"Surely our lifies will come up with a vaccine—or some way to kill it."
"It's currently ConFree's most important research project. They're throwing billions at this problem. No result so far."
"Have any System worlds been hit yet?"
"Not yet. But it may be only a matter of time."
"Well, if the stuff can't survive in the vac, and the life cycle is only…how long did you say…sixteen hours? How is it leaping from planet to planet?"
"Good question. We don't know."
"What are they going to do about Veronica 2?"
"Don't know that either. Nobody's ever evaced a planet of 300 million before."
"If I was on Veronica 2," Priestess said dreamily, "I'd be planning an off-world vacation about now."
"The same thought occurred to all 200 million inhabitants of Veronica 2, at about the same time. It's caused some problems for the transportation folks."
"Hey, DD, alert!" Ricochet, one of Valkyrie's amazons, was leaning out of Mams' squad bay. "Mams is having a wet top contest and Scrapper wants you to check her out!"
"It's a trick, DD!" Sweats said. "They just want to humiliate you again! Ignore the bitch!"
"He's busy!" Trigger shouted back. "He's cutting his toenails."
"Don't you go, DD! Maintain the honor of the squad!" Flash demanded.
"Scrapper said she'll let you peel off her top if you do it ree-al slow!" Ricochet added.
"It's a sleazy trick!" Trigger said. "Remember what happened last time!"
"He's weakening!" Tourist exclaimed. DD was getting up from the floor.
"No balls!' Psycho said. "She's teasing you, dummy! Don't fall for it!"
"I'm just going to the head," Doctor Doom said.
"Oh right! We believe you!"
"No squad solidarity! You deserve whatever grief they give you!"
"Don't expect us to bail you out!"
"Hey, Pits!" It was Ragdoll, peering out of Mams' squad bay. "You subs are all invited. We want some male input on who's going to be Miss Mams for this month."
"All right! Outta my way!"
"Stand back! I am the expert on this subject!" People dropped out of their bunks wildly, crashing down to the deck.
"Do you think they mean it?"
"Who cares? What's to lose?"
"Outta the way, DD!"
"Don't you dare get up!" Priestess threatened me.
"But don't you want to see the wet top contest?"
"No! I want to be alone with you."
"Oh. Hmm. Well—all right. I mean—I didn't want to go anyway."
"How often do we get a chance to be alone?"
"Ah—yes. I see what you mean."
"They're gone. And I'm still fully clothed. Can you explain that?"
"Uhh…because I haven't taken your clothes off yet?"
"That's it!" She stood up abruptly and began pulling her top over her head. Her lovely breasts popped out, bobbing back and forth in a tantalizing dance. The scars from her earlier xmax wounds were barely visible.
"Do I have to do it all myself?" she asked, dropping the top to the deck.
"Let me help," I said, fumbling with the catches on her shorts. She was so slender, so lovely—and those legs—Deadman! My hands trembled.
"But…what if…somebody comes back?" I whispered, glancing furtively at the entrance to Mams' squad bay while sliding Priestess's shorts down her long silken legs.
"They'll have to find somebody else! I'm not sharing you this time!"
***
"This is truly a historical moment," Snow Leopard said. "It may even prove to be a turning point in history—one of those moments that define the future." Dragon and Psycho and Priestess and I were in Snow Leopard's personal cube, watching a large d-screen on the bulkhead. Snow Leopard was captivated by the flickering colored images up on the screen. His pink eyes were alive, and a loose strand of white-blond hair hung ignored over his forehead. We sipped dox, at One's invitation, to watch the latest dispatch from Starcom.
"That's the O delegate. We don't know his designation, of course, but he's obviously the main man." The screen showed a large, bare room, with a single, plain round table set in the center. Half of the room was full of Legion troopers, A & A—armored and armed, ready for anything. The other half was full of Omnis, also fully armored and armed, their force fields merging, glittering violet, a poisonous aurora crackling and swirling around the O's, lighting up the room. One of the O's stood forth from the others. He held something in his hands, a little metal container. He gingerly placed it on the table, and carefully stepped back. One of the Legion troopers then stepped forward and placed a similar device upon the table. The two looked at each other for a moment, then each picked up the other's device.
