The Last Legionary Quartet

by Douglas Hill

  This further awareness was of some unknown presence, roaming through the reshaped channels and passages of his mind. There it seemed to be searching, probing, testing the strengths of the barriers that had been imposed by the Arachnis link.

  The presence did not ever remain for long. Nor did it have any effect on the barriers, or on Keill.

  It might have been a dream – if it is possible for robots, or puppets, to have dreams.

  ---

  Once again, a time came when Keill was taken away from a morning of instruction with the new Golvician squads, and marched through the corridors of the building to the huge room that had been the Deathwing command centre. Now a good deal of the equipment had been removed, though several computer units and communication devices remained. So did the broad, heavy table at the room's centre – and behind it sat Festinn, his shoulder now healed and no longer bandaged, his eyes glowing as mercilessly as ever.

  'You may be pleased to know,' he smiled mockingly, 'that you are to suspend your duties as instructor for a while. There is another task for you.'

  He rose and moved forward, watching Keill's eyes, still hoping for some glimmer of response, some hint of pain and despair.

  'We have been receiving many reports,' he went on, 'of disruptive activity, minor sabotage, in Golv City. It seems some kind of winged alien creature is on the rampage. And you know all about that creature, don't you, Randor?'

  The robot Keill replied, directed by the power that owned his mind, in a voice as bleak as a polar wind. 'I know about her.'

  'Her?'Festinn leered, arching his eyebrows. 'Yes, of course, it is female, isn't it? You must tell me more about that relationship, one day.' The ugly smile faded. 'But for now, it will be your task to put an end to the relationship. The creature has eluded the militia for weeks. But it will not elude you, Randor, since you know it so well.'

  Festinn leaned closer, eyes ablaze, almost spitting the words into Keill's face.

  'You will go out into the city, in the company of myself and a squad of riflemen. You will lead our search for this creature. And when we locate it, wherever it may be hiding – then you, Randor, you personally, will kill it.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The chill climate of Golvic had produced a biting wind, with frequent scudding bursts of rain that felt like particles of solid ice. It was enough to make Festinn duck his head and wince with discomfort, while the six Golvicians following him huddled as deeply as they could into their tunics' collars and plodded sullenly on.

  Keill moved at the head of the file of men, efficient and single-minded. He felt no discomfort from the knife-edged wind; he felt no concern over the reason for the expedition. His robot-mind had been given its directive. Without hesitation he was going about his duty.

  Under Festinn's command they had been touring Golv City for some time, sweeping above the wintry streets in a sleek, fast flyer. At intervals they had landed, to look closely at places where signs remained of the winged creature that Festinn had said was at large in the city.

  At one spot, in a seedy backwater of the giant city, with low, crumbling buildings and ill-dressed residents, they had studied damage to a foodstore, from which packets of food concentrates had been stolen. The thief could not have been a Golvician, because the access had been through a nearly inaccessible upper-storey window, and there had been no sign of the use of a ladder or other climbing equipment.

  At another spot, a building worker had chanced to look out of a window and had seen the wrappings of some food-concentrate packets on a ledge. He had been amazed, and had reported it, for the ledge was high on one of the more lofty towers of the city. And the windows, in deference to Golvician weather, were not designed to open.

  At still another place, in a sector of the city containing the huge, solid structures of heavy industry, a maintenance worker had actually caught a glimpse of the winged creature, swooping towards him within the shadowy expanses of a giant power station. But it had only been a glimpse, for a blow on the head had sent him toppling into darkness.

  Moments later, nearly a third of Golv City had been plunged into darkness, when a major feed line into the power grid had been skilfully disrupted.

  Now Keill and the other searchers were returning to the flyer after examining the scene of the latest, and perhaps most serious, event. A Golvician militiaman, returning to barracks the previous night, had been attacked. He had not seen his attacker, but had heard an odd sound, as if someone had been flapping a sheet of cloth above him.

  When he awoke, with a bruised and aching head, his energy gun had been missing.

