by Douglas Hill
Only moments later he re-emerged into normal space, far beyond the outer reaches of the solar system that contained his now dead and deadly world. There he set up a beacon of his own, instructing his computer to broadcast a message on a wide and regular sweep, which would be picked up by any other late-coming legionaries and save them from the deathtrap that awaited them on Moros.
Then he went doggedly, automatically, back to the labour of finishing the repairs to his planetary drive.
The work was completed quickly. But even then Keill did not move away. Blank and unmoving, he sat and stared out at space, unaware of the passage of time, trying to come to terms with the monstrous reality that had so nearly unhinged his mind. Several times he toyed with the thought that Oni might have been wrong – or that it had not been Oni at all, but some enemy’s trick – and that he should after all return and descend to Moros to see for himself.
But he always managed to resist the impulse. It had been Oni’s ship, and there had been no time for an enemy to use it for an elaborate deception. And he knew by instinct somehow that her dying message had been real, and true.
Meanwhile his communicator tirelessly broadcast his warning – but received no reply. And a fearful thought began to grow in him – that there might never be a reply.
What if his Strike Group had been the farthest from home of any unit of the Legions? What if they had been the very last to arrive, and last to descend into the fatal aura of the radiation? That would make him...
The last legionary.
But as the hours passed, something else – not intuition but physical sensation, from within his body – told him that, even if it were true, that he was the only one left, it was not likely to matter to him for very long.
It seemed to emanate from his very bones – faint, but tangible and definite.
A deep-lying sensation of burning pain.
Oni’s gallant attempt to save him had not worked. Even as far from the planet as he had been, some radiation must have reached him. A weaker dose, though, which would let him live a while yet.
How long he would have was not the most important question in his mind. Far more urgent were the questions that bore with them the full power of his sorrow and his rage: who and why?
But the fact that he would have only a limited time to seek the answers restored him to himself, a legionary again, and galvanized him into action.
He turned his ship away from the solar system of Moros, and began the slow, frustrating process of his search.
From world to world he moved, watching, listening, asking his careful questions. Whenever he was in space, his communicator kept up its patient broadcast. And the weeks, the months, passed uselessly.
Whoever had attacked Moros had covered their tracks well. The news of the planet’s destruction spread round the Inhabited Worlds quickly, as such news always did – but Keill could find not one grain of fact or hope within the quantities of speculation and rumour. So he had come to Coranex, just one more stop in. his random, desperate planet-hopping – knowing with bitter rage how rapidly his time was running out.
The pain within him had grown steadily more fierce, though in the legionary’s way he had kept it firmly under control, so that no one would have guessed that he was not in perfect health. But at last, on one of his earlier planetary stops, he had spent a few galacs to consult a space medic.
The medic made exhaustive tests. And the gloom that settled on his brow was enough to tell Keill the results.
The radiation – from some altered isotope unrecognized by either Keill or the medic – had settled in Keill’s bones. There it was creating cellular changes and breakdowns that were surely, inevitably, killing him.
A month more, the medic had said. Two at the most.
More than half of that month had passed by the time he made planetfall on Coranex. Keill had almost begun looking forward to the end – not only as a release from the pain. It would also release him from the dreams that came to torment his nights, in which he re-lived the terrible day when he thought he was rushing to his planet’s aid and found he had come to join it only in death.
And it would release him from the despair which came with the growing realization that his search for other legionary survivors seemed more and more hopeless.
But now... hope had revived. If the man called Crask had been speaking the truth, he was only hours from a meeting with other survivors, and perhaps some answers to the questions that plagued him as fiercely as the pain.
(The flavour of that anticipation reached into the dream, filled it, changed its nature. The tense movements of his closed eyes dwindled as the dream images fragmented again and scattered. For the first time in weeks, Keill sank deeper into a peaceful, undisturbed sleep. And his ship plunged on through nothingness, towards a planet called Saltrenius.)
The spaceport at Saltrenius might have been the port at Coranex – the same plasticrete surface, scarred and crumbled here and there from shoddy maintenance and the batterings of a thousand ships – the same low, shabby buildings where bored officials scanned identification, took details, yawningly accepted landing fees.
Even the town clustered near the port might have been transplanted from Coranex and all the other small, unimportant worlds like it. Of course there were differences: the shape of the buildings, the appearance and dress of the people. Saltrenius was grimier than most worlds, for much of the planet was devoted to gathering and processing a dusty residue from the bark of a native plant, used on many worlds in medical compounds. The dust, Keill found, was everywhere – especially, it seemed, on the usual assortment of dingy buildings devoted to the less choosy pleasure-seekers among space travellers.
This time, though, Keill avoided those streets. He was looking for a different source of information –
local facts, this time, rather than space talk. Every world naturally had its own forms of communications media – holo-screen or the more out-dated ultravid. The media people were the ones most likely to know what he needed to know.
A few questions, and he located the building he wanted, which housed the local office of the communications network. Squat, grey and dull the building was, and Keill spared it hardly a glance. A few more questions, a few galacs changing hands, and a secretary was going in search of a network newsman. ‘Just the man you want,’ Keill had been told. ‘Knows everything going on in Saltrenius.’