"That's the first time I know of that O's and ConFree reps have met in a non-adversarial situation for an exchange of knowledge," Snow Leopard said. "Normally we exchange bullets. There's no telling what this could lead to."
"So what did they tell us?" Dragon asked.
"Starcom says they provided a lot of scientific data on the White Death. It's very, very difficult to exchange information with the O's because we still can't comprehend their written language—if it is a language. But genetic diagrams are perfectly clear. And the O's went to a lot of trouble to illustrate what they wanted to tell us. It was almost like they were drawing pictures for retards like us who can't even communicate with our minds. The fungus that's attacked their worlds is genetically the same as ours. It originated from the same ancestor. They evidently aren't having any better luck at countering it than we are. Take a look." The view flashed to a genetic chart of the fungus. It didn't mean anything to me.
"Interesting," I said. "Did they tell us anything new?"
"Yes. They did. Enough to keep the lifies—and historians—busy for quite awhile. They told us some fascinating stuff. It seems this isn't the first time this stuff has showed up."
"Really."
"Really. If our interpretation of the O information is correct, it made one previous appearance, over a hundred thousand stellar years ago, in the Sagitta Spiral, out in the Nulls. Nobody has ever been out that far, from our civilization, but according to the O's there were a lot of inhabited worlds out there in those days. The O's had made a home there. It looks like they settled a series of planets in that sector. There were humans out there too, it seems—and this is evidence that the original wave of migration from the Wanderers reached a lot further than anyone ever suspected."
"Damn! That's amazing!"
"It sure is. It seems there wasn't much conflict between humans and O's in those days. Maybe we can learn something from that. Anyway, the White Death came, out of nowhere. It devastated those worlds, human and O."
"It couldn't be countered?" Dragon asked.
"No. Humans and O's died by the millions. It appears the O's evaced their worlds, and left the whole sector behind. It was inherited by something called the Mind."
"The Mind?"
"Yes. If we are interpreting the O's data correctly, it seems the fungus is intelligent. Once all opposition is eliminated, the fungus metamorphoses, grows together and begins expanding, eventually forming a world-wide forest of fungus—but it's really one great individual."
"But I thought they needed human or O hosts to reproduce!" Priestess objected.
"They do. At least at first. But then, it seems, they change. The O's have given us before and after genetic charts of the fungus, from the original infection. It seems neither is completely identical with the current species that's attacking us both."
"They're not identical?"
"They're not from the same ancestor. It looks like this latest fungus is not going to transform itself," Snow Leopard said.
"Are you sure? No smart fungus for us to shoot?" Psycho asked.
"We're really not certain. The O's told us that you can't fight the Mind. Their ancestors tried. No matter how much of it you burn or poison, the rest keeps growing. And i
t can produce those nasty little people-eating spores, apparently at will. The O's finally abandoned their worlds there, and came looking for someplace a bit more friendly."
"And that's where they met the Legion."
"Over a hundred thousand years later—yeah."
"How about the human settlements out there?"
"Wiped out of history. No further trace. The O's information indicates the White Death planets are probably still out there, rotting in the grip of the Mind. As far as the O's know, the Mind is still alive. Apparently all it wants is to be left alone."
"Sounds kind of pushy, for a plant," Psycho said. "How did it get from world to world?"
"The O's believe humans and O's carried the infection from world to world before they even knew there was a problem. The same thing could be happening with us."
"That's a scary thought."
Snow Leopard switched off the d-screen. "One other thing," he said. "As the O's pulled out of the area they left behind one human planet—a place the O's called Chudit—in the path of the White Death. It was a bit out of the mainstream and had not yet been infected when the O's left. Well, when an O recon team visited the area about ten years later, they reported that the plague had appeared on Chudit, but then…faded away."