  Back in the flyer, relaxing with the Golvicians in its heated interior, Festinn turned inquiringly to Keill.

  He knew that by then the Twenty-four would have reviewed the data. And that small portion of their supermind which controlled Keill Randor would have access to everything that Keill's mind contained about the winged alien, to form their conclusions. Those conclusions would be communicated to Festinn through Keill himself, speaking under their guidance, as if he was merely a mechanism, a walking communicator.

  'The creature called Glr,' Keill said, 'is engaging in random activity.' His voice was as empty as his facial expression, showing no awareness of the words' meaning. 'There is no visible pattern. It is doubtful whether she has any fixed base, or any logical, predictable plan of action.'

  'Then, with respect,' Festinn replied, 'how are we to find it?'

  'She is clearly seeking to attract attention, perhaps hoping to draw me out from the Deathwing headquarters. She may believe that she can release me from Arachnis.'

  The dead voice of Keill, speaking so flatly of his own enslavement, might have caused an ordinary man to shudder, Festinn merely raised a curious eyebrow.

  'Can it do so? It is telepathic...'

  'She cannot do so with mental powers alone,' Keill's empty voice replied. 'She can make only superficial contact with human minds. And even if she could reach deeply enough into my mind, she could not overcome the controls of Arachnis.'

  'Surely it cannot hope to get close enough to remove the link physically,' Festinn mused. 'Which in any case would destroy what is left of Randor's mind.'

  'She may not be aware of that,' the dull voice replied.

  'Indeed,' Festinn said with a twisted smile. 'Clearly, then, we must continue the search – with you, Randor, as bait. The creature will undoubtedly show itself at some point.'

  'No doubt,' Keill said. 'She is a telepath. She knows precisely where I am at any moment.'

  Festinn laughed coldly. 'And that, Randor, will be its undoing.'

  ---

  For the next few hours they continued their search more or less at random, sweeping the flyer over the entire area around the scene of Glr's attack on the militiaman. Frequently they landed on the roofs of the taller buildings in the area, emerging to search more carefully. And when they did so, Festinn and the men under his command no longer huddled so deeply into their tunics. They were watchful and cautious, knowing that they were now hunting not just a winged enemy, but a winged enemy armed with an energy gun.

  But the search proved fruitless. And by the time that the first tinges of dusk had begun to darken the overcast sky, Festinn was feeling thoroughly disgruntled, as well as half-frozen. He was even beginning to doubt the conclusion of the Twenty-four, that Glr would sooner or later show herself if Keill was out in the city.

  And so he was on the threshold of calling off the search, for the day, when the communicator in the flyer crackled into life.

  'Sir!' The Golvician voice held a note of urgency. 'The winged creature has been located – on the main route to the spaceport! It has fired on two military flyers, and disabled them!'

  Festinn gestured abruptly to the soldier at the controls of the flyer. 'Get us to the spaceport – top speed. And stop at nothing!' The vehicle leaped forward with a throaty roar of power, and Festinn leaned forward to the communicator. 'Did anyone return the fire? Was the creature hit
?'

  'No, sir. It showed itself for an instant, crippled the flyers, and was gone before anyone could shoot. But the pilots brought the flyers down safely, sir.'

  'Then they are as lucky as they are stupid,' Festinn snapped. 'See that the spaceport guards are more alert.' He switched off and turned to Keill. 'The spaceport... Do you think your friend is planning to desert you?'

  'I do not know what she is planning,' Keill said tonelessly.

  'Of course not.' Festinn smiled. 'But you can tell me one thing. How fast can the creature fly?'

  Keill looked out of the flyer's window. The buildings on either side seemed to be blurred and smeared, such was the speed of the vehicle's hurtling flight. And across the gulf of space, through the Arachnis link, the Twenty-four assessed his perceptions, compared them with data from his memory, and framed his reply.

  'Not as fast as this, even in a short burst. Much less fast, over a distance.'

