The Last Legionary Quartet

by Douglas Hill

  Even before the gun landed, Keill was upon him.

  He struck only once, with his fist. But every gram of his weight, every fraction of his towering fury, was released into that blow.

  His fist crashed into the centre of Quern's white, scream" ing face. Bone splintered, blood spurted, masking the whiteness with red.

  Quern's body was flung away, back against the inner door of the airlock. But to Keill's astonishment - the door had opened, and the albino thudded limply into the airlock chamber.

  Then the inner door closed - and before Keill could turn or move, the ship heeled violently to one side, throwing him off balance. The hiss of escaping air sounded unmistakeably from the opening of the airlock's outer door.

  Then Keill righted himself and swung round - to be halted again, for a very different reason.

  Glr was up, her great wings half-spread, her hands flickering over the ship's controls.

  Above her, a viewscreen showed a glimpse of Quern's white, motionless body, drifting away into space, the activator dangling uselessly, trailed by the red, frozen crystals of his blood like a comet's tail.

  Keill stared at Glr, speechless, as she turned to regard him with luminous round eyes.

  "You were dead I" he whispered aloud.

  Your thought is poorly formed, Glr said reprovingly. Please stop gaping, and tell me what we must do next.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Keill slumped into his sling-seat, trying to focus his scrambled thoughts.

  "Why didyou let me tbinkyou were dead?" he asked Glr, reproachfully.

  I apologise for that, Glr said, sounding not at all apologetic. But I could hardly lower my shields and reassure you.

  "You were shielding, all the time you were lying there, without Quern knowing?"

  Certainly. My shielding, as I told you, seems too alien for human telepaths to recognise. They must see it as an absence of thought, a non-existence - easily confused with death.

  As Keill shook his head, mystified as ever by the strange nature of telepathy, Glr went on to tell him what had happened.

  Quern had arrived at KeilPs ship only minutes after the Veynaan attack had begun. And as the albino had entered the 6hip, Glr had lowered her shields.

  "Just like that?" Keill asked. When you knew bow strong hi was?"

  You had to he warned, Glr replied simply. And be bad to be stopped from lifting off, inyour ship.

  But the moment that Glr's mind was open to him, Quern had hurled a ferocious psychic blast at her - then another and another. Under that terrible battering she knew that she could not survive for long, so she began rebuilding her mental shield - and Keill's - a little at a time.

  To Quern it must have seemed that my mind was fading, dying, she said. I let my wings flutter and droop, and when my shield was complete and my body still, he was sure be bad killed me.

  'So was I" Keill put in.

  Your reaction made my portrayal all the more convincing, Glr said, with a smile in her voice. Of course I left my eyes open, so I could see. And when it was plain that you were going to leap at Quern, despite his gun, I dropped my shield and struck Mm with the strongest mental blast I could muster.

  The images rose in KeilPs mind - Quern's agonized screams, then the blood-masked body collapsing into the airlock...

  An unpleasant death, Glr commented. But well deserved.

  "It's not the end, though," Keill said quickly.

  As he told her about the others - Quern's fail-safe - he quickly scanned the viewscreens. The shuttle was out of visual range, but the sensors on the control panel revealed a tell-tale blip. The other ship was halfway round the planet from Keill's position.

  It might already be at rendezvous with the freighter, he thought, and putting a stop to the huge ship's random dips in and out of Overlight. But there would still be time. Keill could hurl his own ship into Overlight, and arrive at the shuttle's present position in seconds.

  He set the controls, and the viewscreens altered at once ta the blank void of Overlight.

  Can we stop them from activating the weapon? Glr asked.

  "With luck," Keill said. "They're only on standby - they won't know Quern's dead,jet."

  They will know whenyou appear, Glr pointed out.

  "But then," Keill said fiercely, "they won't have time to do anything about it."

  And do you know, Glr added, who "they" are?

  Keill's eyes darkened. "I have a pretty good idea."

  As he spoke, the viewscreens shimmered. They were back In normal space - and ahead, outlined against the stars, was the dark cylinder of the ultrafreighter.