"Faded away?"
"Yes—the human population was fine, and the fungus was gone."
"That's incredibly important! What else?"
"Nothing else—regrettably. That's all there is. There is absolutely no further information about what happened. The O's don't even know Chudit's location now. Don't forget, this was over a hundred thousand stellar years ago."
"They don't even know where it is?"
"No. The area of Sagitta in question is full of possible candidates, but the O's can't find it on the charts. They've even lost some of their own former worlds out that way."
"I wonder if they're looking."
"I'll bet they are."
"We've never been out that far?"
"Not yet."
"But we're going—aren't we?"
"What do you think?"
I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. Priestess's fingers locked around my hand. The Legion would be planning the expedition, even now. I had been in the Legion long enough to know exactly how we reacted to crises. Knowledge, a hundred thousand years old, to counter the White Death. A part of the galaxy so remote it hadn't even been mapped. Faint tracks, in the dust of time. A whisper, from the past. A slim, almost impossible chance we might find something. But if we did…incalculable benefits. Hundreds of millions would live, who would otherwise die. Innocents, calling out to the Legion, even now. I could hear the music of the stars, in my head. My skin was tingling. Challenging the Gods of space and time, for the unborn, for the future—this was what the Legion did. This was what we did.
Chapter 5
Deadman's Dogs
This is wonderful!" Priestess said, strolling with me along the corridors of Atom's Road. "I'd forgotten how luxurious Atom was…so much space! Our own cubes! Our own toilets! This is the way to live!" The Spawn was back with momma, and the techs were swarming over her, refurbishing and restocking her for whatever faced her in the future. Her inhabitants had been allowed to sample Atom's wonders.
"It beats a cruiser," I said. We were both dressed in our blacks, wandering like tourists through our mother ship. She was an old friend. She had taken us to Andrion 2 on our first Legion action. I sure had a warm spot in my heart for Atom's Road, but she brought back some sad memories as well. At every familiar spot I could see the faces of those young troopers who had not made it to the present—Cool Hand, Merlin, Warhound, Ironman—my blood brothers. Their faces were right there on my knuckles, looking out at a world they had never seen.
"This is Ops," Priestess said. The door hissed open to reveal an armored airlock manned by a young female clerk behind an info desk and a young male trooper in a comtop and litesuit, standing to one side with an E strapped to his A-vest.
"We have an appointment with Captain Antara Tarantos-Hanna of Galactic Information," I said to the girl. "Is this the right place?"
"ID's please." She recorded our ID's and the trooper escorted us down a staircase to a second blast-proof fortress, leaving us facing another two gatekeepers behind a narrow counter under a wall of glowing d-screens. A sign on the wall proclaimed:
OUTVAC SECTOR COMMAND
GALACTIC INFORMATION
"Sign these, please." A slender, sensual blonde honey in Legion black slid two documents over to us. I glanced through the text. It basically promised eternal persecution and a horrible, lingering death if we revealed to anyone any of the information that was about to be disclosed to us. I signed confidently. Death didn't scare me any more. Priestess signed with a flourish, smiled at the blonde, and linked an arm with mine—the blonde had been running her eyes over my body. She turned away with a wry look, and an armed Info trooper escorted us through another blast door and along a narrow corridor lined with sealed doors. Near the end of the corridor, he hit one of the larger doors and it slid open and he disappeared as we entered. Tara rose from behind a large conference desk under walls covered with d-screens.
"Wester! Priestess! Come on in! How are you?" She looked terrific, beaming with life, gleaming auburn hair cut short, dark tanned skin, flashing eyes, pearly white teeth, clad in legion black, silver insignia on her collar.
"Hi, Tara! You are definitely looking good!" I said.
"Hello, Tara. It's wonderful to see you!" Priestess had always been just a teensy bit jealous of Tara, but she had eventually accepted the truth about our long-term but depressingly platonic relationship.
"Please—have a seat—relax." We settled down at the conference desk and she took a chair opposite us. "Did you have a good trip?"