  'Excellent.' Festinn settled back with satisfaction. 'Then we shall overtake it. Are you looking forward to seeing your friend again, Randor?' The cold laugh rang out. 'Once you have killed it, I may also let you have a last look at your own spaceship. For old times' sake.'

  He laughed again. But Keill merely stared woodenly ahead at the darkening sky around them.

  ---

  Full night had begun to gather by the time the flyer came within sight of the lights on the spaceport perimeter. There was a brighter area of light within the perimeter, as well – which, as they swooped down near ground level, defined itself as a merrily blazing fire.

  Festinn did not need the breathless report over the communicator to know that Glr had reached the spaceport only moments before. And she had managed, without being spotted, to fire at and explode a power unit in a storage area.

  'Let it burn!' Festinn was raging into the communicator. 'Put every man to the task of finding that creature! Let me know the instant it is located!'

  But in fact it was Festinn himself who first had precise knowledge of Glr's location.

  As the flyer dropped even lower, skimming the ground in a sweeping curve towards the spaceport entrance, an energy beam. stabbed towards it from the night sky. It struck with blazing accuracy at the front of the vehicle, melting and burning its way through the housing of the engine.

  With power cut off, the flyer plunged to the ground. Bouncing, skidding and slewing over the rain-wet surface, it finally struck some unseen obstacle and rolled crashingly – once, twice, a third time –

  before finally coming to rest.

  Almost immediately, Keill was squeezing out of a shattered window and coming to his feet. His reflexes and balance had as always operated automatically, curling him into a tight protective ball, so that he suffered only minor bruises in the crash. He was already moving away before Festinn and the others, groaning and dazed, had begun to disentangle themselves painfully from the shattered machinery.

  'Randor!' Festinn shouted. 'Stop – wait there!'

  But if Keill heard, he did not obey. He took his primary orders through his programming, via the Arachnis link. And he had been programmed to seek a winged alien, and kill it. When he had first emerged from the wrecked flyer, he had caught a glimpse of broad, membranous wings, soaring into the darkness towards the central area of the spaceport.

  And like the obedient robot that he was, he had leaped in pursuit, freeing his energy gun from his belt as he ran.

  Elsewhere on the broad plasticrete expanse of the spaceport, he could hear the cries of many men, the sound of running feet and clattering machinery. Some men were hurrying towards the wrecked flyer; others were still milling around the scene of the fire, some distance to Keill's left. But the noises held no meaning for him, and he ran on, ignoring them.

  The icy wind moaned around him, dashing a flurry of bitter rain into his eyes. He blinked – and as his vision cleared, he saw again the ghostly suggestion of wide wings in the air ahead.

  His hand became a blur as he snapped up the gun and fired.

  But Glr had swerved, telepathically sensing the shot before it was fired, and the deadly beam missed. Keill ran on, peering into the darkness, all his automatic alertness poised, ready to kill.

  The strange pursuit continued, towards a dark cluster of unlit buildings that loomed on the far edge of the spaceport. Keill sprinted round the scarred expanse of a landing pad, caught another glimpse of the shadowy wings, fired again. But again Glr had swung aside in time, and again the shot missed its target as she once more vanished into the darkness.

  Keill slowed his pace as he neared the buildings. On one of them, wide doors yawned open, a patch of deeper blackness. It was a compact spaceport hangar, which might be used to house one of the smaller, individualised types of spacecraft. So its doors should not have been open, at night, unguarded.

  Unless someone, or something, had just opened them.

  It was not Keill's reasoning, for he could no longer reason, but that of the controlling power he obeyed. It sent him moving forward, with caution, to slip silently in through the gaping doors.

  Darkness swallowed him. He was aware, near him, of the shape of a spaceship, but it meant nothing to him. His hearing was tuned to catch a whisper of movement, a sweep of wings through the air.

  The small portion of the supermind that was attending to Keill plucked from his memory the fact that his alien companion's round eyes had exceptional night vision. A flicker of concern became a command, sent out on the Arachnis link. Slowly Keill began to back out of the hangar.