  Keill slammed on full power, and his ship screamed down towards the huge ship.

  The shuttle had vanished, no doubt already within the freighter. But its occupants, not expecting to be pursued, had not altered the automatic action of the docking bay.

  It slid obediently aside as Keill's ship approached, and he plunged into the opening, retros thundering, slamming his ship down jarringly on to the landing pad - next to the bulbous shape of the shuttle.

  There was no sign around the pad of a human figure. For the necessary seconds Keill sat still, impatience struggling to overcome bis control, while life support was restored in the freighter's stern compartment. At last his ship sensors showed that it was safe to go out He sprang up, snatching another energy gun from his weapons store.

  'They'll be in the control room by now," he told Glr swiftly. "Stay with the ship."

  Keill... Glr began unhappily. But the airlock had opened, and he was gone.

  Beyond the flame-scarred landing pad, one of the wheel-less, two-seater personnel carriers stood idle on the auto-magnetic strip. Keill leaped into it, slamming its starting lever ahead to send it forward. The carrier had only one forward speed - and impatience built to desperation within him as it trundled along with agonizing slowness.

  He glanced over the edge of the trackway, down into the shadowy depths of the freighter. It was as empty as before, with a few work-robots still standing idle, arms drooping like the branches of dead trees.

  It was likely, he thought, that one of the people from the shuttle would come back towards the launching pad, to investigate the arrival of a second ship.

  But there was only one way to come - along the suspended trackway of the Vehicles which connected the landing pad and the control room.

  Of course there was a flat hoist elevator at the landing pad, and another at the freighter's far end serving the control room, to give access to the deck of the cargo hold below. But no one would go down that way to investigate Keill's arrival. The trackway was too high, and an occupant of one of the carriers would be hidden from someone gazing upwards from the deck.

  The small car slid onwards, passing through a doorway, automatically opened, in the first of the vast bulkheads that divided the freighter into sections.

  Ahead, the trackway remained empty, the hollow vault of the freighter silent.

  Then another bulkhead, another doorway...

  And beyond, another of the carriers. On the parallel track next to Keill's, coming towards him, towards the landing pad.

  Within it, the figure of a man - half-rising to his feet in alarm at the sight of Keill.

  It was Fillon - pale and wide-eyed with startled panic, raising a hand that clutched the unmistakeable shape of an energy gun.

  The gun in Fillon's hand crackled, but the beam flashed far over Keill's head.

  The two cars trundled on towards each other.

  "Tillon," Keill shouted, "Quern's dead - the rebellion is finished! It's over! Put the gun down!"

  Fillon's answer was another wildly aimed shot, and another. Keill could see that the Clusterman's hand was shaking badly - yet the next shot bit into the trackway only half a metre from Keill's car, and the next sizzled not much farther away from Keill's right shoulder.

  Keill crouched, eyes narrowed. The cars drew nearer, and still Fillon's gun blazed furiously, erratically but without pause.


  As they drew closer, Keill knew that soon one of Fillon's blasts would be on target. His own gun flashed into his hand, and he snapped a shot without seeming to take aim.

  But the beam struck just as he had intended, biting into Fillon's arm.

  Fillon shrieked, lurching back. Yet somehow he did not drop the gun. He had been firing as he was hit, and the firing stud was still depressed as he fell back into the car, his injured arm jerking.

  The lethal beam poured its power downwards, into the carrier Fillon was riding.

  Keill heard the dull thud of an explosion within the machine. Then, like a blind, escaping animal, it veered suddenly to one side - and toppled over the edge of the trackway.

  Fillon's thin, echoing scream was cut off when the carrier struck the metal deck of the freighter below, with a splintering, explosive crash.

  Keill peered over the edge, as his own carrier neared the spot where Fillon had fallen. Below, what was left of Fillon's car lay in a heap of smoking, crumpled wreckage. It covered the lower half of Fillon's body - the upper half lying exposed, unmoving, eyes staring sightlessly upwards.

