'What's the problem, One?' Dragon asked. 'It's a nova!'
'We've got to answer a nova,' I said. 'No matter what!'
'They've got wounded, One,' Priestess said. 'And they're calling us! We can't walk off and leave them! If we do, we'll be cursed forever! We'll be a blot in Legion history! They'll spit on us when they see us! We can't ignore a nova!'
'Please explain, One,' Valkyrie said quietly. I could see the squad was on the verge of mutiny. We trusted our One more than anyone, but this was too much. The Legion doesn't ignore novas. We respond, and we die if necessary.
'You still don't get it, do you?' Snow Leopard said. 'That aircar was hit by multiple antis. There couldn't have been any survivors.'
'So who's calling us?' Valkyrie asked.
'I believe the car was dropping off troopers at regular intervals before it was hit. Probably two by two— hunter teams. They're the ones calling us. And they don't have any wounded. Dead maybe, but not wounded.'
'They said they had wounded!'
'They said our mission was cancelled!'
'If our mission was cancelled,' Snow Leopard replied calmly. 'Recon Control would have come through and informed us. We can't contact them, but they can contact us. Our mission has not been cancelled.'
'But what are they doing out here?'
'They're looking for us,' Snow Leopard said. 'We're their mission.'
'Well, let's break blackout and contact them!'
'Nobody breaks blackout! We don't answer them!'
'What do you mean, we're their mission?'
'This conversation is over! We continue the mission. Recon formation—now!'
We obeyed. What else, in Deadman's holy name, could we do? We obeyed our One, and continued our march north, looking for a break in the soilsat. And it continued snowing, clean and pure and soft. My blood was ice cold. I could hear the music of the stars rushing in my ears. A nova! We were walking away from a nova! I didn't understand it, but I knew Snow Leopard had to be right. I cast my doubts aside—our One was always right!
###
The snow had almost stopped when we came to the bodies.
A few light flurries drifted slowly down from a grey-white sky. The first body was a man, skewered on a sharpened vertical metal stake like a pig on a spit. Awful dead blue-grey flesh, the mouth locked open in one final, primal scream. The frozen blood on the stake showed he had been alive when it happened, but could not have lasted very long. The stake had been thrust into his abdomen with tremendous force and exited above one shoulder blade. And now he hung there, a sentinel of death against the grey sky.
There was another ahead—a female, skewered, hopeless, the gleaming cenite stake exiting from her neck. She was long dead and covered with frost. There was a little pile of rags at the foot of the stake. A dead baby, its head crushed, one blue hand still clutched in a little fist rising up out of a snowdrift. A long line of them loomed ahead, all crucified, up on metal stakes. Men, women, even a few children. Frozen human scarecrows, mute warnings to those who might approach.
Someone cried. Someone else cursed—awful, blood-curdling oaths.
'Don't look away,' Snow Leopard said. 'Look at every one. I want you all to remember this. Don't ever forget it. This is what we're fighting. The O's did this. We're just dogs, to them.'
Speedy whimpered, and fell to his knees in the snow. 'I can't,' he gasped. 'I can't go on. I've seen enough. I'm finished. Please—please—I can't.'
We ignored him. We stopped, stunned. We had followed a path through the soilsat heading roughly southwest toward the mound, and now this. I could not take my eyes off the woman up on the stake. She was young, I realized. The baby—it must have been hers. And I realized in a cold flash that it had all been for this, my whole life, just for this one crystal moment, standing in the snow under those holy dead. Everything that had gone before was nothing—the Gate, Providence, Hell, Andrion 2, Coldmark, Andrion 3, Mongera, Katag—all nonsense. We were going to the Mound to confront the O's, and these poor dead people were pointing the way, raising their wasted arms, opening their filmy eyes, shrieking silent screams, urging us on—to the Mound. And I knew, as sudden as a laser burst in the brain, that nothing was going to stop me from going on.
Not blown power packs or Systie squads or nova beacons or snakes or spheres or airsat or soilsat, not traitors or hysterical new guys, not even desperate novas from Legion units—nothing was going to stop me! I was a slave of the Legion and I was marching to the Mound, and nothing at all was going to stop me.
I snapped open my visor. The snow had stopped. The air was icy. I held my E tightly against my chest. Slave of the Legion—yes, I was a slave, I realized. Just as surely as if they had put chains on my legs. I was going to die for the Legion. But that was all right—I didn't mind. We were all slaves of Fate. And we were all going to die—even immortals, like us. Those were my brothers and sisters, up there on those cenite stakes. And we were going to avenge them. I felt good—about everything. Ecstatic, I suddenly realized. Ecstatic, just as Tara had said. What we were doing was something good, she had said, something good, and simple. Marching in the mud, for God, for Justice, for our people.
'Send me back. Please!' Speedy moaned. 'I can't do it. You're all insane! You're going to die if you go on— you're all going to die! One, please! I can't do this!' He was still on his knees.
'Somebody shoot him,' Valkyrie casually suggested.
'Fourteen, go on private to me, please,' One said. We couldn't hear the rest. We didn't even care. Shoot him, let him go—it didn't matter. We didn't need him, we didn't want him. He would not be coming with us, I knew. Everyone else was quiet, but I knew what they were thinking—I knew.
When Snow Leopard was through talking with him, Speedy came back onto the tacnet, transformed. 'Thanks, One! You don't know how much this means to me. I'm going to go back and quit the Legion. You're right, this is not for me. Guys, I appreciate it. Merlin, Psycho—thanks for your help. I'm sorry it didn't work out. Twister, good luck to you. I'll never forget you guys—best of luck to all of you! Any messages? I can take messages back.' He was edging back the way we had come.
'Yeah,' Valkyrie said. 'Tell them we're going on with the mission.'
'I'll do that. Goodbye, Beta—good luck!' And he raised his E in farewell and turned and started walking back.
'He'll never make it,' Psycho said.
'He knows the risks,' Snow Leopard said. 'He prefers them to what lies ahead. I did all I could for him. I told him exactly what route to take. Assuming he can get past the guys that are following us. It was either that, or shoot him. I wasn't going to have him accompany us any further.'
'He was a strange guy,' Dragon said.
'No, he wasn't,' Scrapper said softly. 'He wasn't strange at all. He was perfectly normal. It's we who are strange.'
And that was the final, frightening word on Beta Fourteen.
We put him right out of our minds.
'All right,' Snow Leopard said coldly. 'We continue the mission. Recon formation.'
PART II
HOLY GROUND