Only minutes later Keill was sitting in a noisy, crowded reception area, with a beaker of some unidentifiable fluid before him, while across the table a grey old man who said his name was Xann Exur was gulping a similar beakerful with every sign of deep enjoyment.
At last the beaker was set down, empty. Keill, his own still untasted, signalled a bartender for another, then looked hopefully at the old man.
Exur wiped his lips, loose grey flesh wobbling at jowl and throat. ‘Sure I can help you, boy. Glad to.
Always thought well of the Legions – terrible thing that happened.’
Keill nodded, waiting.
The old man leaned forward. In his eyes shone the eternal hope of a professional newsman scenting a story. ‘Any ideas yourself how it happened?’
Keill shook his head. ‘If you can tell me what I want to know, I might be on the way to some ideas. But I haven’t much time.’
Exur looked disappointed. ‘Ah well, imagine it’ll all come out someday.’ His second drink came, and he was about to gulp it in the wake of the first when Keill leaned forward and took hold of the skinny wrist.
The grip was light, but the old man did not fail to sense the steely strength within those fingers.
‘I said I haven’t much time,’ Keill said quietly.
‘Oh, right, sure,’ Exur said rapidly. ‘Like I said, glad to help. What’s happened is this...’
Keill released his grip and listened patiently as the old man told his rambling tale. Three men in legionary uniform had come to Saltrenius, a month or so earlier. They had picked up supplies, and had sp
ent some time in the town, where Exur had heard of their presence and had spoken to them.
The three had confirmed that Moros was destroyed, and that they might be the last living members of the Legions. But in case they weren’t, they had been spreading the word round the spaceways. They were planning to set up a base, so that if there were other survivors they too could make their way to Saltrenius and join their fellows.
‘Did they say why they had chosen this place?’ Keill asked.
‘Nope. And I didn’t press them. They didn’t mind talking to me, telling me their story, but they didn’t like too many questions. Especially the big fella.’
‘But did you find out where this base is?’
‘Sure.’ The old man grinned, pleased with himself. ‘On Creffa.’
‘Creffa?’
Exur waved a skinny hand in the air. ‘One of our moons. Saltrenius’s got two.’
Keill looked baffled. Why a moon? Why Saltrenius at all? And the old man read his expression correctly.
‘Yep, I wondered why Creffa too. Didn’t like to ask, by then, but they told me. There’s an old space-dome out there, built when we were exploring the moons, years back. They’re fixing it up to be their base. Guess they like to keep themselves to themselves.’
Keill was still slightly puzzled, but at least that part made sense. Moros had, after all, been attacked. The attacker, whoever it might be, was still around somewhere. A handful of legionaries would think first of setting up a base that was at once remote and defensible. A dome on an airless moon might do very well.
‘Then they’re still there?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ Exur said. ‘Been seen just recently, down here. They come down now and then to pick up stuff they need.’
‘And there’s no doubt in your mind that they’re legionaries?’
‘Well, they said they were, that’s all I can say. And they were wearing uniforms like yours, with that blue circle thing.’ The old man paused. ‘All except that big fella...’
‘What about him?’
Exur chortled. ‘He didn’t seem to like clothes too much. Oh, he had on the pants and boots like yours –
but he always went round stripped to the waist. Still, reckon if I had muscles like him I’d show ’em off too.’
Keill frowned, then reached up to undo the top fasteners of his tunic. From round his neck he drew a light metal chain, from which dangled a disc of hard plastic. He held out the disc in the palm of his hand.
‘Was the big man wearing one of these?’ he asked.
Exur studied the disc with interest. Around its edge was the brilliant blue circlet that was the Legion insignia. Within it, embedded deep in the plastic, were coded shapes – which, to other legionraies, would reveal Keill’s place of origin on Moros and his rank in the Legions. There was also a tiny but perfectly clear three-dimensional colour image of Keill’s face.
‘Now I never saw one of those before,’ Exur said. ‘Identification, is it?’
Keill nodded. ‘Every legionary has one. And each disc is chemically tuned to the physical make-up of its owner. No one can wear anyone else’s, and they’re hard to forge. Here.’
He placed the disc in the old man’s hand. At once the sky-blue circlet began to alter – darkening, shifting, until in seconds it glowed a deep, almost angry red.
Exur stared, fascinated. ‘Nice bit of work, that. Interesting.’ He handed back the disc – which returned to its normal blue as Keill took it and slipped the chain round his neck again. ‘Anyway,’ the old man went on, ’the big fella definitely didn’t have one of them.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Course. Man’s got a chest like a wall. Didn’t have any decorations on it.’ Again a pause. ‘Except for the markings.’
‘Markings?’
‘Yep – like tattoos, maybe, or like scars, except they were too neat and even. Raised ridges of skin, like
– one round his neck, one round his belly.’ A skinny finger demonstrated. ‘Legionaries have them, too?’
