"Give me that book, child!" He snatched it eagerly from her hands. "The First Dynasty!" He stared at it greedily, enchanted. I could see the glow in his eyes, transforming his features. "We'll never know such heroism in our lifetime, Janine. They dared everything and changed the world. Courage can bring down empires. We can't let such subversive ideas fester in our times, can we?" He hurled the book right into the fire, and it flared and burned brightly. The girl burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.
"The First Dynasty is gone!" the Professor exclaimed. "By order of the System! Bring the rest, Janine, bring it all! Faster, Rigo! History is dangerous. Knowledge infects the mind, it wakes people up. But knowledge and history are easily lost—aren't they, Rigo? You're burning emperors and artists and gods, poets and explorers and philosophers, Rigo, you're erasing thousands of years of history, for all time! That makes you more powerful than all those old, dead kings, doesn't it, Rigo?"
"That's right, Professor," Rigo smiled cheerily, the sweat streaming off his naked back. "Whatever Super says!" He tossed another shovelful of datapaks into the flames.
"Why are you burning this data, Professor?" One asked.
"To prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, Legion! We wouldn't want the V reading about our past, would we? And what if the Legion got ahold of it? Oh no, better to burn it—burn it all! And it's our responsibility—ours, all ours! We're a historian, Cit knows—we've spent our life guarding the past for the System. History is a state secret under the System—did it know that? Yes, we're a historian. We're in charge of the past; we're the guardian of thousands of years of dangerous, subversive secrets. And it asks why we're burning it! That's what historians do under the System—we burn history! Bring us those books, Janine—all of them! Don't sub dare hide any! Who does it think it is—God? And stop crying! Does it think the past is sacred? It burns like paper! Try it itself!" He staggered, soaked in sweat and covered with ash, and I think he was close to crying, too. I turned my face away. I didn't want to see any more.
###
"Control, Black Jade. We confirm orders. Black Jade out." We were committed now. Snow Leopard had just received the go-ahead from Recon Control. We were still in the records center, back upstairs in the main hall, taking a break, camped against the walls and sprawled on the floor, chewing on rations and sipping water from our canteens. It was already dark outside and fires burned out of control in the night. The great hall was cold and dark and full of smoke, and rubbish littered the deck.
We had put out the fire in the vault and sent the Systie civs away to face whatever awaited them in the future. We even let them take away some of the books. I thought a lot about that historian. He believed in history, and his mission was to burn it. I believed in justice, and my mission was to kill. Thinking was not good for you—it led to nothing but trouble.
"Squad meeting, gang—now." Snow Leopard leaned his E against the wall. We gathered around, still chewing on our rations. We were all in A-suits, helmets off. It was like a gathering of great metal spiders, feasting on carrion in the dark.
"All right, our mission is on," Snow Leopard said quietly. "Ten will be picking us up shortly in the aircar. Then we'll be off, past our forward elements, into the death zone. We'll be under heavy skies all the way—deceptors and psybloc. Take a look at the map." Snow Leopard unfolded a silky printout tacmap and spread it out on the deck. We clustered around.
"Right there," Snow Leopard said. His pale pink eyes were riveted on the map, his mouth was set, and faint blue veins throbbed at his temples. His chunky fingers poked at the map. "We'll decar right there, and make our way by foot into the mountains. It has to be on foot—any aircar approaching the Mound gets spotted and blasted. We've already established that. Redhawk will return to the milbase with the aircar but stand by for pickup if we need it. So—we go up this valley. We'll stick to the river, if it's not mined."
"What's the O presence in that area?" Dragon asked.
"As far as we know, there's nothing there. If they spot us approaching, they may send something after us. Or they may not. You can never tell, with the O's. However, we can certainly expect roving probes, free-floating genetic strands, patrolling energy spheres, and plenty of other nasty surprises."
I remembered the genetic strands—the snakes—and the spheres, from Mongera. My blood ran cold every time I thought of the spheres. That's what had decimated Gamma—five spheres, five dead. That's what had turned my lovely little Valkyrie into a cold, homicidal psychotic. Now she was second in command of Beta. She'd be in charge if anything happened to Snow Leopard. And the frightening part was that I knew it was exactly what Beta One wanted. In the old days, Snow Leopard would never have even considered someone as unstable as Valkyrie for the Number Two slot. But Snow Leopard had changed too, after Mongera. We had all changed. And when crazy becomes normal, then normal becomes crazy. I wondered how Snow Leopard classified me. A little shaky, maybe. A little normal. Not crazy enough for command. Still too cautious, perhaps, to face the O's. Well, Valkyrie wasn't cautious, that was for sure.
"Up the river," Snow Leopard said, "and over the hills to the plain. Then we're almost there—the Mound is right here."
"How do we get across the plain without being spotted?" Psycho asked. "Looks pretty open to me."
"When we're ready, we'll call for cover," Snow Leopard said. "They'll light up the entire sector with deceptors and smoke and psybloc. Not just our area, but the whole sector—so it won't highlight us. We go in at night, under cover. Nothing to it."
"Nothing to it!" Speedy exclaimed in surprise. "What happens if the O's spot us and attack? What do we do then?"
"We fight," Snow Leopard replied, "and call in Beta Ten in the aircar for evac, if necessary."
"And what if he can't get to us? Or they get to him first?"
"Then we die. Any more questions?" The new guy paled, and shut down.
"You shouldn't worry, Speedy," Valkyrie said soothingly. "We all know what we're doing. We've fought the O's before. Just stay close to us and follow orders. You'll see—we'll get some kills. It's a good feeling, a great feeling, when you kill an O! We blew that last one apart, didn't we, guys? We filled the sky with psybloc and ripped its mags apart with canisters and tore it to shreds with the darts, and melted it with plasma, and cooked its genetics with the fieldfaxer and riddled it with laser and chainlink and tacstars and xmax and flame, we barbecued it, we char-grilled it, Speedy, and it burned like charcoal! We loaded it into the aircar in sections, didn't we, guys?" Her green eyes glowed, spittle was leaking out of her soft pink lips, and her face twitched. The Legion cross, burnt right onto her forehead, completed the picture. It was dead silent. She gave a nervous little laugh and wiped her mouth with the back of her armored hand. "Like Snow Leopard says, there's nothing to it. It's a charge—a real charge."
But Speedy wouldn't leave it alone. "Did you have any casualties?"
"Casualties," Valkyrie said. "Yeah, let's see—the O's got five of us, on Andrion Three. And two on Mongera—the rest were killed by the Systies. Yeah, total of seven killed, by the O's."
"Seven killed! How many O's did you get?"
"How many! There was only the one," Valkyrie replied. "Just the one, on Mongera. One is enough, believe me!"
"Just one!" Speedy's voice went up a few octaves.
"Relax, Speedy!" Valkyrie chided him. "Deadman, what an old lady! Just relax; we'll kick the crap out of the O's."