  I wonder if you were a second Deathwing agent, Keill thought. Maybe I'll never know.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A moment more, and the carrier had reached its goal - a flat metal apron, as broad as the landing pad, outside the doorway that led to the control room in the freighter's nose.

  Keill jerked the lever back, halting the carrier as it swung round into position for the return trip on the parallel magnetic strip.

  Gun in hand, he sprang through the door.

  The control room was narrow, cramped and unlovely, the metal coverings of the walls stained and dented with age. One °f the meagre slits of the viewports was no longer clear plastiglass but a blank slab of metal - into which was set, like a plug, a shiny metal ovoid that Keill had seen before; in the in container on the shuttle, during his secret visit to the roof of the Clusterhome.

  The Deathwing weapon. The trailing hook-ups from one end of the ovoid now led into their connections within the freighter's control panel. The ovoid's other end would be jutting out through the port, ready, when activated, to spill its deadly capsules of radiation.

  And at the control panel, across the open area from Keill, someone was standing. A small, slender figure in a bright Cluster coverall.

  Joss.

  As she turned to face Keill, she wore the same air of calm authority that she had shown on the first day they had met.

  "I thought it would be you," Keill said, just as calmly.

  She studied him without expression. "Fillon is dead?"

  Keill nodded. "And Quern as well."

  A frown creased the smooth brow, and anger flared in the dark eyes, quickly controlled. She glanced at the gun in Keill's hand. "And are you going to kill me, too ?"

  'No." Keill lowered the gun, returning it to his belt. "But I'm not going to let you use the weapon, either."

  Joss backed away a step, leaning against the control panel "How will you stop me ?"

  "I hope you'll stop yourself," Keill said. "Think for a minute, Joss. I know how strongly you felt about the Cluster and its rebellion - but it's over now.

  The Veynaans have smashed the Home, and have probably taken the surviving Cluster-folk prisoner. There's nothing left !

  'Veynaa is left," Joss said, her voice grating.

  "But Veynaa means millions of innocent people," Keill insisted. "No matter how you feel, you can't commit murder on that scale, for revenge."

  "Quern told the Veynaans what would happen if they ignored our ultimatum,"

  Joss replied, determination drawing harsh lines on her face. "Now it will happen !'

  "Quern was insane," Keill said sharply. "He cared nothing for the Cluster. He belonged to an... an organization devoted to making war - and he was using you and the Qusterfolk. You can't use the weapon, Joss. That much evil makes everything it touches evil I'

  To his surprise, Joss smiled. Not the warm, lovely smile he had seen so often before - but a thin, cold smile that held both mockery and triumph.

  At the same moment, Keill felt a faint, throbbing vibration from the metal beneath his feet, heard a distant rumbling roar. The freighter's booster rockets, he realized, flaming into action to alter the giant ship's orbit.

  "Joss ..." he began, desperately casting about in his mind for the right words.

  But she did not let him finish. With the speed that he had seen in her before, she swept her hand up towards him. It held a small, knobbled cylinder, covered with odd markings and tiny projections, like nothing Keill had seen before.

  But he did not doubt that it was a weapon of some sort -and that Joss had caught him off-guard and flat-footed.

  'Such a moving speech," she smiled. "But you have made it too late, legionary.

  And to the wrong person."

  She gestured with the cylinder. From behind him, Keill heard a slight grinding sound, almost muffled by the rumble of the boosters. He began to whirl.

  But six powerful bands of shiny, flexible metal wrapped themselves round his body, pinning his arms to his sides.

  Keill did not need to twist his head around to look. Another "work-robot, he knew, with cold self-reproach. He had been too preoccupied with Joss to be properly alert, and the noise of the boosters had drowned the minimal noise of the robot's treads.

  He tried to flex his arms, to seek some leverage within the steely grip. But the robot's six metal arms tightened round his body, and swung him up, off his feet. He was nearly immobilized, dangling as helpless as an animal awaiting slaughter.