‘No,’ Keill said thoughtfully. ‘Nothing like that.’
The old man’s eyes sparkled with curiosity. ‘Are you thinking that these fellas aren’t real legionaries?’
‘I don’t know what I’m thinking. But this big man did say he was...?’
‘Yep. He did most of the talking. Lot of laughing, too. Not very pleasant. Made me downright nervous –
I was glad to get away, I can tell you.’
Keill nodded, and stood up. ‘I’m grateful for your help, Xann Exur – more than I can say. I wish I’d met you sooner.
‘I’m deeply in your debt, and I doubt if I’ll be able to repay it.’ As if to echo his words, the pain stabbed through him more savagely than ever.
But the old man noticed nothing. ‘My pleasure, son, and my job. I’m a newsman, and you could be news. If you find out those fellas are fakes, let me know, will you?’
Keill smiled grimly. ‘If they really are legionaries, I’ll let you know. If they’re not – then I’ll probably be too busy, for a while.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Keill went back to the spaceport as rapidly as he could, fighting to keep his inner calm and control despite the puzzlement and urgency that chafed at him. Questions upon questions, mysteries upon mysteries heaped themselves up in his mind, with one especially looming largest and most disturbing.
Were the three men legionaries?
If they were, a huge range of possibilities – and other questions – would open up, mainly to do with the murder of Moros and the unknown destroyer.
But if they were not... then what were they up to?
And what could he do about it?
He knew it would be a journey of less than an hour from lift-off to landing on the moon Creffa, where some at least of these questions would be answered. But he knew also that he would resent the passage of each one of those minutes.
Time was now his most precious possession. Every minute gone was another step towards the day –
soon now, as the medic had said – when the pain would grow strong enough to batter down his iron control, when the radiation within him would overwhelm and quench his life.
Every delay, however brief, was a robbery – making it even less likely that he would find the answers he needed before that final moment came.
So another man – a man without the inner discipline of a legionary – might have gone wholly berserk with fury and frustration if he had found what Keill found at the spaceport.
He could not enter his ship.
Someone had fixed an electromolecular seal across the hatch of the airlock – a plain metal band, but as secure and unopenable a fastening as could be found in the galaxy. Someone did not want Keill Randor to leave.
The senior security officer of the spaceport was not inclined to be helpful.
‘Can’t tell you any more.’ The official was a grey-faced Saltrenian with a permanently sour expression, made sourer by the visible anger behind Keill’s questions. ‘Like I said, official orders came – for me to seal your ship and give you that.’
He pointed to the paper Keill held. What it contained had only served to deepen the mystery. The paper had announced, unnecessarily, the official sealing of his ship. And it had ’requested’ Keill to take a room at a spacer hostel near the port, and wait there to be contacted on ’a matter of some urgency’.
The paper did not say who would make the contact. But it was signed by the Deputy Co-ordinator of the Saltrenian Civil Control.
‘I’ve broken no laws on this planet,’ Keill said fiercely. ‘I’ve been here barely a day – now I simply want to leave. Peacefully. Your people have no right to stop me.’
‘I’ve got my orders,’ said the officer, ’and that’s all there is.’ He let one hand stray meaningfully near the weapon at his side – another needle-gun, Keill had seen. ‘If you want to argue, and talk about rights, take it up with the CC. Your ship stays sealed till they say otherwise.’
‘I will.’ Keill turned away, then looked back and said almost casually, ‘But you have the key here?’
‘No concern of yours where it is,’ the official growled. ‘Not till the CC says otherwise.’
Keill nodded and left the room, hiding his grim satisfaction. Before the officer had replied, his eyes had briefly flicked sideways, towards a locked metal cabinet against one wall. The man had probably not even realized that he had made the movement. But it was all Keill needed.
Leaving the spaceport building, he glanced for a moment across the empty plasticrete towards where his ship stood. The distance was considerable, for the main pads were well away from the buildings. But Keill’s eyes could make out enough details – and what he saw made him stop abruptly and stare.
Four men had gathered around his ship. One of the men was a uniformed spaceport security guard. Two of the others wore different uniforms, which Keill recognized at once despite their abundant covering of Saltrenian dust. Legion uniforms.
And the fourth man...
At least a head taller than the others, massively built. And naked to the waist.
The three men seemed to be examining Keill’s ship, while chatting with the security guard. And the big man was laughing.
Keill had taken three running strides across the plasticrete before a sharp voice behind him brought him up short.
‘Randor!’
He turned and saw the senior security officer in the doorway.
‘My orders say you’re to be kept away from that ship,’ he growled. ‘I’ve put a man on it. Don’t get any ideas.’
Anger swelled within Keill, but his voice was cool. ‘There are some men out there,’ he said, pointing,
’who I must talk to.’
The officer narrowed his eyes and peered.
‘Do you know them?’ Keill ’asked quickly.
‘Yes – think so.’ The officer nodded. ‘Those’re the legionaries who’ve set up on Creffa.’ He looked down at Keill, some of the sourness leaving his eyes. ‘Guess I can understand you wanting to see them.