"Sure," I said, looking around the cube. "Nice office, Tara. I see you've got your old rank back. Don't you ever get tired of this nonsense? You once told me you wanted a quiet life. You said you were going to get out of the Legion. Whatever happened to that?"
Tara smiled in delight, a flash of white. "Look who's talking! Isn't this the fellow who finally found happiness on Andrion 2?"
"The very same," Priestess said.
"But Tara—what about Willard? You said you were going to raise him up right—and make sure he avoids the Legion. How's he doing?"
"He's doing fine, Wester. And he still claims he's bound for the Legion. How's your boy?"
"He's with his mother. He's fine—they're both fine. I don't get it, Tara. They sentence you to hard labor, then give you your old rank back. It's like working in an insane asylum."
"The Legion works with what it has. They recognize I have certain…talents. Before his forced retirement, Pointman made arrangements for me to continue with Galactic Information. We all owe him, Wester—you, too."
"Yes—I know. Well, what's your latest project? Why have you called Priestess and me here? Let's not postpone the agony. Go ahead and tell us."
"So impatient!" Tara smiled again, dazzling me. "Slow down, Wester. All in good time." She stood up. "So tell me. How do I look?" She walked out from behind the desk and struck a pose, like a model on a catwalk. It was so unlike her I fumbled for words.
"Well…uh…you look great, Tara. A lot better than when we last saw you. I mean—a whole lot better!"
"Yes," Priestess added. "You've gained some weight back. You're truly beautiful. Thinker would say that if I wasn't here."
"Thanks, Priestess. Do you see anything…different?"
I looked Tara over carefully. She was slim and elegant, absolutely lovely. "You cut your hair," I said.
"Besides that."
"Your skin," Priestess said. "Looks like you're using some kind of lotion."
"Women are always more observant than men," Tara said. "Very good. Anything else?" She stood there, smiling at us.
"You're more concerned about your appearance than you used to be," I said. "Come on Tara, what is this?"
She laughed and resumed her seat. "All right. I'll show you. Wester, you're a typical male. You're probably very confident you could beat me in a fist fight, aren't you?"
I looked at her and laughed. "What?"
"You probably think you're physically stronger than me—right, Wester?"
"Right," I said. "All right, I'll play. Yes, Tara, I think I am physically stronger than you."
Tara smiled at Priestess, and put an elbow on the desk.
"I'll arm-wrestle you, Wester. Come on."
I looked over at Priestess. She was completely mystified.
"Come on, Wester. You're not scared, are you? Scared I'll humiliate you in front of your girl?"
"Tara—what are you doing?"
"Chicken! Cluck-cluck-cluck… come on, Wester!"
I put my elbow on the table and we locked hands. Her arm was so slim, so delicate, I was worried about hurting her.
"Look Tara, I don't…"
"Hush, Wester. Now listen, I want you to try your best to win. I promise, I'm stronger than I look. Just pin my arm to the desk and I promise I'll shut down. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, I would."
"Priestess, say one, two, three. We go on the count of three. Remember—your best, Wester!"
Priestess began the count. "One…two…three!" Tara smashed my arm to the desk with such violence that I fell out of my chair and bounced off the floor. Priestess shrieked and went after me. I pushed her away, stunned and angry. My arm was aching.
"Very funny!" I snarled, regaining my seat shakily. "You been topping off on mags or what?"
Tara was on her feet, pale and concerned. "Are you all right, Wester?"
"I'm fine! Let's try that one more time!" I placed my aching elbow on the desk again. I hoped the arm was not broken; it sure felt like it was.
"No more, Wester—once is enough!" She remained standing.
"You feel better now?" I asked, somewhat bitterly. She avoided my eyes.
"Just one more thing, Wester, and you'll understand." She opened a drawer in the desk and took out a large, black knife and dropped it noisily onto the desk. It was a standard issue Legion cold knife, a massive, brutally utilitarian black cenite blade, razor sharp, perfectly balanced, and virtually indestructible.
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