  Staring down into the cold and smoky eyes of Joss, seeing the demonic triumph that shone from her face, Keill wondered how he had ever thought her beautiful.

  "You'll not smash this robot so easily," she said, her mocking smile broadening.

  'Then it was you - before - at the food tanks?" Keill spoke with difficulty as the robot's arms clamped ever tighter round his chest.

  "Of course. You might have guessed. I told you I was a freighter pilot for the Cluster - and pilots learn to handle robots. With what Quern called a "delicate touch" - remember?"

  Her laugh seemed almost metallic as she brandished the knobbly cylinder in her hand. And now Keill could guess its function - a remote manipulator for the robots.

  He struggled again, lashing backwards with his boots. But he could not see, this time, the weak points to aim at, and his kicks glanced off the sturdy metal - while the unyielding bands around him tightened even further.

  "I've set the robot controls to continue tightening its grip," she said, still smiling. "It will crush you to death in a few minutes. Meanwhile you may watch me complete the settings to activate the weapon - and then, when I've left you, you can pass the remaining time wondering which will kill you Ifirst - the robot or the radiation."

  "Can you kill ... so easily," Keill gasped, "so cold-bloodedly?"

  Her eyes narrowed to icy slits. "Easily?" she spat. i wanted you killed at the outset - I knew you would be a threat! But ; Quern would not hear of it. He insisted you were more valuable alive - he even reprimanded me for trying to kill :you at the food tanks!" Her laugh was harsh, scornful. "And now Quern is dead because he let you live - and I have been proved right. And when I have completed Quern's task, it will not be reprimands that I will receive!"

  Keill stared down with chill horror at Joss's contorted, gleeful face, his mind half-numbed by the overwhelming truth that at last had been confirmed.

  There had been a second Death wing agent on the Cluster.

  And he was looking at her.

  He fought, in the robot's crushing grip, for breath enough to speak.

  "Won't the One ... want me ... brought back for .. " questioning ?" he gasped.

  Surprise and doubt flitted across Joss's face. "How do you know so much ?" she wondered, half to herself. "Perhaps..." But then the look of cold determination returned. "No - you will die. You have already disrupted
the Master's plan enough, and you are too dangerous, as Quern found out." A glint of anger flashed in her eyes. "For that alone, the One himself would seek your death, if he were here. You have robbed the Master of his most valued weapon!"

  That's something, at least, Keill thought, remembering what Quern had revealed earlier, on die ship. No matter what happens now, the Warlord won't be murdering any more planets with that radiation. The secret of its making had died with Quern.

  'Now our conversation must end," Joss was saving. "I have work to do - and soon the robot will crush your ribs, and put an end to your speeches."

  She turned away, laughing unpleasantly, towards the control panel.

  Keill did not reply - but not because his ribs were crumbling under the robot's pressure. The increasing grip of the metal arms was painful, bruising the flesh of his arms and chest, but he pushed the pain to one side of his mind and ignored it, knowing that his bones could withstand stresses far more powerful than the robot could manage.

  He calmed his mind, and formed the call. "Glr -you'd better getup here. With a gun."

  On my way, came the calm reply.

  "No - wait!" An idea had sprung into Keill's mind - a way that he and Glr might thwart the Deathwing plan and still, with luck and speed, survive. "Come in the ship! Burn jour way through the bulkkadsl'

  If you say so, Glr replied, with a faint note of puzzlement. Are you aware that the orbit of the freighter is decaying?

  "I know," Keill said quickly. "How long beforeplanet]"all?"

  Your ship computer estimates four minutes.

  And the weapon, Keill knew, would be activated before that - to release the radiation capsules into Veynaa's atmosphere, beginning the catastrophic chain reaction that would eventually leave nothing alive on the planet's surface.

  "Then hurry!" Keill called, in silent desperation.

  Two bulkheads remaining, Glr replied, as calm as ever.

  Joss stepped away from the control panel, looking up at Keill, her eyes glittering. He let his body sag in the robot's grip, as if near death. And her smile was ugly - a distant echo of Quern's twisted gloating.