to say—we don't know much about the O's commo."
"If there are any O's in there," Tara said, "they don't seem interested in what's going on outside."
"How do you know?" Snow Leopard asked.
"Nobody's psyprobing this area," Tara replied.
"I wonder why."
"You'd think they'd do it routinely."
"All right," Snow Leopard said. "Mission briefing. Listen up, guys."
I knew it was important when Snow Leopard said to listen up. Mission briefing! We were almost on top of the target, and only now does he do the mission briefing. We were about to find out what was really going on. We didn't move; we continued lying there like lumps of snow, scoping out the target, but our One's voice was right in our ears, crisp and clear.