  But... was that a rustle of wings, just on the threshold of hearing, high above him?

  In the instant that the sound reached him, Keill fired towards it. The blazing beam of energy lit up the darkness for a fractional moment, illuminating the hull of a blunt, wedge-shaped spaceship, with a sky-blue circlet glinting on its side.

  The sight was meaningless to Keill. His shot had struck only the wall of the hangar, had revealed no sign of a winged creature. He continued to back away, almost blind for an instant in the aftereffects of the beam.

  The rush of wings came, unexpectedly, from behind him. A small, firm body struck powerfully against the back of his head, and broad membranes of wings folded down over his upper body.

  Reflexively, Keill had maintained his balance under the impact, and had without pause struck upwards and back with the deadly chopping edge of his hand. But the folds of a wing blocked and impeded the blow, tangling Keill's hand for a brief instant.

  The instant was long enough. Keill felt sharp talons on the ends of small fingers rake painfully up the side of his head, leaving bloody furrows on his scalp.

  Then the talons hooked over the thin cord that formed the Arachnis link – and ripped it away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  An impossible, unbelievable agony that was beyond agony exploded inside Keill's head. Every cell of his brain, every nerve fibre, felt as if it had burst into livid flame.

  All the normal connections and patterns that had been blocked, bypassed or diverted by the Arachnis control had snapped simultaneously back into their regular formations. And, like limbs that have been unused for a long time, and are suddenly called upon to function at top output, they shrieked their protest in the form of excruciating, unbearable pain.

  Keill staggered and reeled forward – unaware that he was screaming, unaware of the strong little hands that grasped his tunic and kept him upright, on his feet, while great wings beat above his head.

  Before he could fall, Glr half-dragged him back into the impenetrable darkness of the hangar where his ship lay. She propelled him around the ship, as far away from the hangar's yawning doors as possible.

  And only then – among an array of machine parts and tools, the usual clutter of a spaceport hangar's maintenance area – she let him collapse to the hangar floor.

  Keill knew nothing of that. For him there was nothing but pain, the overwhelming shock of his brain's abrupt reassembling of its own functions. And more – even beyond
that agony there was the growth of a greater torment.

  In that explosive moment of his mind's restoration, he had regained his self-awareness, his knowledge of who and what he was. And he had regained access to his memory. In one overwhelming blast of realisation, he remembered everything that had happened to him – what he had been under the Arachnis control, what he had done, what had been done to him.

  A tidal wave of revulsion, guilt, horror and hatred swept over him in that single convulsive moment. And with that moral torment heaped on top of the psychic agony of his restored mental functions, his mind tottered upon the brink of oblivion. Not the merciful release of mere unconsciousness, but the oblivion of total insanity, of mind-death. His mind cried out for the peace of forgetfulness, of blank non-awareness. It swayed upon the threshold of its own destruction, and reached yearningly towards it...

  But it did not cross the threshold. Two forces went into action within the storming, boiling confines of his agonised mind, and rescued it.

  Freed from the barriers that had left it suspended in disconnected darkness, his unyielding will asserted itself. Before, it had known only that it had to survive. Now, reconnected with reality, it knew why. And it reached out through all the areas of his mind, and fought the desire for oblivion. It confronted the crippling agony, and fought to make it bearable. It confronted the sweeping waves of remorse and revulsion, and fought to quell their power.

  It snatched Keill's mind back from the black edge of madness – and it summoned up all the resources of a legionary's self-discipline, and flung them into the struggle for mastery.

  And as Keill's will went into battle, it was aided by the second force. Another presence entered into Keill's tortured mind – the healing, gentle presence of Glr, wrapping invisible wings comfortingly around Keill like a mother holding an injured child. Surely, carefully, her mind touched the flashpoints of Keill's mental anguish and sought to calm them, to bring the healing balm of understanding, reassurance and love.