"Watch out for my ribs, Wester! They've just patched me up!"
"Sorry!" I pulled away, and looked her over again. Pale brown skin, Assidic eyes, a white flash smile—she was an angel, walking the immortal's road.
"Nice outfit," Tara said. I was still in the towel.
"Oh, this old thing. Come on in. Deadman, it's good to see you, Tara! We did it, didn't we? We did it!"
"We certainly did, Wester. The Legion got its ship. What happens now is not up to us—we've done all we can!"
"So what's the sit? What have you been up to?" I motioned her into an airchair and settled into another one next to her. Gildron found a chair by the wall and eased his massive body into it. He was silent, looking around the cube.
"I briefed the Commander personally on our mission," Tara said. "I told him everything—including the attack by the ConFree strike force."
"Did you tell him what they said about ConFree's wanting the ship for the System?"
"Word for word. He went pale, Wester. I swear to Deadman."
"So what happens next?"
"I sent a flash critic to Starcom Information. I told them we had captured an Omni starship, it is now in orbit around Andrion Two, and ConFree troopers had earlier attempted to seize it from the Legion to turn it over to the System. I requested immediate assistance, and I asked for my own ship back—the Maiden. They flashed back that my text was garbled and asked me to repeat—they couldn't believe it! I flashed back the same damned thing and they acknowledged. I predict it's going to get very busy here in no time at all."
"Good. That's great! What's happening on the ship now?"
"The Legion is swarming over it, recording everything. I warned them not to touch anything until the science brains and lab rats get here. They're going crazy!"
"Oh, that's wonderful. Deadman! I can hardly believe this is working so well."
"You can stop worrying, Wester. We've done our bit—I'm going to relax now."
"That'll be the day! Where's the kid?"
"Willard? He's asleep in my room. He's just like an angel when he's asleep."
I leaned over close to Tara and whispered in her ear. "Where is it?"
She pointed to the window. I touched the remote and the plex slid closed and blacked out. The overhead lights came on.
Tara nodded at Gildron. He opened his mouth and the Star came out, flickering softly, floating up to hover just below the ceiling. I gasped in delight. We had agreed to tell nobody about the Star. We had been worried about ConFree, and we did not want the Star to go on the record.
Tara wanted to deliver it personally to Starcom, and that sounded just fine to me. She had not even told me how she planned to smuggle it off the ship, and I had not asked. I had to admit it was a pretty good concealment. People tended to avoid Gildron anyway, and looking into his mouth was not high on anyone's list of priorities.
"It's miraculous, Wester." She whispered right into my ear, her slim arms pulling me closer, a conspiratorial huddle in the faint glow from the Star. "It holds everything—so much knowledge! It's going to kill me, Wester—I know it is! We don't even need the ship if we've got the Star."
"Why did they give it to us?"
"They gave it to Gildron. I think it will allow us to leap directly into the future—if we're wise."
"But we're not wise, are we?"
"Then it should allow us to destroy ourselves a lot quicker than we normally would. I think it's a double-edged sword, Wester. The O's are probably laughing. The frightening thing is that I think it really is going to be up to us, to wisely harness this knowledge. Because otherwise we all die—it's already happening, Wester. Can't you see it? ConFree against the Legion—lunacy! It could be the beginning of a civil war that will make the Race Wars seem like a playschool spat."
Her soft lips brushed against my ear and her silken hair flowed past my cheek like an airy waterfall. I was intoxicated by her presence. I turned my face towards her and looked into her eyes and it was Tara again, the girl from the past, blinking hot exotic eyes, parting her lips. I raised my hands to her face and kissed her, losing myself entirely in her. The cube spun around us slowly. She laughed and pulled away.
"Slow down, trooper! Are you trying to get me hot? Don't forget, I'm a psycher—you know what that means."
"I'd like to convert you."
She looked into my eyes, and sighed. "I'd like that too, Wester."
"So what's stopping you?"
"It's impossible, Wester." She looked around, distracted. "There's too much I have to do, first. Too much!"
"I thought you said you were going to relax now. And what about my reward? You promised!" I was shameless.
In reply she leaned forward and kissed me again. My arms went around her. A hot wet kiss, locked together in strange perfume and dreams of what might have been. My body was reacting to her tantalizing presence. She was so yielding, so vulnerable, I wanted to pick her up and carry her right over to the bed. But I didn't—Gildron was glaring at us. He would have probably ripped my arms right out of their sockets.
When we came up for air, she was blinking away the tears—I could hardly believe it.
"I'm sorry, Wester—I'm sorry! I know I promised—and I keep my promises. But not now. The time is not right. I'll never forget you, Wester."
"Are you leaving me again?"
"No. I don't know. But I'll say goodbye this time, before I leave."
"Who could ask for more?" I was rapidly becoming depressed again.
"You've got things to do as well, don't you, Wester?"
"Things to do. Yes—that I do."
"All right. We'll see you a little later. Gildron—" she got up awkwardly, flushed and shaken. Gildron gently plucked the Star out of the air and popped it into his mouth.
"You'll forgive me if I don't get up," I said. The towel was not going to hide my problem.
Tara gave me a sad little smile. "I understand," she said. And they left.
###
Moontouch told me later of her dream. She saw me approach from over the mountains, from the north. When she awoke, she called out the clans. I came by aircar through a misty sky over the Mountains of the Exiles, heading south into God's Garden, a fertile plain dotted with ancient flowertrees and laced with silver streams. I was headed for Deadeye. I knew exactly where Deadeye was because the Clouds were Taka auxiliaries, and Deadeye was a tribal leader. I knew Deadeye would be watching over Moontouch. I had made him promise, before I left. We were blood brothers, bound for life.
"Sure you don't want to tell him you're coming?" the pilot asked me. He looked like a midschooler, young and innocent, smiling cheerily into the morning. Another immortal—I wondered how long he would live, and what horrors he would see.
"No—it's a surprise. Just follow the c-cell." Deadeye had a comset; all auxiliary comsets had c-cells—just so we didn't lose any. It made our Taka units exceptionally easy to track. Deadeye was right up ahead somewhere.
God's Garden was just as lovely as the name implied, but you had to know Andrion 2 to appreciate such beauty. Clumps of bizarre white-stalked flowertrees were scattered over rolling red hills, extensive marshes reflected weak sunlight from the lowlands, and ragged flights of air angels drifted listlessly over it all. Hazy blue mountains lined the horizon.
"Looks like a whole gang of Scalers up ahead," the kid said.
"Taka," I corrected.
"Sorry." He actually blushed. 'Scaler' was a derogatory term we had come up with when taking the planet.
I was surprised to learn it was still in use.
I could see them on scope—hundreds of Taka, lined up abreast, almost as if for war. I wasn't worried—nobody could be closer to the Taka than I.